The Impact of Leaders and the Messages They Convey: Evidence From a Field Experiment in British Columbia∗

Are leaders effective because of some intrinsic qualities—for example, clarity, trust-worthiness or focality—or because of the particular arguments they employ? To analyze these effects systematically we need variation in both messages and leaders. Whilst these conditions are satisfied in many political settings, and in particular during political cam-paigns, observational studies are likely to produce biased estimates of these effects due to correlation, selection-bias and endogeneity. We describe a model that allows us to untangle the effects of leader qualities from those of the arguments leaders use. We implement this model using data from a unique field experiment. Working together with the BC-STV campaign in the May 2009 British Columbia referendum on electoral reform, we randomly assign canvassers to voting areas, who randomly deliver messages to households. We ana-lyze leadership effects in two ways: (i) by estimating the between voting area differences in opinion that are due to the assignment of different canvassers; and (ii) by allowing some of the messages to be endorsed by leading public figures. Neither of these strategies yields any evidence of leadership effects: a fairly substantial overall campaign effect is entirely due to the arguments used by the campaign, not to individuals making the case for reform. ∗We thank members of the BC Citizens ’ Assembly and Fair Voting BC, especially Arjun Singh, Wendy Bergerud and Maxwell Anderson. We are also very grateful to members of the BC-STV campaign. The campaign manager, Susan Anderson-Behn, Maggie Gilbert and David Gagnon provided invaluable input and cooperation. Thanks also to the canvassers and enumerators involved in carrying out the project. We thank ou