[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nad/wpaper/20200036.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Electoral Administration in Fledgling Democracies:Experimental Evidence from Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • J. Andrew Harris
  • Catherine Kamindo
  • Peter van der Windt

    (Division of Social Science)

Abstract
We examine the effects of national voter registration policies on voting patterns with a large-scale experimental study. Together with Kenya’s electoral commission, we designed an experiment in which 1,674 communities were randomized to a status quo or treatment group, receiving civic education on voter registration, SMS reminders about registration opportunities, and/or local registration visits by election commission staff. We find little evidence that civic education improves registration. Local registration visits improve voter registration, a relationship that increases in poorer communities. Moreover, local registration increased electoral competition and vote preference diversity in down-ballot contests in the 2017 Kenyan elections. Our results suggest that status quo voter registration policies constrain political participation and competition, and that inexpensive policy changes may attenuate the effects of such constraints.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Andrew Harris & Catherine Kamindo & Peter van der Windt, 2020. "Electoral Administration in Fledgling Democracies:Experimental Evidence from Kenya," Working Papers 20200036, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Jan 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:nad:wpaper:20200036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://nyuad.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyuad/academics/divisions/social-science/working-papers/2020/0036.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nazmul Chaudhury & Jeffrey Hammer & Michael Kremer & Karthik Muralidharan & F. Halsey Rogers, 2006. "Missing in Action: Teacher and Health Worker Absence in Developing Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 91-116, Winter.
    2. Dunning, Thad & Grossman, Guy & Humphreys, Macartan & Hyde, Susan D. & McIntosh, Craig & Nellis, Gareth & Adida, Claire L. & Arias, Eric & Bicalho, Clara & Boas, Taylor C. & Buntaine, Mark T. & Chauch, 2019. "Voter information campaigns and political accountability: Cumulative findings from a preregistered meta-analysis of coordinated trials," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 5(7), pages 1-10.
    3. Campbell, David E. & Niemi, Richard G., 2016. "Testing Civics: State-Level Civic Education Requirements and Political Knowledge," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 495-511, August.
    4. David Dreyer Lassen, 2005. "The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(1), pages 103-118, January.
    5. Benjamin Marx & Vincent Pons & Tavneet Suri, 2021. "Voter Mobilisation and Trust in Electoral Institutions: Evidence from Kenya," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(638), pages 2585-2612.
    6. Finkel, Steve E. & Sabatini, Christopher A. & Bevis, Gwendolyn G., 2000. "Civic Education, Civil Society, and Political Mistrust in a Developing Democracy: The Case of the Dominican Republic," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(11), pages 1851-1874, November.
    7. McCAULEY, JOHN F., 2014. "The Political Mobilization of Ethnic and Religious Identities in Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 108(4), pages 801-816, November.
    8. Mvukiyehe, Eric & Samii, Cyrus, 2017. "Promoting Democracy in Fragile States: Field Experimental Evidence from Liberia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 254-267.
    9. Yusuf Neggers, 2018. "Enfranchising Your Own? Experimental Evidence on Bureaucrat Diversity and Election Bias in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(6), pages 1288-1321, June.
    10. Jessica Gottlieb, 2016. "Greater Expectations: A Field Experiment to Improve Accountability in Mali," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(1), pages 143-157, January.
    11. Brady, Henry E. & Mcnulty, John E., 2011. "Turning Out to Vote: The Costs of Finding and Getting to the Polling Place," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(1), pages 115-134, February.
    12. McNulty, John E. & Dowling, Conor M. & Ariotti, Margaret H., 2009. "Driving Saints to Sin: How Increasing the Difficulty of Voting Dissuades Even the Most Motivated Voters," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 435-455.
    13. Braconnier, Céline & Dormagen, Jean-Yves & Pons, Vincent, 2017. "Voter Registration Costs and Disenfranchisement: Experimental Evidence from France," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 111(3), pages 584-604, August.
