In Singapore the People’s Action Party has held power continuously since 1959, having won 13 more or less constrained legislative elections in a row over more than half a century. In Malaysia the Alliance Party and its heir, the National Front, have done nearly as well, racking up a dozen such victories over the same 54-year stretch. These records of unbroken incumbency were built by combining rapid economic growth with varying degrees and types of political manipulation, cooptation, and control. 

In both countries, as living standards improved, most people were content to live their lives quietly and to leave politics to the ruling elite. In the last decade, however, quiescence has given way to questioning, apathy to activism, due to policy missteps by the ruling parties, the rise of credible opposition candidates, increasing economic inequality, and the internet-driven expansion of venues for dissent. 

As the ground appears to shift beneath them, how are the rulers responding? Will their top-down politics survive? How (un)persuasive have official warnings against chaotically liberal democracy become? Are ethno-religious and even national identities at stake? Are comforting but slanted historical narratives being rethought? And how principled or opportunistic are the agents of would-be bottom-up change? 

Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh is the author most recently of Floating on a Malayan Breeze:  Travels in Malaysia and Singapore (2012) and The End of Identity? (2012). Before joining The Economist Group in Singapore in 2006 he was a policy analyst on foreign investment for the government of Dubai. He has written for many publications, including The Economist, ViewsWire, and The Straits Times, and been widely interviewed by the BBC and other media. He earned a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School (Harvard, 2005) after receiving bachelor degrees in Southeast Asian studies and business administration (UC-Berkeley, 2002). His service in the Singapore Armed Forces in the late 1990s took him to Thailand, Taiwan, and Australia.

Abstract:

Civic engagement underpins a healthy democracy when it provides channels outside of elections for citizens to express preferences and demands to politicians. This mechanism of democratic accountability is undermined when groups of citizens face differential access or barriers to participation. It is well-documented that marginalized groups participate less, particularly in developing countries where economic and social inequalities are higher. I discuss two primary constraints: marginalized groups face higher material and social costs, and they are less likely to have the information and knowledge necessary for engagement. I test the second of these two explanations in the West African country of Mali with a field experiment that randomly assigned an information intervention to some localities and not others. An exogenous increase in civic and political information had no net effect on treated communities, but had significant effects conditional on gender: men participated significantly more in civic activity while women participated less. I show this disparity is not driven by pre-existing differences in knowledge or skills but rather higher social costs faced by women. However, it appears the increase in civic activity among men is driven by individuals more dissatisfied with government and the decrease among women is driven by more satisfied individuals dropping out. Together, these findings suggest that citizens face an information constraint to civic participation that can be addressed, in part, by improving information, but that information alone cannot overcome inegalitarian social norms – and may even exacerbate them.

Speaker bio:

Jessica Gottlieb is a 2012-2013 CDDRL pre-doctoral fellow and a PhD Candidate at Stanford University. She studies political behavior, institutions, and government performance in developing countries with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Her dissertation demonstrates how low voter expectations, collusion among political parties, and social inequalities together undermine electoral accountability in Mali. In her past and current research, Gottlieb combines extensive field work, sound research design and rigorous methods such as field, survey and behavioral experiments. She received an MA in Economics from Stanford in 2011 and expects to complete the PhD in Political Science by June 2013.

Static websites, mailing lists and blogs propelled Howard Dean to the chair of the DNC in 2005.  Dean’s campaign heralded a new era in the use of digital technology in election campaigns.  Merely seven years later the role of technology in election campaigns has undergone a profound change. Digital strategy is so central to election campaigns today that it is difficult to imagine that it was only in the previous round of US presidential elections that a digital strategist became a part of the core campaign team for a candidate.  Digital strategists are no more a bunch of people in the sidelines of election campaigns: they drive it.  In a bid to understand this phenomenon we have invited key players from the Obama and Romney campaigns, and a Washington Post journalist who just published a book on this topic for a discussion on Feb 13, 2013.

The panel will explore the state of technology in election campaigns among Democrats and Republicans, its implication for democracy and how technology will shape campaigns in the near future.

This two day workshop will bring together scholars whose research actively engages problems of electoral irregularities.  Irregularities range from high levels of pre-election violence to electoral fraud to vote-buying and patronage. All these tactics potentially affect the outcomes of elections and all disempower citizens in their attempts to have their voices heard in the polity. On the whole, scholars who have concentrated on understanding patronage and clientelism have not interacted with those working on electoral fraud, and neither group has talked at great length to those expert in electoral violence. This workshop will bring together scholars with specific expertise in each of these topics in order to establish a new dialogue across expertise. 

Agenda (subject to change):

Day One: April 12, 2013

8:30-9:00 am Breakfast

9:00-9:10 am—Welcoming Remarks Beatriz Magaloni, Stanford University; Miriam Golden, UCLA

9:10-10:30 am—Panel 1: Electoral Fraud, Integrity, and Violence (1)

• Karen Ferree, UCSD: “Violating the Secret Ballot: The Political Logic of Fraud in Ghana’s 2008 Elections”
• James Long, Harvard University: “Scalable Information and Communications Technology Reduces Electoral Fraud in Fragile Democracies”
• Discussant: Miriam Golden, UCLA

10:30-10:45 am Break

10:45-12:10 pm—Panel 2: Electoral Fraud, Integrity, and Violence (2) 

• Isabela Mares, Columbia University: “The supply of electoral intimidation: Evidence from Imperial Germany”
• Eric Kramon and Miriam Golden: “Electoral Violence and Fraud in the 2012 Ghanaian Elections: Polling Station Results”
• Discussant: James Fearon, Stanford University 

12:10-2:00 pm Lunch

2:00-3:25 pm—Panel 3: Electoral Fraud, Integrity, and Violence (3)

• George Ofosu, UCLA: “Transitional Multiparty Elections: Do Military Regimes Perform Better at Promoting Fair Elections?”
• Joseph Asunka, UCLA: “Electoral investment through formal institutions”
• Discussant: Beatriz Magaloni, Stanford University

3:25-3:40 pm Break

3:40-5:00 pm—Panel 4: Clientelism 

• Mike Callen, UCSD, and Saad Gulzar, NYU: “Clientelism and Health Worker Absence: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Pakistan”
• Nahomi Ichino, Harvard: “Crossing the Line: Local Ethnic Geography and Voting in Ghana”
• Discussant: Barbara Geddes

Day Two: April 13, 2013

9:00-9:30 am Breakfast

9:30-11:00 am—Panel 5: Clientelism and Vote Buying 

• Sarah Brierley, UCLA: “Buying votes or buying time? Gift giving as an extension of the political party network in Ghana”
• Simeon Nichter, UCSD: “Voter Buying: Shaping the Electorate through Clientelism”
• Discussant: Fred Finan, University of California, Berkeley 

11:00-11:15 am Break

11:15-11:45 am—Concluding Session and Discussion