Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Voter Expectations of Candidates in Parliamentary Elections in the Middle East

政治学博士论文研究：中东议会选举候选人的选民期望

• 批准号: 1122843
• 负责人: Daniel Posner
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1122843&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Abundant research in political science seeks to understand the relationship between citizens and their government by explaining why voters behave the way they do in established democracies. Only recently have scholars started to study voter behavior under electoral authoritarianism. The limited extant work on voter calculations at the ballot box in authoritarian settings engenders little consensus, and offers a dizzying array of conclusions that are rarely generalizable beyond a single case. For example, the scholarly literature on electoral politics in the Middle East makes a number of blanket statements about the motivations behind voter behavior, highlighting the importance of Islamism, tribalism, and patronage yet failing to distinguish systematically the degree to which each of these motivations is actually relevant in different contexts. The project directly tests hypotheses and observes causal processes relating to the determinants of voter behavior in the authoritarian Middle East. Why do citizens in authoritarian settings vote in elections? Do tribal or religious appeals confer varying advantages on different candidates? What types of patronage or policies do voters expect from different candidates?To address these questions, the project conducts an in-field voting simulation experiment paired with a follow-up survey, cross-national analyses of historical election outcomes, and an ethnographic inquiry into voter and candidate behavior. All methods will be used to test the effects of religious ideology, ethnic identification, and patronage on voting behavior in two different contexts, Jordan and Kuwait.The intellectual merit of the project lies in its ability to advance knowledge of voter decisions and candidate strategy in elections that are at first blush quite puzzling. In non-democracies, elections do not determine who governs. Understanding why citizens vote and how candidates interact with voters in such a setting is important, all the more so in the Middle East.The study has broader implications as well. Understanding the motivations behind voter behavior in the Middle East sheds light on governance in the region. If voters support co-ethnic tribal leaders out of pride or honor, rather than considering their performance in office, then elections are nothing more than "ethnic censuses" in which candidates are not held accountable for their actions in office and quality of governance is irrelevant. Voting for targeted patronage leads candidates to divert government resources from public goods provision, which benefits the country as a whole, toward favored segments of the citizenry. The selective distribution of government resources to supporters and away from the opposition in turn undermines meaningful competition for power. Most broadly, this project may contribute to understanding the conditions for regime survival and change in the Arab world, a subject of obvious importance to US national security.

政治学中的大量研究试图通过解释选民在老牌民主国家的行为方式来理解公民与政府之间的关系。直到最近，学者们才开始研究选举威权主义下的选民行为。在威权背景下，现有关于投票箱选民计算的有限工作几乎没有产生共识，并提供了一系列令人眼花缭乱的结论，这些结论很少在单一案例之外得到概括。例如，关于中东选举政治的学术文献对选民行为背后的动机作了大量笼统的陈述，强调了伊斯兰主义、部落主义和赞助的重要性，但没有系统地区分这些动机在不同背景下实际相关的程度。该项目直接测试假设并观察与威权中东选民行为决定因素有关的因果过程。为什么在威权环境下的公民要在选举中投票？部落或宗教诉求是否会给不同的候选人带来不同的优势？选民希望从不同的候选人那里得到什么类型的赞助或政策？为了解决这些问题，该项目进行了现场投票模拟实验，同时进行了跟踪调查、对历史选举结果的跨国分析，以及对选民和候选人行为的民族志调查。所有的方法都将被用来测试在约旦和科威特两个不同的背景下，宗教意识形态、种族认同和赞助对投票行为的影响。该项目的智力价值在于它能够在乍一看令人费解的选举中促进对选民决策和候选人策略的了解。在非民主国家，选举不能决定谁来执政。了解公民投票的原因以及候选人如何在这样的背景下与选民互动是很重要的，在中东地区更是如此。这项研究也具有更广泛的影响。了解中东选民行为背后的动机有助于了解该地区的治理。如果选民出于骄傲或荣誉而支持同种族的部落首领，而不是考虑他们在任期内的表现，那么选举无非是一场“种族普查”，候选人不必为其在任期间的行为负责，治理的质量也无关紧要。投票支持有针对性的赞助导致候选人将政府资源从公共产品供应转移到公民中受到青睐的部分，这对整个国家来说都是有益的。有选择地将政府资源分配给支持者，而不是反对派，反过来又破坏了有意义的权力竞争。更广泛地说，这个项目可能有助于理解阿拉伯世界政权生存和变革的条件，这对美国的国家安全具有明显的重要性。