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Voting for the lesser evil: evidence from a conjoint experiment in Romania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2019

Isabela Mares Open the ORCID record for Isabela Mares [Opens in a new window]  and
Giancarlo Visconti Open the ORCID record for Giancarlo Visconti [Opens in a new window]
Isabela Mares*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Giancarlo Visconti
Affiliation:
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: isabela.mares@yale.edu
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Abstract

In many elections around the world, voters choose between politicians who differ not only in personal background and policy promises, but also in their history of dishonest electoral conduct. While recent literature has begun to investigate the conditions under which voters punish electoral malfeasance, we know relatively little about whether they penalize different forms of illicit activities carried out by politicians differently. In this paper, we present the results of a candidate choice experiment embedded in a survey fielded prior to the 2016 Romanian local election. We asked voters to choose between two hypothetical candidates, randomly varying several attributes, including different illicit electoral activities. We find that citizens tolerate some forms of political malfeasance less than others depending on how much that malfeasance infringes on voters' autonomy. Informational campaigns carried out by prosecutorial agencies also affect how much voters punish different illicit exchanges.

Keywords

Clientelismconjoint designEastern EuropeintimidationRomaniavote choice
Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 315 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2019

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