%0 Journal Article
%T The Relevance of Relative Distribution: Favoritism, Information, and Vote Choice in Africa
%A Elizabeth Carlson
%J Comparative Political Studies
%@ 1552-3829
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0010414018758753
%X Relative distribution¡ªwhether one is favored or disfavored by government¡ªseems to matter to voters in many African countries. But why? I demonstrate theoretically that voters who do not have information about government revenues, and who cannot determine whether their allocation represents an absolutely high share, can compare their goods with others¡¯ to generate a rough prediction of whether they would be better off under a challenger. In this model, relative distribution is a heuristic, whose relevance is conditioned by available information. I test the model among a sample of Ugandan lab participants, who, when not told how much a ¡°leader¡± had to distribute, were significantly more likely to reelect the leader when their payout was greater than another player¡¯s. Those given information about the size of the pot, however, no longer responded to relative distribution. I show external validity by demonstrating that the incumbent¡¯s ethnicity, which strongly predicts whom he favors, is less important to respondents on the cross-national Afrobarometer when they report easy access to information on government revenues; other types of information do not show a similar effect. Unfortunately, though rational under low information, voting on relative distribution is not optimal under all conditions: Those who are favored by a highly corrupt leader are most likely to reelect him when they are relying on relative distribution to make their choice
%K African politics
%K experimental research
%K elections
%K public opinion
%K voting behavior
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0010414018758753