Sunlight disinfects? Free media in weak democracies


Autoria(s): Fergusson, Leopoldo; Vargas, Juan Fernando; Vela, Mauricio A.
Data(s)

2013

Resumo

Free media may not favor political accountability when other democratic institutions are weak, and may even bring undesirable unintended consequences. We propose a simple model in which politicians running for office may engage in coercion to obtain votes. A media scandal that exposes these candidates increases their coercion effort to offset the negative popularity shock. This may result in the tainted politicians actually increasing their vote share. We provide empirical evidence from one recent episode in the political history of Colombia, the ‘parapolitics’ scandal featuring politicians colluding with illegal armed paramilitary groups to obtain votes. We show that colluding candidates not only get more votes than their clean competitors, but also concentrate them in areas where coercion is more likely (namely, areas with more paramilitary presence, less state presence, and more judicial inefficiency). Harder to reconcile with other explanations and as a direct test of the effects of media exposure, we compare tainted candidates exposed before elections to those exposed after. We find that those exposed before elections get as many votes as those exposed once elected, but their electoral support is more strongly concentrated in places where coercion is more likely. Our re

Formato

application/pdf

Identificador

http://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/10948

Publicador

Facultad de Economía

Relação

Serie documentos de trabajo. No 132 (Febrero 2013)

https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000092/010484.html

Direitos

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Fonte

instname:Universidad del Rosario

reponame:Repositorio Institucional EdocUR

instname:Universidad del Rosario

Palavras-Chave #Ciencia política #Delitos políticos #Medios de comuniación #Conducta política #Partidos políticos - Responsabilidad social #323.4 #Media, Democracy #Elections #Colombia #Civil Conflict #Coercion
Tipo

info:eu-repo/semantics/book

info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion