Electoral Clientelism and Vote Buying

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anand Murugesan
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mixed Strategies ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Vote Buying ◽  
Empirical Methods ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Commitment Problem

Political competition between parties to win electoral support is a distinguishing feature of democratic forms of government. Parties seek to attract electoral support with programmatic promises (public goods, services) for the benefit of all citizens as well as targeted redistribution in several countries, broadly termed as “clientelistic linkages.” Cash, gifts and nonmaterial goods such as jobs, exclusive access to public services are forms of clientelistic goods discussed in the literature. Studies on clientelism have spiked since the last quarter of the 20th century in several disciplines including political science and economics. The studies have clarified the definitions and distinguished between the various forms of clientelism while shedding light on how parties decide to adopt the clientelistic approach, the form of benefits offered, whether groups or individuals are targeted for clientelistic benefits, the mechanisms that solve the political commitment problem inherent in clientelistic relationships, and the correlates and consequences of clientelism. The section on theory outlines a spatial model that predicts when political parties will target swing or core supporters for redistributive benefits. The advances in empirical methods for studying clientelism and vote buying, including experimental methods have provided evidence that politicians target swing or core supporters and at times adopt mixed strategies favoring both groups. The burgeoning empirical literature has clarified the effectiveness of vote-buying as well as anti-vote buying campaigns. A direct relationship between poverty and vote buying is now contested and it is evident that further research, particularly those tying up theory with empirical findings is required to understand clientelism and vote buying.

Clientelism and development: Vote-buying meets patronage

2021 ◽  
pp. 095162982110615
Author(s):  
Vladimir Shchukin ◽  
Cemal Eren Arbatli
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
Vote Buying ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Machines ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Patronage Politics ◽  
Equilibrium Amount ◽  
State Investment

Offering employment in the public sector in exchange for electoral support (patronage politics) and vote-buying are clientelistic practices frequently used by political machines. In the literature, these practices are typically studied in isolation. In this paper, we study how the interaction between these two practices (as opposed to having just one tool) affects economic development. We present a theoretical model of political competition, where, before the election, the incumbent chooses the level of state investment that can improve productivity in the private sector. This decision affects the income levels of employees in the private sector, and, thereby, the costs and effectiveness of vote-buying and patronage. We show that when the politician can use both clientelistic instruments simultaneously, his opportunity cost for clientelism in terms of foregone future taxes declines. As a result, the equilibrium amount of public investment is typically lower when both tools are available than otherwise.

Mitigating violence by solving the commitment problem in post-conflict negotiations

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-166
Author(s):  
Yukako Sakabe Tanaka
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
State Building ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
Commitment Problem ◽  
Political Groups

Why do some political groups choose to remain militant when they have the opportunity to transform into political parties or become members of state organs? By scrutinizing the power-sharing negotiations held before a country’s first election, this article argues that the group that leads the negotiations faces the challenge of accepting or declining the policy proposed by its counterpart who poses a threat of violence. Even if the counterpart proposes policy that is acceptable to the leading faction, fulfilling the commitment in regard to the political deal is another challenge for the leading faction. Such challenges often fail and consequently cause violence. In contrast, some counterparts can successfully transform themselves into non-violent political agencies regardless of whether they make compromises in policies or not. Third parties can play a vital role in avoiding violence by influencing actors’ decision-making or enhancing the leading faction’s ability to achieve its commitment. The article illustrates this argument by presenting a formal model and then testing the model by examining the case of Timor-Leste. It suggests specific conditions required for negotiations under which armed groups transform into peaceful actors when introduction of democracy and state-building are ongoing.

scholarly journals SOME APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF CONCEPTS POLITICAL IMAGE AND NETWORK IMAGE

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (33) ◽  
pp. 79-84
Author(s):  
L.V. Chernyshova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Ideological Differences ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Very High

The article discusses various approaches to the study of political and network image. With the advent of modern election campaigns, it has become clear that image is an inevitable part of a successful campaign. The political image as an object of research began to appear in political science, sociological and communication studies since the 50s of the twentieth century. The political image in modern conditions is becoming such an important factor, politicians who seek to gain power or keep it must be reckoned with it. In modern socio-political conditions and the reduction of ideological differences between political parties and their leaders, their image, through which their authority is reflected, is becoming an increasingly important factor determining the difference between candidates and political parties. For the modern voter, the political image becomes more important than the ideological positions of the candidate and the party. If political parties concentrate on the “average” voter and do not show serious ideological differences, differences in election programs, the image of a political leader becomes the most important factor. Voter confidence depends on image. It is important to determine the audience for whom the political image is being created. A traditional audience is one that has long followed a particular political unit or politics as a whole. The success of the political image and the candidate depends on strategic research, which, among other things, shows what the image of the candidates should be like in these elections. The political image should be aimed at creating voters' confidence in the political leader and developing confidence in the competence of the politician, in his ability to solve pressing problems of society. The political image serves simple purposes - to “win the hearts of citizens” and mobilize their electoral support. But it is not enough to form the image of the candidate, it must be conveyed to the voter without distortion. The modern world has long entered the digital age, where information is distributed through electronic media at a very high speed. Internet technologies for the formation of a political image are beginning to become increasingly important. In the last decade, this issue has become urgent.

scholarly journals POLITICAL MARKETING IN THE ELECTION FOR GOVERNOR IN THIS DIGITAL AGE

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 750-761
Author(s):  
Reynold William ◽  
Nur Endah Retno Wuryandari
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Marketing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
The West ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Personal Branding

After reformation era, there is a very significant shift towards the political life in Indonesia. So politicians and political parties need to redesign competing strategies to win political competition. The purpose of this study is to find out whether the Personal Branding, Political Marketing, Politic of Identity and Social Media have an influence on the decision of the community's option. The unit of analysis which been studied was the individuals, they are the individuals who had taken part in the general election of the West Java election. There are 216 respondents with dissemination in 5 cities (Bekasi, Bandung, Tasikmalaya, Bogor, Depok) and 1 district (Garut). The result, Political Marketing and Politic of Identity have a positive and significant effect on the decision of the communities. Personal Branding and Social Media have a positive but not significant effect on the decision to vote.

