Accountability under Polarization
Abstra ct:
Political polarization can negativel y impact electoral accountability by influencing how citizens perceive and process incumbent performance information. We study how such information af fects voting behavior in a polarized environment, and how this varies when additionally treating citizens with a debiasing nudge to incorporate counte r-attitudinal information. In particular, we experimentally evaluate the el ectoral effects of a local CSO's Facebook ad campaign providing citizens wi th benchmarked information about COVID-19 cases and deaths in 500 Mexican m unicipalities in the run-up to the 2021 elections. On its own, the in formation had a backfiring effect, increasing (reducing) the vote share rec eived by the local incumbent party with relatively high (low) levels of COV ID-19 cases and deaths. These effects are driven by areas with high past vo te share for the incumbent, higher shares of citizens with communal values, and behavior indicative of more-stressed citizens. The randomly assigned d ebiasing nudge, however, reversed the backfiring: voters electorally reward ed (punished) incumbents with relatively low (high) levels of COVID-19 case s 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.
DTSTAMP:20260408T151820Z DTSTART:20240318T143000Z DTEND:20240318T160000Z SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR