Lechler and McNamee

Decentralized Despotism? Indirect Colonial Rule Does Undermine Contemporary Democratic Attitudes Marie Lechler∗ Lachlan McNamee† September 27, 2016 Abstract This paper identifies indirect and direct colonial rule as causal factors in shaping attitudes towards democracy by exploiting a within-country natural experiment in Namibia. Throughout the colonial era, northern Namibia was indirectly ruled through a system of appointed indigenous traditional elites whereas colonial authorities directly ruled southern Namibia. This variation originally stems from where the progressive extension of direct German control was stopped after a rinderpest epidemic in the 1890s, and thus provides plausibly exogenous within-country variation in the form of colonial rule. By analyzing individual-level survey data, we are able to build on the existing literature by disentangling the mechanisms through which different forms of colonialism likely affects contemporary democratic attitudes. Advancing a long-standing debate in the literature, our findings suggest that the ongoing influence of traditional leaders in indirectly ruled areas of sub-Saharan Africa is an important factor in undermining contemporary support for democracy.




1 Introduction “The authority of the chief thus fused in a single person all moments of power: judicial, legislative, executive, and administrative” (Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, p.23) What factors shape individual and community attitudes towards democracy? There is substantial cross-national and within-country variance in individual support for democratic institutions. This component of the political or ‘civic’ culture of a society has long been shown to play a potentially important role in affecting both the sustainability and success of a democracy (Almond and Verba, 1963; Inglehart, 1990; Putnam et al., 1994; Inglehart and Welzel, 2005). Yet, beyond a number of recent findings that show that support for democracy is endogenous to exposure to national democratic institutions (Persson and Tabellini, 2009; Fuchs-Schündeln and Schündeln, 2015; de Aquino, 2015) we have little quantitative evidence for the factors that cause such variance in political culture. In line with a body of literature that highlights the importance of colonialism for contemporary political and economic outcomes (Acemoglu et al., 2001; Engerman and Sokoloff, 2002; Hariri, 2012), this paper shall demonstrate that the ongoing influence of traditional leaders in indirectly ruled areas is an important factor in shaping contemporary support for democracy. The difficulty in demonstrating the effects of direct and indirect colonialism and its associated legacy of traditional leadership on contemporary democratic attitudes is, of course, that colonial strategies were not assigned randomly. Moreover, even if we believe that indirect colonialism tended to be conducted in pre-colonial states that were more centralized (Hariri, 2012), we cannot rule out that pre-state centralization also affects political culture through channels beyond the form of colonial rule. This paper thus exploits a natural experimental setting in Namibia that provides plausibly exogenous spatial variation in forms of colonial governance. In Namibia, as in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, colonial authorities instituted systems of direct rule in those areas settled by white Europeans whereas, in those areas where indigenous population was not dispossessed, colonial authorities tended to rule through a indirect system of local ‘tribal’ elites (Miescher, 2012). Unlike elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, however, Europeans did not settle and directly rule only the most agriculturally fertile areas of Namibia (Werner and Odendaal, 2010) but rather settled in the more arid southern areas of Namibia which were hardest hit by an 1897 rinderpest epidemic. In order to protect German herds from future epidemics, a veterinary cordon fence was introduced at the spatial extent of direct German control in 1897 that divided northern and southern Namibia. In the face of stringent financial constraints, the German colonists then never completely expanded their settlement territory to the wealthier and more densely populated northern areas of the country (Eckl, 2007) but rather ruled indirectly through a system of appointed traditional authorities. Hence, whilst indirectly ruled areas of Namibia were governed through a system of appointed traditional authorities, traditional authorities were given little or no political role in the directly ruled central and southern areas of Namibia. 2 After Namibian independence in 1990, these regional differences in the influence of traditional leaders still persist; traditional leaders play an extremely important formal role in land allocation and customary law enforcement in northern Namibia whilst playing a largely symbolic role in central and southern Namibia (Keulder, 2000). Given that this colonial-era dividing line, progressively formalized throughout the 20th century, was drawn with little reference to existing indigenous communities, Namibia provides an ideal setting to examine the effect of direct and indirect colonialism on contemporary democratic attitudes. Moreover, by analyzing individuallevel survey data, we are able to disentangle the mechanisms through which direct and indirect colonial rule likely affects contemporary democratic attitudes. Specifically, we will seek to test whether contact to unelected traditional leaders weakens contemporary democratic political attitudes and thus whether there is a necessary trade-off between the consolidation of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ institutions. Such a theory was first powerfully advanced by Mamdani (1996) and developed by Englebert (2000), however recent work in the literature has instead argued that there need be no necessary trade-off between the legitimacy of traditional and modern democratic institutions in sub-Saharan Africa (Williams, 2004, 2010; Logan, 2008, 2009). Rather, because electoral and non-electoral accountability mechanisms can both be effective in keeping political leaders responsive (Baldwin, 2015), it may be that traditional and democratic institutional legitimacy is instead a ‘rising tide that lifts all boats’ (Logan, 2013). We adjudicate between these competing theoretical perspectives and find that that the ongoing influence of traditional leadership structures undermines support for central democratic tenets. The paper is structured as follows: we first present related literature and describe the historical background in Namibia. We then discuss the data and the OLS estimation strategy we apply to identify the effect of indirect rule on political attitudes. Finally, we present 2SLS results to isolate the channel of causality. 3 2 Related literature It has long been theorized that the legacies of direct and indirect colonialism have played important roles in shaping political phenomena in the post-colony. Directly ruled or ‘settler’ colonial countries tend to be both more democratic and have higher contemporary levels of education and income today (Acemoglu et al., 2001; Engerman and Sokoloff, 2002). Hariri (2014) suggests, in a classical modernist fashion, that directly ruled countries are more democratic because direct European colonialism better disrupted the bonds of traditional authority and thereby enabled the growth of a participatory, egalitarian political culture. Yet, we have little sense in this account of precisely what components of ‘traditional’ culture need to be disrupted for a democracy to subsequently flourish. Moreover, this account of the political effects of colonialism is analytically suspect because indirect colonial rule did not leave traditional forms of governance intact but rather often radically reshaped traditional systems of governance to better suit the administrative requirements of indirect rule. Specifically, it is a common misconception that traditional leadership in its common form has always been a historical component of governance in sub-Saharan Africa. Contemporary systems of traditional authority are instead actually the legacy of indirect systems of European colonial rule that radically changed existing African indigenous forms of governance (Newbury, 1988; Mamdani, 1996; Boone, 2014). In extending their control over indirectly ruled colonies, colonial authorities re-fashioned the existing political landscape by recognizing and bolstering the coercive power of supportive elites, detaching the authority of traditional leaders from the consent of local clansmen, and by creating hierarchies of control with different salaried ranks of ‘headmen’ and ‘chiefs’ where previously there existed only amorphous and territorially dispersed clan-based loyalties (Newbury, 1988; Mamdani, 1996). It is thus somewhat incorrect to see ‘tribal’ African societies as gradually progressing over time to a modern European ideal, assisted by the disruptive effects of direct colonization, when the bonds of traditional authority so salient in many contemporary African states are themselves the products of institutional legacies of indirect European rule. Indeed, this paper identifies colonially constructed traditional structures – the modal form of indirect rule in sub-Saharan Africa – as a stumbling block to contemporary individual support for democracy. Moreover, although substantial attention has been paid to national political institutions in shaping individual democratic attitudes, there is a relative lack of analytical attention to sub-national colonial legacies in shaping democratic attitudes in the context of governance in sub-Saharan Africa. Traditional leaders1 or ‘tribal chiefs’ were the key administrative stakeholders in indirectly ruled colonies and still today often enjoy unparalleled political, social and economic authority in their localities (Düsing, 2002; De Kadt and Larreguy, 2014; Baldwin, 2014; Acemoglu et al., 2014). Governance in areas under customary law enforced by traditional authorities 1We do not mean to imply an endorsement of claims to traditional notions of legitimacy when using the term traditional leader. Rather, we follow Baldwin (2015) by defining traditional leaders with reference to contemporary customs i.e. as "rulers who have power by virtue of their association with the customary mode of governing a place-based community" (p.21) 4 therefore differs qualitatively from governance by local bureaucratic actors with reference to formal legal or democratic standards because the mantle of traditional leadership is usually in some form hereditary and the interpretation and implementation of customary law is conducted in an informal basis with no reference to external impersonal standards. As highlighted by many African scholars and political leaders (Mboya, 1956; Luthuli, 1962; Ntsebeza, 2005; Meer and Campbell, 2007), the institution of traditional leadership is particularly incongruous with democratic notions of rule of law, the primacy of individual over group rights, and electoral accountability of authority; indeed, Mamdani goes so far as to call traditional leadership a system of ‘decentralized despotism’ (Mamdani, 1996). Is the ongoing political influence of these traditional authorities in the post-colony a significant block to democratic consolidation in sub-Saharan Africa? Such a debate has a rich intellectual history; if we share Diamond (1999)’s influential view that democratic consolidation is the process of achieving "broad and deep legitimation, such that all significant political actors, at both the elite and mass levels, believe that the democratic regime is the most right and appropriate for their society, better than any realistic alternative they can imagine" then individuals in a consolidated democracy must believe that electoral democracy is the ‘only game in town’ and in its its inherent superiority to all other forms of governance (Linz and Stepan, 1996). Yet, because political attitudes are endogenous to exposure to forms of governance (Fuchs-Schündeln and Schündeln, 2015), the ongoing exposure of individuals in rural sub-Saharan Africa to local leadership structures that rely not on electoral bases of legitimacy but on hereditary and customary notions of legitimacy would be expected to lower support for central democratic tenets. Indeed, de Aquino (2015) recently replicated Fuchs-Schündeln and Schündeln (2015)’s findings in the context of sub-Saharan Africa by showing that exposure to national level democratic institutions increases support for democracy in sub-Saharan Africa. Mamdani (1996); Englebert (2000); Ntsebeza (2005); Ribot (2001), among others, have in this vein suggested that African states have been engaged a struggle with local traditional leaders over bases of power and political legitimacy amongst subject populations in the post-colonial context. Yet, the idea that there is a trade-off between traditional forms of governance and modern democratic consolidation has also recently come under sharp criticism. Traditional leaders are often the most widely supported and trusted political actors in surveys in sub-Saharan Africa (Logan, 2008) and thus appear to have an independent source of institutional legitimacy.2 Williams (2004) powerfully argues for approaching the study of traditional leadership from a ‘multiple legitimacies’ framework in which communities need not make an either/or choice between chieftancy and democracy but rather that the two may eventually come to inform each other in a new hybird form of legitimacy. In particular, because local political actors may be kept accountable and good governance achieved through both electoral and non-electoral means (Baldwin, 2015) and good governance is a critical part of the legitimation process (Williams, 2010), there 2Logan (2008) explores a number of reasons for this support including the greater symbolic resonance, responsiveness, proximity to and overall effectiveness of traditional leaders at performing governing functions in their communities compared to elected officials 5 may be no necessary trade-off between support for traditional leadership and elected leadership. Rather, insofar as good governance also requires co-operation between traditional authorities and elected officials, it may be that legitimacy is a a rising tide that lifts all boats (Logan, 2013) and thus simply "‘commonsensical’ that the institution of the chieftaincy and democratic elections can, and should, coexist” (Williams, 2004) in the post-colonial context. Such a theoretical argument has received empirical support from Logan (2008, 2013) who has used cross-national individual survey data to illustrate that greater trust and support for traditional authorities does not negatively correlate with support for core democratic tenets but rather that the legitimacy of traditional leadership and the state positively correlate and may thus reinforce one another. Yet, to the authors’ knowledge, no paper has previously tried to adjudicate between these competing theories by exploiting exogenous variation in the influence of traditional leaders - something that is essential to conduct causal inference given that the institutional influence of traditional leadership across different ethnic groups is far from assigned randomly. This paper instead exploits exogenous variation in indirect colonial rule amongst members of the same ethnic groups to try to disentangle the mechanisms through which indirect colonial rule likely undermines contemporary democratic consolidation and finds support for the hypothesis that greater contact with unelected traditional authorities indeed undermines individual support for central democratic tenets. 6 3 Historical background Namibia, or South-West Africa as it was formerly known, was colonized progressively by Germany over the second half of the nineteenth century in the well-known ‘Scramble for Africa’. Prior to colonization, the dominant ethnic groups in Namibia were Ovambo (Ambo), Herero, Nama (Heikum), Bushmen (Kung) and Damara (Bergdama) (see figure 3 in the Appendix). They had qualitatively similar political structures as measured by traditional form of succession of the local headman (patrilineal heirs) and none of these groups had individual property rights. However the means of subsistence differed. While the Ovambos depended on agricultural farming, Herero and Nama depended on animal husbandry and Bushmen and Damara on gathering and hunting 3 . In the face of stringent financial constraints that discourFigure 1: Map of 1907 aged large-scale military expansion, German colonization initially focused on the less densely populated southern and central regions of Namibia where land could be more easily acquired. German colonial authorities gradually expanded their territorial remit from the coast by progressively playing off warring local factions and remunerating a number of indigenous elites in central Namibia for lost landholdings (German Colonial Office, 1919; Ofcansky, 1981). In 1897, a critical event occurred that was to shape the spatial incidence of direct and indirect rule; a rinderpest epidemic killed 95 percent of the cattle herds in central and southern Namibia. The epidemic particularly devastated cattle-dependent indigenous communities in central and southern Namibia because, unlike crop-dependent communities in fertile northern Namibia, the arid nature of the land prevented agriculture from being used as a feasible food-source substitute (Miescher, 2012; Eckl, 2007). The rinderpest epidemic thereby provided a key opportunity for German colonists to acquire large tracts of land in central and southern Namibia relatively cheaply with lessened collective resistance from weakened indigenous communities. However, the epidemic also presented a dilemma to colonizers - there was little prospect of quickly extending direct German rule to the relatively unaffected northern areas of Namibia, yet continuing to allow free animal movement across South-West Africa would be to potentially expose German herds to future devastating epidemics. Shortly after the epidemic in 1897, therefore, the German colonial government set up a veterinary cordon fence at the boundaries of where at the time its direct control extended in order to protect southern and central Namibian cattle herds from future potentially rinderpestinfected animals from northern Namibia (Miescher, 2012). The area north of this fence was left relatively untouched for the remainder of the German administration as the Germans focused on consolidating political and military control over central and southern Namibia. However, 3 Information on local headmen taken from v72, data on property rights from variables v74 and v75 and information on economic structures from variables v1-v5 in (Murdock, 1967). 7 after the South Africans began to administer South-West Africa after World War 1, the South Africans began to try to establish more regular administrative structures through which to indirectly rule the areas north of the veterinary cordon fence. Yet, the often amorphous and territorially fluid indigenous political structures did not provide the tribal ordering colonial offi- cials had been conditioned to expect, and initial attempts to try and co-opt the paramount chief of areas such as Kaokoland were met with puzzling failure; no clear hierarchical political order could be found (Bennett, 1998). In 1927 the South Africans formally appropriated the power to create and dissolve tribes and set about appointing persons as chief or headman of such tribes. As Friedman (2006) points out, the bases of consequent appointments to traditional leadership in South-West Africa were often contradictory - the government recognized particular persons as traditional leaders ’because they were looked upon as such by the people’, that is, because their authority was derived ’traditionally’. On the other hand, many leaders were often officially warned, for example, that ’unless they carry out instructions issued to them by officials of the Administration and do everything possible to assist these officials in future, the Administration...will be forced to consider whether they should not be deprived of their status’" (Friedman 2006, pp.29-30). Traditional leaders in areas north of the veterinary cordon fence were thus forced to balance the competing prerogatives of the administrative necessities of implementing indirect rule and maintaining an ongoing claim to customary authority. The veterinary cordon fence therefore formed the dividing line between ‘white’ and ‘black’ Namibia – a dividing line between the area directly settled and ruled by German and later South African authorities, and the area indirectly ruled through a system of appointed indigenous elites who had jurisdiction over a number of racial ‘homelands’. The German forces only guaranteed police protection for settlers living within the zone south of the veterinary cordon fence (the ‘Police Zone’). The country was arbitrarily divided into an indirectly and a directly ruled area (see figure 1) and the more prosperous, densely populated northern region had little or no European settlement. Reflecting the historical experience of other colonies, a within-country ‘reversal of fortune’ (Acemoglu et al., 2002) gradually occurred in Namibia whereby different colonial institutions were set up in the relatively densely populated areas of northern Namibia, which are now the poorest in the country (Namibia Statistics Agency, 2011). Tribal leaders in the north were given a great deal of political autonomy, such as the responsibility for administering communal land and settling disputes, and were given no formal political role in the south (Keulder, 2000). This spatial division was later formalized by the South African authorities through the Odendaal Commission of 1964 which created a number of racially demarcated ‘Homelands’ in northern Namibia to be administered by officially recognized ‘tribal chiefs’. While the north was ruled by traditional authorities, the indigenous population in the south was exploited by the German and later South African colonizers through a system of temporary contract labor on white-owned farms and factories (Odendaal, 1964; Moorsom, 1977; Melber, 1996). Under effective apartheid, rule of law and electoral suffrage only extended to the white population and the vast bulk of laborers were returned to their racial ‘homeland’ after one or two years working 8 in the south. After Namibian independence in 1991, formal political structures across the country were homogenized but the informal influence of tribal leaders in the north persists to the present day. These tribal leaders (or traditional authorities) have proven extremely active and successful in mobilizing to protect colonial-era institutional privileges (Düsing, 2002) and so traditional authorities are still highly influential in enforcing customary law. Moreover, individuals in the north are often extremely supportive of their traditional authorities (Keulder, 2000). As the institution of traditional leadership is hereditary, unaccountable and undemocratic, it is reasonable to presume that individuals living in previously indirectly ruled areas have become socialized to accept the legitimacy of non-electoral mechanisms for selecting political leadership. On the other hand, Namibians living in the former Police Zone have only experienced a democratic governance system since independence in 1990 at all levels of government. The Namibia government invested heavily in the northern regions after independence in order to support the convergence of living standards in the two parts of the country (Development Expenditure Report by National Planning Commission Namibia). The Namibian Household Income and Expenditure Survey (NHIES), which was first conducted in 1993, documents this convergence process in its 2010 report by showing that differences in terms of poverty rates between northern and southern regions have declined. 