An Experimental Investigation of Election Promises

Abstract

We analyze the effect of election promises on electoral behavior in a laboratory experiment. In the experiment, politicians can make nonbinding election promises about how to split an endowment between themselves and the group. We find that promises affect both voting and voter beliefs about how much the politician will contribute to the public fund. The relationship is inverted U‐shaped with decreasing credibility of higher promises. Contributions of politicians are correlated with their promises in a similar pattern. The election promises are generally credible unless particularly high. Politicians keep promises more often if a reelection is possible and if the politician came into power by vote rather than by random draw. Voters reward high contributions in the previous period and punish promise breaking even after controlling for the contribution in the previous period or voters' beliefs about future contributions. By controlling for voters' beliefs, we distinguish retrospective from prospective voting. Our results suggest that voters both use promises for prospective voting and retrospectively punish broken promises.

The effects of party identification on perceptions of pledge fulfilment: Evidence from Portugal

“…Mansergh and Thomson, 2007; Moury and Fernandes, 2018; Thomson, 2011). Recent laboratory experiments reiterate these findings, demonstrating that electoral promises are more than just cheap talk (Born et al, 2017; Corazzini et al, 2014). Despite this inconsistency, little attention has been paid to the reasons underlying the mismatch.…”

“…Despite this inconsistency, little attention has been paid to the reasons underlying the mismatch. This is a topic of the utmost importance, given that parties’ electoral manifesto pledges are the basis on which voters should hold them accountable for concrete decisions (Schedler, 1998: 197), and that promises have a significant influence on voters’ beliefs and voting decisions (Born et al, 2017; Corazzini et al, 2014). The present study has sought to contribute to this less widely explored field of research by looking at citizens’ misperceptions of pledge fulfilments and exploring why this is the case.…”

Gone For Good: Deindustrialization, White Voter Backlash, and US Presidential Voting

“…Some voters also make prospective judgments about presidential candidates' likely future economic performance (Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson 2000;Michelitch et al 2012;Nadeau and Lewis-Beck 2001). Party platforms and campaign rhetoric can inform voters' prospective evaluations of candidates' abilities to address economic challenges (Born, van Eck, and Johannesson 2018;Elinder, Jordahl, and Poutvaara 2015), including deindustrialization. Incumbents facing opponents who promise reindustrialization may be the most vulnerable to economic voting-particularly in localities where manufacturing losses have exerted a greater toll.…”

Retrospective pledge voting: A comparative study of the electoral consequences of government parties’ pledge fulfilment

“…Up until now, the very few scholars who have studied the effect of pledge fulfilment or breakage on voting have either conducted experiments in controlled laboratory conditions (Feltovich & Giovannoni ; Born et al. ) or relied on empirical evidence in specific countries or regions (Elinder et al. ; Johnson & Ryu ).…”