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AbstractThe logic behind redistribution theories is that incumbents target benefits to build and sustain linkages with voters. However, a recent literature shows that some benefits can have a countervailing effect in environments plagued by clientelism: by permanently boosting voters' incomes, irrevocable and durable benefits might reduce their dependence on incumbents. This article explains how parties strategically allocate these benefits when trading off the income effect relative to the standard electoral rewards of redistribution. The theory highlights a previously unstudied rationale to target opposition areas: to weaken voters' dependence on machines. The framework is tested with administrative data on the allocation of cisterns by state governments across Brazilian semi‐arid municipalities, where clientelism is rampant. States favor areas governed by copartisans, but only where local clientelistic mobilization is weak. Where it is strong, states favor municipalities led by the opposition, while avoiding their own local strongholds.

AbstractThe electoral success of the Right in poor nations is typically attributed to nonpolicy appeals such as clientelism. Candidate profiles are usually ignored because if voters value class‐based descriptive representation, it should be the Left that uses it. In this article, we develop and test a novel theory of policy choice and candidate selection that defies this conventional wisdom: it is the Right that capitalizes on descriptive representation in high‐poverty areas. The Right is only competitive in poor regions when it matches the Left's pro‐poor policies. To credibly shift its position, it nominates candidates who are descriptively closer to the poor. Using a regression discontinuity design in Brazilian municipal elections, we show that Right‐wing mayors spend less on the poor than Left‐wing mayors only in low‐poverty municipalities. In high‐poverty municipalities, not only does the Right match the Left's policies, it also does so while nominating less educated candidates.

AbstractElectoral coalitions between ideologically incompatible parties – among other unconventional electoral strategies – may seem to threaten effective representation, signaling a breakdown of programmatic politics. However, this perspective overlooks parties' and voters' dynamic considerations. We propose and estimate a model of dynamic electoral competition in which a short‐term ideology compromise, via an electoral coalition, offers opposition parties (and voters) the opportunity to remove an entrenched incumbent party from office, thus leveling the playing field in the future. This tradeoff provides a previously unrecognized rationale for coalition formation in elections. We take our model to data from Mexican municipal elections between 1995 and 2016 and show that coalitions between parties on opposite ends of the ideology spectrum have served as an instrument of democratic consolidation.