The Production of Electoral Intimidation: Economic and Political Incentives

Abstract

In recent years, the study of electoral irregularities has become a central and rapidly growing area of research in comparative politics. A first generation of studies have observed the regrettable persistence of electoral irregularities in a number of countries that have experienced recent democratic transitions and examined the macro-level factors that account for the persistence of electoral authoritarianism in recently democratized countries. 1 Other studies have taken a more micro-level approach to the study of electoral fraud and attempted to understand within-country variation in the strategies by which politicians and agents acting on their behalf seek to influence the electoral choices of voters. 2 One important conclusion that emerges from this recent body of scholarship is that electoral corruption is, in itself, a multidimensional phenomenon. Politicians can rely on a variety of strategies to influence the electoral choices of voters. A first possible strategy is vote buying, the distribution of individualized benefits at times of elections. 3 Another possible strategy is the provision of political services by government officials in exchange for political support. 4 In other electoral contexts, politicians do not seek to influence the choices made by voters at the ballot box through vote-buying or patronage, but through electoral intimidation. Electoral intimidation includes the use of threats directed against voters that support "undesired" political candidates and post-electoral reprisals directed against these voters. One common form of electoral punishment used by private actors is "electoral layoffs" in retaliation for the voting decisions of their workers. In contrast to vote buying or patronage, electoral intimidation perpetuated by employees of the state or by private actors has received less attention in the recent comparative literature.Our paper attempts to characterize the economic and political factors that impinge upon the decision of politicians and other actors supporting particular candidates to engage in electoral intimidation of voters. We examine electoral politics in Imperial Germany, a political environment characterized by the ample use of intimidation at times of elections and by the absence of vote-buying or the provision of patronage. We provide a theoretical account of the incentives of public officials and private actors 23

Voter Turnouts in Presidential Elections in Ghana: A Political Economy Analysis Using District-Level Data

“…There is also a growing level of studies on electoral corruption across the world (refer to Vicente, 2014;Nwankwo, 2018). Mares and Zhu (2015) analysed issues related to electoral corruption arguing that this phenomenon was multidimensional in nature. Electoral corruption includes vote buying by politicians, the distribution of benefits to individuals around the time of elections by politicians and their aides, and electoral intimidation of citizens to vote in a particular way.…”

The Unintended Consequences of Democratic Reforms: Electronic Voting and Criminal Violence in Brazil

“…Unlike weak parties, strong and institutionalized political parties reduce the incentives for violent electoral manipulation and electoral violence against political competition (Fjelde, 2020). Indeed, as Mares and Zhu (2015) show for the case of Germany, candidates from weak parties sought alliances with both state employees and private actors to engage in electoral intimidation. In Brazil, weak and personalistic political parties have more frequently built close ties with criminal groups than stronger party organizations, such as the PT (Albarracín, 2018b).…”

“…and more autonomous with respect to their parties, which lowers the costs of establishing relationships with private actors, including criminal groups (Albarracín, 2018a;Mares and Zhu, 2015).…”

Pandemics and Political Development: The Electoral Legacy of the Black Death in Germany

“…Importantly, the formal conditions of the elections (electoral rules, voting age, suffrage restrictions) were homogeneous across Germany, making it suitable for a cross-sectional analysis. 10 Two outcomes are of greatest interest to us: (1) the vote share that the Conservative party received in 1871 11 and (2) the number of electoral disputes between 1871 and 1912, with the latter indicating violations of electoral rules (typically by elites) and being studied extensively by Ziblatt (2009) and Mares and Zhu (2015).…”