PERFORMANCE VOTING VS. IDENTITY VOTING: AN ANALYSIS OF ELECTORAL BEHAVIOUR IN PAKISTANI DISTRICTS

Abstract

Electoral patterns in new democracies are influenced by a complicated marriage between rational judgments on government functioning and the ingrained sense of identity like race, kinship groups, religion, and political heritage. The situation in Pakistan offers a very interesting case study of studying this tension as the process of democratic consolidation is ongoing with the entrenched tendencies towards patronage politics and mobilization based on the identity. This paper examines performance voting in comparison to identity voting on the voting preference in three Pakistani districts, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Multan.

There are estimates made on the significance of governance outcomes (service delivery, economic development, and corruption control) versus identity cues (baradari (kinship), political loyalty, and ideological alignment) based on a large-scale quantitative survey (N = 714). The research uses the multivariate regression analysis, correlation modelling, and moderation testing to assess the predictors of vote choice.

The results indicate that there is a shifting electorate in that identity is a powerful predictor of voter turnout, but performance is being more relevant among urban and educated voters. Performance-oriented voting is greatly enhanced by institutional trust, political awareness and media exposure, and identity-based preferences are enhanced by low socioeconomic status and traditional social structure. Notably, the findings indicate that there is a progressive change in the shift of clientelistic politics to evaluative democratic participation in Pakistan, although there is still an unequal distribution of transformation in various districts.

The article provides a contribution to the theory because it combines the Rational Choice Theory and the Social Identity Theory to understand hybrid voting in emerging democracies. As a matter of fact, it can give policy advice to political parties, electoral reform institutions, and democratic institutions that have a stake in promoting accountability-based political competition.