4 Data We use the original map published by the Odendaal Commission in 1964 as digitized by Mendelsohn (2002) to identify regions directly controlled by the colonizers and those that were governed by traditional authorities during colonial times. The political attitude data used in this paper stem from the Afrobarometer survey. Between 1999 and 2008, four survey rounds (1999, 2003, 2005, 2008) were conducted, which covered questions about attitudes towards politics, the economy and civil society. We limit our analysis to the indigenous population in both the formerly directly and indirectly ruled areas and therefore exclude whites from the sample. Afrobarometer uses random sampling methods, which are conducted with probability proportionate to population size (i.e. more densely populated areas have a higher probability of being sampled). Thus, "the sample design is a clustered, stratified, multi-stage, area probability sample.” (Afrobarometer.org). In order to quantify the influence of traditional leaders in their communities we use a Afrobarometer question about the frequency of contact with traditional leaders. The relevant question about "demand for democracy" (Bratton, 2004; de Aquino, 2015), our main oucome variable, asks about support for democracy (see appendix for original questions). As a broader attitudinal outcome, we analyze attitudes towards authority using a question which asks whether authorities should be respected or whether one should be allowed to question them. Finally, to corroborate the importance of differences in attitudes to traditional leadership, we use a question about whether the individuals trust tradi- 9 tional leaders as our third outcome4 . We include as important control variables the individuals’ evaluation of the performance of the local government council, in order to control for differences in individual politicization and local government effectiveness, which Williams (2004) and Logan (2013) see as an important component of democratic and traditional authority legitimacy. We also use measures for education (highest level of education), income (food consumption) and age as controls.5 Finally, we also include geographic controls (carrying capacity and average rainfall) (Mendelsohn, 2002). The geographical location of the surveyed individuals is identified by enumeration area. The Namibian Statistics Agency divided Namibia into 4080 enumeration areas for the 2001 census (see figure 2), each comprises between 80 and 100 households. Therefore, there are more enumeration areas in more densely populated regions. Table 1 indicates that people living in indirectly ruled areas (outside the former Police Zone boundary) do have statistically significant more contact with traditional authorities. Moreover, people in the southern directly ruled part of Namibia tend to have higher support for democracy, trust traditional authorities less and respect authorities less than people living in the northern indirectly ruled areas. To put the results in Table 1 into perspective, Table 9 in the Appendix compares means of the main variables of interests for Namibia with means for 19 other African countries for survey round 4. Contact with traditional rulers is on average even higher in other African countries, which demonstrates the importance of traditional leadership on the continent. Table 1: Descriptive Statistics (1) (2) (3) Direct rule Indirect rule Difference Contact traditional leader 0.23 0.70 -0.47*** [0.60] [0.99] (0.027) Support for democracy 2.47 2.40 0.068*** [0.79] [0.83] (0.025) Trust traditional leaders 1.46 1.87 -0.41*** [0.98] [0.94] (0.036) Respect authority 2.32 2.45 -0.13*** [0.98] [1.01] (0.032) Observations 1,824 3,120 4,944 We then created a 100km buffer zone around the plausibly exogenous boundary between these two zones (see figure 2) and only focus on observations within this buffer to ensure comparability6 . We chose a 100km buffer because individuals living in this zone face a similar geographic, political and cultural environment. We also believe that it is useful to exclude individuals who 4We econometrically treat contact with traditional leaders as the treatment and trust in traditional leaders as an outcome. An individual’s frequency of contact with traditional leaders exogenously varies across the internal colonial border. Trust in turn is an attitude that individuals form based on their experiences and which we show is affected by contact with traditional leaders 5The income and education variables are discrete and to allow for a flexible estimation we include dummies for each income group and education group 6We excluded Etosha National Park from the buffer area. 10 Figure 2: Enumeration areas and buffer live in the desert and those who live close to economic centers (such as as the capital region Windhoek). While the 100km is our preferred buffer size we also included estimations using observations from the entire country and observations from a 50km buffer zone as robustness checks 7 . We only focus on the northern part of the former Police Zone boundary as this part still represented the original boundary drawn by the Germans when the Odendaal Commission of 1964 formalized the border. Other parts of the border were changed over time due to political and economic reasons and is less plausibly exogenous. The number of enumeration areas within the 100km buffer zone is 1247. Out of these 1247 enumeration areas, the Afrobarometer survey covered between 42 and 47 in in each round. This constitutes a random sample of all 7The 100km buffer is our preferred buffer as it constitutes the optimal solution for the trade-off between number of observations and comparability 11 enumeration areas in the buffer zone. There are more enumeration areas in the northern part of the buffer as this part is much more densely populated than the southern part. We observe eight individuals per enumeration area in each survey round. This gives us a maximum number of 1426 observations for the 100km buffer. This number however differs between specifications as not each question is asked in every survey round and we eliminated observations, where the responded answered “don’t know” to the Afrobarometer question. We can thus link information about the colonial ruling style with political attitude data. For detailed summary statistics of the variables of interests see Table 10 in the Appendix. 5 The effect of direct vs indirect colonial rule on political attitudes We identify the effect of indirect colonial rule on democratic attitudes by OLS estimation. The treatment of interest is indirect vs direct colonial rule which is independent of other factors affecting political attitudes for observations close to the colonial border when controlling for ethnicity fixed effects. The northern part of the border between directly and indirectly ruled territories was shaped by the spatial extent of direct German control at the end of the rinderpest epidemic of 1897. The border zone where the progressive extension of direct German rule was frozen in 1897 can thus be considered exogenous to pre-colonial political attitudes. Pre-colonial political structures and attitudes were ethnic-group specific. There is no evidence in the Murdock (1967) data that there were differences across ethnic groups in Namibia. We nevertheless include ethnic fixed effects in all specifications so as only to compare individuals from the same ethnic group and thereby ensure that pre-treatment attitudes did not differ between the direct and indirectly ruled areas. All ethnic groups are represented in both parts of the buffer. Survey round fixed effects are included in order to account for the different timing of the Afrobarometer survey rounds. The border also cuts through seven (out of 14) administrative regions so that we can compare individuals who face the same regional institutions with each other by including region fixed effects. We also control for the performance of local governance councils to ensure that our estimated effects are not driven by differences in institutional quality. Differences in terms of income, education and age between regions very close to the border should be mitigated today. Table 6 and table 7 in the appendix provide evidence that there do not exist significant differences in terms of income and education between the northern and the southern part of the buffer. We nevertheless control for these factors as they are important determinants of political attitudes. We include dummies for education and income and hence only compare individuals with similar income and educational levels. Standard errors are clustered on an enumeration area level. The baseline estimation equation is: Yider = α + βIndirectruled + X 0 iderγ + ηe + µr + ider 12 Y expresses demand for democracy of individual i, living in enumeration area d, belonging to the ethnic group e, being surveyed in round r. Indirectrule is a dummy variable indicating whether the individual lives in an enumeration area which belonged to the indirectly or the directly ruled part of Namibia. X is a set of individual-level control variables, which includes the performance of the local government councils, age and dummies for income and education8 . ηe are ethnicity fixed effects and µr are survey-round fixed effects. In most specifications we also include region fixed effects. OLS estimates are reported in Table 2. The columns present different specifications including different sets of controls. Living in the formerly indirectly ruled part of Namibia decreases the probability that people think that a democratic government is preferred to any other type of government (table 2). The magnitude of the effect is in the range of a fourth of a standard deviation of the dependent variable (i.e. living in the formerly indirectly ruled areas decreases support support for democracy by 0.2 on a scale from 1 to 3). The size of the effect increases to a third of a standard deviation when applying more conservative estimation specifications such as including region fixed effects and individual-level control variables (column 2), adding performance of the government as a control variable (column 3) and adding geographic control variables (column 4). Finally, we also applied an ordered probit model, which confirms the previous findings. The results in Table 11 and Table 12 in the appendix show alternative outcome measures, which indicate that contact with traditional leaders may be a potential channel of causality. People living in the north tend to think that authorities should be respected rather than questioned. Questioning leaders is an important feature of democracy but does not seem to be as prevalent in the political culture of people living in the northern part of the buffer as in the culture of people living in the southern part. This might be connected to the role that traditional leaders play in society. Moreover, people living in formerly indirectly ruled areas tend to trust traditional leaders more than people living in formerly directly ruled areas. This might be due to the historically more important role of traditional leaders in the administration of the community in indirectly ruled areas. This channel of causality will be examined in the following section. All results also hold when not only focusing on observations in the 100km buffer zone but using a sample from the entire country and also when using a 50km buffer zone (see Appendix table 14). As an additional robustness check we clustered the standard errors on a constituency level, which reduces the number of clusters from 165 to 40 (see Appendix table 15). The results still hold. 8Xider = P4 n=0 incomei ider + P8 m=0 educationi ider + ageider 13 Table 2: Effect of indirect rule on support for democracy (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Ordered VARIABLES OLS OLS OLS OLS probit Indirect colonial rule -0.178** -0.250** -0.311*** -0.331*** -0.465*** (0.0746) (0.101) (0.103) (0.125) (0.158) Performance government -0.00667 -0.00705 -0.00881 (0.0288) (0.0287) (0.0419) Carrying Capacity -0.0241 (0.0362) Av Rainfall -0.00228 (0.0393) Constant 2.493*** 2.808*** 2.892*** 3.074*** (0.0908) (0.343) (0.350) (0.606) Observations 1,347 1,329 1,274 1,274 1,274 R2 0.019 0.043 0.043 0.043 Ethnicity FE yes yes yes yes yes Survey round FE yes yes yes yes yes Region FE no yes yes yes yes Controls no yes yes yes yes # clusters 165 165 165 165 165 Results from OLS regressions including ethnicity and survey round fixed effects. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 6 Channel of causality: Contact to traditional leaders In order to identify the mechanisms through which indirect colonial rule exerted persistent effects on democratic attitudes we conduct a 2SLS analysis. Specifically, we seek to adjudicate between the competing theoretical perspectives of Mamdani (1996); Englebert (2000) and Williams (2010); Logan (2013) by testing whether contact to traditional authorities is an important mechanism for persistence in the effects of indirect colonial rule in contemporary democratic consolidation in sub-Saharan Africa. The exogenous division of Namibia caused substantially differing degrees of contact with traditional authorities as people in indirectly ruled areas had much closer contact with their tradi- 14 tional authorities during colonial times. Hence, after independence there are more traditional leaders present in formerly indirectly ruled areas than in formerly directly ruled areas, who exercise power. Our first-stage results (table 3) confirm that contact to traditional leaders increases by 0.37 to 0.6 (on a scale of 0-3) if an individual lives in the north rather than in the south. The partial F statistics is larger than 10 for each specification, which indicates that we do not have a weak instrument problem. These results hold even when including a number of controls and fixed effects (columns 2, 3 and 4). Table 3: First-stage results (1) (2) (3) (4) Contact Contact Contact Contact VARIABLES traditional leader traditional leader traditional leader traditional leader Indirect colonial rule 0.555*** 0.391*** 0.367*** 0.393** (0.0700) (0.104) (0.109) (0.173) Performance government 0.104*** 0.101*** (0.0384) (0.0383) Constant 0.240*** 0.887*** 0.126 -0.00770 (0.0533) (0.122) (0.321) (0.474) Observations 1,418 1,418 1,336 1,336 R2 0.045 0.142 0.185 0.190 Ethnicity FE no yes yes yes Round FE no yes yes yes Region FE no no no yes Controls no no yes yes F-Test 62.67 18.36 14.04 12.69 # clusters 165 165 165 165 Results from OLS regressions. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 6.1 2SLS results We apply a two-stage-least-square estimation strategy using the geographical location relative to the settlement boundary as an instrument for contact to traditional leaders. Moreover, we again include ethnicity fixed effects so that we only compare political attitudes of members of the same ethnic group. In addition, survey round fixed effects are included in order to account for 15 the different timing of the Afrobarometer survey rounds and regional fixed effects are included in order to account for political and geographic differences between regions. Performance of the government and individual education, age and food consumption are included as controls. All standard errors are clustered on an enumeration area level. The 2SLS results (table 4) confirm that contact to traditional authorities undermines democratic attitudes. An increase in contact with traditional leaders by one standard deviation (which corresponds to a change of 1 on a scale from 0 to 3) decreases support for democracy by around half a standard deviation (0.4) or even more in the more conservative specifications (columns 2 and 3). The (partial) first-stage F-test is greater than 10 for each specification in the 2SLS estimations (see tables 4 and 13), so indirect colonial rule is considered a strong instrument. Table 4: 2SLS estimates (1) (2) (3) Support Support Support VARIABLES for democracy for democracy for democracy Contact traditional leader -0.429** -0.587** -0.768** (0.216) (0.240) (0.348) Performance government 0.0562 0.0652 (0.0443) (0.0507) Observations 1,347 1,274 1,274 Ethnicity FE yes yes yes Survey round FE yes yes yes Regional FE no no yes Controls no yes yes # clusters 165 165 165 First-stage F statistic 20.90 17.32 10.50 Results from 2SLS regressions including ethnicity and survey round fixed effects using indirect colonial rule as an instrument for contact with traditional leaders. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. First-stage Kleibergen-Paap Wald F statistic reported. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. These results are robust to changes in the clustering method and to using observations for the country as a whole (see Appendix tables 18). Finally, the results in table 13 in the appendix confirm that contact to traditional leaders affect 16 other political attitudes beyond support for democracy. Table 13 shows that people trust traditional leaders more and question authorities less when they have more contact with traditional leaders. Contact with traditional leaders was exogenously determined depending on whether individuals live north or south of the veterinary cordon fence, whereas trust in traditional leaders and more general respect for authority are attitudinal outcome measures endogenous to institutional context. These results corroborate the importance of exposure to a nondemocratic form of governance for the development of political attitudes beyond support for electoral democracy. 6.2 Robustness An important assumption for our 2SLS estimation is that the exclusion restriction holds. That means that living north of the border is uncorrelated with any other determinant of political attitudes. One might however argue that there are also other persistent factors, which differed between the northern and southern part and which also affect political attitudes. We are aware of the fact that, as in all historically oriented work, we cannot completely rule out all of these factors but we are confident that they are either negligible or would bias against us. In the following section we discuss the most important other mechanisms that may determine political attitudes and we come to the conclusion that none of them biases our results in our favor. 6.2.1 No geographical differences In our study we only focus on individuals living within a 100km buffer zone of the boundary to ensure comparability between individuals surveyed on several dimensions (proximity to ports, the capital and the national border, geographic characteristics). We also include regional fixed effects, which does not change our results. 