Election rigging may erode Africa’s democratic gains

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Vote Buying ◽  
Electoral Roll ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Common Strategy ◽  
Ruling Party

Subject Electoral manipulation in Africa Significance In many emerging African democracies, authoritarian leaders who democratised only reluctantly have found new ways to manipulate elections to remain in power. Vote buying is a common strategy but so are more ‘hidden’ forms of manipulation such as gerrymandering or biasing the electoral roll in favour of ruling party supporters. Combined with the legitimate advantages of incumbency, this has contributed to a decline in opposition victories in African elections: to just above 10% in recent years from 35% in the early 1990s. Impacts Electoral manipulation undermines public support for the political system and is correlated with political instability and violence. The absence of meaningful political competition in many states means that elections do not promote more accountable or effective government. On average, authoritarian governments that hold elections can be expected to be more stable than those that do not.

scholarly journals Everything to everyone? Not when you are internally divided

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 783-794 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roni Lehrer ◽  
Nick Lin
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Critical Condition ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Electoral Support

Despite the normative importance of a clear party stance to political competition and representation, research has discovered that parties and candidates tend to employ the “broad-appeal” strategy to becloud their true policy intentions in order to expand their electoral support. Empirical work by Somer-Topcu demonstrates evidence that being ambiguous indeed helps political parties gain votes in elections since equivocal messages make voters underestimate the preference divergence between themselves and parties. In this article, we ask under what conditions would the “broad-appeal” strategy fail to work? We then propose internal unity of political parties as a critical condition for this strategy to work effectively. If a party is internally divided, conflict within the party accentuates the true policy intentions of the party and then counterbalances the discounting effect of being ambiguous on voters’ perceptions. Using survey data from the German Internet Panel, we show that voters underestimate policy distances to ambiguous parties only if they perceive them as internally united. Using a two-stage estimator, we also present evidence that the underestimation of policy distances affects voters’ vote choices.

Validating and Improving Voting Advice Applications: Estimating Party Positions Using Candidate Surveys

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Andreadis ◽  
Heiko Giebler
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Additional Source ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Voting Advice Applications

AbstractLocating political parties correctly regarding different policy issues is not just crucial for research on parties, party competition, and many similar fields but also for the electorate. For the latter, it has become more and more important as the relevance of voting advice applications (VAA) has increased and as their main usage is to compare citizens’ policy preferences to the offer of political parties. However, if party positions are not adequately assigned, citizens are provided with suboptimal information which decreases the citizens’ capacities to make rational electoral decision. VAA designers follow different approaches to determining party positions. In this paper, we look beyond most common sources like electoral manifestos and expert judgments by using surveys of electoral candidates to validate and improve VAAs. We argue that by using positions derived from candidate surveys we get the information by the source itself, but at the same time we overcome most of the disadvantages of the other methods. Using data for the 2014 European Parliament election both in Greece and Germany, we show that while positions taken from the VAAs and from the candidate surveys do match more often than not, we also find substantive differences and even opposing positions. Moreover, these occasional differences have already rather severe consequences looking at calculated overlaps between citizens and parties as well as representations of the political competition space and party system polarization. These differences seem to be more pronounced in Greece. We conclude that candidate surveys are indeed a valid additional source to validate and improve VAAs.

Padayatras and the Changing Nature of Political Communication in India

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radhika Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Mahatma Gandhi ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Freedom Movement

Political communication sets the context for a conversation between the political leaders and masses. A productive strategy of political communication would be one that successfully mobilizes its recipients for the purpose at hand which could be for a protest or for electoral support. One such strategy of communication and mobilization typical to democratic politics in India is the ‘padayatra’, which while being traditional also has a spiritual lineage. The padayatra was effectively used by Mahatma Gandhi to rally together the masses during the freedom movement, and it continues to be a politically relevant strategy used not only for mobilization but also for partisan gains that capitalize on its imagery. Electoral padayatras provide an opportunity to the politician to interact with voters in a substantive manner, understand their weltanschauung and enable its achievement. The purpose of this article is to map the changing nature of the padayatra and its appropriation by political parties as a tool of political communication.

scholarly journals Czech Stalemate? The Role of Party Organization for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia since 2010

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 826-841
Author(s):  
Petar Bankov
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Typical Case ◽  
The Political ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Electoral Volatility ◽  
Electoral Support

Almost three decades after the regime change in Central and Eastern Europe, some of the political parties that were successors of the communists continue to enjoy important electoral support. This article makes an attempt to understand why this happens and focuses on the role of the party organization. It includes a qualitative analysis on the typical case of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) based on a series of semi-structured interviews with party cadres and independent researchers. These interviews reveal that the stable territorial distribution of their performance amidst significant electoral volatility since 2010 highlights an organizational impasse within the party.

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