Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T07:49:58.903Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Coethnicity Beyond Clientelism: Insights from an Experimental Study of Political Behavior in Lebanon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2021

Melani Cammett ,
Dominika Kruszewska-Eduardo ,
Christiana Parreira Open the ORCID record for Christiana Parreira [Opens in a new window]  and
Sami Atallah
Melani Cammett*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Dominika Kruszewska-Eduardo
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar
Christiana Parreira
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
Sami Atallah
Affiliation:
The Policy Initiative, Beirut, Lebanon
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Melani Cammett, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A large literature finds that coethnicity primarily shapes voter behavior through material exchanges, particularly clientelism. Yet identity groups provide distinct psychological and social benefits that also compel people to vote based on coethnicity. Does coethnicity matter for vote choice, net of instrumental considerations? We address this question using a conjoint experiment in Lebanon, which asked a nationally representative sample of citizens to choose between potential candidates in national elections. We find that coethnicity is the single strongest predictor of electoral support, more important than party affiliation, provision of clientelism, or programmatic platform. Coethnicity does not significantly alter perceptions of candidates who provide clientelism, including high-value goods like patronage employment. Furthermore, citizens who feel closer to their ethnic group are more likely to vote on the basis of coethnicity, as are those with lower levels of trust in state institutions. Collectively, these findings suggest that coethnic voting in diverse polities is not driven solely by clientelism, but also by less immediately material concerns about security and belonging.

Type
Article
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 417 - 438
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Auerbach, A and Thachil, T (2018) How Clients Select Brokers: Competition and Choice in India's Slums. American Political Science Review 112, 775–791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Auyero, J (2000) The Logic of Clientelism in Argentina: An Ethnographic Account. Latin American Research Review 35, 55–81.Google Scholar
Bachus, T (2020) Why Are Ethnic Parties Less Programmatic? Mixed-Method Evidence of Ethnic Endogeneity to Clientelistic Linkages. Ethnopolitics 19, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banerjee, AV and Pande, R (2008) Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption. CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP6381, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1136706.Google Scholar
Belhadj, S, et al. (2015) Plural Security Provision in Beirut. The Hague: Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law. Policy Brief.Google Scholar
Birnir, Jóhanna Kristín (2006) Ethnicity and Electoral Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brewer, MB (1999) The Psychology of Prejudice: Ingroup Love or Outgroup Hate? Journal of Social Issues 55, 429–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brubaker, R (2002) Ethnicity Without Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Burgess, R, Miguel, E, Jedwab, R and Morjaria, A (2015) The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya. American Economic Review 105, 1817–1851.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cammett, M (2014) Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism in Lebanon. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cammett, M and Luong, PJ (2014) Is There an Islamist Political Advantage? Annual Review of Political Science 17, 187–206.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Canetti-Nisim, D, Halperin, E, Sharvit, K and Hobfoll, SE (2009) A New Stress-Based Model of Political Extremism: Personal Exposure to Terrorism, Psychological Distress, and Exclusionist Political Attitudes. Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, 363–389.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carlson, E (2015) Ethnic Voting and Accountability in Africa: A Choice Experiment in Uganda. World Politics 67, 353–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandra, K (2004) Why Ethnic Parties Succeed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandra, K (2006) What Is Ethnicity and Does It Matter? Annual Review of Political Science 9, 397–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandra, K (2007) Counting Heads: A Theory of Voter and Elite Behavior in Patronage Democracies. In Kitschelt, H and Wilkinson, S (eds), Patrons, Clients and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. New York City: Cambridge University Press, pp. 84–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, L and Krosnick, JA (2010) Comparing Oral Interviewing with Self-Administered Computerized Questionnaires: An Experiment. Public Opinion Quarterly 74, 154–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charness, G and Chen, Y (2020) Social Identity, Group Behavior, and Teams. Annual Review of Economics 12, 691–713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cho, WKT, Wu, JG. Gimpel, , and T, (2006) Clarifying the Role of SES in Political Participation: Policy Threat and Arab American Mobilization. Journal of Politics 68, 977–991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christakis, NA and Fowler, JH (2013) Social Contagion Theory: Examining Dynamic Social Networks and Human Behavior. Statistics in Medicine 32, 556–577.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conroy-Krutz, J (2013) Information and Ethnic Politics in Africa. British Journal of Political Science 43, 345–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corstange, D (2016) The Price of a Vote in the Middle East: Clientelism and Communal Politics in Lebanon and Yemen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cruz, C and Keefer, P (2015) Political Parties, Clientelism, and Bureaucratic Reform. Comparative Political Studies 48, 1942–1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donnelly, MJ (2020) Material Interests, Identity and Linked Fate in Three Countries. British Journal of Political Science 51, 1–19.Google Scholar