6.2.2 No relevant different political socialization Political socialization over one’s lifetime is of course an important determinant of future political attitudes (Fuchs-Schündeln and Schündeln, 2015; de Aquino, 2015). However, the indigenous population did not experience democracy in either the direct or indirectly ruled areas of Namibia during colonial times. Whereas northern Namibia was ruled by authoritarian traditional authorities and, to a lesser extent by the colonial administration, the indigenous population in southern and central Namibia was exploited by the German and later South African colonizers through a system of contract labor (Moorsom, 1977; Melber, 1996; Odendaal, 1964). The “rule of law” and electoral democracy only applied to the white population. Therefore, the indigenous population had a negative experience with western institutions, European settlers, officials and the apartheid democracy of the south. Since the governance system of the south enabled the exploitation of the local indigenous population, if anything, the bias from different experiences with western institutions during the colonial era should bias against our hypothesis. As the corollary to this, we cannot rule out the theoretical potential that the introduction of democ- 17 racy was seen as a greater ‘liberation’ in the south relative to the north. Thus, we test to see whether the effect of indirect colonial rule differs for individuals who experienced liberation and those who didn’t. Table 17 (in the Appendix) demonstrates that there is no interaction effect between age and living in the formerly indirectly ruled areas. That means that the effect of living in the north on democratic attitudes does not differ between young and old people. If different political socialization or the experience of liberation is an important confounder then the effect of living in the north should be much stronger for older people, who experienced the different political socialization between indirectly and directly ruled areas much longer. These results also hold when using a binary age measure9 (see table 17 in Appendix). 6.2.3 No selective spatial sorting During the German rule, permanent migration between the two parts of the country was prohibited. After taking control of Namibia after 1914, the South Africans established a migrant labour system that brought workers from the north to work in the south in order to satisfy white farmers’ demand for cheap farmhand labor. These laborers were required to return to their racial homeland after a period of 18-24 months and re-apply for the temporary labor scheme, and so there was no permanent sorting. We cannot rule out selective sorting after independence in 1990, however we believe this is unlikely to act as an important confounder. In northern areas of Namibia, land is communally held and ties to one’s family, one’s community and to ancestral land rights are extremely close (Paul, 1933; Eirola, 1992). Moreover, migration statistics from the Namibian Statistics Agency suggest that permanent migration from the north, where it has occurred, has been economic in nature and primarily inter-regional as poor laborers move to the larger cities of the south such as Windhoek or Walvis Bay far south of our study area. For this reason, we control for age and education in our specifications - neither of which changes the results. Hence, though it cannot be completely ruled out, it is unlikely that selective sorting explains our results (Moorsom, 1977; Melber, 1996). 6.2.4 Same contemporary institutions We show that, other than the greater importance of traditional leaders in northern Namibia, contemporary institutions do not differ between the northern and southern areas in our sample. In order to ensure that our effects are not different by differing performance of local government officials as theorized by Williams (2010) and Logan (2013), we have previously included controls for the individuals’ evaluation of the performance of local government councils which do not actually appear to have a significant effect on democratic attitudes. Moreover, Namibia is extremely centralized politically because, after independence, the Namibian government made a great effort to homogenize governance between the two parts of the country and improve institutional infrastructure and efficiency in the previously neglected north 9Dividing the sample into those younger than the median age (31 years) and those older than median age. Those younger than median age experienced a large part of their political socialization after 1990. 18 where state capacity was previously low (Werner and Odendaal, 2010; Melber, 2015; Düsing, 2002; Keulder, 2000). The north and in particular the former Ovamboland is now the bedrock of electoral support for the governing party, which regularly obtains over 90% of votes in this region and is thus extremely attuned to the needs and wishes of its supporters in this region (Keulder, 2000), so if anything more contemporary differences in governance after 1990 should bias against our hypothesis. Finally, we can use Afrobarometer results to show that people living north and south of the border do not systematically evaluate the effectiveness of government institutions differently (see Table 5). Table 5: Balancing Table (1) (2) (3) Direct rule Indirect rule Difference Government officials listen 1.22 1.26 -0.048 [1.06] [1.08] (0.11) Trust in police 1.78 1.91 -0.13* [0.85] [0.88] (0.070) Trust in courts 1.83 1.91 -0.085 [0.92] [0.95] (0.067) Fear of unjust arrest 3.93 3.83 0.097 [0.73] [0.93] (0.091) Observations 253 1,163 1,416 Individuals on both sides of the border think that governmental officials listen sometimes to what the people say. The coefficient on fear of unjust arrest, which is an indicator for despotism of officials, does also not differ significantly between formerly directly ruled and indirectly ruled areas of Namibia. As further measures of the reliability of contemporary institutions we use trust in courts and police. Trust in courts does not differ between the two parts. Trust in police is even significantly higher in the north, which would work against us and does therefore not bias our results in our favor. Moreover, we also include fixed effects for the seven regions that the settlement boundary cuts through. This ensures that we only compare individuals living close to each other on the same part of the boundary, who are governed by the same national and regional institutions nowadays. Including these fixed effects does not greatly change our results. 6.2.5 Potential mechanism: income Income differed substantially between areas within and outside the Police Zone during colonial times. After independence however the government introduced policies to reduce the large income disparities between the north and the south. The effect of indirect rule on income should therefore not be highly persistent. We compare only people living close to each other, so that 19 potential income gaps should have closed after independence. Table 6 demonstrates that indirect colonial rule does not have a statistically significant impact on income and thus suggests that the effect of indirect rule on income is not persistent in the buffer zone. Moreover, dummies for different income groups ensure that we only compare individuals with similar income. Table 6: Indirect colonial rule and income (1) (2) (3) (4) VARIABLES OLS OLS OLS Ordered Probit Indirect colonial rule -0.204 0.0398 -0.0247 0.0191 (0.134) (0.163) (0.146) (0.148) Constant 1.307*** 1.216*** 0.739*** (0.126) (0.184) (0.227) Observations 1,417 1,417 1,400 1,400 R2 0.004 0.055 0.123 Ethnicity FE no yes yes yes Survey round FE no yes yes yes Controls no no yes yes # clusters 165 165 165 165 Results from OLS regressions. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 6.2.6 Potential mechanism: education Education does not differ between the northern and southern part of the buffer among the indigenous Namibian population. This is because missionaries founded schools long before the first colonizers reached Namibia. Even during colonial times, missionaries were as active at providing education for indigenous Namibians in the south as in the north and the Namibian government after 1990 has not favored the north or south disproportionately in terms of education. Table 7 shows statistically that areas formerly under indirect rule do not have significantly lower levels of education. Hence, as education does not differ between the directly and indirectly ruled areas of Namibia, it can be ruled out as a likely channel though which indirect colonial rule affects political attitudes. 20 Table 7: Indirect colonial rule and contemporary education levels (1) (2) (3) (4) VARIABLES OLS OLS OLS Ordered Probit Indirect colonial rule 0.0147 -0.274 -0.140 -0.0783 (0.189) (0.193) (0.149) (0.0976) Constant 3.802*** 4.038*** 5.087*** (0.176) (0.225) (0.357) Observations 1,406 1,406 1,400 1,400 R2 0.000 0.025 0.239 Ethnicity FE no yes yes yes Survey round FE no yes yes yes Controls no no yes yes # clusters 165 165 165 165 Results from OLS regressions. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. We are therefore confident that we have identified contact to traditional authorities as the key institutional factor that differs between the formerly directly and indirectly ruled areas of Namibia and which acts as a cause of substantial variance in contemporary political culture. 7 Effects on voter turnout Why does it matter to study determinants of political attitudes? It matters because it has important implications for civic culture and the viability of democratic institutions. Given that voting is the essential participatory exercise in a democracy, one important behavioral outcome that we focus on is voter turnout. We coded voting as a binary variable, indicating whether an individual reported to have voted in the previous national elections or not. The data stem from Afrobarometer survey rounds three and four. 21 Table 8: Effect of indirect colonial rule on voting (1) (2) (3) (4) VARIABLES OLS OLS Probit 2SLS Indirect colonial rule -0.219*** -0.219*** -0.667*** (0.0469) (0.0476) (0.188) Performance government 0.0137 0.0753 0.256* (0.0222) (0.0846) (0.140) Contact traditional leader -1.220** (0.608) Constant 0.624*** 0.579*** 0.125 (0.181) (0.190) (0.501) Observations 723 687 685 687 R2 0.287 0.285 Ethnicity FE yes yes yes yes Survey round FE yes yes yes yes Region FE yes yes yes yes Controls yes yes yes yes # clusters 91 91 91 91 Results from OLS, Probit and 2SLS regressions including ethnicity and survey round fixed effects. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. The results in table 8 (columns 1 - 3) show that people in the northern part of the buffer vote significantly less than people living in the southern part. Column 4 suggests that this effect, again, works through contact with traditional authorities. This indicates that weaker democratic attitudes are associated with less reported voting - the essential political act in a democracy - and thus that indirect colonial rule indeed presents a block to democratic consolidation both in an attitudinal and behavioural sense. 8 Conclusion The results presented in this paper show that indirect colonial rule has persistent effects on contemporary political attitudes. We have argued that the key mechanism underlying this wellestablished relationship is the ongoing influence of traditional authorities in formerly indirectly 22 ruled areas of Namibia, which acts as a parallel undemocratic governance structure and undermines individual support for democracy. This paper thereby contributes to a long-running debate in comparative politics (Mamdani, 1996; Englebert, 2000; Williams, 2010; Logan, 2013; Baldwin, 2015) - it does appear that the hereditary and unelected system of traditional leadership institutionalized by indirect colonial rule presents a stumbling block to contemporary democratic political consolidation in sub-Saharan Africa. We identify the effect of indirect rule through OLS estimation by exploiting a unique setting in Namibia. Namibia was exogenously divided in 1897 into a southern region directly settled and ruled by colonial authorities and a northern region that was indirectly ruled through a system of appointed indigenous tribal elites, thereby providing plausibly exogenous variation in the form of colonial rule and the influence of traditional leaders amongst members of the same ethnic group. We then use this division of the country as an IV for contemporary contact with traditional leaders and thereby test their impact on democratic attitudes. Whilst we are confident that the institution of traditional leadership plays an important role in shaping individual attitudes towards democracy, we do not wish to imply a mono-causal explanation for variance in contemporary political culture in sub-Saharan Africa. Rather, we wish to highlight the fact that the ongoing parallel existence of undemocratic local governance structures can undermine support for democracy even in the context of a functional, largely successful national democratic polity. This has broad implications for democratization processes in other sub-Saharan African countries, where systems of traditional leadership still play an important role in local governance and national democracy is not as consolidated as in Namibia. However, the fact that contact to traditional leaders may weaken support for core democratic tenets in sub-Saharan Africa does not invalidate the extremely important and valuable governing roles that traditional authorities currently play in their communities. Indeed, it is likely in part because non-electoral mechanisms such as strong social ties have proven so effective in keeping traditional leaders accountable and responsive to the needs of their communities and thus more effective than elected officials (Baldwin, 2015) that support for electoral democracy as a system of government is weakened in areas with influential traditional leaders. Despite the presence of a trade-off between influential local traditional institutions and democratic consolidation, therefore, the policy mechanisms for improving overall quality of governance in sub-Saharan Africa in the future remain more unclear and is a currently fruitful area of research.10 Ultimately, we hope that our findings documented in this paper encourage further research about the potential trade-off between the legitimacy of different institutional configurations and the historical legacies that continue to shape political culture in both sub-Saharan Africa and the wider world. 10As Baldwin and Mvukiyehe (2015) show, introducing elections for traditional authorities may actually have counter-productive effects on community collective action 23 9 Appendix 9.1 Ethnic groups prior to colonization Figure 3: Ethnic groups prior to colonization (Murdock, 1967) 9.2 Comparison to other African countries Table 9 shows Afrobarometer survey results from 2008 (survey round 4) for 19 other African countries 11 in comparison to the Namibia results. Contact to traditional leaders is lower in Namibia than in other African countries. This shows that traditional leadership is an important institutions in many African countries and that it is important to study its implications for the viability of democratic systems. There is no clear difference in support for democracy between Namibians and other sub-Saharan Africans in the sample. 11Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe 24 Table 9: Summary statistics of variables of interest for 20 African countries, covered in Afrobarometer survey round 4 (1) (2) (3) 19 African countries Namibia Difference Contact traditional ruler 0.55 0.38 0.17*** [0.99] [0.78] (0.029) Trust traditional leaders 4.37 4.16 0.21*** [1.44] [1.17] (0.042) Support for democracy 2.86 2.86 0.0062 [0.34] [0.35] (0.012) Respect authority 2.22 2.52 -0.30*** [1.13] [1.02] (0.033) Observations 26,513 1,200 27,713 9.3 Summary statistics Table 10 summarizes the main variables of interests for the buffer zone. The number of observations differs as some variables are not available in all four survey rounds. Table 10: Summary statistics for buffer zone Mean SD Min Max Obs Contact traditional leader 0.7 1.0 0 3 1426 Trust traditional leaders 1.9 0.9 0 3 1029 Support for democracy 2.4 0.8 1 3 1352 Respect authority 2.4 1.0 1 4 1373 Performance government 2.9 0.8 1 4 1360 Age 35.8 14.8 18 92 1421 Education 3.8 1.8 0 8 1414 Without food 1.1 1.2 0 4 1425 25 9.4 More outcomes Table 11: OLS estimation: Effect of indirect rule on respect for authorities (1) (2) (3) Ordered VARIABLES OLS OLS Probit Indirect colonial rule 0.221* 0.242** 0.277** (0.114) (0.119) (0.139) Performance government 0.00543 0.00480 (0.0330) (0.0383) Constant 1.619*** 1.827*** (0.286) (0.362) Observations 1,365 1,290 1,290 R2 0.127 0.150 Ethnicity FE yes yes yes Survey round FE yes yes yes Region FE yes yes yes Controls no yes yes # clusters 165 165 165 Results from OLS regressions including ethnicity and survey round fixed effects. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 26 Table 12: OLS estimation: Effect of indirect rule on trust in traditional leaders (1) (2) (3) Ordered VARIABLES OLS OLS Probit Indirect colonial rule 0.247* 0.266* 0.333* (0.136) (0.146) (0.174) Performance government 0.167*** 0.210*** (0.0398) (0.0500) Constant 1.348*** 0.650* (0.255) (0.388) Observations 1,029 979 979 R2 0.100 0.113 Ethnicity FE yes yes yes Survey round FE yes yes yes Region FE yes yes yes Controls no yes yes # clusters 123 123 123 Results from OLS regressions including ethnicity and survey round fixed effects. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 27 Table 13: 2SLS estimation: Effect of contact with traditional leaders on respect for authorities and trust in traditional leaders (1) (2) (3) (4) Respect Respect Trust Trust VARIABLES authorities authorities traditional leaders traditional leaders Contact traditional leader 0.636* 0.612** 0.459* 0.412* (0.379) (0.308) (0.240) (0.248) Performance government -0.0554 0.139*** (0.0535) (0.0426) Constant 1.700*** 1.868*** 1.195*** 0.876*** (0.559) (0.521) (0.322) (0.307) Observations 1,348 1,290 1,022 979 R2 -0.240 -0.207 0.058 0.080 Ethnicity FE yes yes yes yes Survey round FE yes yes yes yes Region FE yes yes yes yes Controls yes yes yes yes # clusters 165 165 123 123 First-stage F statistic 8.562 10.22 14.98 14.68 Results from 2SLS regressions using indirect colonial rule as an instrument for contact with traditional leaders including ethnicity and survey round fixed effects. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 9.5 Further Robustness Checks 9.5.1 OLS OLS results are robust to using observations for the entire country and for a 50km buffer rather than only focusing on the buffer zone (see table 14) and to clustering the standard errors on the constituency level (table 15). 28 Table 14: OLS robustness to buffer (1) (2) (3) (4) VARIABLES Entire country Entire country 50km Buffer 50km Buffer Indirect colonial rule -0.102** -0.135** -0.161* -0.249** (0.0507) (0.0550) (0.0881) (0.103) Performance government -0.00967 0.00926 (0.0176) (0.0442) Constant 2.657*** 2.523*** 2.189*** 1.889*** (0.133) (0.202) (0.151) (0.451) Observations 4,656 3,734 620 511 R2 0.017 0.042 0.044 0.098 Ethnicity FE yes yes yes yes Survey round FE yes yes yes yes Region FE yes yes yes yes Controls no yes no yes # clusters 571 509 77 71 Results from OLS regressions of support for democracy on indirect colonial rule including ethnicity, region and survey round fixed effects. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists observations for the entire country and for the 50km buffer zone respectively. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 29 Table 15: Robustness check OLS: clustering SE on a constituency level (1) (2) (3) Support Support Support VARIABLES for democracy for democracy for democracy Indirect colonial rule -0.178** -0.250*** -0.311*** (0.0768) (0.0841) (0.0948) Performance government -0.00667 (0.0267) Constant 2.493*** 2.808*** 2.892*** (0.0910) (0.348) (0.349) Observations 1,347 1,329 1,274 R2 0.019 0.043 0.043 Ethnicity FE yes yes yes Survey round FE yes yes yes Region FE no yes yes Controls no yes yes # clusters 44 44 44 Results from OLS regressions including ethnicity and survey round fixed effects. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations from the 100km buffer zone. Standard errors (clustered by Constituency) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. In addition, we tested whether there is an interaction effect between indirect colonial rule and survey round fixed effects. The results in table 16 indicate that there is no such interaction effect. Hence, the effect of indirect colonial rule on political attitudes does not decrease (or increase) over time, which suggests that political attitudes are indeed persistent. 30 Table 16: Interaction between indirect colonial rule and survey round fixed effects (1) Support VARIABLES for democracy Indirect colonial rule -0.369** (0.165) Indirect rule x round 2 0.193 (0.197) Indirect rule x round 3 0.145 (0.197) Indirect rule x round 4 0.315 (0.209) Round = 2 -0.0900 (0.181) Round = 3 0.0289 (0.180) Round = 4 -0.181 (0.193) Constant 2.817*** (0.269) Observations 1,329 R2 0.038 Ethnicity FE yes Survey round FE yes Controls yes # clusters 165 Results from OLS regressions including interaction terms between colonial rule and survey round fixed effects as well asethnicity and survey round fixed effects. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists observations for the buffer zone only. