Legislative Independence and Incumbent Electoral Advantage : Evidence from Parliamentary Elections in Kenya

What explains the observed incumbency effects in emerging democracies? Unlike their counterparts in advanced democracies, legislative incumbents in emerging democracies are disadvantaged. Existing research attributes this to “endemic voter discontent,” arguing that the preponderance of venal and low quality incumbents incentivize voters' preference for high turnovers in legislative elections. This paper provides a different, albeit complementary, explanation. With new data comprising 8,188 candidate-level observations from Kenya, and employing a regression discontinuity design, I show that the electoral impact of a legislator's incumbency status is conditional on legislative strength. In particular, strong legislatures produce electorally strong incumbents. Therefore, legislative weakness in emerging democracies partially explains the observed incumbency disadvantage in these contexts