Crooked Politics: Vote Markets and Redistribution in New Democracies (Crooked Politics)

Abstract:

Democratic elections in developing countries are often accompanied by vote buying – a type of electoral corruption where political parties buy individuals’ votes before the election. The purpose of this project is to explain why some voters are targeted by political parties and engage in vote trades, and what the consequences of vote markets are for redistributive policies. These questions will be addressed in two work packages. The first work package examines the causes of vote buying, focusing on the role of poverty and voter information. This will be examined through an integrated research design combining a case study – implemented as a postelection survey in South Africa – with a multilevel data analysis using individual level survey data from a large number of countries. The second work package examines the distributional consequences of vote buying, implemented through a research design utilizing variation between countries and across municipalities in South Africa.