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Vote Buying in Argentina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Valeria Brusco ,
Marcelo Nazareno  and
Susan C. Stokes
Valeria Brusco
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de Villa María
Marcelo Nazareno
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
Susan C. Stokes
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Abstract

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We analyze vote buying in Argentina—the payment by political parties of minor benefits (food, clothing, cash) to citizens in exchange for their votes. How widespread is vote buying in Argentina, and what is the profile of the typical vote “seller”? Did the shift toward a neoliberal economic model in the 1990s increase or reduce vote buying? Why do parties attempt to buy votes when the ballot is secret and people could simply accept campaign handouts and then vote as they wish? We analyze responses to surveys we conducted in Argentina in 2002 and offer answers to these questions. Our findings suggest that vote buying is an effective strategy for mobilizing electoral support among low-income people when parties are able to monitor voters' actions, make reasonably accurate inferences about how individuals voted, and credibly threaten to punish voters who defect from the implicit clientelist bargain. Our results point toward ballot reform as one way to reduce vote buying in Argentina.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 2004 , pp. 66 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

For comments on earlier versions of this paper we thank John Brehm, Matt Cleary, Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, Jim Fearon, Gretchen Helmke, Eungsoo Kim, Gary King, Matt Kocher, David Laitin, Steve Levitsky, Pierre Ostiguy, Beatriz Magaloni, Gabriela Pérez, Steve Pincus, and Armando Razo. Research supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, by National Science Foundation research grant SES-0241958, by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and by an American Political Science Association Research Grant.

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