IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tkk/dpaper/dp178.html

Candidate Exit and Voter Loyalty during Early Democratization

Author

Listed:
  • Torun Dewan

    (Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science)

  • Christopher Kam

    (Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia)

  • Jaakko Meriläinen

    (Department of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics)

  • Janne Tukiainen

    (Department of Economics, University of Turku)

Abstract

Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970) proposed that organiza tions persist when loyalty tempers incentives to exit after adverse shocks. We test this argument using newly digitized individual-level voting records from 28 English constituencies (1832-1868), covering 134,000 real votes. Voters could exit by switching parties, use voice by splitting their two votes between opposing parties, or remain loyal. Exploiting favorite candidates’ exit as a negative shock to the choice set, we show that candidate exits increased party switching more than expressing voice. We show that candidate exit initially induces substantial voter exit and voice, especially among Liberal voters, but that these responses attenuate sharply by the mid-1860s, consistent with the consolidation of party organizations and the emergence of durable partisan loyalty.

Suggested Citation

  • Torun Dewan & Christopher Kam & Jaakko Meriläinen & Janne Tukiainen, 2026. "Candidate Exit and Voter Loyalty during Early Democratization," Discussion Papers 178, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tkk:dpaper:dp178
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ace-economics.fi/kuvat/dp178.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(5), pages 416-416.
    2. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais & Mathilde Muñoz & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2020. "Taxation and Migration: Evidence and Policy Implications," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 119-142, Spring.
    3. Stokes, Susan C., 2005. "Perverse Accountability: A Formal Model of Machine Politics with Evidence from Argentina," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(3), pages 315-325, August.
    4. Leonard Wantchekon, 2003. "Clientelism and voting behavior: Evidence from a field experiment in benin," Natural Field Experiments 00339, The Field Experiments Website.
    5. Toke S. Aidt & Raphaël Franck, 2015. "Democratization Under the Threat of Revolution: Evidence From the Great Reform Act of 1832," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 505-547, March.
    6. Gantchev, Nickolay, 2013. "The costs of shareholder activism: Evidence from a sequential decision model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 610-631.
    7. Nichter, Simeon, 2008. "Vote Buying or Turnout Buying? Machine Politics and the Secret Ballot," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(1), pages 19-31, February.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1167-1199.
    9. Pranab Bardhan & Dilip Mookherjee, 2018. "A Theory of Clientelistic Politics versus Programmatic Politics," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-317, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    10. Maute, Manfred F. & Forrester, William Jr., 1993. "The structure and determinants of consumer complaint intentions and behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 219-247, June.
    11. Cox, Gary W., 1986. "The Development of a Party-Orientated Electorate in England, 1832–1918," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 187-216, April.
    12. Torun Dewan & Jaakko Meriläinen & Janne Tukiainen, 2020. "Victorian Voting: The Origins of Party Orientation and Class Alignment," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 869-886, October.
    13. Acemoglu,Daron & Robinson,James A., 2009. "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671422.
    14. Alessandro Lizzeri & Nicola Persico, 2004. "Why did the Elites Extend the Suffrage? Democracy and the Scope of Government, with an Application to Britain's "Age of Reform"," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 707-765.
    15. Freeman, Richard B, 1976. "Individual Mobility and Union Voice in the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 361-368, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Torun Dewan & Christopher Kam & Jaakko Meriläinen & Janne Tukiainen, 2026. "Class, Social Mobility, and Voting in Democratizing and Industrializing England," Discussion Papers 179, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    2. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Paul J. Gertler & Marco Gonzalez-Navarro & Simeon Nichter, 2022. "Vulnerability and Clientelism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(11), pages 3627-3659, November.
    3. Sonin, Konstantin & Acemoglu, Daron & Egorov, Georgy, 2020. "Institutional Change and Institutional Persistence," CEPR Discussion Papers 15295, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    4. Aidt, Toke S. & Jensen, Peter S., 2014. "Workers of the world, unite! Franchise extensions and the threat of revolution in Europe, 1820–1938," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 52-75.
    5. Diego F. Grijalva, 2024. "Revolutions of the mind, (threats of) actual revolutions, and institutional change," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 200(3), pages 531-560, September.
    6. De Magalhaes, Leandro & Giovannoni, Francesco, 2022. "War and the rise of parliaments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    7. Pranab Bardhan & Dilip Mookherjee, 2023. "Political clientelism and capture: theory and an application," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 17-34, July.
    8. Jeremy Horpedahl, 2011. "Political exchange and the voting franchise: universal democracy as an emergent process," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 203-220, September.
    9. Stephen L. Parente & Luis Felipe Sáenz & Anna Seim, 2022. "Income, education and democracy," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 193-233, June.
    10. Mizuno, Nobuhiro & Okazawa, Ryosuke, 2025. "A dynamic theory on clientelism and bureaucratic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    11. Nicole M. Mason & Thomas S. Jayne & Nicolas van de Walle, 2017. "The Political Economy of Fertilizer Subsidy Programs in Africa: Evidence from Zambia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(3), pages 705-731.
    12. Dorsch, Michael T. & Maarek, Paul, 2020. "Economic downturns, inequality, and democratic improvements," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    13. Quamrul H. Ashraf & Francesco Cinnirella & Oded Galor & Boris Gershman & Erik Hornung, 2017. "Capital-Skill Complementarity and the Emergence of Labor Emancipation," Working Papers 2017-1, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    14. Verdier, Thierry & Bisin, Alberto, 2017. "On the Joint Evolution of Culture and Institutions," CEPR Discussion Papers 12000, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    15. Aidt, T.S. & Eterovic, D.S., 2007. "Give and Take: Political Competition, Participation and Public Finance in 20th Century Latin America," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0714, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    16. Catherine Ragasa & Cristina Alvarez-Mingote & Paul McNamara, 2024. "Bottom-Up Approaches and Decentralized Extension Structures for Improving Access to and Quality of Extension Services and Technology Adoption: Multi-level Analysis from Malawi," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 36(5), pages 1093-1146, October.
    17. Hans Degryse & Thomas Lambert & Armin Schwienbacher, 2018. "The Political Economy of Financial Systems: Evidence from Suffrage Reforms in the Last Two Centuries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1433-1475, June.
    18. Helios Herrera & César Martinelli, 2013. "Oligarchy, democracy, and state capacity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(1), pages 165-186, January.
    19. Carlos Scartascini & Mariano Tommasi & Ernesto Stein, 2010. "Veto Players and Policy Trade-Offs- An Intertemporal Approach to Study the Effects of Political Institutions on Policy," Research Department Publications 4660, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    20. Daron Acemoglu & Tarek A. Hassan & Ahmed Tahoun, 2018. "The Power of the Street: Evidence from Egypt’s Arab Spring," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 1-42.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tkk:dpaper:dp178. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Susmita Baulia The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Susmita Baulia to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tukkkfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.