Technology and Elections in Developing Countries: Challenges and Opportunities for Democratic Consolidation

Abstract

This dissertation looks at the intersection of technology and politics in developing countries. Specifically, I examine how the dissemination of innovative technologies has influenced public opinion and political engagement in and around elections. My first paper details how the adoption of information and communications technologies (ICTs) has upended the usefulness of fraudulent elections in non-democracies. Drawing on evidence from Nicaragua’s illegitimate 2021 presidential election, I detail how ICTs enable citizens to circumvent the intended signals from the FSLN by providing access to external information. I find that access to ICTs reduced the overall levels of perceived support for the ruling FSLN as well as incumbent President Daniel Ortega. In my second paper, I examine the role of new technologies in the amplification of political misinformation related to electoral legitimacy along with the efficacy of digital interventions aimed at reducing its influence. First, I examine social media posts collected throughout Kenya’s contentious 2022 presidential election campaign to illustrate the extent of the challenge posed by political misinformation to perceptions of the legitimacy of the vote. In doing so, I detail the deficiencies of current fact-checking efforts while generating novel insights regarding the challenge of political misinformation in sub-Saharan Africa. Next, I test a new method that incorporates insights from regional organizations to counter misinformation. I find evidence that “social truth queries” may be effective as a user-driven method for addressing misinformation that exists beyond the bounds of current fact-checking efforts in developing countries. My final paper addresses the consequences of a ruling party’s failure to deliver energy to the public. Drawing on a unique spatial dataset and electoral data collected from a variety of government sources in South Africa, I examine whether the dominance of the ANC has minimized the efficacy of electoral accountability mechanisms despite the party’s association with the failure of the country’s once admired national electricity grid. Specifically, I detail how salient governance provision failures, as proxied by “load shedding” in South Africa, reduce support for incumbent political parties while inducing both voter apathy and preference for alternative forms of government in a manner largely consistent with theories of electoral accountability. Collectively, my research details the influential consequences of technological diffusion and decay in developing countries while providing new evidence related to the potential of select digital interventions as well as the potential consequences of inadequate maintenance of existing technologies.