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 31 Finally, we analyzed interactions between indirect rule and age using both the reported age and a binary age measure (table 17). The binary measure divides the sample in people older and younger than 31, which is the median age in the sample. Neither of the estimations yields statistically significant effects of the interaction. This demonstrates that the effect of indirect colonial rule on political attitudes does not depend on age. The effect is thus not stronger for older people who experienced colonial rule longer than younger people. Table 17: No interaction effect between indirect colonial rule and age (1) (2) Support Support VARIABLES for democracy for democracy Indirect colonial rule -0.0750 -0.182** (0.159) (0.0828) Indirect rule x age -0.00347 (0.00450) Age 0.00288 (0.00431) Indirect rule x Old dummy -0.000124 (0.107) Old dummy -0.00334 (0.0957) Constant 2.557*** 2.628*** (0.254) (0.225) Observations 1,329 1,334 R2 0.036 0.039 Ethnicity FE yes yes Survey round FE yes yes Controls yes yes # clusters 165 165 Results from OLS regressions including interaction terms between colonial rule and age as well as ethnicity and survey round fixed effects. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists observations for the buffer zone only. Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 32 9.5.2 2SLS The 2SLS results are also robust to using observations for the entire country and to clustering the standard errors on the constituency level (table 18). We did not include robustness to the 50km buffer because the sample size would be too small for consistent 2SLS estimation of our fixed effect model. Table 18: 2SLS robustness to buffer and clustering method for the entire country (1) (2) Sample: Clusters: VARIABLES entire country constituency level Contact traditional leader -0.296*** -0.587*** (0.114) (0.227) Performance government 0.0170 0.0562 (0.0214) (0.0458) Constant 2.372*** 2.761*** (0.151) (0.356) Observations 3,720 1,274 Ethnicity FE yes yes Survey round FE yes yes Controls yes yes # clusters 509 44 Results from 2SLS regressions of Support for Democracy on Contact with Traditional Leaders using Indirect Rule as an instrument. Control variables are age, education dummies and income dummies. The sample consists of observations for the entire country (column 1) and for the buffer zone (column 2). Standard errors (clustered by Enumeration Area (column 1) and by Constituency (column 2) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 33 9.6 Afrobarometer survey questions The Afrobarometer survey questions uesed in this paper read: • Support for democracy: Which of these three statements is closest to your own opinion? Statement 1: Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government. Statement 2: In some circumstances, a non-democratic government can be preferable. Statement 3: For someone like me, it does not matter what kind of government we have. 1= Statement 2: Non- democratic preferable, 2=Statement 3: For someone like me, it does not matter what kind of government we have, 3=Statement 1: Democracy preferable • Respect for authority: Let’s talk for a moment about the kind of society we would like to have in this country. Which of the following statements is closest to your view? Choose Statement 1 or Statement 2. Statement 1: Citizens should be more active in questioning the actions of leaders. Statement 2: In our country, citizens should show more respect for authority. 1=Agree very strongly with Statement 1, 2=Agree with Statement 1, 3=Agree with Statement 2, 4=Agree very strongly with Statement 2 • Trust traditional leader: How much do you trust each of the following, or haven’t you heard enough about them to say: Traditional leaders 0=Not at all, 1=Just a little, 2=Somewhat, 3=A lot • Performance of local government councilor: Do you approve or disapprove of the way the following people have performed their jobs over the past twelve months, or haven’t you heard enough about them to say: Your Elected Local Government Councillor? 1=Strongly Disapprove, 2=Disapprove, 3=Approve, 4=Strongly Approve • Contact traditional leader: During the past year, how often have you contacted any of the following persons about some important problem or to give them your views: A traditional ruler? 0=Never, 1=Only once, 2=A few times, 3=Often • Voting: With regard to the most recent national elections, which statement is true for you? 0= You decided not to vote, You could not find the polling station, You were prevented from voting, You did not have time to vote, Did not vote for some other reason 1= You voted in the elections 34 References Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J. A. (2001). The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation. American Economic Review, 91(5):1369–1401. Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J. A. (2002). Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117(4):1231–1294. Acemoglu, D., Reed, T., and Robinson, J. A. (2014). Chiefs: Economic development and elite control of civil society in Sierra Leone. Journal of Political Economy, 122(2):319–368. Almond, G. A. and Verba, S. (1963). The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Baldwin, K. (2014). When politicians cede control of resources: Land, chiefs, and coalitionbuilding in Africa. Comparative Politics, 46(3):253–271. Baldwin, K. (2015). The Paradox of Traditional Chiefs in Democratic Africa. Cambridge University Press. Baldwin, K. and Mvukiyehe, E. (2015). Elections and collective action: Evidence from changes in traditional institutions in liberia. World Politics, 67(04):690–725. Bennett, T. (1998). The constitutional base of traditional rulers in south africa. In d’Engelbronner Kolff, F., Hinz, M., and Sindano, J., editors, Proceedings from the workshop: Traditional Authorities in the Nineties - Democratic Aspects of Traditional Government in Southern Africa. Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of Namibia. Boone, C. (2014). Property and Political Order in Africa: Land Rights and the Structure of Politics. Cambridge University Press. Bratton, M. (2004). The" Alternation Effect" in Africa. Journal of Democracy, 15(4):147–158. de Aquino, J. A. (2015). The effect of exposure to political institutions and economic events on demand for democracy in africa. Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 160. De Kadt, D. and Larreguy, H. (2014). Agents of the Regime: Traditional Leaders and Electoral Behavior in South Africa. Paper presented at APSA meeting 2014. Diamond, L. (1999). Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Düsing, S. (2002). Traditional Leadership and Democratisation in Southern Africa: A Comparative Study of Botswana, Namibia, and Southern Africa, volume 6. LIT Verlag Münster. 35 Eckl, A. (2007). Reports from ’beyond the line’: The accumulation of knowledge of Kavango and its peoples by the German colonial administration 1891-1911. Journal of Namibian Studies: History Politics Culture, 1:7–37. Eirola, M. (1992). The Ovambogefahr: The Ovamboland Reservation in the Making: Political Responses of the Kingdom of Ondonga to the German Colonial Power, 1884-1910, volume 22. Ponjois-Suomen Historiallinen Yhdistys. Engerman, S. L. and Sokoloff, K. L. (2002). Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New World Economies. Economia Journal of the Latin American and Caribean Economic Association. Englebert, P. (2000). State Legitimacy and Development in Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Friedman, J. T. (2006). Making politics, making history: Chiefship and the post-apartheid state in namibia. Journal of Southern African Studies. Fuchs-Schündeln, N. and Schündeln, M. (2015). On the endogeneity of political preferences: Evidence from individual experience with democracy. Science, 347(6226):1145–1148. German Colonial Office, B. (1919). The Treatment of Native and Other Populations in the Colonial Possessions of Germany and England: An Answer to the English Blue Book of August 1918: ’Report on the Natives of South-West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany’. Engelmann. Hariri, J. G. (2012). The Autocratic Legacy of Early Statehood. American Political Science Review, pages 471–494. Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R. and Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: The human development sequence. Cambridge University Press. Keulder, C. (2000). Traditional leaders. State, Society and Democracy. A Reader in Namibian Politics, pages 150–170. Linz, J. and Stepan, A. (1996). Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Logan, C. (2008). Traditional leaders in modern africa: Can democracy and the chief co-exist? Michigan State University, Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 93. Logan, C. (2009). Selected chiefs, elected councilors, and hybrid democrats: Popular perspectives on the co-existence of democracy and traditional authority. Journal of Modern African Studies, 47(1):101–128. 36 Logan, C. (2013). The roots of resilience: Exploring popular support for african traditional authorities. African Affairs, 112(448):353–37. Luthuli, A. J. (1962). Africa and Freedom. Africa Today, 9(1):7–9. Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton University Press. Mboya, T. (1956). The Kenya Question: an African Answer. Number Nr. 302 in Fabian tract. Fabian Colonial Bureau. Meer, T. and Campbell, C. (2007). Traditional leadership in democratic South Africa. Durban and Cape Town: Democracy Development Program. Melber, H. (1996). Urbanisation and internal migration: Regional dimensions in post-colonial {Namibia}. Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit. Melber, H. (2015). Understanding Namibia: The Trials of Independence. Oxford University Press. Mendelsohn, J. (2002). Atlas of Namibia: A Portrait of the Land and its People. New Africa Books Pty Ltd. Miescher, G. (2012). Namibia’s Red Line: The History of a Veterinary and Settlement Border. Palgrave Macmillan. Moorsom, R. (1977). Underdevelopment, contract labour and worker consciousness in Namibia, 1915–72. Journal of Southern African Studies, 4(1):52–87. Murdock, G. P. (1967). Ethnographic atlas. Ethnology, pages 109–236. Namibia Statistics Agency (2011). Namibia 2011: Population and Housing Census Main Report. Namibia Statistics Agency, Windhoek, Namibia. Newbury, C. (1988). The Cohesion of Oppression: clientship and ethnicity in Rwanda, 1860- 1960. Columbia University Press. Ntsebeza, L. (2005). Democracy Compromised: Chiefs and the Politics of the Land in South Africa. Brill, Leiden. Odendaal, C. (1964). Report of the Commission of Enquiry into South West Africa Affairs, 1962-1963. Pretoria, Republic of South Africa. Ofcansky, T. P. (1981). The 1889-1897 Rinderpest Epidemic and the Rise of British and German Colonialism in Eastern and Southern Africa. Journal of African Studies, 8(1):31–38. 37 Paul, J. (1933). Wirtschaft und Besiedlung im südlichen Amboland von Johannes Paul. Veröffentlichungen, Wissenschaftliche, des Museums für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig. Vertriebsstelle: Ferdinand Hirt & Sohn, Leipzig. Persson, T. and Tabellini, G. (2009). Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 1(2):88–126. Putnam, R. D., Leonardi, R., and Nanetti, R. Y. (1994). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton University Press. Ribot, J. (2001). Local actors, powers and accountability in african decentralizations: A review of issues. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), October. Werner, W. and Odendaal, W. (2010). Livelihoods after land reform: Namibia Country Report. Williams, J. M. (2004). Leading from behind: Democratic consolidation and the chieftaincy in south africa. Journal of Modern African Studies, 42(1):113–136. Williams, J. M. (2010). Chieftaincy, the State and Democracy: Political Legitimacy in PostApartheid South Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 38

Choi

Instruments of Control: Party Leader Endorsements and Candidate Selection in Africa Donghyun Danny Choi* Wednesday 2nd November, 2016 Abstract Political parties in the developing world increasingly rely on primary elections to nominate their candidates for elected office. For party leaders, the introduction of primaries means losing an important tool with which they can reward and sanction the behavior of elected party elites. How can party leaders attempt to retain control over the candidate selection process, even when they no longer possess the institutionalized authority to impose their choice of candidates for nomination? I argue that party leaders can do so by using a strategy - political endorsements - to directly appeal to their co-partisans to select their preferred aspirant during the party primaries. Due to the psychological attachment between party leaders and their co-partisans, the party leader’s endorsement acts as a powerful heuristic upon which primary voters base their evaluation of the aspirant pool. I test this argument using a series of experiments embedded in a large scale survey of likely primary voters of two major political parties in Kenya. I find that the endorsements and denouncements of a party leader have strong effects on her co-partisan’s evaluation of primary aspirants: the party leader’s co-partisans are significantly more (less) likely to vote for an aspirant endorsed (denounced) by their party leader. The magnitude of this effect is large enough to offset the effect of well-established predictors such as candidate quality or performance, and is consistently observed across the partisans of both parties.



1 Introduction In many political parties across the developing world, party nominations have traditionally constituted a crucial part of the party leader’s toolkit in exercising control and imposing discipline over the party and its elites (Field and Siavelis, 2008). The power to select party candidates has long been concentrated in the hands of the party leader or a select few within the “inner circle”, and such power has been used by party leaders to ensure that the party’s elected officials remain loyal to them and serve their interests (Ichino and Nathan, 2012). However, as mounting criticism over the lack of internal party democracy places pressure on parties to change, parties are increasingly relying on more open and inclusive methods of candidate selection such as primaries, where either partisans or members of the voting public choose party candidates by voting in intraparty elections (Öhman, 2004; Carey and Polga-Hecimovich, 2006; Ichino and Nathan, 2016). When parties move to such open modes of candidate selection, how can party leaders attempt to retain control over the party and its elites? In principle, the introduction of primary elections implies that party leaders must relinquish control over the list of party candidates who can compete in elections under the party banner. Much of the very recent theoretical and empirical literature on candidate selection in new democracies implicitly or explicitly adopts this perspective, relegating the role of party leaders and the party leadership to the background: they focus on factors such as candidate characteristics - candidates’ record of constituency service or activities in the legislature, their performance in campaign debates, and their clientelistic ties with primary voters - and examine how primary voters are likely to respond to these characteristics (Izama and Raffler, N.d.; Ichino and Nathan, 2012, 2013). Yet is the characterization that primary elections lead party leaders to lose their grip over one of the most important functions of a modern political party - the nomination of candidates - correct? Existing research has little insight to offer on whether party leaders are able to adapt their strategies in tandem with the introduction of primaries, and whether these new strategies are in fact effective in in- fluencing the outcomes of primaries. This paper argues that party leaders are able to strongly influence who gets to represent the party on the ballot, even when primary elections remove the de jure authority of party leaders to directly select the pool of party candidates. Specifically, I focus on one strategy frequently used by party leaders to do so: political endorsements. Building on some very recent agendasetting work that examines how political elites use endorsements to shape electoral processes in new democracies (Arriola, 2012; Baldwin, 2013; Koter, 2013), I argue that party leaders can use endorsements and denouncements to inform voters about their preferences over candidates to sway primary voters to choose their allies and do away with their foes (Cohen et al., 2 2009).12 I further argue that these endorsements are likely to have an especially strong persuasive effect amongst primary voters in Africa, where partisans have been found to share a strong sense of linked fate and affective attachment with their party leaders (Gichohi, 2016). In a low-information electoral setting where other commonly-used heuristics such as ethnicity or party cues have little to no informational value, an endorsement from a trusted source such as the party leader is likely to act as a powerful heuristic that can influence how voters evaluate primary aspirants. In order to test the influence of party leaders and their endorsements on voter evaluation of primary aspirants, I employ and report findings from a series of pre-registered experimental research designs administered to likely primary voters of the largest incumbent party (The National Alliance, hereafter TNA) and the largest opposition party (Orange Democratic Movement, hereafter ODM) in Kenya.3 For the first experiment, I used a discrete choice-based conjoint analysis (Hainmueller, Hopkins and Yamamoto, 2013), in which respondents were asked to choose between the profiles of two hypothetical aspirants competing in their party’s legislative primaries that differ in terms of various attributes, including whether or not the candidate received an endorsement from the party leader. In the second experiment, likely primary voters of the two parties were presented with a simulated radio news segment covering a fictitious political aspirant competing in their party’s parliamentary primaries. This experiment used a factorial design which experimentally varied the the information provided in the radio news segment on 1) whether the aspirant received a positive or negative (denouncement) endorsement or no endorsement at all from the real-world party leaders of TNA and ODM, as well as other local party elites and 2) whether the aspirant’s record on local public service delivery (performance) is positive or negative. Following the audio treatment, a survey was administered to probe the respondent’s willingness to support the aspirant in the primaries, as well as a host of other candidate evaluations intended to ascertain potential mechanisms driving the results.4 Evidence from both experiments support the argument that party leaders are able to strongly 1While the endorsement of a party leader can feasibly function through other mechanisms to shape nominations - including consolidation of local party cadre support or increased campaign financing directed to endorsed candidates, the project focuses on the direct effect of endorsements on voters. 2These endorsements can be for or against a candidate (endorsement versus denouncements), and can take both overt and subtle forms, where the preferences of the party leader towards the candidate is either made explicit or is not explicit but can be inferred. A descriptive analysis of what forms these endorsements take, however, is beyond the scope of this project. 3The research design and pre-analysis plan for the two experiments are listed in the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) registry under protocol ID 20160702AA under the title “Choosing Party Players: Leader Endorsements and Candidate Selection in Africa.” 4As will be discussed in subsequent sections, the second dimension of the treatment that was experimentally manipulated - the candidate’s record of local service delivery - was selected because recent experimental research on voting behavior in Africa has found it to be one of the strongest factors that shape candidate evaluations (Conroy-Krutz, 2013; Harding, 2015). 