This article investigates how traditional chiefs, acting as brokers in Northern Ghana's electoral politics, influence voter access to state resources.

Vulnerable Colonial Institution:

The study reveals that chieftaincy positions created by colonial authorities are particularly susceptible to capture. This exploitation negatively impacts voters compared to communities governed by precolonial chief systems or areas without formal chiefs at all.

Original Data, Exogenous Variation:

The author utilizes newly collected data from Northern Ghana. Crucially, this research leverages the exogenous assignment of ethnic groups during late 19th-century colonial administration as a natural experiment to assess these effects.

Conditional Broker Benefit:

The findings indicate that the electoral benefits derived from brokers depend significantly on their accountability structure. Voters in areas with vulnerable colonial-era chieftaincy positions are worse off than those elsewhere.