Accountability under Polarization

Abstract:

Political polarization can negatively impact electoral accountability by influencing how citizens perceive and process incumbent performance information. We study how such information affects voting behavior in a polarized environment, and how this varies when additionally treating citizens with a debiasing nudge to incorporate counter-attitudinal information. In particular, we experimentally evaluate the electoral effects of a local CSO's Facebook ad campaign providing citizens with benchmarked information about COVID-19 cases and deaths in 500 Mexican municipalities in the run-up to the 2021 elections.  On its own, the information had a backfiring effect, increasing (reducing) the vote share received by the local incumbent party with relatively high (low) levels of COVID-19 cases and deaths. These effects are driven by areas with high past vote share for the incumbent, higher shares of citizens with communal values, and behavior indicative of more-stressed citizens. The randomly assigned debiasing nudge, however, reversed the backfiring: voters electorally rewarded (punished) incumbents with relatively low (high) levels of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Our findings demonstrate how biases in information processing can undermine electoral accountability in polarized contexts and document the potential for nudges to restore electoral accountability.