Selecting Good Politicians in Patronage Democracies

• In Event: Political Economy of Elite Decision-Making in Africa

Abstract

Existing theories of clientelism predict that party delegates would select candidates who can offer them private rents. In contrast, I argue that in low-income patronage democracies, an intraparty principal agent dilemma exists since clientelistic benefits accrue to the national party leader while local party delegates receive little to none, generating distinct candidate preferences. While the former (principal) prefers candidates who provide rents, as predicted by theories of clientelism, the latter (agent) will deviate from the candidate preferences of national party leaders, selecting candidates who deliver public goods instead. I employ a conjoint survey experiment to elicit candidate preferences from over a thousand local party delegates in Sierra Leone. My results show that local delegates strongly prefer a candidate who has a track record of providing public goods over one who can offer them private rents. Delegates who perceive the priority of local councilors to be the pursuit of local economic development are more likely to prefer candidates who deliver public goods. Delegates’ candidate preferences are also mediated by their education level and perceived influence of national party leaders in the candidate selection process. These results have implications for policymakers, where promotion of bottom-up democracy may be improved by knowing where to identify and encourage good candidates to run for office.

Author

• Lionel Ong, Columbia University