When Partisans Elect Opposition Candidates

Abstract

Partisans often face two dilemmas when deciding to vote for a potentially better-performing opposition candidate in clientelistic distributive systems. First, whether the opposition candidate, once elected, will provide them with promised public goods. Second, whether they can sanction the politician should she renege. I argue that partisans' fears of exclusion and inability to punish shirking is much lower in electoral districts where parties' supporters live side-by-side (partisan nonsegregated) and elections are competitive compared to other electoral settings. Accordingly, partisans are more likely to cross party lines in nonsegregated and competitive constituencies than in other settings. Using a conjoint experiment administered to voters sampled from a stratified sample of constituencies in Ghana, I show that voters in competitive, nonsegregated districts are the most willing to cross party lines. Additional data on voters' perceptions of actual public goods distribution supports the mechanism. My results demonstrate how partisan geography and electoral competition can jointly shape political accountability.