Posted by Ilya Somin:
How Political Ignorance Causes Political Nepotism:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_12_30-2008_01_05.shtml#1199336076
In [1]a September interview with the New York Sun, the soon-to-be
assassinated Benazir Bhutto explained how political ignorance fosters
political nepotism, by leading voters to support the relatives of
popular politicians (hat tip [2]Kerry Howley):
Q: Why do you think that the U.S. seems to have a harder time with
women at the highest level of power than other countries?
A [Benazir Bhutto]: In a country like Pakistan or India, when a
charismatic leader dies, people are not sure that the traditions he
symbolized will continue�there�s a lot of illiteracy and there
isn�t the same access to information. So they tend to transfer
allegiance from a male leader to a female descendant, in the hope
that his policies will be continued. But in Westernized societies,
it�s a little different, because people have greater education and
greater access to information�they don�t have the same need to be
sure of the message of the leader.
Because voters know very little about the details of candidates'
ideology and issue positions, they use a candidate's family
affiliation with a popular political leader as an information
shortcut. Voters could instead potentially analyze each candidates'
qualifications and ideology in detail. However,[3] rational ignorance
insures that most of them have neither the time nor the incentive to
do so. Bhutto herself, of course, rose to power in Pakistan in large
part because voters associated her with her father, a popular
politician who had been assassinated in 1979.
Moreover, Bhutto was probably wrong to assume that this logic is
limited to female politicians in economically backward societies.
Right here in the United States, George W. Bush would probably never
have become president if not for the voter name recognition he
garnered by being the son of a former president. Hillary Clinton would
not now be a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination if not for her
association with her popular ex-president husband. Few of the many
Kennedys who have achieved elected office would have done so absent
their family name. To paraphrase one of Senator Ted Kennedy's
electoral opponents, he would never have made it to the Senate if his
name were not Edward Moore Kennedy but Edward Moore.
Is this kind of ignorance-induced voter nepotism a bad thing? I would
suggest that it often is. Political leaders who achieve high office in
large part because of nepotism are likely to be less qualified, on
average, than those who reach it by virtue of their own achievements.
This is not surprising; it takes a lot less ability to win office on
your daddy's or spouses coat tails than to do so without it. George W.
Bush's incompetence on many issues is a case in point. Most of the
Third World politicians who became heads of government by this means
were also failures in office (see the examples Kerry Howley gives in
her post linked above). Benazir Bhutto, for all her recent courage in
opposing military dictatorship and radical Islamism, was ineffective
in her two terms as prime Minister of Pakistan in the 1990s. [4]Isabel
Peron's disastrous term as president of Argentina after the death of
her husband Juan Peron helped set the stage for a brutal military
dictatorship (not entirely unlike the way that Bhutto's failures in
office helped pave the way for Purvez Musharraf's military coup).
On rare occasions, the nepotism information shortcut pays off. Winston
Churchill was first elected to Parliament in large part because voters
associated him with his father, [5]Lord Randolph Churchill, a popular
Conservative politician of the 1880s. However, Bush, Bhutto, and the
lesser Kennedys are more typical beneficiaries of ignorance-induced
political nepotism than Churchill.
As Bhutto pointed out,this form of nepotism does have one potential
advantage: it can sometimes pave the way for women to reach high
office in sexist patriarchal societies that might not otherwise accept
them in such positions. I don't deny that such achievements have some
symbolic value. But I'm not convinced that they're worth the high
price we pay for them in the form of policy disasters caused by poor
leadership. Moreover, it's not clear how much of a breakthrough for
women such events really represent if people recognize that the women
in question reached high office primarily because of their family
connections. To my mind, the true breakthroughs for women in
underdeveloped societies are likely to come when their opportunities
and social status increase as a result of economic development.
Ineffective political leaders of either gender are likely to set back
such development - and with it the cause of women's rights.
References
1. http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/38043/
2. http://kerryhowley.com/2007/12/29/does-feminism-need-nepotism/#comments
3. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=916963
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_Mart%C3%ADnez_de_Per%C3%B3n
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Randolph_Churchill
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