Electoral management and vote-buying

Abstract

Clientelism is a multifaceted phenomenon found in widely differing economic, political, and cultural contexts. Yet, dominant narratives treat clientelism as a symptom of under-development, with modernization as the antidote. As a result, less is known about how formal institutions affect clientelism. This article integrates research on clientelism and electoral integrity. We theorize that as the capacity of electoral management bodies (EMBs) increases, the costs of vote-buying increase for voters, parties, and candidates. We conduct a large-N plausibility probe of our theory using V-Dem data, covering more than 160 countries from 1900 to 2019, as well as several alternative measures. We find a robust negative association between EMB capacity and vote-buying at the country level across a range of model specifications. This supports the plausibility of our theory and paves the way for future research on causal mechanisms and the role of institutions in mitigating clientelism more generally.