Coordinating the machine: subnational political context and the effectiveness of machine politics

Abstract

Political machines use state resources to win elections in many developing democracies and electoral autocracies. Recent research has noted that the coordination of machine politics can be much more complex and problem-prone than previously thought. Yet, the role that the subnational political context plays in solving these coordination problems has largely been neglected in the comparative literature. This article seeks to fill this gap and suggests that control over the local administration is an important variable that shapes the effectiveness of authoritarian machine politics. We exploit the great institutional and political variation within one of the most prominent electoral authoritarian regimes of today, the Russian Federation, to test the empirical implications of the theory with detailed local level electoral and socio-economic data as well as multilevel regression models. The empirical results highlight the importance of subnational political structures in supporting electoral authoritarian regimes.

Electoral risk and vote buying, introducing prospect theory to the experimental study of clientelism

“…In our paper, we have addressed situations where political contestation should not be high to produce the outcome of interest (vote buying). These kinds of dynamics might also be relevant for authoritarian or semi-authoritarian contexts like Russia (Saikkonen, 2021) or Cameroon (Miscoiu and Kakdeu, 2021), where political competition has been effectively restricted or limited. Therefore, it should be interesting for democracy scholars to study the different dynamics of authoritarian clientelism in light of prospect theory.…”

“…Similarly, Magaloni (2008) explains that hegemonic regimes such as the PRI in Mexico have survived thanks to successful deterrence strategies and clientelism (see also Hagene, 2015, p. 146). In fact, other notable examples include cases of authoritarian or semi-authoritarian clientelism where political contestation is outright banned -like in Russia (Saikkonen, 2021) -or limited, like in Cameroon (Miscoiu and Kakdeu, 2021). 6 At the end of the day, however, the question still stands: When should vote buying be higher, in contexts of high or low political contestation?…”

Political Parties, State Resources and Electoral Clientelism

“…For example, the literature lacks indicators for the distribution of public resources by political parties when interacting with voters. This is partially addressed by several articles in this special issue in which clientelism can take the form of networks developed around one person (Mişcoiu and Kakdeu, 2021), administrative personnel (Howlett and Rayner, 2020), or electoral strategies (Saikkonen, 2021). Related to consequences of clientelism, some works in this special issue suggest several methodological approaches that allow gauging the basic characteristics of expected clientelism.…”

Political parties, state resources and electoral clientelism

“…For example, the literature lacks indicators for the distribution of public resources by political parties when interacting with voters. This is partially addressed by several articles in this special issue in which clientelism can take the form of networks developed around one person (Mişcoiu and Kakdeu 2021), administrative personnel (Howlett and Rayner 2020), or electoral strategies (Saikkonen 2021). Related to consequences of clientelism, some works in this special issue suggest several methodological approaches that allow gauging the basic characteristics of expected clientelism.…”

“…Third, this special issue approaches clientelism from several perspectives and brings together substantive empirical evidence about the varieties of clientelism. The evidence included in this special issue comes from expert perceptions (Gherghina and Volintiru 2020;Berens and Ruth-Lovell 2021), political elite behavior (Denemark 2020; Howlett and Rayner 2020), users of clientelism (Mişcoiu and Kakdeu 2021), and election campaign data (Saikkonen 2021). The special issue combines contributions in the form of contextualized case studies (Australia, Canada, Cameroon, and Russia) with comparative perspectives across countries (Latin America, Eastern partnership countries).…”