    14. Steven E. Finkel & Amy Erica Smith, 2011. "Civic Education, Political Discussion, and the Social Transmission of Democratic Knowledge and Values in a New Democracy: Kenya 2002," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(2), pages 417-435, April.
    15. Michael Tomz & Robert P. Van Houweling, 2003. "How Does Voting Equipment Affect the Racial Gap in Voided Ballots?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(1), pages 46-60, January.
    16. Paul Collier & Pedro Vicente, 2012. "Violence, bribery, and fraud: the political economy of elections in Sub-Saharan Africa," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 117-147, October.
    17. Sekhon, Jasjeet S., 2011. "Multivariate and Propensity Score Matching Software with Automated Balance Optimization: The Matching package for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 42(i07).
    18. Bratton, Michael & Alderfer, Philip & Bowser, Georgia & Temba, Joseph, 1999. "The Effects of Civic Education on Political Culture: Evidence from Zambia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 807-824, May.
    19. Dean Karlan & Margaret McConnell & Sendhil Mullainathan & Jonathan Zinman, 2016. "Getting to the Top of Mind: How Reminders Increase Saving," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3393-3411, December.
    20. Allison Dale & Aaron Strauss, 2009. "Don't Forget to Vote: Text Message Reminders as a Mobilization Tool," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 787-804, October.
    21. Alan Gerber & Donald Green, 2000. "The effect of a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote drive: An experimental study of leafleting," Natural Field Experiments 00247, The Field Experiments Website.
    22. Government of India, 2017. "National Health Policy 2017," Working Papers id:11664, eSocialSciences.
    23. Rachel Milstein Sondheimer & Donald P. Green, 2010. "Using Experiments to Estimate the Effects of Education on Voter Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 174-189, January.
    24. Gerber, Alan S. & Green, Donald P. & Larimer, Christopher W., 2008. "Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(1), pages 33-48, February.
    25. Edward Miguel & Michael Kremer, 2004. "Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 159-217, January.
    26. Adida, Claire & Gottlieb, Jessica & Kramon, Eric & McClendon, Gwyneth, 2019. "Response Bias in Survey Measures of Voter Behavior: Implications for Measurement and Inference," Journal of Experimental Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(3), pages 192-198, December.
    27. Nickerson, David W., 2008. "Is Voting Contagious? Evidence from Two Field Experiments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(1), pages 49-57, February.
    28. Moore, Ryan T., 2012. "Multivariate Continuous Blocking to Improve Political Science Experiments," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(4), pages 460-479.
    29. Ivar Kolstad & Arne Wiig, 2016. "Education and electoral participation: reported versus actual voting behaviour," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(13), pages 908-911, September.
    30. Barry C. Burden & David T. Canon & Kenneth R. Mayer & Donald P. Moynihan, 2014. "Election Laws, Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated Consequences of Election Reform," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(1), pages 95-109, January.
    31. Rogers, Todd T & Michelson, Melissa R. & Valenzuela, Ali Adam & Malhotra, Neil, 2011. "Text Messages as Mobilization Tools: The Conditional Effect of Habitual Voting and Election Salience," Scholarly Articles 10471523, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ozdemir, Ugur & Ozkes, Ali & Sanver, Remzi, 2023. "Ability or motivation? Voter registration and turnout in Burkina Faso," OSF Preprints x5wbj, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grácio, Matilde & Vicente, Pedro C., 2021. "Information, get-out-the-vote messages, and peer influence: Causal effects on political behavior in Mozambique," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. León, Gianmarco, 2017. "Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 56-71.
    3. Hoffman, Mitchell & León, Gianmarco & Lombardi, María, 2017. "Compulsory voting, turnout, and government spending: Evidence from Austria," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 103-115.
    4. Jean-Victor Alipour & Valentin Lindlacher, 2022. "No Surprises, Please: Voting Costs and Electoral Turnout," CESifo Working Paper Series 9759, CESifo.