3 influence how partisan primary voters evaluate primary candidates: I find that primary voters are much more likely to vote for a primary aspirant who has received the backing of the party leader, and significantly less inclined to vote for an aspirant who has been denounced by the party leader. The magnitude of this effect is substantively large, rivaling or in some cases surpassing the effect of other determinants of primary vote choice such as candidate performance/quality that existing research has demonstrated to have a substantial impact on electoral outcomes. This effect is consistently observed across the two different parties studied, and survives adjustments for multiple hypothesis testing. While the design of the experiments do not allow us to draw strong inferences regarding the mechanisms driving this effect, I find suggestive evidence from the second experiment that indicates primary voters consider aspirants endorsed by the party leader to be more loyal to the party and the party leader, actively contribute and campaign for the party to take the national seat of power (the presidency), and be more trustworthy. The findings presented in this paper have important implications for our understanding of political parties and democratic accountability in the developing world. First, political parties in many of these transitional democracies have often fronted primary elections as a crucial step towards harnessing much-needed “internal democracy” within the party organization and a building block for institutionalizing the participation of regular party members or voters in important party decision-making processes. However, the findings presented in this paper suggest that while party elites might have nominally ceded control over candidate selection processes to the masses to create a semblance of internal democracy, they can still effectively retain control over who is nominated by the party by adapting their strategies in accordance with the changes in their rules and procedures. The findings also appear to in part run counter to mounting evidence on the importance of retrospective evaluation of party/candidate performance in new democracies (Conroy-Krutz, 2013; Long and Hoffman, 2013; Carlson, 2015; Harding, 2015). These studies have found extensive evidence that voters in these countries reward or punish politicians based on their track record in providing local public goods or clientelistic benefits, and that these retrospective evaluations can even go so far as to significantly moderate the effect of ascriptive loyalties towards identities such as ethnicity or religion. While experimental findings in this paper also suggest that voters indeed value politician performance, they also provide evidence that these effects can be strongly moderated, or even counteracted by endorsements. Given that political parties in many of these countries are organized around identity-based cleavages (Elischer, 2013; Arriola, 2012), the large effects for party leader endorsements leads us to question whether retrospective voting paradigm has been overstated (Achen and Bartels, 2016). 4 2 Party leaders, Endorsements, and the Democratization of Candidate Selection 2.1 Party Control and the Democratization of Candidate Selection For many party leaders in new democracies that have long wielded a tremendous amount of influence over the party apparatus and its elites, the “democratization” of candidate selection methods poses a fundamental threat to their ability in sustaining dominance over their traditional domain. When the authority to select party candidates reside purely with the party leader and a small number of individuals within the “inner circle”, political aspirants within the party often have little option but to acquiesce to the will of the leader, for fear that they will be denied the opportunity to even appear on the ballot (Pennings and Hazan, 2001; Siavelis and Morgenstern, 2012; Ichino and Nathan, 2012). Existing research on candidate selection has found that control over the candidate selection processes ensures that “aspirants, candidates, and legislators, will be responsive to the selectorate”, determining where their loyalties will primarily lie (Field and Siavelis, 2008; Hazan and Rahat, 2010). Since it removes the power to select party candidates from the hands of the leaders, the introduction of mass participation in candidate selection (such as primary elections) can critically undermine the party leaders’ ability to induce compliance from elected party elites. This in turn opens the door to divided loyalties among intraparty elites as well as lower levels of party cohesion which can have pernicious electoral consequences for the party (Duverger, 1959; Pennings and Hazan, 2001; Field and Siavelis, 2008; Hazan and Rahat, 2010). Despite the apparent risks associated with relinquishing control over the candidate selection process, it is often the case that party leaders are compelled to shoulder the risks and open up the process to mass participation due to other overriding concerns. Existing research, for example, has found that faced with declining popular support or looming electoral defeat, party leaders often have to adopt party democratizing reforms as a means to re-engage and energize party supporters (Pennings and Hazan, 2001; Hopkin, 2001). Examining the case of Ghana, recent research has compellingly found that the party leadership bows to pressure from local party members to introduce primaries in strongholds (nominations in party strongholds are likely to culminate into a parliamentary seat, and is therefore likely to be more competitive), fearing that denying local party elites the opportunity to extract rents from primary aspirants may have negative implications for their party’s electoral performance (Ichino and Nathan, 2012). What, then, does the (voluntary or involuntary) adoption of mass participatory candidate selection mean for the party leader’s ability to retain control of the candidate selection pro- 5 cess, and thereby, the party elites in elected office? Somewhat understandably, the dominant narrative within the existing literature on the consequences of primary reforms has portrayed party leaders as passive actors who do little to nothing to fight the consequences of mass-driven candidate selection. Many of these studies begin from the premise that once primaries are introduced, the choice over party candidates is entirely determined by the preferences of the electorate participating in the primaries, and proceed to examine the effect of candidate characteristics such as candidate performance in constituency service or campaigning on primary voters (Izama and Raffler, N.d.; Ichino and Nathan, 2016). While these studies have combined innovative methods and novel data to examine primaries in the context of the developing world, overemphasis on the bottom-up factors shaping candidate selection seems to have underplayed the countervailing influences that party leaders can have in retaining their hold of party nominations even when they no longer have the de jure authority to exercising control. Party leaders are first and foremost politicians themselves, strongly motivated by their desire to remain in power. Given that the tenure of party leaders at the helm of the party is likely to be contingent on her ability to “whip” party elites into remaining loyal to them, party leaders have a strong incentive to insert themselves into candidate selection processes so that they can make sure loyalists are nominated and enemies are deselected. Evidence from earlier reforms adopted by Western European parties suggest that party leaders are often able to retain ultimate control over candidate selection despite the adoption of primary elections, and install candidates that they support (Hopkin, 2001; Katz, 2001). 2.2 Leader Endorsements, Primary Voters, and Candidate Selection How can party leaders attempt to retain control of the candidate selection process, even with the introduction of mass-participatory selection methods such as primaries? Amongst the many ways in which a party leader can attempt to influence the outcome of candidate selection, I consider one important strategy that has been frequently used by party leaders in new democracies: political endorsements. Building on the recent agenda-setting work on the electoral implication of elite endorsements in new democracies (Arriola, 2012; Baldwin, 2013; Koter, 2013), I argue that party leaders can often directly appeal to primary voters by using endorsements to signal his preference over aspirants competing in party primaries. Both the extensive use of this direct appeal strategy and its potential effectiveness in influencing primary voters are related first and foremost to the low-information conditions often associated with electoral competition in new democracies (Chandra, 2007; Ferree, 2010). In environments where there is little differentiation in terms of ideological or policy positions across both parties and candidates, voters are often compelled to rely on heuristic shortcuts that allow them approximate the behavior of the 6 fully-informed voter (Lupia, 1994; Lau and Redlawsk, 2001). Yet voting “correctly” is made more challenging in the context of primary elections because heuristic shortcuts that voters can rely on often become uninformative or irrelevant: first, party cues that traditionally act as powerful sources of information in elections with interparty competition is by definition rendered uninformative in the context of intraparty competition (Arceneaux, 2008; Sniderman and Stiglitz, 2012; Boudreau and MacKenzie, 2014). Furthermore, the usefulness of co-ethnicity , which has been found to be an important informational shortcut in multi-ethnic societies (Ferree, 2010; Arriola, Choi and Gichohi, 2016), is diminished in lower-tier elections such as legislative primaries because voters are seldom faced with a multi-ethnic aspirant pool with candidates who are members of ethnic outgroups (Carlson, 2015). Under circumstances in which widely-used heuristics are of limited utility, primary voters are obliged to seek alternative cues that they can rely on to choose the party candidate. The party leader’s endorsement (or denouncement) regarding primary aspirants becomes a highly persuasive alternative for primary voters in these contexts because of the privileged relationship forged between party leaders and their partisans in many patronage-based democracies (Chandra, 2007; Van de Walle, 2003). Political parties in these countries are seldom organized based on programmatic or ideological differences - rather, parties are often formed based on existing social cleavages across ascriptive identities such as race, ethnicity, or religion (Madrid, 2012; Elischer, 2013). When ascriptive loyalties become the basis of electoral mobilization in patronage democracies, elections, especially for national office such as the presidency, become a contest between these groups to secure future access to state resources. In this regard, party leaders often become synonymous with political representative of the identity groups, whose electoral success is likely the most important factor that structures the extent to which these groups will or will not benefit from the spoils of holding the national seat of power (Van de Walle, 2003, 2007) . Due to the link between the political success of party leaders and the material fate of the party (and thereby the identity groups that the party represents), partisans are likely to develop strong psychological attachments to the party leader herself, separate from the party. As Gichohi (2016) demonstrates in the context of Kenya, individuals demonstrate a high sense of linked fate not just towards members of their groups, but to the political leaders of their groups. This psychological attachment or sentiment towards the political leader is likely to endow heuristic value to the opinion of the leader, upon which voters may rely in making political decisions, including when they participate in party primaries to select the party candidate (Dawson, 1994). The party leader’s preferences over the pool of aspirants will factor in signifi- cantly when voters select the candidate precisely because they perceive the party leader’s preference and interest to be intertwined with their own. Rather than engage in the effort-intensive 7 task of acquiring information pertinent for the evaluation primary aspirants, partisans are likely to take the endorsement or denouncement of party leaders as an accurate assessment of how well-aligned or misaligned aspirants are with their interests. These arguments yield a number of testable predictions for the expected effects of party leader preferences over primary election outcomes. First, when primary voters are provided information on whether the aspirant was endorsed or denounced by the party leader, they are likely to adjust their evaluation of the aspirant so that it aligns with the opinion of the party leader. Second, because the strength of the endorsement heuristic, primary voters are likely to discount the value of other types of information that might otherwise affect their assessment of the aspirants. Third, voters are likely to perceive aspirants who are endorsed by the party leader to be more loyal to the party, party leader, and more willing to campaign extensively for the party leader to take the presidency. These three predictions constitute the main hypotheses to be tested in the empirical components of the paper. 3 The Case: Political Parties and Candidate Selection in Kenya 3.1 Political Parties and Electoral Politics Kenya has held five simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections since the reintroduction of multiparty elections in 1992, when the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) lifted the ban on opposition political parties from competing in elections. While elections in Kenya have gained the reputation of being highly controversial affairs, the credibility of which has been frequently questioned by international and domestic observers, most agree that the parliamentary elections have been conducted with much higher levels of integrity and order (Cheeseman, 2008). Under the new constitution that was implemented in 2013, there are a total of 349 members of the lower house of parliament (otherwise known as the national assembly), 290 of which are elected from single member district constituencies, with another 47 women representatives elected from each of the counties. The upper house (otherwise known as the senate) is comprised of 67 members, 47 of which are elected directly by the voters in the county under SMD rules. Since the democratic transition, Kenya’s party system has been characterized by high levels of fragmentation and volatility (Khadiagala, 2010). Political parties that emerged from the aftermath of KANU dominance were organized around ethnic interests, often revolving around powerful personalities whose status as ethno-regional kingpins enabled them to command an immediate en-bloc following amongst their coethnics (Elischer, 2013). The inability to win an outright victory in the presidential elections solely based on the support of their ethnic group 8 has often forced parties to pursue pre-electoral coalition arrangements that temporarily bring together party leaders and their ethnic group’s interests based on a post-election power-sharing scenario (Arriola, 2012). This duality - ethnic parties cum multi-ethnic coalitions - defines the Kenyan political landscape to this day. In the most recent 2013 general elections, the Jubilee Coalition, comprised of Uhuru Kenyatta’s The National Alliance (TNA) and William Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) among others, took the presidential election in the first round against the CORD Coalition, comprised of Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and Kalonzo Musyoka’s Wiper Democratic Movement (WDM). The Jubilee coalition also managed to take the majority in both chambers of parliament, taking 167 seats in the National Assembly and 30 seats in the Senate. Although the CORD coalition formed the minority in parliament (141 seats in the National Assembly, and 28 seats in the Senate), as an individual party ODM managed to win the largest number of seats for the National Assembly with 99 seats, and tied for first in the senate with 17 seats. 3.2 Candidate Selection for Legislative Office Party nominations for legislative office seem to have been a source of much controversy since the very early days of post-independence Kenya. During a time in which the only real electoral competition that KANU faced was the challenge posed by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s KPU, much anxiety amongst sitting members of parliament of KANU, and especially the backbenchers, over the possibility that the party leadership could unilaterally “deselect them out” of the party fomented elite pressure to introduce primary elections. (Hyden and Leys, 1972; Widner, 1993). Following the Ol Kalou declaration of 1969, in which 19 KANU MPs formally requested primary elections be adopted as KANU’s mode of candidate selection, President Jomo Kenyatta committed himself and the party to organizing primary elections for the selection of KANU candidates. The subsequent KANU primaries throughout the era of single party rule seem to be relatively well-regarded, competitive affairs in which anyone who could pass the nominal screening of the party apparatus could compete (Hyden and Leys, 1972; CGD, 2005). The same characterization cannot be made of party nominations of various political parties during the early periods of the multiparty era. Academic and journalistic accounts of party nominations since 1992 unequivocally demonstrate that processes laid out in party constitutions or governing documents for party nominations were seldom adhered to in practice (CGD, 2005; Cheeseman, 2008). Party leaders were central in these subversions of procedure: nominations were often conducted at the whim of the party leaders and a small number of cronies in the inner circle of the party leadership, with nomination certificates frequently being issued to aspirants who could demonstrate their loyalty to the party leaders (Khadiagala, 2010; Willis 9 and Chome, 2014). Even in settings where parties “held” primaries, the process was plagued by lack of organization and management, allegations of an unlevel playing field and favoritism, and even disruption in the voting process due to violence (CGD, 2005). The state of affairs improved somewhat for the nominations conducted prior to the 2007 and 2013 general elections. Starting with the 2007 elections, parties on both side of the aisle started holding primaries in their strongholds and swing constituencies where there were multiple aspirants competing for the party ticket. While not without problems, these were considered some of the earliest attempts to legitimately adopt primary elections to select party candidates (Cheeseman, 2008). The trend continued in the 2013 elections, when TNA, URP (Jubilee coalition), ODM, and to somewhat lesser degree WDM (CORD coalition) implemented primaries as the norm rather than the exception in most of the constituencies for which they fielded candidates. However, the implementation of primary elections does not mean that the party leaders relinquished their influence over who would eventually be selected as the party’s candidate. While there were highly-publicized defeats suffered by the party leaders’ allies during the party primaries in both 2007 and 2013 (Lynch, 2014), most of their closest allies managed to secure the party ticket. Numerous media accounts on party nominations during the 2013 elections suggest that party leaders were able to tap into their privileged relationship with their co-partisan supporters and use a carefully-calculated combination of explicit and implicit endorsements for aspirants closest to them.5 These journalistic observations are largely consistent with the accounts of aspirants who competed in the parliamentary primaries for the major political parties in 2007 and 2013. A parliamentary aspirant who unsuccessfully contested in the nomination for one of the major opposition parties, in recounting what happened in the run-up to the primaries said: “He (the party leader) all but endorsed one of the other candidates who was close to him and was holding an important position in the party. After that, it was almost impossible to campaign because everybody knew that this man had the support of the leader.6 " Even eventual winners in the primaries were willing to concede that the backing of the party leader was one of the most important factors that contributed to their victory in primaries: “... so when voters saw my development credentials and also saw the my party 5See for example, “Oduol is a project and an Enemy, Says PM”, The Star, February 8, 2013; “URP Aspirants in ‘Panic Campaigns’ Ahead of Nominations”, The Star, January 10, 2013; “Othaya MP Aspirants Oppose Kibaki, Uhuru Endorsement”, The Star, December 28, 2012 6Transcript of interview with an opposition aspirant, Interview Subject 2015-PO32, conducted on May 15, 2015. 10 leader was with me, they wanted me to get the party ticket.7 " “ ... I would be lying if I said it did not matter. ... but MPs must work closely with the party leader ... It is important that I have a close relationship with him.8 " Furthermore, many politicians agreed that the party leader’s endorsement is an important factor that will contribute to an aspirant’s success in the party primaries even in future elections. Out of the 34 former aspirants and sitting members of parliament that were asked, 29 of them (85%) answered that they expected that endorsements would play an important role for the success of a primary aspirant. 4 Study Design and Sample Selection 4.1 Study Design and Respondent Recruitment To examine the effect of party leader endorsements on partisan primary voters, I embedded two separate experimental studies within the context of a large scale voter survey conducted in four parliamentary constituencies in Nakuru and Kisumu county, Kenya.9 The survey was administered on a total of around 2400 self-identified likely TNA (incumbent) and ODM (opposition) primary voters in Nakuru town and Kisumu town, using hand-held electronic tablet devices. The two experimental designs embedded in the survey were chosen based on their respective strengths and weaknesses, and how the results from each would complement each other in drawing strong inferences regarding the effect of party leader endorsements. The details of each experimental design are presented in subsequent sections. Respondents were recruited through door-to-door canvassing using a random-walk method modeled after the Afrobarometer protocol for household survey sampling. Within each constituency, estates to be surveyed were chosen at random after being listed in pairs. Enumerators started from previously selected landmarks within the chosen estate and executed the walk method to identify households where interviewing would begin.10 In each household, enumerators followed the Kish grid method to determine which individual, over the age of 18, would be interviewed. After the respondent was identified, they were administered a short screening questionnaire that determined eligibility. Only those who were residents of the constituency, 7Transcript of interview with an Incumbent aspirant, Interview Subject 2015-PI4, conducted on Feb 8, 2015. 