Are swing voters instruments of democracy or farmers of clientelism? Evidence from Ghana

This paper states that is one of the first to systematically address the question of whether strength of ethnic identity, political parties’ campaigns, poverty, or evaluation of clientelism versus collective/public goods, determines who becomes a persuadable voter in Africa. The paper conducts an empirical analysis using a unique data set from a survey conducted ahead of Ghana’s 2008 elections. However, the results show that while constituency competitiveness, poverty, education, and access to information impact on swing voting are much as expected, the role of politicians’ performance in provision of collective and public goods plays a much larger role than the existing literature makes us expect. 

The paper provides findings such as:

• Individual voters at all levels of education, poverty, and access to information pay attention to what their political representatives do in terms of policy and provision of collective goods
  
• uneducated voters are much less likely to swing for items that are related to policy and collective goods and lack of education makes an individual much more likely to be predispositioned to swing on clientelistic offers
  
• voters in Ghana, especially the ones who are most likely to change their vote over political policy truly value the performance of an MP in terms of public and collective goods provisions
  
• constituency service, performance when it comes to lawmaking and even executive oversight greatly affects the probability that an individual will be a core or a swing voter whether that individual is predispositioned to swing based on policy/collective goods items or on clientelistic grounds.

The paper provides conclusions such as:

• individuals who perceive themselves to be poorer than the average Ghanaian, have a significantly higher inclination to be a swing voters on policy/collective goods characteristics but less likely to be swayable on clientelistic items and those with little or no education are less likely to be swayable by policy/collective goods issues but more likely to be persuadable by clientelistic items
  
• voters who evaluate a particular MP positively in terms of provision of collective goods provided for the constituency, law-making, and to some extent executive oversight, are significantly less likely to consider switching their vote for any reason
  
• more pervasive supply of clientelistic goods and services increases the number of people who are likely to consider to switch their political loyalty.