Federal Democracy in the Laboratory: Power Decentralization and Democratic Incentives Against Corruption*

Rodolpho Bernabel

Political Science Research and Methods, 2018, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: In this paper I borrow Roger Myerson’s game-theoretic model on incentives for the success of democracy, adapt the model to an experimental setting, derive testable predictions from it, and test those predictions in the laboratory. Results show that (i) corrupt leaders are replaced more often in federal democracies than in centralized ones; (ii) in the centralized case subjects converged to an equilibrium in which leaders act responsively and are reelected; (iii) honest presidents are reelected at the same rate in both institutional designs, and (iv) the president acted less responsively in the decentralized case. I also run robustness checks and test for the effect of the language used in the experiment. The data show that the results are robust with regards to experimental choices.

Date: 2018
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