Does Everyone Have a Price? The Demand Side of Clientelism and Vote-Buying in an Emerging Democracy by Elda Lorena Becerra Mizuno Department of Political Science Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Karen L. Remmer, Supervisor ___________________________ John H. Aldrich ___________________________ Margaret A. McKean ___________________________ Christopher Johnston ___________________________ Guillermo Rosas Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 ABSTRACT Does Everyone Have a Price? The Demand Side of Clientelism and Vote-Buying in an Emerging Democracy by Elda Lorena Becerra Mizuno Department of Political Science Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Karen L. Remmer, Supervisor ___________________________ John H. Aldrich ___________________________ Margaret A. McKean ___________________________ Christopher Johnston ___________________________ Guillermo Rosas An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Department of Political Science in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 Copyright by Elda Lorena Becerra Mizuno 2012 Abstract The overarching question of this dissertation is what explains the prevalence of clientelistic practices in emerging democracies, and do these represent a threat to the quality of the regime. This research seeks to contribute to the literature on clientelism and democracy by providing an assessment of the voter’s role in encouraging clientelistic and vote-buying practices. By focusing on the demand side of clientelism and vote-buying, this dissertation portrays voters as active agents in the clientelistic exchange as opposed to mere price-takers as they have been primarily depicted in the extant literature. Additionally, it provides important insights into the potential mechanisms underlying the voter’s decision to sell her vote. Evidence for this dissertation is based on public opinion data from Mexico using a mixed-method approach composed of surveys, focus groups and in-depth interviews. The main hypothesis refers to the relationship between the structure of competition and the incidence of clientelism and vote-buying. Mexico represents a very useful scenario to study this hypothesis because it is politically decentralized at the state level and thus exhibits wide variation in political competition across subnational units while holding the national structural variables constant. The first part of this dissertation uses a national survey with state-level representativeness to assess the incidence of clientelism and vote-buying across different structures of competition and the types of goods used to buy votes. The main findings of suggest that the incidence of clientelism and vote-buying varies significantly across iv different structures of competition. Systems where two clientelistic parties compete exhibit higher levels of vote-selling than systems where there is a programmatic competitor, while multiparty systems of competition are associated to the highest incidence of clientelism and vote-selling overall. Additionally, the types of goods used to buy votes also vary across structures of competition. The second part of the dissertation uses evidence from list experiments to measure the amount of vote-buying that took place in Mexico’s past presidential election. List experiments are a survey instrument used to curtail desirability biases commonly associated to sensitive issues. Additionally, this section makes use of qualitative evidence to uncover the causal mechanisms leading voters to engage in vote-selling in the aforementioned election. The findings suggest that clientelism is very much a common practice in today’s Mexico. Moreover, the parties classified as more clientelistic made use of their local political machines to buy votes to benefit their respective candidates. Findings also indicate that perceiving no difference between competing parties and perceiving little or no benefit from a programmatic offer tend to make voters more clientelistic, ceteris paribus. Finally, the research also looks at potential inhibitors of clientelistic behavior, in particular, conditional cash programs and low-cost health benefits. Whereas conditional cash programs have the benefit of insulating their beneficiaries from clientelistic parties, affiliates of other types of entitlements are more susceptible to the implementation of each program and thus provide mixed results. v This dissertation is dedicated to Elda Mizuno García de la Cadena. Your courage, strength and kindness have been the greatest inspiration in my life. vi Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... x List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... xii 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 What Makes Voters Clientelistic? .......................................................................... 6 1.2 Structure of the Dissertation ................................................................................... 9 2. Theoretical Perspectives on the Study of Clientelism .................................................. 13 2.1 Relevance of the Study of Clientelism .................................................................. 13 2.2 The Demand and Supply Sides of Clientelism ..................................................... 15 2.3 Whom do Clientelistic Parties Target? ................................................................. 17 2.4 Monitoring and Compliance ................................................................................. 20 2.5 Vote-Buying, Turnout-Buying and Abstention-Buying ....................................... 22 2.6 The Impact of Competition on Clientelism .......................................................... 25 2.7 Programmatic versus Clientelistic Linkages ......................................................... 29 2.8 Why Parties Become Programmatic ..................................................................... 31 2.9 The Empirical Study of Clientelism ..................................................................... 33 2.9.1 Measuring Clientelism ..................................................................................... 33 2.9.2 Government Expenditures and Social Programs ............................................. 34 2.9.3 Operationalization and Main Findings ............................................................. 37 2.9.4 Elite Surveys and Public Opinion .................................................................... 43 vii 2.9.5 Curtailing Desirability Bias in Clientelism ...................................................... 49 3. The Determinants of Vote-Selling ................................................................................ 51 3.1 Mexico: Political Decentralization and Fiscal Liberty ......................................... 52 3.1.1 State-Level Elections ....................................................................................... 57 3.1.2 Fiscal Decentralization ..................................................................................... 62 3.2 Theory and Testable Hypotheses .......................................................................... 66 3.2.1 Willingness to Engage in Clientelism and Vote-Selling .................................. 70 3.2.2 Voter Reservation Prices .................................................................................. 74 3.2.3 The Demand Side of Clientelism and Vote-Buying ........................................ 74 3.3 Data and Methodology .......................................................................................... 75 3.3.1 Control Variables ............................................................................................. 81 3.4 Results: Likelihood to Sell the Vote ..................................................................... 86 3.4.1 Non-Parametric Estimations for Likelihood to Sell the Vote .......................... 91 3.5 Concluding Remarks ............................................................................................. 96 4. Voter Reservation Prices and the Structure of Political Competition ........................... 98 4.1 The Price of Votes ................................................................................................ 98 4.2 Results: Voter Reservation Prices ....................................................................... 107 4.2.1 Ascertaining the Effects of the Main Variables ............................................. 113 4.2.2 Non-Parametric Estimation: Voter Reservation Prices .................................. 120 4.3 Concluding Remarks ........................................................................................... 123 5. Why Voters Become Clientelistic ..............................................................................