"While vote-buying is common, little is known about how politicians determine who to target. We argue that vote-buying can be sustained by an internalized norm of reciprocity. Receiving money engenders feelings of obligation. Combining survey data on vote-buying with an experiment-based measure of reciprocity, we show that politicians target reciprocal individuals. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of social preferences in determining political behavior"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book investigates the impact of vote buying on the accountability of democratic institutions and policy representation in newly democratic countries, with a focus on Indonesia. In doing so, the book presents a wide-ranging study of the dynamics of vote buying in Indonesia's young democracy, exploring the nature, extent, determinants, targeting and effectiveness of this practice. It addresses these central issues in the context of comparative studies of vote buying, arguing that although party loyalists are disproportionately targeted in vote buying efforts, in total numbers —given the relatively small number of party loyalists in Indonesia— vote buying hits more uncommitted voters. It also demonstrates that the effectiveness of vote buying on vote choice is in the 10 percent range, which is sufficient for many candidates to secure a seat and thus explains why they still engage in vote buying despite high levels of leakage.
Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: The Prevalence of Vote Buying in Indonesia: Building an Index -- 2.1 Dimensions and Measures -- 2.2 How Prevalent Is Vote Buying? -- 2.3 The Vote-Buying Index -- 2.4 International Comparability -- 2.5 Little Social Desirability Bias -- 2.6 Vote Buying in Local Executive Elections -- 2.7 Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Books, Journal Articles, and Unpublished Papers -- Articles and Reports -- Chapter 3: The Determinants of Vote Buying: The Profile of Typical Vote 'Sellers' -- 3.1 Perspectives on Electoral Clientelism -- 3.2 Hypotheses -- 3.2.1 Vote Buying and Modernisation Theory -- 3.2.2 Vote Buying and Civic Engagement -- 3.2.3 Vote Buying and Political Attitudes -- 3.3 Measures of Modernisation Theory, Civic Engagement, and Political Attitudes -- 3.3.1 Modernisation Theory -- 3.3.2 Civic Engagement -- 3.3.3 Political Attitudes -- 3.3.3.1 Party Identification -- 3.3.3.2 Political Efficacy -- 3.3.3.3 Political Information -- 3.3.3.4 Political Interest -- 3.3.3.5 Political Trust -- 3.3.3.6 Political Participation -- 3.3.3.7 Democratic Support -- 3.4 Results and Discussion: The Determinants of Vote Buying: Who Gets Targeted? -- 3.5 Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Books, Journal Articles, and Unpublished Papers -- Chapter 4: Do Candidates Target Loyalists or Swing Voters? Beyond the Core- Versus Swing-Voter Debate -- 4.1 Political Party Partisanship in Indonesia -- 4.2 Is Party Identification Endogenous to Benefits? -- 4.3 Variations in Party Identification by Party and Vote Buying -- 4.4 Testing the Models of Distributive Politics -- 4.4.1 Evidence from Surveys of Local Politicians and Brokers -- 4.4.2 Reasons Behind the Tendency to Favour Core Voters -- 4.4.2.1 Double-Layered Risk Aversion.
