Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Political Information and Electoral Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa

主要研究者：主要研究者：Macartan Humphreys，哥伦比亚大学合作PI：Jeffrey Krutz，哥伦比亚大学标题：博士论文研究：政治学博士论文研究：撒哈拉以南非洲的政治信息和选举行为摘要撒哈拉以南非洲在过去二十年中发生的一些最重大的变化可以在许多国家的大众媒体环境中找到。 政治自由化、技术进步和市场改革使电视、调频广播、报纸和互联网在非洲越来越大的地区普及。 因此，数百万人发现，从海外侨民社区获得娱乐和信息，也许最重要的是，获得有关本国政治的新闻，变得更容易、更便宜。 社会科学家才刚刚开始研究这些新的发展，在通信和信息交流如何影响公民的政治知识，从而在该地区的政治竞争。这一研究项目力求更具体地了解非洲大众媒体的最新发展如何影响公民的选举决策过程。 非洲选举行为的主流理论主要集中在种族认同和候选人在竞选期间分配相对便宜的商品等因素上。 然而，越来越多的信息，如新闻报道的官员腐败，政府分配的做法，和政策的结果，影响这些因素在选民的决策演算的显着性？ 该项目开发了撒哈拉以南非洲地区的信息收集策略和选举决策理论，将种族和商品分配等因素的重要性归因于它们向选民提供的政治信息。 该理论认为，随着其他可能令人困惑的政治事实变得越来越普遍，这些其他因素（如种族和商品分配）在选民决策过程中的重要性将下降。 为了检验这些假设的有效性，将在乌干达若干地点进行一系列实验室试验。 受试者将接触到关于地方政府职位的假设两名候选人竞选的各种类型的信息。 在这些信息处理之后，将测量参与者对同种族和商品分销商的支持和评价水平，这些信息处理将包括候选人的教育水平、当选官员的过去表现以及在有争议的地方问题上的立场等线索。 这些实验将导致创建一个数据集，在这个数据集上可以测试撒哈拉以南非洲地区投票行为的理论。 这项研究的结果应该提高我们的理解如何在获得政治信息的变化影响结果，如种族间的关系，客户交换，在撒哈拉以南非洲和其他发展中民主国家的选举竞争，以及。

Primary Investigators: PI: Macartan Humphreys, Columbia UniversityCo-PI: Jeffrey Krutz, Columbia UniversityTitle: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science:Political Information and Electoral Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa0720275AbstractSome of the most significant changes to have occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa in the last two decades can be found in many countries' mass media environments. Political liberalization, technological advances, and market reforms have made television, FM radio, newspapers, and the Internet available over increasingly large swaths of territory in Africa. As a result, millions are finding it easier and cheaper to access entertainment, information from diaspora communities, and, perhaps most importantly, news about politics in their country. Social scientists have only begun studying how these new developments in communication and information exchange are affecting citizens' knowledge about politics and, consequently, political competition in the region. This research project seeks to understand, more specifically, how recent developments in African mass media have affected citizens' electoral decision-making processes. Dominant theories of voting behavior in Africa focus heavily on factors such as ethnic identities and candidates' distribution of relatively cheap goods during campaign periods. However, does the increasing availability of information, such as journalistic accounts of official corruption, government distributional practices, and policy outcomes, affect the salience of these factors in voters' decision-making calculi? This project develops a theory of information-collection strategies and electoral decision-making in Sub-Saharan Africa that attributes some of the importance of factors such as ethnicity and goods distribution to the political information that they provide to voters. The theory posits that, as other, possibly confounding facts about politics become more widely available, the importance of these other factors, such as ethnicity and goods distribution, in voters' decision-making processes will decline. In order to examine the validity of these hypotheses, a series of laboratory experiments will be conducted in a number of locations in Uganda. Subjects will be exposed to various types of information about hypothetical two-candidate races for local government positions. Following these informational treatments, which will include cues such as candidates' educational levels, past performance as elected officials, and positions on controversial local issues, participants' levels of support for and evaluations of co-ethnics and goods distributors will be measured. These experiments will result in the creation of a dataset on which theories on voting behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa can be tested. The findings of this research should improve our understanding of how variations in access to political information affect outcomes such as inter-ethnic relations, clientelistic exchange, and electoral competition in Sub-Saharan Africa, and other developing democracies as well.