Accountability, Identity Politics, and Democratic Decay: Evidence from Indonesia

• In Event: Polarization and Democratic Decline

Abstract

Democracy is claimed to be in retreat in various parts of the world, and is often criticized for being unable to deliver good governance in the interest of the people. We study why democracy might malfunction by focusing on one fundamental element: how voters understand the function of elections themselves.
We hypothesize that democracy’s shortcomings might be due to voters inaccurately understanding what the function of democratic elections is, and hence, which candidate qualities they should consider when casting a vote. Instead of believing that choosing a political leader is reminiscent of choosing an agent expected to act in the interest of the voters, and accountable to the electorate, voters in young democracies might think of a political leader as a patron, a “godfather”, or an elective “feudal lord”. This misunderstanding may contribute to explain clientelism and vote buying –pathologies of representative democracy abundantly documented– but also the emergence of polarized identity politics .
In the context of the 2024 General Election in Indonesia, we attempt to shed some light on this topic. Indonesia’s democracy is thriving and consolidating, but at the same time increasingly polarized and plagued by divisive identity politics. Importantly, the country has a diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional, majority Muslim population living in the world’s third largest democracy, making it the perfect laboratory to examine the issue.
We carry out a large three-wave panel survey with a representative sample of Indonesian voters with almost four thousand respondents, in the run-up to the election and a few days after the vote. In the baseline survey we assess knowledge and understanding of the function of democratic elections, measure stances on divisive issues, and record the stated importance assigned to various policy issues. In the second wave, three weeks before the election, we randomly assign informational treatments. In the treatment condition, respondents watch an educational animated video explaining the accountability conception of democracy using a metaphor easy to grasp for a layperson. In the control condition, neutral information about general election eligibility and procedures is provided, in a visual format identical to the treatment video. We estimate treatment take-up by measuring post-treatment beliefs about the role of elections in democratic accountability and electoral control.
We study preferences regarding leadership qualities in ideological, identitarian, and valence terms. To measure preferences, we use a conjoint experiment in which respondents choose between fifteen pairs of fully randomized hypothetical legislative candidate profiles. Demographic characteristics, identities (religion and ethnicity), valence, and position on divisive issues are randomly assigned to profiles. We analyze the data both in the AMCE framework and by fitting random utility models which allow us to estimate the weights with which different characteristics of the candidates enter the voter objective function. This allows us to estimate how voters trade off policy positions, candidate competence, and identity. We then estimate how the randomized informational treatment affects the relative weights respondents place on identity markers vis a vis valence and policy positions. Do voters place less emphasis on identity politics concerns if they are informed (or reminded) that elections are an instrument to control the behavior of politicians? In the third wave we also estimate persistence over the period of a month of the informational treatment effect.
In addition, two list experiments are used to gauge evidence about the prevalence of vote buying during the campaign and in the actual general election. Thanks to the list experiment design we can measure various aspects of vote buying: the prevalence of party machine offers, voter acceptance of the “gift”, and voter compliance with their side of the contract . We then estimate whether the informational treatment reduces vote buying and compliance. Evidence exists that vote buying can be reduced by providing educational messages. Yet the treatments in the literature are mainly legalistic (“vote buying is forbidden”) or moralizing (“vote with your conscience”). Conversely, our intervention highlights the importance of one’s vote by directly explaining why electoral control can induce desirable behavior on the part of politicians.
This study contributes to our knowledge on voter understanding of the working of democracy and on the challenges democracy faces, and will provide some novel and unique evidence on the effect of civic and political education on real-stake political attitudes and behavior in new democracies.

Authors

• Naila Maya Shofia, National University of Singapore

• Piero Stanig, Bocconi University