8Transcript of interview with an opposition aspirant, Interview Subject 2015-PO21, conducted on March 24, 2015. 9Nakuru town’s two parliamentary constituencies were Nakuru Town West and Nakuru Town East. Kisumu town’s two parliamentary constituencies were Kisumu Central and Kisumu East. The respondents were drawn from all four of these constituencies to maximize the geographic coverage within these locales. 10The exact walk protocol used varied by day. The details of the protocol are available upon request to the author. 11 Table 1: Sample Descriptive Statistics (N=2392) Variable Min Max Mean (SD) Female 0 1 0.51 (0.50) Voted in last election 0 1 0.81 (0.39) Registered party member 0 1 0.62 (0.49) Number of years in constituency 0 68 14.66 (12.20) Current living conditions (1=very bad) 1 5 3.31 (1.03) Presidential approval (1=completely disapprove) 1 7 4.71 (1.99) Opposition leaders approval (1=completely disapprove) 1 7 4.43 (2.07) Party feeling thermometer 0 100 76.20 (17.92) Party leader feeling thermometer 0 100 79.00 (18.66) Party leader job approval 1 7 5.90 (1.17) Party leader linked fate 1 4 2.60 (1.21) was either i) a registered party member or ii) reported that they had a close attachment towards either of the two parties, and iii) reported that they were likely to participate in the upcoming 2017 parliamentary primary elections were eligible to participate in the survey, pending their consent. Respondents received a mobile phone airtime voucher worth 100 Kenyan shillings ( ˜$1.00) after completing the interview as compensation for their time. After each successful interview, enumerators skipped a predetermined number of households and repeated this process until the day’s target was reached. 4.2 Sample Characteristics The resulting sample yields a total of 2392 likely incumbent (TNA) and opposition (ODM) primary voters. Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics on the final sample. The sample is almost exactly balanced on gender. By virtue of sampling self-identified likely primary voters, respondents seem to be active participants in politics, and have favorable evaluations of their political parties and their party leaders: 81% of the sample report having voted in the previous general election. 62% self-identified as registered party members. The average rating on the feeling thermometer for the political party is 76/100, while for the party leader, it is slightly higher at 79/100. Respondents on average strongly approve (6 on a 7 point likert scale) of their party leader’s job performance. Additionally, the sample is almost evenly split in terms of the number of incumbent and opposition supporters: 1205 out of the 2392 reported identifying with the ODM (opposition) and 1188 were aligned with TNA (incumbent). The two largest ethnic groups represented in the 12 sample are the Luo (39.1%) and Kikuyu (35.9%), who constitute the main ethnic support base for the ODM and TNA respectively. These two groups are followed by the Luhya (11.1%), Kisii (4.3%), Kalenjin (2.6%), and Kamba (2.0%). 5 Experiment 1: Conjoint Analysis 5.1 Experimental Design and Methods In order to test the effect of party leader endorsement on the choice of primary voters, I first employed a choice-based conjoint analysis. The features of conjoint analyses that allow for the simultaneous estimation of multiple treatment components enable me to compare the effect of leader endorsements against other potential factors (manipulated as candidate attributes) that influence vote choice in primary elections. Furthermore, as Hainmueller, Hopkins and Yamamoto (2013) argue, the discrete choice task that characterizes conjoint analysis closely mirrors what voters face in the ballot box for a typical election as they cast their vote for a single candidate from a set of candidates that differ along multiple attributes and dimensions. While only a handful of studies have examined the determinants of voter behavior specifi- cally in the context of primary elections, I combine the insights from those studies with other candidate attributes that have been found in prior research to influence vote choice in general election settings across Africa. These attributes and attribute levels are presented in Table 2. Profiles of fictitious aspirants for the TNA and ODM primaries were randomly generated using the attributes and attribute levels in Table 2. Though the total number of possible combination of attribute values is much larger than what would be actually observed in reality, the random assignment of attribute values11 guarantees that profiles with a certain attribute-attribute level combination will have the same distribution for all other attributes on average as compared to profiles with the same attribute but a different attribute value level, allowing for a simple comparison means. Following a pre-treatment survey measuring standard demographic information, the experimental respondents were presented with two profiles and asked “Which of these two candidates would you prefer to vote for in the TNA/ODM party primaries?”.12 Per 11For the candidate ethnic group attribute, we deviate from convention and do not assign with equal probability: instead, we use the population proportion of the ethnic groups based on the most recent census data on ethnic group distributions in Kenya. This is to mitigate concerns raised by enumerators and respondents during piloting that questioned the frequency with which candidate profiles with minority ethnic group membership were being generated. For constituencies in Nakuru county, the ethnicity of the candidate were assigned according to the following probability: Kikuyu 61%, Kalenin 15%, Kamba 6%, Luo 10%, Luhya 8%. For constituencies in Kisumu county, the probability was as follows: Kikuyu 1%, Kalenjin 2%, Kamba 1%, Luo 90%, Luhya 6%. These probabilities are accounted for in the analyses of the conjoint data. 12To minimize the possibility that respondents privilege the first attribute they encounter in the party profiles (primacy effects) to guide their choice, I randomize the order of the attribute presented across respondents, but 13 Table 2: Conjoint Analysis - Candidate Attributes and Attribute Levels Candidate Attributes Attribute Levels Current occuption Member of parliament (MP) Business owner Professor at a university School teacher Ethnic group Kikuyu/Kalenjin/Kamba/Luo/Luhya Gender Male/Female Previous government appointments Cabinet Minister Deputy Minister None Contribution to local development Largest donation to the school renovation project Did not donate to the school renovation project Largest donation for new health clinics Did not donate to new health clinics Provided bursaries for 150 children in the constituency Did not provide bursaries for children in the constituency Paid the hospital fee for 150 sick people Did not pay the hospital fee for sick people None (unknown) Record on corruption Convicted of corruption for handing out cash to voters Under investigation for embezzling funds for personal use No record of corruption Party leader’s position publicly stated that he strongly supports the candidate publicly stated that he does not support the candidate has not expressed his opinion about the candidate common practice in conjoint experiments, this process was repeated 3 times per respondent, for a total of 7,176 aspirant profile pairs and 14,352 individual aspirant profiles rated across the two study locations. 5.2 Results The quantity to be estimated is the average marginal component effect (AMCE). I use the fully non-parametric linear regression estimator presented in Hainmueller, Hopkins and Yamamoto (2013), and cluster the standard errors derived from the estimation at the respondent level.13 I also estimate the conditional AMCEs to detect heterogeneity in treatment effects across the two hold the order constant within the respondent. 13For example, the estimation of the AMCEs for party leader endorsement attribute is conducted by running the following regression: choi cei j k = θ1 +θ2[suppor ti j k = yes]+θ3[suppor ti j k = no]+²i j k (1) where choiceijk is the choice outcome, and [supportijk = yes], [supportijk = no] are dummy variables coded 1 if the respondents are assigned these attribute levels. The reference category is the candidate where the party leader has not expressed an opinion about the candidate. 14 different party samples. Figure 1: Effects of aspirant attributes on probability of being preferred in primary elections: Pooled sample - TNA and ODM Note: Pooled sample with both TNA and ODM primary voters. Estimates are based on the benchmark OLS model with standard errors clustered at the respondent level. The dots and lines represent point estimates for the AMCEs while the bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Rows without any estimates represent the reference categories within each attribute. Figure 1 and Figure A1 and A2 in Appendix A report the main findings of the conjoint analysis. The dots and lines in the plots represent the point estimates and 95% confidence intervals for the AMCEs of each attribute value on the probability that respondents chose the aspirant in the choice task. Rows without any estimates represent the reference categories within each attribute. The regression model that the plot was generated from is included in the online supplementary index. In support of the main hypothesis, likely primary voters of the two parties seem to strongly prefer aspirants who have been endorsed by the party leader: as seen in Figure 1, compared to an aspirant for whom the party leader has not expressed an opinion, endorsed aspirants are 8.1 percentage points (SE=0.9) more likely to be preferred in the party primaries. In comparison to an aspirant that has been denounced, an endorsed aspirant is more than 10 percentage points more likely to be chosen as the preferred candidate. This finding retains statistical significance 15 after correcting for multiple testing using the Benjamini-Hochberg FDR correction at an alpha level of 0.05. The results from the samples disaggregated by political party tells a similar story: as presented in Figure A1 and A2 in Appendix A, endorsed aspirants are around 8 percentage points more likely to be preferred as the party candidate in comparison to the baseline category of aspirants for whom the party has not expressed his opinion. The size of these effects across the two parties are remarkably similar (TNA - 8.4 percentage points, ODM - 7.8 percentage points), providing assurance that the effect of party leader endorsements in the pooled sample are not being driven by any one of the two parties included). Although I detect statistically significant effects for party leader endorsements, a few caveats are in order: first of all, the coefficient for the party leader endorsement attributes, while substantively large, is smaller than some of the other attributes included in the experimental design. For example, the AMCEs for the positive performance attribute levels in the “contribution to local development” attribute as well as the “record on corruption” attribute are more than two to three times larger than the coefficient for party leader endorsements (the coefficient for these attribute levels range from 17-27 percentage points). There are two potential interpretation of this large size differential: first, it maybe that the large effects for these candidate quality attributes reflect the importance African voters place on the performance of their politicians (Conroy-Krutz, 2013; Carlson, 2015; Adida et al., 2016). A second explanation might be that the relatively smaller effects for the endorsement attributes are the result of the non-specificity of the wording included in the conjoint design. Whereas the wording for the candidate quality attribute were generally more specific (invoking specific initiative and projects that the aspirant contributed to), the attribute for party leader endorsements were less specific in that it did not invoke the name of the party leader, and did not describe in any detail the context of the endorsement. Anecdotal accounts by survey enumerators suggest that many respondents asked follow up questions about the endorsement attribute, including inquiries about when and where the endorsement was given, and the overall nature of the relationship between the candidate and the party leader. Second, it is also worth noting that the effects of party leader endorsement and denouncements might be asymmetrical: consistently across the pooled sample and the disaggregated individual party samples, the size of the denouncement attribute level is significantly smaller than the endorsement attribute level, and is only marginally statistically significant at p<0.1. While the theoretical framework laid out in the previous section does not provide an a priori reason to expect this asymmetry, it might be reflective of the difference in how respond to positive versus negative information, and how that interacts with baseline expectations of politician behavior (Adida et al., 2016).14 14It is interesting that the asymmetry is observed for the aspirant performance attributes. In comparison to the 16 6 Experiment 2: Simulated Radio News Experiment 6.1 Experimental Design and Methods Despite the virtues of the conjoint design used in the first experiment, it is not without its weaknesses. For example, the presentation of candidate attributes in a condensed tabular format can restrict the level of detail with which information about the aspirant can be conveyed. As mentioned earlier, respondents often asked questions asking for an elaboration of the information provided in the profile pairs. Furthermore, while the choice task itself does mirror the multi-dimensional choice voters often have to make in the voting booth, the existence of a sideby-side comparison of candidates as a reference is unlikely and somewhat artificial. It is often the case voters are exposed to information on political aspirants well before stepping into the ballot box from various sources including interpersonal information transmission, newspapers, and radio/TV broadcast media. In order to mirror the way in which information about aspirant candidature is conveyed and presented to voters in everyday life, I implemented a second experiment where I use a simulated radio news segment closely modeled after typical news coverage of political candidates and campaigns by national and local radio news stations. Audio-visual treatments have recently been used with some success for experimental research in Africa (McCauley, 2014; McClendon and Riedl, 2015), including in my prior work with coauthors (Arriola, Choi and Gichohi, 2016). Post-survey reports from enumerators indicate that significant proportion of respondents perceived the candidates portrayed in the news segment to be real contestants in the upcoming party primaries.15 The experimental manipulation involved providing likely TNA and ODM primary voters information on an aspirant putatively seeking the TNA or ODM party nomination for the local parliamentary seat. The content of the audio news segment that delivered this information varied in terms of whether i) the aspirant received an endorsement from their respective party leaders (Raila Odinga for ODM and Uhuru Kenyatta for TNA), other elected local party elites (members of county assembly) or did not receive an endorsement at all and ii) the aspirant’s performance on providing services to the constituency.16 The addition of the second dimenbaseline category where no information was given regarding the performance of the aspirant, the AMCEs for the attribute levels with negative information on the aspirant’s performance were not statistically distinguishable from zero. This also lends suggestive evidence in support of the idea that respondents are reacting to and processing positive versus negative information in different ways. 15I opted for an audio rather than a video treatment to minimize the possibility that experimental results would be subject to heterogeneity induced by the perceived difference in the delivery of treatments. The result is that the fully edited audio recordings are all within two seconds in length of each other. The exceptions are those recordings for which the non-endorsement script was much shorter by design. 16In order to mitigate concerns of order effects, I randomized the order in which the two dimensions were pre- 17 Table 3: Treatment Assignment Matrix for Radio News Experiment Candidate Performance High Low Endorsement Leader Endorses (1) N=227 (6) N=219 MCAs Endorse (2) N=220 (7) N=247 Leader Denounces (3) N=257 (8) N=255 MCAs Denounce (4) N=262 (9) N=215 No opinion (5) N=239 (10) N=252 sion manipulated in the treatment was in response to the emerging narrative in the recent literature in African voting behavior: that voters in African democracies are “performance voters” that privilege the candidate’s credentials on her ability to deliver local public goods and particularistic benefits (Conroy-Krutz, 2013; Weghorst and Lindberg, 2013; Harding, 2015).17 18 The experiment follows a 5 x 2 factorial design. For the leader endorsement/denouncement component of treatment, five different levels were assigned: first, where the party leader purportedly endorses the candidate, second, where party-affiliated local politicians (MCAs) endorse the candidate, third, where the party leader purportedly denounces the candidate, fourth, where party-affiliated local politicians (MCAs) denounce the candidate, and finally fifth, where there is no information on whether the candidate was endorsed.19 The no endorsement condition was included as the reference category. For the performance arm of the treatment, two levels were assigned: one where the candidate has a positive development record (high candidate performance), or a negative development record (low candidate performance). Respondents sented in the audio file. The results presented hereafter are not vulnerable to the order in which the information was provided. 17While the dominant narrative in the African voting behavior literature is ethnic voting (see Adida (2015) for a recent experimental analysis on the effect of coethnicity), I do not compare the effect of leader endorsements against candidate coethnicity with the respondent because of the geographically clustered nature of ethnic groups in Africa. Carlson (2015) argues that voters in Africa are highly “unlikely to encounter non-coethnic candidates in races for subnational office.” Given that the experiment is running in the context of a parliamentary primary contest in Nakuru and Kisumu, two towns inhabited by a majority of ethnic Kikuyus and Luos respectively, the aspirant portrayed in the audio clips are set to be Kikuyu and Luo respectively - i.e. the majority ethnic group of that region. 18By comparing comparing the effect of endorsements against the candidate’s performance on constituency service, I subject it to a hard test against a candidate attribute that has been repeatedly demonstrated to have a statistically significant and substantively large effect on voters (as is also demonstrated in the first experiment). It is also a particularly hard test since existing literature on the effect of elite endorsements centers around the idea that endorsements affects voters by altering their expectations about the politician’s performance on service delivery (Baldwin, 2013) 19I include this MCA level to the endorsement treatment to differentiate between the effect of party leader endorsement and an endorsement by other lower-level party politicians. Comparing the effect of party leader endorsements or denouncements to those issued by other political actors prevents us from conflating the effect of a party leader endorsement with the effect of any endorsement regardless of the identity of the endorser. 18 were randomly assigned to one of the 10 treatment conditions until the target total sample size of 2,400 was reached across the two locations (1200 respondents in Nakuru, 1200 respondents in Kisumu). A tabular presentation of the treatment categories and the actual number of respondents assigned to each category is included in Table 3. After completing a brief distractor task, respondents were exposed to the experimental treatment on an electronic tablet device either in the language of their choice: Swahili or English. The subjects were then asked a battery of post-treatment questions measured on a 7 point scale, including our main outcome of interest “How likely are you to vote for the candidate in the TNA/ODM party primaries?”. 