1. Introduction -- 2. The Prevalence of Vote Buying in Indonesia: Building an Index -- 3. The Determinants of Vote Buying: The Profile of Typical Vote 'Sellers' -- 4. Do Candidates Target Loyal or Swing Voters? Beyond the Core- versus Swing Voter Debate -- 5. How Targeting Goes Astray: Explaining the Gap between Intentions and Outcomes -- 6. Vote Brokerage, Personal Networks, and Agency Loss -- 7. Does Vote Buying Affect Voting Behaviour? Chasing Winning Margins and the Prisoner's Dilemma -- 8. Conclusion
Often regarded as a phenomenon of earlier times and backward places, vote buying has made an impressive comeback in recent decades--primarily as a by-product of democratization. Elections for Sale offers the first comprehensive analysis of this widespread but ill-understood practice. The authors systematically explore a series of key questions: What exactly is vote buying? What are its underlying causes? Why does it occur in some places, but not in others? How does it affect political and economic development? Can it be educated or legislated away? Their work presents new theoretical insights, as well as fresh empirical evidence from Asia and Latin America
What are the main factors that allow presidents and prime ministers to enact policy through acts of government that carry the force of law? Or, simply put, when does a government actually govern? The theory presented in this book provides a major advance in our understanding of statutory policy making. Using a combination of an original analytical framework and statistical techniques, as well as historical and contemporary case studies, the book demonstrates that, contrary to conventional wisdom, variations in legislative passage rates are the consequences of differences in uncertainty, not partisan support. In particular, it shows that a chief executive's legislative success depends on the predictability of legislators' voting behavior and whether buying votes is a feasible option. From a normative standpoint, the book reveals that governability is best served when the opposition has realistic chances of occasionally defeating the executive in the legislative arena
"Campaign finance reform has always been motivated by a definition of democracy that does not count corporations as citizens and holds that self-government works best by reducing political inequality. In the early years of the twentieth century, Congress recognized the strength of these principles by prohibiting corporations from making campaign contributions, passing a disclosure law, and setting limits on campaign expenditures. These reforms were not controversial at the time, but conservative opposition to them appeared in the 1970s. That opposition was well represented in the Supreme Court, which has rolled back reform by granting First Amendment rights to corporations and declaring the goal of reducing political inequality to be unconstitutional. Buying the Vote analyzes the rise and decline of campaign finance reform by tracking changes in the way presidential campaigns have been funded since the late nineteenth century, and changes in the debate over how to reform fundraising practices. A close examination of major Supreme Court decisions shows how the Court has fashioned a new and profoundly inegalitarian redefinition of American democracy"--
"Campaign finance reform has always been motivated by a definition of democracy that does not count corporations as citizens and holds that self-government works best by reducing political inequality. In the early years of the twentieth century, Congress recognized the strength of these principles by prohibiting corporations from making campaign contributions, passing a disclosure law, and setting limits on campaign expenditures. These reforms were not controversial at the time, but conservative opposition to them appeared in the 1970s. That opposition was well represented in the Supreme Court, which has rolled back reform by granting First Amendment rights to corporations and declaring the goal of reducing political inequality to be unconstitutional. Buying the Vote analyzes the rise and decline of campaign finance reform by tracking changes in the way presidential campaigns have been funded since the late nineteenth century, and changes in the debate over how to reform fundraising practices. A close examination of major Supreme Court decisions shows how the Court has fashioned a new and profoundly inegalitarian redefinition of American democracy"--
Politicians distribute money to voters during campaigns in many low-income democracies. Many observers call this practice 'vote buying'. Money for Votes develops an alternative theory of electoral clientelism that emphasizes the role of monetary handouts in conveying information to voters, helping politicians enhance the credibility of their promises to deliver development resources and particularistic benefits to their constituents. Supported by interviews, experiments, and surveys in Kenya, and additional evidence from qualitative and survey data from elsewhere in Africa, the study tests the implications of this argument, and traces the consequences of electoral clientelism for voter behaviour, ethnic politics, public goods provision, and democratic accountability. Ultimately, the book suggests that the relationship of electoral clientelism to the quality of democracy is far more nuanced than our instincts might suggest.
We test the predictions of a behavioral model of transactional electoral politics in the context of a randomized anti-vote-selling intervention in the Philippines. We model selling one's vote as a temptation good: it creates positive utility for the future self at the moment of voting, but not for past selves who anticipate the vote-sale. We also allow keeping or breaking promises regarding vote-selling to affect utility. Voters who are at least partially sophisticated about their vote-selling temptation can thus use promises not to vote-sell as a commitment device. An invitation to promise not to vote-sell is taken up by a majority of respondents, reduces vote-selling, and has a larger effect in electoral races with smaller vote-buying payments. The more effective promise treatment reduces vote-selling in the smallest-stakes election by 10.9 percentage points. Inviting voters to make another type of promise - to accept vote-buying payments, but to nonetheless "vote your conscience" - is significantly less effective. The results are consistent with voters being partially (but not fully) sophisticated about their vote-selling temptation.