When do agents deliver the vote? A vote-popularity function in electoral manipulation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Existing research primarily delves into the demand side of electoral manipulation, focusing on the conditions prompting political elites to rig the process. Recent studies have shifted focus towards the supply side, employing the principal-agent approach to investigate how agents engage in election tampering based on their principals' likelihood of success. While this perspective has highlighted the role of agents in determining manipulation intensity, gaps remain in understanding how they predict their principals' victory and strategically decide on active or passive manipulation. Our argument centres on agents using the economy as a critical indicator of their principals' electoral prospects. A strong economy boosts incumbents' chances of success and their vote share, prompting agents to be more blatant in engaging in electoral misconduct, leading to heightened manipulation. Analysing 1278 multiparty elections across 94 countries since the 1900s, our findings suggest that incumbent electoral prospects correlate with economic indicators and significantly influence the scale of electoral manipulation.