6.2 Results: Intention-to-Treat Analysis Do the endorsement and denouncement of party leaders affect primary voter’s evaluation of candidates? In accordance with the pre-registered analysis plan, I take an intention-to-treat analysis approach, where I simply compare the average responses among respondents assigned to each treatment and control condition. While this approach identifies the causal effect of treatment assignment, experimental non-compliance makes it highly likely that the results from this analysis is an underestimate of the treatment effect. I therefore also estimate the complier average causal effect (CACE) for the main results. Leader Endorsement/Denouncement Effects Table 4 presents the main findings for the second experiment. In columns (1)-(3), I present the estimated intention-to-treat effects (ITTs) of the party leader endorsement treatments on the main outcome (primary vote intention) vis-à-vis the pure control conditions for the pooled sample as well as the sample disaggregated by party (TNA and ODM). Columns (4)-(6) similarly presents the estimated ITTs of the party leader denouncement treatments. The first row of each panel in Table 4 presents the ITTs while the second presents estimated robust standard errors from linear regression. In line with the evidence found in the first experiment, I find robust evidence that party leader endorsements and denouncements have a strong effect on partisan evaluation of primary aspirants. As seen in Column (1), the average primary vote intention for the aspirant who is endorsed by the party leader is almost a full point (0.953) larger than the average vote intention of an aspirant who has neither been endorsed nor denounced by the party leader. The primary vote intention of an aspirant who, on the other hand, has been denounced by the party leader is 0.64 points smaller than that of an aspirant who has neither been endorsed nor denounced. Both of these differences are statistically significant at p<0.001, and survive the 19 Table 4: Party Leader Endorsements / Denouncements and Primary Vote Intentions Leader Endorsement Effects Leader Denouncement Effects (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) ITTa 0.953 1.115 0.817 -0.647 -0.808 -0.486 SEb (0.105) (0.127) (0.163) (0.114) (0.144) (0.177) Sample Pooled TNA ODM Pooled TNA ODM N 937 449 488 1003 506 497 R 2 0.080 0.138 0.049 0.031 0.058 0.015 Leader Endorsement Effects Leader Denouncement Effects (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) CACEc 1.252 1.435 1.117 -0.695 -0.841 -0.501 SEd (0.158) (0.236) (0.226) (0.186) (0.276) (0.262) Sample Pooled TNA ODM Pooled TNA ODM N 711 284 427 777 341 436 R 2 0.052 0.134 0.018 0.042 0.050 0.028 a Estimated Average Intention-to-Treat Effects (ITTs) of the party leader endorsement / denouncement treatments on the main outcome (vote intention in primary elections), pooling across performance dimensions. ATEs are estimated against pure controls in which no endorsement information was provided. b Robust standard errors (SEs) from linear regression analysis. c Complier Average Causal Effects (CACEs) are estimated using Two-Stage least squares (2SLS) regression in which the first stage regresses the compliance status indicator variable against the treatment assignment indicator. d Robust standard errors (SEs) from 2SLS regression analysis. Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple testing at an FDR of 0.05.20 One of the inferential concerns in the experiment is that subjects may not perceive themselves to be in the intended treatment condition to which they were randomly assigned. For example, even when a respondent was exposed to a radio news segment in which the primary aspirant was endorsed by the party leader, they might perceive the aspirant to be denounced by the party leader. Imperfect compliance is a cause for concern because I am interested in estimating the effect of respondents perceiving aspirants to be supported or denounced by the party leader on the primary vote intentions. In the post-treatment survey, I embedded manipulation check questions designed to probe whether respondents could correctly identify (or 20Since the main outcome is measured on a 7 point scale, I subject the findings on party leader endorsements to a series of robustness checks with non-parametric tests. While I do not include the results of that analysis here, both the two-sample Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney rank sum test and the two-sample Komolgorov-Smirnov test, which is known to behave highly conservatively when used for discrete distributions (Conover 1972), replicate the results from the parametric tests. 20 recall) the aspirant portrayed in the news segment was endorsed, denounced, or received neither endorsement nor denouncement from either the party leader or local MCAs. While I do not present the detailed results for the manipulation checks, on average only around 75-80% of respondents were able to correctly recall the information regarding the aspirant portrayed in the radio news segment. Given that non-compliance tends to dilute the effects of treatment, I estimate the complier average causal effects (CACEs) using the standard instrumental variables approach in which I use the assignment to treatment status as an instrument for actual treatment receipt. Results from the Two-Stage least squares (2SLS) regression in which the first stage regresses the treatment receipt indicator against the assignment to treatment indicator are reported in columns (7)-(12) in Table 4. As expected, the size of the local average treatment effect of party leader endorsements amongst compliers are appreciably larger than the estimates of the intentionto-treat analysis: the CACE for the leader endorsement effect is 1.252 on a 7 point scale, around 30% larger than the ITT estimate. The difference between the ITT and CACE estimates are smaller for the denouncement effect: the CACE is 0.048 points larger, or 7.5% larger than the ITT. Figure 2: Effects of Party Leader Endorsements/Denouncements: Pooling across Performance Dimension, TNA and ODM Sample Note: Pooled sample with both TNA and ODM primary voters. The figure reports point estimates for the mean of each treatment condition. The thick and thin lines represent 95 and 99% confidence intervals for the means. The difference in means is derived from a standard two-tailed t-test. ***p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. The results survive the Benjamini-Hochberg FDR corrections at an FDR of 0.05. 21 The magnitude of the party leader endorsement and denouncement effects are substantively large and important. To illustrate the substantive changes, Figure 2 plots the average evaluations for the primary aspirant based on whether the party leader endorsed the aspirant, denounced the aspirant, or there was no endorsement offered, pooling across the performance dimension for both TNA and ODM primary voters.21 Figure 2 shows that the mean vote intention for the aspirant who was endorsed by the party leader (5.29) is on average 22% larger than the mean vote intention of an aspirant who has neither been endorsed nor denounced by the party leader (4.33). Movement from a 4 (neither likely nor unlikely to support) to a 5 (somewhat likely to support) on the 7 point likert scale of vote intentions means that on average, the party leader’s endorsement moves the otherwise ambivalent primary voter towards becoming favorable towards the aspirant. The mean evaluation of an aspirant who, on the other hand, has been denounced by the party leader (3.69) is on average 15% smaller than that of an aspirant who has neither been endorsed nor denounced (4.33). Movement from a 4 (neither likely nor unlikely to support) to a 3 (somewhat unlikely to support) on the vote intention scale signifies that a party leader’s denouncement will make an ambivalent voter to lean towards not supporting the aspirant. The magnitude of endorsement/denouncement effects can be appreciated when we consider the differential between an aspirant who has been endorsed by the party leader to an aspirant who has been denounced by the party leader: moving from a denounced aspirant to an endorsed aspirant leads to a 1.6 point (or 43%) increase in primary vote intention, meaning that primary voters will switch from leaning against voting to leaning towards voting for the aspirant. These results are replicated when the sample is disaggregated by party: as seen in columns (2), (3), (5), and (6) in Table 4 as well as Figure 3, both TNA and ODM primary voters adjusted their vote intentions for the aspirant when their party leaders, Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, endorsed or denounced the aspirant. Interestingly, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s assessment of the candidate seems to have a larger impact on his co-partisan (TNA) primary voters than Raila Odinga’s opinion has over his co-partisans (ODM). While the effect of both leader’s endorsement of the candidate has a large and statistically significant effect, the size of the effect of Kenyatta’s endorsement (1.13 on a 7 point scale) is around 30% larger than the effect of Odinga’s endorsement (0.81 on a 7 point scale). Similarly, the size of the effect of Kenyatta’s denouncement (0.81 on a 7 point scale) is larger than that of Odinga’s (0.46 on a 7 point scale). This finding is contrary to qualitative accounts of both local political analysts22 and politicians23 21The large dot represent point estimates for the mean of each condition, and the thick and thin lines represent 90% and 95% confidence intervals for the means. The difference in means across the categories, marked with the horizontal brackets on the plot, are derived from standard two-tailed t-tests. 22Transcript of interview with political journalist, Interview Subject 2016-EJ8, conducted on June 10, 2016 23Transcript of interview with sitting members of parliament, Interview Subject 2015-PI24, conducted on April 22 Figure 3: Effects of Party Leader Endorsements/Denouncements: Pooling across Performance Dimension, Disaggregated by Party (a) TNA (Incumbent) Party (b) ODM (Opposition) Party Note: Sample disaggregated by party. The figure reports point estimates for the mean of each treatment condition. The thick and thin lines represent 95 and 99% confidence intervals for the means. The difference in means is derived from a standard two-tailed t-test. ***p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.01. The results survive the Benjamini-Hochberg FDR corrections at an FDR of 0.05. themselves, who often suggested that Odinga’s influence over his co-partisans would be much larger than Kenyatta’s. While it is unclear why this disparity in effect sizes exists, a possibility is that it reflects the prolonged exposure of partisans to news coverage over the contentious nature of ODM primaries in the run-up to the 2017 elections, in which allegations of favoritism and cronyism were repeatedly played. Are the endorsement effects outlined in the preceding paragraphs uniquely attributable to the party leader and his influence over his co-partisans? Without additional evidence, it is dif- ficult to confirm whether or not the treatment effect observed here is attributable to the party leaders themselves or whether a generic endorsement from any other political or non-political actor would have had similar effects on aspirant evaluations. By virtue of the setup of the experiment, however, it is possible to get some traction into this important point: in the design, I also included a condition in which a locally-elected party elite (member of county assembly, hereafter MCA) also endorses/denounces the aspirant. Given the growing importance of local politicians such as MCAs in the context of Kenya (Arriola, Choi and Gichohi, 2016), comparing 24, 2015; Interview Subject 2015-PO27, conducted May 2, 2015 23 the effect of party leader endorsements effects to MCA endorsement effects constitutes an important first hurdle. Figure B1 in Appendix B overlays the MCA endorsement/denouncement conditions to Figure 2. As is clear from the results of the difference in means tests, the mean vote intention of the party leader endorsement condition is around 0.52 points higher than the MCA endorsement condition. Similar results hold for the denouncement conditions. Combined with baseline comparisons in Table 3 and Figure 2, these findings suggest that party leaders have a substantively large influence over primary voters and how they evaluate candidates. Evaluation of Other Candidate Attributes: Potential Mechanisms While the design of the second experiment does not give us full inferential leverage over the potential mechanisms that might be driving these findings, it does present us with some suggestive hints. Figure 4: Mechanisms - Party Leader Endorsement/Denouncement Effects (a) Leader Endorsed - No Endorsement (b) Leader Denounced - No Endorsement Note: The thick and thin lines represent 95 and 99% confidence intervals for the means. The difference in means is derived from a standard two-tailed t-test. Results of the analyses used to generate this figure is presented in Table B1, Appendix B. Figure 4 first presents the results of difference in means across the party leader endorsement/ denouncement conditions and the no endorsement control conditions for post-treatment evaluations on various aspirant attributes: these were perceived loyalty to the party, loyalty to the party leader, willingness to campaign for the party to take the presidency, ability to help the 24 constituency, likelihood of becoming the MP, and trustworthiness. Interestingly, aspirants with party leader endorsements are favored over aspirants with no endorsement across all 6 of the attribute evaluation survey items. The converse is true for aspirants who are denounced by the party leader. The difference in means for aspirant evaluations across the six survey items are always negative, meaning that aspirants who were denounced by the party leader were rated poorly in comparison a candidate without an endorsement. While the largest differences are observed in the perceived loyalty of the aspirant towards the party leader and the party, the fact that there are statistically significant differences across all the survey items prevent us from triangulating on which of the aspirant characteristics can be held accountable for the shift in overall vote intention. However, an interpretation of these data is that, as predicted in the theoretical section of the paper, the party leader’s endorsement or denouncement had a profound effect on the how respondents evaluate primary aspirants, across multiple dimensions including evaluations about the candidate’s anticipated job performance for which respondents were provided with explicitly had countervailing information in the treatment. Can Leader Endorsement Effects Counteract the Effects of Aspirant Quality/Performance? The design of the experiment also allowed me to manipulate the nature of the information on aspirant quality/performance simultaneously with the endorsement dimensions. By doing so, I can investigate the extent to which the aspirant’s prior performance (in this context, how much he/she contributed to constituency service and local development) affects voter evaluation of the primary aspirant. Figure 5 presents the results of the analysis, for which I pooled across all the endorsement dimensions. The findings are largely similar to that of the first experiment: primary voters reward good performance. The mean primary vote intention for a high performance aspirant (4.88) is 0.8 points larger than that of a low performance aspirant. This difference is statistically significant at the p<0.001 level, and is robust to other non-parametric tests and survives the Benjamini-Hochberg adjustment for multiple testing. How does the size of the performance effect compare with the effect of endorsements or denouncements? One of the surprising findings that emerged from the conjoint analysis presented earlier was that the effects of party leader endorsements, while substantively large and statistically significant, were substantially smaller in magnitude than the effects of aspirant performance in service delivery and record of corruption. In order to assess whether we observe similar patterns in the second experiment, I leverage the factorial design of the experiment. The corresponding results are presented in Table 5. The basic intuition behind the statistical tests presented in Table 5 is that if the magnitude of party leader endorsements and denouncement are indeed large and significant, it should be able to offset the evaluation gap induced by the difference in aspirant quality or performance. For example, if the impact of party leader 25 Figure 5: Effects of Candidate Quality/Performance: Pooling across Endorsement Dimension, TNA and ODM Sample Note: Pooled sample with both TNA and ODM primary voters. The figure reports point estimates for the mean of each treatment condition. The thick and thin lines represent 95 and 99% confidence intervals for the means. The difference in means is derived from a standard two-tailed t-test. ***p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. The results survive the Benjamini-Hochberg FDR corrections at an FDR of 0.05. endorsements is large enough, there should be little to no observed difference between a low performance aspirant who has been endorsed by the party leader and a high performance aspirant. Conversely, if the impact of party leader denouncements is sufficiently large, there should be little to no observable difference between the evaluation of a high performance aspirant who has been denounced by the party leader and a low performance candidate. As the results presented in Table 5 suggest, the findings from the second experiment runs counter to the findings from the conjoint analysis: the effects of party leader endorsements and denouncements are large enough that they often offset the effect that aspirant quality/ performance has on aspirant evaluations. For example, Test 1 of Table 5 shows that there is no statistically significant difference between a high performance aspirant without an endorsement and a low performance aspirant who has the endorsement of the party leader. Similarly, Test 3 of Table 5 shows that there is only a marginally significant difference between a low performance aspirant without an endorsement and a high performance aspirant who has been denounced by the party leader. In some cases, the effects of party leader endorsements and denouncements overpower the combined effect of aspirant performance and the endorsement or denouncement of a local politician: as Test 2 shows, the difference in the evaluation of a low 26 Table 5: Party Leader Effects versus Aspirant Performance Effects Diff. in means Sig. w/FDR correction Rank sum test (p-value) K-S test (p-value) Test 1. T6 - T5 : Low performance, leader endorsed - High performance, no endorsement -0.046 No 0.972 1.000 Test 2. T6 - T2 : Low performance, leader endorsed - High performance, MCA endorsed -0.287* No 0.054 0.253 Test 3. T3 - T10 : High performance, leader denounced - Low performance, no endorsement 0.299* No 0.064 0.395 Test 4. T3 - T8 : High performance, leader denounced - Low performance, MCA denounced 0.477** Yes 0.005 0.013 a Difference-in-means are assessed using a standard two-tailed t test. ***p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. For the multiple testing adjustment, I use the Benjamin-Hochberg FDR correction at an FDR of 0.05. b Tests included in this table are pre-registered in the analysis plan. The number following the alphabet T refers to a specific treatment condition, as labeled in Table 3. performance aspirant with a party leader endorsement is only marginally smaller than a high performance aspirant with an MCA endorsement. Furthermore, any statistically significant differences except for test 4 disappear when I adjust the p-values for multiple testing using the B-H correction. Heterogeneous Treatment Effects The results thus far have demonstrated that the effect of party leader endorsements and denouncements have a large impact on the vote intention of partisan primary voters, and that the size of the effects are sometimes large enough to offset the effect of aspirant performance. I have also found some suggestive evidence that the endorsement and denouncement effects are likely mediated by the voter’s assessment regarding the aspirant’s attributes, including loyalty towards the party, the party leader, and his anticipated job performance. In this section, I assess whether the effect of party leader endorsements and denouncements are moderated by certain respondent attributes and characteristics: are certain types of partisan primary voters likely to respond more strongly to the opinion of their party leaders? For example, are partisans with a stronger sense of linked fate with the party leader more inclined to listen to the opinion of the party leader? Are the party leader’s coethnic partisans primarily responsible for the endorsement and denouncement effects? Are the endorsement effects moderated by the respondent’s prior evaluation of the party leader’s job performance? Do low information voters in particular 27 privilege the word of the party leader to caste their vote in the party primaries? In order to test how the effect of leader endorsements and denouncements are moderated, I conduct a heterogeneous treatment effects analysis where I regress our main outcome against four moderators measured at the individual level, the treatment indicators, and the interactions of the moderators and treatment indicators. The four moderators, as specified in the pre-analysis plan are 1) level of linked fate with the party leader, 2) coethnicity with the party leader, 3) job approval of the party leader, and 4) level of respondent political knowledge. I also included a battery of respondent characteristics including gender, religion, ethnicity, and a self-assessment of their living conditions and location fixed effects as controls. The specific regression equation estimated was as follows: Yi = β0 +β1Moder atori +β2Ti +β3Moder atori ×Ti +β4Xi +δj +²i (2) where Ti denotes the treatment status of the respondent, Xi is a vector of individual-level covariates measured pre-treatment, and δj is a dummy for respondent location. The results of the analyses are presented in Table 6. Columns (1) and (5) shows the results for whether the treatment effect for party leader endorsements and denouncements are moderated by respondent’s perception of linked fate with the party leader. The evidence seems to be asymmetrical: individuals who report higher levels of linked fate with the party leader respond more strongly to the endorsement treatment, as observed in the large positive sign of the interaction term between linked fate and the treatment status indicator. The effect is statistically significant at p<0.05. The moderating effects of linked fate, however, are not observed in relation to the denouncement treatment: the coefficient for the interaction term between the linked fate measure and the treatment indicator is positive, but is not statistically signifi- cant at conventional levels. The same asymmetry is observed for the coethnicity with the party leader. Whereas individuals who are coethnics of the party leader are more likely to be supportive of a primary aspirant who has been endorsed by the party leader (marginally significant at p<0.10), no such moderating effects are observed for coethnicity regarding the denouncement treatments. Neither the prior levels of approval for the party leader nor the level of the respondent’s political knowledge seem to be moderating the effect of party leader endorsements and denouncements: none of the multiplicative terms, reported in columns (3), (4), (7), (8), meet standard levels of statistical significance. 