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Voting for the Devil You Know: Understanding Electoral Behavior in Authoritarian regimes

Author
Letsa, Natalie Wenzell
Abstract
In countries where elections are not free or fair, and one political party consistently
dominates elections, why do citizens bother to vote? If voting cannot substantively
affect the balance of power, why do millions of citizens continue to vote in these
elections? Until now, most answers to this question have used macro-level spending
and demographic data to argue that people vote because they expect a material reward,
such as patronage or a direct transfer via vote-buying. This dissertation argues,
however, that autocratic regimes have social and political cleavages that give rise to
variation in partisanship, which in turn create different non-economic motivations for
voting behavior. Citizens with higher levels of socioeconomic status have the
resources to engage more actively in politics, and are thus more likely to associate
with political parties, while citizens with lower levels of socioeconomic status are
more likely to be nonpartisans. Partisans, however, are further split by their political
proclivities; those that support the regime are more likely to be ruling party partisans,
while partisans who mistrust the regime are more likely to support opposition parties.
In turn, these three groups of citizens have different expressive and social reasons for
voting. This dissertation argues that ruling party partisans vote out of a sense of civic
duty, opposition parties vote to improve democracy, and nonpartisans vote when they
are mobilized by their communities during elections. Overall, the dissertation shows
that in Cameroon, expressive and social reasons are more important to explaining the
voting act than economic motivations.
Date Issued
2017-08-30Subject
African politics; Authoritarianism; Political Behavior; Political science; public opinion; Cameroon
Committee Chair
van de Walle, Nicolas
Committee Member
Levine, Adam S.; Bunce, Valerie Jane
Degree Discipline
Government
Degree Name
Ph. D., Government
Degree Level
Doctor of Philosophy
Type
dissertation or thesis