    5. Xavier Giné & Ghazala Mansuri, 2018. "Together We Will: Experimental Evidence on Female Voting Behavior in Pakistan," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 207-235, January.
    6. Smith, Amy Erica, 2017. "Democratic Talk in Church: Religion and Political Socialization in the Context of Urban Inequality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 441-451.
    7. Elizabeth A. Bennion & Melissa R. Michelson, 2023. "Educating Students for Democracy: What Colleges Are Doing, How It’s Working, and What Needs to Happen Next," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 705(1), pages 95-115, January.
    8. Alberto Chong & Gianmarco León‐Ciliotta & Vivian Roza & Martín Valdivia & Gabriela Vega, 2019. "Urbanization Patterns, Information Diffusion, and Female Voting in Rural Paraguay," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(2), pages 323-341, April.
    9. Mariella Gonzales & Gianmarco León-Ciliotta & Luis R. Martínez, 2022. "How Effective Are Monetary Incentives to Vote? Evidence from a Nationwide Policy," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 293-326, January.
    10. Bhatt, Rachana & Dechter, Evgenia & Holden, Richard, 2020. "Registration costs and voter turnout," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 91-104.
    11. Niklas Potrafke & Felix Roesel, 2020. "Opening hours of polling stations and voter turnout: Evidence from a natural experiment," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 133-163, January.
    12. Rustam Romaniuc & Andrea Guido & Pierre Baudry & Cécile Bazart & Loïc Berger & Noémi Berlin & Aurélie Bonein & Imen Bouhlel & Kene Boun My & Michela Chessa & Paolo Crosetto & Etienne Dagorn & Quentin , 2024. "The limits of behavioral nudges to increase youth turnout: Experimental evidence from two French elections," CEE-M Working Papers hal-04677596, CEE-M, Universtiy of Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro.
    13. Alberto Chong & Gianmarco León & Vivian Roza & Martin Valdivia & Gabriela Vega, 2017. "Urbanization patterns, social interactions and female voting in rural Paraguay," Economics Working Papers 1589, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    14. Rustam Romaniuc & Andrea Guido & Pierre Baudry & Cécile Bazart & Loïc Berger & Noémi Berlin & Aurélie Bonein & Imen Bouhlel & Kene Boun My & Michela Chessa & Paolo Crosetto & Etienne Dagorn & Quentin , 2024. "The limits of behavioral nudges to increase youth turnout: Experimental evidence from two French elections," Working Papers hal-04677596, HAL.
    15. Romain Ferrali & Guy Grossman & Horacio Larreguy, 2023. "Can low-cost, scalable, online interventions increase youth informed political participation in electoral authoritarian contexts?," Post-Print hal-04185976, HAL.
    16. LeRoux Kelly & Langer Julie & Plotner Samantha, 2023. "Nonprofit Messaging and the 2020 Election: Findings from a Nonpartisan Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) Field Experiment," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 157-183, April.
    17. Rustam Romaniuc & Andrea Guido & Pierre Baudry & Cécile Bazart & Loïc Berger & Noémi Berlin & Aurélie Bonein & Imen Bouhlel & Kene Boun My & Michela Chessa & Paolo Crosetto & Etienne Dagorn & Quentin , 2024. "The limits of behavioral nudges to increase youth turnout: Experimental evidence from two French elections," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-04677596, HAL.
    18. Conroy-Krutz, Jeffrey, 2018. "Media exposure and political participation in a transitional African context," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 224-242.
    19. Alejandro Corvalan & Paulo Cox, 2014. "`Can I register to vote before I am 18?'Information Costs and Participation," Working Papers 60, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Universidad Diego Portales.
    20. Steven E. Finkel, 2013. "The Impact of Adult Civic Education Programmes in Developing Democracies," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-064, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nad:wpaper:20200036. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alizeh Batra (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecnyuae.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.