The impact of incumbency on turnout. Evidence from Italian municipalities
| Autor: | Marco Alberto De Benedetto, Maria De Paola |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
business.industry
05 social sciences jel:D72 jel:J71 Distribution (economics) jel:D78 Turnout 0506 political science Incumbency Political participation Electoral turnout Social capital incumbency political participation electoral turnout social capital Political science 0502 economics and business Political Science and International Relations jel:J16 050602 political science & public administration Demographic economics Organised crime 050207 economics business Social capital |
| Zdroj: | Electoral Studies. 44:98-108 |
| ISSN: | 0261-3794 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.electstud.2016.06.012 |
| Popis: | We analyze how having an incumbent among candidates affects electoral turnout. We use a rich data set providing information on the electoral results of Italian municipal elections over the period 1993-2011. Endogeneity issues are handled through an instrumental variable approach using the mayor term-limit as an instrument for the presence of the incumbent mayor among candidates. Controlling for electoral competition, we find that the impact of incumbency is heterogeneous across geographical areas: incumbency increases turnout in the South of Italy, whereas we do not find any statistically significant effect in the North. As the positive effect holds true only for southern municipalities endowed with low levels of social capital we speculate that this is the result of incumbent politicians using their resources to establish clienteles. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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