Egan, PJ (2020) Identity as Dependent Variable: How Americans Shift Their Identities to Align with Their Politics. American Journal of Political Science 64, 699–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, JD (1999) Why Do Ethnic Politics and Pork Tend to Go Together?” In an SSRC-MacArthur sponsored conference on “Ethnic Politics and Democratic Stability,” University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Fearon, J and Laitin, D (2000) Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity. International Organization 54, 845–877.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferree, K (2002) Voters and Parties in the Rainbow Nation: Race and Elections in the New South Africa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.Google Scholar
Ferree, KE, Jung, DF, Dowd, RA and Gibson, CC (2020) Election Ink and Turnout in a Partial Democracy. British Journal of Political Science 50, 1175–1191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, CC and Hoffman, BD (2013) Coalitions Not Conflicts: Ethnicity, Political Institutions, and Expenditure in Africa. Comparative Politics 45, 273–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, D and Palmquist, B (2004) Partisan Hearts and Minds. Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Habyarimana, J, Humphreys, M, Posner, D and Weinstein, J (2009) Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action. New York City: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Hainmueller, J and Hopkins, DJ (2015) The Hidden American Immigration Consensus: A Conjoint Analysis of Attitudes toward Immigrants. American Journal of Political Science 59, 529–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hainmueller, J, Hopkins, DJ and Yamamoto, T (2014) Causal Inference in Conjoint Analysis: Understanding Multidimensional Choices Via Stated Preference Experiments. Political Analysis 22, 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, PK, et al. (2013) Fear as a Disposition and an Emotional State: A Genetic and Environmental Approach to Out-Group Political Preferences. American Journal of Political Science 57, 279–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hendrawan, A, Berenschot, W and Aspinall, E (2021) Parties as Pay-Off Seekers: Pre-Electoral Coalitions in a Patronage Democracy. Electoral Studies 69, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Höglund, K and Piyarathne, A (2009) Paying the Price for Patronage: Electoral Violence in Sri Lanka. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 47, 287–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horiuchi, Y, Smith, DM and Yamamoto, T (2018) Measuring Voters’ Multidimensional Policy Preferences with Conjoint Analysis: Application to Japan's 2014 Election. Political Analysis 26, 190–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, J and Klaus, K (2020) Can Politicians Exploit Ethnic Grievances? An Experimental Study of Land Appeals in Kenya. Political Behavior 42, 35–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, GA and Lapinski, JS (2006) The ‘Race Card’ Revisited: Assessing Racial Priming in Policy Contests. American Journal of Political Science 50, 421–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huddy, L (2013) From Group Identity to Political Cohesion and Commitment. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, eds. Huddy, L, Sears, DO and Levy, JS New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huddy, L, Feldman, S and Weber, C (2007) The Political Consequences of Perceived Threat and Felt Insecurity. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 614, 131–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huddy, L, Mason, L and Aarøe, L (2015) Expressive Partisanship: Campaign Involvement, Political Emotion, and Partisan Identity. American Political Science Review 109, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huebert, ET and Liu, AH (2017) Ethnic Identity and Attitudes Toward State Institutions: Evidence of Judicial Legitimacy Among the Indigenous in Latin America. Politics, Groups, and Identities 5, 561–579.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kao, K and Benstead, LJ (2021) Female Electability in the Arab World: The Advantages of Intersectionality. Comparative Politics 53, 427–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasara, K (2007) Tax Me If You Can: Ethnic Geography, Democracy, and the Taxation of Agriculture in Africa. American Political Science Review 101, 159–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keefer, P and Vlaicu, R (2008) Democracy, Credibility, and Clientelism. Journal of Law, Economics & Organization 24, 371–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkland, PA and Coppock, A (2018) Candidate Choice Without Party Labels. Political Behavior 40, 571–591.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klar, S (2020) Turn and Face the Strange Ch-Ch-Changes: How an Evolving America Activates Identity Politics. The Journal of Politics 82, e1–e6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramon, E (2018) Money for Votes: The Causes and Consequences of Electoral Clientelism in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, JM and Lewis, JI (2017) Ethnic Networks. American Journal of Political Science 61, 350–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeBas, A (2013) From Protest to Parties: Party-Building and Democratization in Africa. