Do Voters (Dis)like Dynastic Politicians? Experimental Evidence from Pakistan

While an extensive comparative politics literature focuses on the mechanisms that facilitate the emergence and persistence of political dynasties, we know relatively little about voters’ views on them. A survey experiment in Pakistan, a country where dynasticism is common, allows us to study how voters perceive and evaluate politicians with dynastic ties. We find that dynastic politicians are perceived as lower quality and less supportive of universalistic policies than their non-dynastic peers. Additionally, respondents report a lower preference of voting for such candidates themselves, suggesting that the “dynastic electoral advantage” documented in previous research is elite-driven. Our findings suggest that voters also perceive non-dynastic candidates needing to be more qualified to overcome the higher entry barriers created by dynasticism. These results also have important implications for the quality of representation in many developing countries, where entrenched political families continue playing key roles in national and local politics.