The Role of Local Officials in New Democracies: Evidence from Indonesia

Monica Martinez-Bravo

Working Papers from CEMFI

Abstract: New democracies experience greater electoral fraud and more clientelistic spending than established democracies. This paper shows that the body of appointed local officials that a new democracy inherits from the previous regime is a key determinant of the extent of these practices. With a unique dataset from the first post-Soeharto election in Indonesia, I show that the alignment of electoral results between village and district levels is considerably stronger for villages with appointed village heads than for those with elected village heads. I present a model that provides an intuitive interpretation of these results: Appointed officials have stronger incentives to influence voters because of their political career concerns.

Keywords: Institutions; local elections; clientelism; new democracies. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 O12 O17 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pbe, nep-pol and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Role of Local Officials in New Democracies: Evidence from Indonesia (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2013_1302

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