Big Brother’s effect in the Political Market

Abstract

In previous studies it was discovered that human beings not only have a tendency to mimic the leader, but they do it to a greater extent of fidelity if the follower is observed by the leader at the moment of execution of his actions. Among the possible reasons for that there were listed the followings: mechanism to learn new skills, by-product of domain general learning, increase in liking, a way to boost social affiliation, social glue hypothesis, and finally, social-signalling hypothesis of imitation. Surveillance from the side of the leader can reinforce the effect of ethical guidance, if the follower is watched. Just the fact that the leader is «watching you» can deviate the utilities of the followers and significantly affect their behaviour as a consequence. We will test this hypothesis by estimating Ordered Logistic and Ordered Probit regressions with categorical dependent variable, responsible for the share of support group, loyal to the government in cabinet, independent variable (main variable of interest), capturing for the number of CCTV cameras per 1000 people in 45 different cities located in 45 different countries of the world, as well as group of control variables: facial recognition status (dummy variable), electoral democracy index, unemployment rate, world happiness and categorical variable «person of the leader», which reflects personal characteristics of the chief executive.