Poverty, Partisanship and Vote Buying
31 Pages Posted: 23 Jan 2017
Date Written: January 20, 2017
Abstract
Electoral contests in Latin America are often characterized by attempts by political parties to sway the outcome of elections using vote buying – a practice that seems to persist during elections throughout the region. Much of the literature on this subject focuses on how party machines use vote buying at election time and whether they target partisans or swing voters. However, it takes for granted the root of the problem: poverty. In this article we address this gap in the literature by assessing the importance of poverty in breeding vote buying. Specifically, we examine how partisanship shapes the effect of poverty on vote buying. We hypothesize that party machines pursue a mixed strategy, broadly targeting their core voters, but also poor swing voters. Using survey data from 22 countries in Latin America, our results support the mixed strategy hypothesis, and suggest that poverty matters mainly for swing voters. For partisans, the effect of poverty on vote buying is weaker. These results suggest that poverty plays an important role in vote buying strategies – but also that partisanship moderates clientelistc parties’ vote buying strategies during election campaigns.
Keywords: Poverty, partisanship, vote buying, electoral corruption, Latin America
JEL Classification: D72, P16
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation