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50 WORLD
AUTUMN 2013 STANFORD BUSINESS
country of 6 million between 1991 and 2002,
when a civil war took 50,000 lives.
The candidate debate nights were part
of an experiment devised by Casey and
colleagues to test what sort of information
affects how citizens vote. In previous
research, they had found clues that better
information plays a significant role. In
national elections in 2007 and 2008, 86%
of Sierra Leone’s voters voted for the party
historically associated with their ethnic
group, but in local elections only 75% did so.
Exit polls pointed to a possible explanation:
Voters knew twice as much about local
candidates as national candidates, and that
additional knowledge about individuals,
as opposed to just party labels, may have
played a role in their willingness to cross
over ethnic lines on their ballots.
BOUNDARIES
The ability of information to change
voters’ choice matters for two reasons,
Casey believes. If political parties cannot
rely on people voting for traditional
affiliations, such as an ethnic or religious
group, they may be more likely to field
candidates who pay closer attention to what
policies constituents want. And, armed
with more knowledge, voters may be better
able to hold politicians accountable, which
makes it more difficult for those elected to
divert public resources.
But getting information to voters in
rural villages, with limited access to radio,
television, and newspapers, is no easy task.
Moreover, in a setting where 70% of voters
have no formal schooling, it is critical
to deliver information in a way that is
accessible and engaging.
One of Casey’s ongoing projects, with
partial funding from the Stanford Institute
for Innovation in Developing Economies
(SEED), is to tease apart what sort of
information makes a difference. To find out,
the researchers teamed up with Search for
Common Ground, a nonprofit organization,
to organize moderated debates among
candidates for 14 of the most closely
contested national parliament seats in 2012.
Videos of the relevant debate were shown
in 112 villages. Other voters were asked
to listen to a radio report, and still others
were shown a “get-to-know-you” video of
candidates talking about themselves.
The results showed a dramatic effect of
the debate video. In villages where voters
had not seen the video debates, exit polls
indicated “only 28% of voters could name
the two parliamentary candidates in the
election they had just voted in,” Casey says,
“and only 3% knew roughly the amount
of money [$11,000] that members of
parliament are given every year” to spend
in their constituency.
Among those who saw the video debates,
many more voters knew the candidates’
names and other details about them, such
as who was better educated or had held
office before. The number who knew the
amount of money the elected candidate
could spend quadrupled. Furthermore,
DECISION TIME A ballot for the 2012 Sierra Leone presidential elections
Reuters/Joe Penney