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lemarchand, R (1972) Political Clientelism and Ethnicity in Tropical Africa: Competing Solidarities in Nation-Building. The American Political Science Review 66, 68–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, ES and McClendon, GH (2013) The Ethnicity–Policy Preference Link in Sub-Saharan Africa. Comparative Political Studies 46, 574–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lupia, A and Menning, JO (2009) When Can Politicians Scare Citizens into Supporting Bad Policies? American Journal of Political Science 53, 90–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magaloni, B (2006) Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico. New York City: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahdi, D and Sanchez, D (2019) How Do People in Lebanon Perceive Corruption? Beirut: Lebanese Center for Policy Studies.Google Scholar
Malik, MA (2020) The Microfoundations of Identity Politics in Pakistan's Megacity. PhD Diss., Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.Google Scholar
Mares, I and Young, L (2019) Varieties of Clientelism in Hungarian Elections. Comparative Politics 51, 449–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, L and Paler, L (2020) Class, Ethnicity, and Cooperation Among Women: Evidence from a Public Goods Experiment in Lebanon. Journal of Experimental Political Science 8, 1–15.Google Scholar
Masoud, T, Jamal, A and Nugent, E (2016) Using the Qur’ān to Empower Arab Women? Theory and Experimental Evidence from Egypt. Comparative Political Studies 49, 1555–1598.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendelberg, T (2001) The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, A and Rosenzweig, LR (2016) Conjoint Analysis Tools for Developing Country Contexts. The Political Methodologist 23, 2–6.Google Scholar
Oskooii, K (2020) Perceived Discrimination and Political Behavior. British Journal of Political Science 50, 867–892.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Padro i Miquel, G (2007) The Control of Politicians in Divided Societies: The Politics of Fear. The Review of Economic Studies 74, 1259–1274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paler, L, Marshall, L and Atallah, S (2018) The Social Costs of Public Political Participation: Evidence from a Petition Experiment in Lebanon. The Journal of Politics 80, 1405–1410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parreira, C (2020) The Art of Not Governing: Local Politics in Postwar Lebanon. PhD Diss., Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.Google Scholar
Pepinsky, TB, Liddle, RW and Mujani, S (2012) Testing Islam's Political Advantage: Evidence from Indonesia. American Journal of Political Science 56, 584–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, D (2005) Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. New York City: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, AL (2016) Nationalism and Ethnic-Based Trust: Evidence from an African Border Region. Comparative Political Studies 49, 1819–1854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenzweig, SC (2019) Dangerous Disconnect: Voter Backlash, Elite Misperception, and the Costs of Violence as an Electoral Tactic. Boston. Working Paper, Boston University.Google Scholar
Sahin, O and Akboga, S (2019) Ethnic Identity and Perceptions of the Police in Turkey: The Case of Kurds and Turks. Policing and Society 29, 985–1000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanchez, GR and Vargas, ED (2016) Taking a Closer Look at Group Identity: The Link Between Theory and Measurement of Group Consciousness and Linked Fate. Political Research Quarterly 69, 160–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, JC (1972) Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia. The American Political Science Review 66, 91–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shayo, M (2009) A Model of Social Identity with an Application to Political Economy: Nation, Class, and Redistribution. American Political Science Review 103, 147–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shockley, B and Gengler, JJ (2020) Social Identity and Coethnic Voting in the Middle East: Experimental Evidence from Qatar. Electoral Studies 67, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, AA and Badaan, V (2020) #No2Sectarianism: Experimental Approaches to Reducing Sectarian Hate Speech Online. American Political Science Review TBA(TBA) 114, 1–37.Google Scholar
Stedem, K (2020) Reconceptualizing Security: Political Parties as Policemen. Ph.D. thesis. Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Stokes, S, Dunning, T, Nazareno, M and Brusco, V (2013) Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism: The Puzzle of Distributive Politics. New York City: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, H and Turner, J (1979) An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict. In Austin, WG and Worchel, S (eds), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole, pp. 7–24.Google Scholar
Thachil, T and Teitelbaum, E (2015) Ethnic Parties and Public Spending: New Theory and Evidence from the Indian States. Comparative Political Studies 48, 1389–1420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Lebanese Electoral System: Lebanon's 2009 Parliamentary Election (2009) Beirut: International Foundation for Electoral Systems.Google Scholar
Valentino, NA, Hutchings, VL and White, IK (2002) Cues That Matter: How Political Ads Prime Racial Attitudes During Campaigns. American Political Science Review 96, 75–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yıldırım, K and Kitschelt, H (2020) Analytical Perspectives on Varieties of Clientelism. Democratization 27, 20–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Cammett et al. supplementary material

Cammett et al. supplementary material

Download Cammett et al. supplementary material(File)
File 1.6 MB