This study challenges assumptions about party monitoring capabilities in developing democracies.
Using postwar Liberia, we combine administrative data with exogenous variation to show:
• Brokers mobilize voters en masse to signal effort
• Increased monitoring ability improves electoral performance for incumbents
• This effect is especially strong where voter travel distances are longer
Our findings demonstrate that even weakly institutionalized parties can effectively monitor brokers through their decentralized pyramidal structures, particularly in contexts with high turnout buying opportunities.
💡 Key takeaway: Effective broker management may be more widespread across developing democracies than previously understood.
| How Weakly Institutionalized Parties Monitor Brokers in Developing Democracies: Evidence from Post-conflict Liberia was authored by Jeremy Bowles, Horacio Larreguy and Shelley Liu. It was published by Wiley in AJPS in 2020. |
