The Role of Local Officials in New Democracies: Evidence from Indonesia

• Monica Martinez-Bravo ^[1]
  1. [1] CEMFI
• Localización: Documentos de Trabajo ( CEMFI ), Nº. 2 (CEMFI Working Paper No. 1302, January 2013), 2013
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • New democracies experience greater electoral fraud and more clientelistic spending than established democracies. This paper shows that the body of appointed local officials that a new democracy inherits from the previous regime is a key determinant of the extent of these practices. With a unique dataset from the first post-Soeharto election in Indonesia, I show that the alignment of electoral results between village and district levels is considerably stronger for villages with appointed village heads than for those with elected village heads. I present a model that provides an intuitive interpretation of these results: Appointed officials have stronger incentives to influence voters because of their political career concerns.