Book Launch - Incumbency Bias: Why Political Office is a Blessing and Curse in Latin America

The conventional wisdom in political science is that incumbency provides politicians with a massive electoral advantage. This assumption has been challenged by the recent anti-incumbent cycle. When is incumbency a blessing for politicians and when is it a curse? Incumbency Bias by Kellogg faculty fellow Luis Schiumerini offers a unified theory that argues that democratic institutions will make incumbency a blessing or curse by shaping the alignment between citizens' expectations of incumbent performance and incumbents' capacity to deliver. This argument is tested through a comparative investigation of incumbency bias in Brazil, Argentina and Chile that draws on extensive fieldwork and an impressive array of experimental and observational evidence. The book demonstrates that rather than clientelistic or corrupt elites compromising accountability, democracy can generate an uneven playing field if citizens demand good governance but have limited information. While focused on Latin America, the text carries broader lessons for understanding the electoral returns to office around the world.

Author:
Luis Schiumerini
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow

Discussants:
Wendy Hunter
Professor of Political Science, University of Texas at Austin
Former Kellogg Institute Visiting Fellow
Kellogg Institute Advisory Board Member

Taylor Boas
Professor of Political Science and Latin American Studies, Boston University
Political Science Department Chair
Former Kellogg Institute Visiting Fellow

Luis Schiumerini is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and a faculty fellow at the Kellogg Institute, specializing in political behavior and democratic accountability in Latin America. He earned a PhD from Yale University and has published extensively on topics such as incumbency effects and political engagement in developing democracies.

Wendy Hunter is a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in comparative politics with a focus on Latin America, particularly on the military in Brazil and social policy issues such as education and health reform and ID documentation. She is the author of The Transformation of the Workers' Party in Brazil, 1989–2009 and has published extensively on Latin American politics.

Taylor Boas is professor and chair of the Department of Political Science and professor of Latin American Studies at Boston University, specializing in comparative politics and electoral behavior in Latin America. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and his research focuses on religion, accountability, campaigns, and mass media, with several books and articles on Latin American electoral politics.