28 Table 6: Heterogeneous Effects of Leader Endorsements/Denouncements Leader Endorsement Treatment Leader Denouncement Treatment (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) Linked Fatea -0.090 (0.084) -0.147* (0.084) Linked Fate x Tr 0.253** (0.105) 0.159 (0.116) Coethnicb -0.501* (0.200) -0.635*** (0.219) Coethnic x Tr 0.402* (0.231) 0.294 (0.255) Leader Approvalc -0.008 (0.075) -0.037 (0.077) Lr. Approval x Tr 0.055 (0.104) 0.033 (0.113) Low Knowledged 0.083 (0.273) 0.052 (0.271) Lo Knowledge x Tr -0.102 (0.367) -0.072 (0.421) Treatment 0.944*** (0.104) 0.656*** (0.194) 0.955*** (0.106) 0.963*** (0.110) -0.663*** (0.113) -0.885*** (0.216) -0.654*** (0.114) -0.648*** (0.119) Controls X X X X X X X X Location FE X X X X X X X X Sample Pooled (TNA + ODM) Pooled (TNA + ODM) N 936 937 937 937 1002 1003 1003 1003 R 2 0.093 0.093 0.088 0.087 0.045 0.050 0.042 0.042 Robust standard errors in parentheses. ***p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. All variables except for dichotomous variables are standardized for the analyses. a Linked fate is measured using the question “Do you think what happens to your party leader will affect what happens in your life? If yes, how much will it affect you?” Responses were recorded on a 4 point scale ranging from 1 (None) to 4 (Yes, a lot). b A dichotomous variable indicating whether the respondent was a coethnic of the party leader. c Leader approval is measured using the question “Do you approve or disapprove of the way the party leader of [insert party name here] is handling his job? Responses were recorded on a standard 7 point likert scale. d Coded based on an open-ended question asking the respondent to name the current MP of her constituency, as well as the MP’s party affiliation. Low knowledge is a dichotomous variable that takes on a value of 1 when the respondent failed to correctly identify both the name and the party affiliation of the MP. Overall, the results of the exploratory analyses adds partial credence to the idea that linked fate and coethnicity between the party leader and respondents will moderate the effect of party leader endorsements, providing some corroboration to the theoretical discussion presented in section 2. While we find very little evidence of further moderating effects with regard to respondent evaluation of leaders and their level of political knowledge, this maybe due to the limited variation on these characteristics within our sample: almost 90% of respondents have a favorable evaluation of the party leader’s job performance, while only 10% of respondents incorrectly stated both the name and the party of their current MP. It is also worth highlighting 29 again that the analyses conducted here are exploratory, and any conclusions that can be drawn are tentative. 7 Discussion and Conclusion In this paper, I developed an argument regarding why and how party leaders in new democracies may attempt to retain their grip over candidate selection processes even when intraparty institutional reforms have removed the de jure authority for them to do so. I argued that contrary to the existing literature, party leaders are incentivized to influence the outcome of bottom-up processes of candidate selection such as primaries because they have no guarantee that the grassroots elections will select candidates who are loyal and compliant with them. Given that divided loyalties among elected party elites have the potential to undermine the party leader’s position within the party, party leaders will resort to strategies that attempt to directly induce to primary voters to “vote with the party leader”. I also argued that one of the most common and potentially influential strategies are endorsements and denouncements issued by the party leader to her followers informing them of their preferences over a specific aspirant. The strong sense of linked fate forged between party leaders and partisans endows heuristic value to the endorsement or denouncement, which voters rely on to make evaluations about aspirants during primary elections. I test the implication of the theory that party leader endorsements will have a strong persuasive effect for primary vote choice and candidate evaluations. Using two separate experimental designs implemented on a large sample of 2392 likely primary voters of two major incumbent and opposition political parties in Kenya, I show consistently that party leader endorsements and denouncements have a strong effect on primary vote intention and candidate evaluation. The effects are substantively large, and often counteracts the effect of other relevant information about the aspirant. They are also robust to corrections for multiple testing, a common problem for analysis of experimental data. While the study has provided some interesting insights regarding the development of parties in new democracies, I raise some potential for follow-up projects or extensions. First of all, while beyond the scope of the paper, a detailed descriptive analysis of these party leader endorsements and denouncements - for example, under what conditions these strategies are employed and what specific forms these take - was wanting throughout the paper, and is likely to be an important contribution to the study of candidate selection and party politics more broadly. Second, while special attention was paid to enhance the reality of the radio news treatments in the second experiment, the inherently artificial nature of being aware that one is being studied - a common problem for much of the survey-based research - possibly warrants an ex- 30 tension of this project into an observational or field experimental setting where the effects of real world endorsements are analyzed vis-a-vis real-world electoral data. 31 Appendix A: Auxiliary Figures for Experiment 1 Figure A1: Effects of aspirant attributes on probability of being preferred in primary elections Note: Results from ODM (opposition) primary voters. Estimates are based on the benchmark OLS model with standard errors clustered at the respondent level. The dots represent point estimates for the AMCEs while the bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Rows without any estimates represent the reference categories within each attribute. 32 Figure A2: Effects of aspirant attributes on probability of being preferred in primary elections Note: Results from TNA (incumbent) primary voters. Estimates are based on the benchmark OLS model with standard errors clustered at the respondent level. The dots represent point estimates for the AMCEs while the bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Rows without any estimates represent the reference categories within each attribute. 33 Appendix B: Auxiliary Figures for Experiment 2 Figure B1: Effects of Party Leader Endorsements/Denouncements: Pooling across Performance Dimension Note: Pooled sample with both TNA and ODM primary voters. The figure reports point estimates for the mean of each treatment condition. The thick and thin lines represent 95 and 99% confidence intervals for the means. The difference in means is derived from a standard two-tailed t-test. ***p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. The results survive the Benjamini-Hochberg FDR corrections at an FDR of 0.05. 34 Table B1: The Effect of Party Leader Endorsements / Denouncements A. Party Leader Endorsement Effects Primary Vote Loyal to Party Loyal to Leader Campaign for Party Help Const. Trustworthiness (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) ITTa 0.953 0.823 1.046 0.867 0.644 0.652 SEb (0.105) (0.089) (0.084) (0.092) (0.099) (0.095) N 937 936 923 921 924 929 R 2 0.080 0.083 0.140 0.087 0.043 0.072 B. Party Leader Denouncement Effects Primary Vote Loyal to Party Loyal to Leader Campaign for Party Help Const. Trustworthiness (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) ITTa -0.647 -1.089 -1.471 -1.067 -0.562 -0.854 SEb (0.114) (0.100) (0.102) (0.109) (0.111) (0.102) N 1003 1001 985 989 987 995 R 2 0.031 0.105 0.174 0.087 0.025 0.065 a Estimated Intention-to-Treat Effects (ITTs) of the party leader endorsement / denouncement treatments on the main outcome (vote intention in primary elections) and other candidate evaluations, pooling across performance dimensions. ATEs are estimated against pure controls in which no endorsement information was provided. b Robust standard errors (SEs) from linear regression analysis. c All results survive the Benjamini-Hochberg FDR correction at an FDR of 0.05 35 Appendix C: News Script for Experiment 2 News script for Experimental Treatment English script Anchor: This is the news in Brief from KRN. I am Beatrice [Okelo/Njoroge]. Today, aspiring candidate for Member of Parliament, John [Oduor/Mwangi], addressed a gathering of constituents to officially announce his intention to seek the [ODM/TNA] nomination for the 2017 elections. During the rally, he spoke of his political qualifications and urged voters to support him during the [ODM/TNA] primaries scheduled for early next year. Candidate: I am a proud member of this community and have served this community for many years. But our current leaders have repeatedly failed to deliver on their promises and we have had enough. Today, I am announcing my intention to run for MP on an [ODM/TNA] party ticket. I ask party members and voters of [Kisumu/Nakuru] to support my candidacy in the [ODM/TNA] primaries as well as the general elections in 2017. Anchor: By throwing his name into the mix, Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi] enters an already crowded field of candidates for the [ODM/TNA] ticket. Many see the [ODM/TNA]] ticket as guaranteeing the MP seat in an area dominated by [TNA/ODM]. Performance Dimension (1) Candidate Performance High: Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi] is well-known for his strong record of involvement in the constituency’s development initiatives, including his major donations to the school and classroom renovation initiative as well as his financial assistance for constituents who cannot afford to pay for medical bills. (2) Candidate Performance Low: Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi], is a newcomer to the political scene, with only a limited record of involvement in the constituency’s community-driven development initiatives, to which many constituents expect aspiring politicians to make significant donations. Endorsement Dimension (1) Leader Endorsement: Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s campaign is hopeful that primary voters will choose him as the [ODM/TNA] candidate, given Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s strong relationship with [ODM party leader Raila Odinga/TNA party leader Uhuru Kenyatta]. [Raila Odinga/Uhuru Kenyatta] is known to be strongly supportive of Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s candidacy and his dedication to [ODM/TNA]. (2) MCA Endorsement: Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s campaign is hopeful that primary voters will choose him as the [ODM/TNA] candidate, given Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s strong relationship with local [ODM MCAs/TNA MCAs]. Many local MCAs are known to be strongly supportive of Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s candidacy, and his dedication to [ODM/TNA]. 36 (3) Leader Denouncement: Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s campaign dismissed concerns that he has had a falling out with party leader [Raila Odinga/Uhuru Kenyatta]. Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi] was noticeably missing from events attended by [Raila Odinga/Uhuru Kenyatta] during his recent visit to [Kisumu/Nakuru]. Mr. [Odinga/Kenyatta] is known to be highly skeptical of Mr. [Oduor/ Mwangi]’s candidacy and his dedication to [ODM/TNA]. (4) MCA Denouncement: Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s campaign dismissed concerns that he has had a falling out with local [ODM MCAs/TNA MCAs]. Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi] was noticeably missing from [ODM/ TNA] county party events. Many [ODM MCAs/TNA MCAs] are known to be highly skeptical of Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s candidacy and his dedication to [ODM/TNA]. (5) No Endorsement/Denouncement: Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi]’s campaign commented that while the [ODM/TNA] primaries are very competitive, their candidate?s credentials will be most appealing to the voters. Anchor: The early announcement of Mr. [Oduor/Mwangi] for the [ODM/TNA] party ticket highlights how competitive the party primaries are expected to be. 37 References Achen, Christopher H and Larry M Bartels. 2016. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton University Press. Adida, Claire, Jessica Gottlieb, Eric Kramon and Gwyneth McClendon. 2016. “How Coethnicity Moderates the Effect of Information On Voting Behavior: Experimental Evidence from Benin.”. Adida, Claire L. 2015. “Do African Voters Favor Co-Ethnics? A New Identification Strategy.” Journal of Experimental Political Science 2(1):1–11. Arceneaux, Kevin. 2008. “Can partisan cues diminish democratic accountability?” Political Behavior 30(2):139–160. Arriola, Leonardo R. 2012. Multi-Ethnic Coalitions in Africa: Business Financing of Opposition Election Campaigns. New York: Cambridge University Press. Arriola, Leonardo R., Donghyun Danny Choi and Matthew K. Gichohi. 2016. “Political Endorsements and Cross-Ethnic Voting.” Working Paper . Baldwin, Kate. 2013. “Why vote with the chief? Political connections and public goods provision in Zambia.” American Journal of Political Science 57(4):794–809. Boudreau, Cheryl and Scott A MacKenzie. 2014. “Informing the electorate? How party cues and policy information affect public opinion about initiatives.” American Journal of Political Science 58(1):48–62. Carey, John M and John Polga-Hecimovich. 2006. “Primary elections and candidate strength in Latin America.” Journal of Politics 68(3):530–543. Carlson, Elizabeth. 2015. “Ethnic voting and accountability in Africa: A choice experiment in Uganda.” World Politics 67(02):353–385. CGD. 2005. “Money and Politics: The Case of Party Nominations in Kenya.” NDI Policy Paper pp. 1–65. Chandra, Kanchan. 2007. Why ethnic parties succeed: Patronage and ethnic head counts in India. Cambridge University Press. Cheeseman, Nic. 2008. “The Kenyan elections of 2007: an introduction.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 2(2):166–184. Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel and John Zaller. 2009. The party decides: Presidential nominations before and after reform. University of Chicago Press. Conroy-Krutz, Jeffrey. 2013. “Information and ethnic politics in Africa.” British Journal of Political Science 43(02):345–373. 38 Dawson, Michael C. 1994. Behind the mule: Race and class in African-American politics. Princeton University Press. Duverger, Maurice. 1959. Political parties: Their organization and activity in the modern state. Methuen. Elischer, Sebastian. 2013. Political parties in Africa: Ethnicity and party formation. Cambridge University Press. Ferree, Karen E. 2010. Framing the Race in South Africa: The Political Origins of Racial Census Elections. Cambridge University Press. Field, Bonnie N and Peter M Siavelis. 2008. “Candidate Selection Procedures in Transitional Polities A Research Note.” Party Politics 14(5):620–639. Gichohi, Matthew K. 2016. “Ethnic Groupness and Party Competition.” Working Paper . Hainmueller, Jens, Daniel J Hopkins and Teppei Yamamoto. 2013. “Causal inference in conjoint analysis: Understanding multidimensional choices via stated preference experiments.” Political Analysis p. mpt024. Harding, Robin. 2015. “Attribution and Accountability: Voting for Roads in Ghana.” World Politics 67(04):656–689. Hazan, Reuven Y and Gideon Rahat. 2010. Democracy within parties: Candidate selection methods and their political consequences. Oxford University Press. Hopkin, Jonathan. 2001. “Bringing the members back in? Democratizing candidate selection in Britain and Spain.” Party politics 7(3):343–361. Hyden, Goran and Colin Leys. 1972. “Elections and politics in single-party systems: the case of Kenya and Tanzania.” British Journal of Political Science 2(04):389–420. Ichino, Nahomi and Noah L. Nathan. 2012. “Primaries on Demand? Intra-Party Politics and Nominations in Ghana.” British Journal of Political Science 42(04):769–791. Ichino, Nahomi and Noah L. Nathan. 2013. “Do Primaries Improve Electoral Performance? Clientelism and Intra-Party Conflict in Ghana.” American Journal of Political Science 57(2):428âA¸S441. ˘ Ichino, Nahomi and Noah L Nathan. 2016. “Who Gets on the Ballot: Money, Ethnicity, and Candidate Entry in Ghana.” Working Paper . Izama, Melinda Platas and Pia Raffler. N.d. “Meet the Candidates: Information and Accountability in Primaries and General Elections.” Working Paper. Forthcoming. Katz, Richard S. 2001. “The problem of candidate selection and models of party democracy.” Party politics 7(3):277–296. 39 Khadiagala, Gilbert M. 2010. “Political movements and coalition politics in Kenya: entrenching ethnicity.” South African Journal of International Affairs 17(1):65–84. Koter, Dominika. 2013. “King makers: Local leaders and ethnic politics in Africa.” World Politics 65(02):187–232. Lau, Richard R and David P Redlawsk. 2001. “Advantages and disadvantages of cognitive heuristics in political decision making.” American Journal of Political Science pp. 951–971. Long, JD and B Hoffman. 2013. “Party attributes, performance, and voting in Africa.” Comparative Politics 45(1):127–146. Lupia, Arthur. 1994. “Shortcuts versus encyclopedias: Information and voting behavior in California insurance reform elections.” American Political Science Review pp. 63–76. Lynch, Gabrielle. 2014. “Electing the ?alliance of the accused?: the success of the Jubilee Alliance in Kenya’s Rift Valley.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 8(1):93–114. Madrid, Raúl L. 2012. The rise of ethnic politics in Latin America. Cambridge University Press. McCauley, John. 2014. “The Political Mobilization of Ethnic and Religious Identities in Africa.” American Political Science Review 108(04):801–816. McClendon, Gwyneth and Rachel Beatty Riedl. 2015. “Religion as a Stimulant of Political Participation: Experimental Evidence from Nairobi, Kenya.” The Journal of Politics 77(4):1045–1057. Öhman, Magnus. 2004. “The heart and soul of the party: Candidate selection in Ghana and Africa.”. Pennings, Paul and Reuven Y Hazan. 2001. “Democratizing candidate selection causes and consequences.” Party Politics 7(3):267–275. Siavelis, Peter M and Scott Morgenstern. 2012. Pathways to power: Political recruitment and candidate selection in Latin America. Penn State Press. Sniderman, Paul M and Edward H Stiglitz. 2012. The reputational premium: A theory of party identification and policy reasoning. Princeton University Press. Van de Walle, Nicolas. 2003. “Presidentialism and clientelism in Africas emerging party systems.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 41(2):297–321. Van de Walle, Nicolas. 2007. Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss? The Evolution of Political Clientelism in Africa. In Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. Cambridge University Press. Weghorst, Keith R and Staffan I Lindberg. 2013. “What drives the swing voter in Africa?” American Journal of Political Science 57(3):717–734. Widner, Jennifer A. 1993. The rise of a party-state in Kenya: From" Harambee!" to" Nyayo!". Univ of California Press. 40 Willis, Justin and Ngala Chome. 2014. “Marginalization and political participation on the Kenya coast: the 2013 elections.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 8(1):115–134. 41