Clientelism in Election Evolves due to People’s Interdependent Preferences even with Secret Ballots

What is it about?

A novel incentivized experiment was conducted to show that even during perfectly one-shot interactions where monitoring is not possible, candidates form incomplete contracts with voters through vote buying and promise-making. Repeated interactions significantly magnify candidates’ offers and deepen clientelistic relationships with voters. Further, interestingly, the candidates’ clientelistic behaviors are heterogeneous: some target swing voters, whereas others offer the most to loyal voters, or even opposition voters.

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Why is it important?

In democratic societies, secret ballots are often in official use. While a large body of work based on surveys, case studies, and field experiments has found that incomplete political contracts are common empirical phenomena, the literature consistently suggested the roles of various mechanisms for political actors to overcome the commitment problems behind incomplete, such as the monitoring of citizens’ votes and punishment. However, this article demonstrates that without such mechanisms, people’s interdependent preferences and repetition alone may sustain clientelism, even if the secrecy of ballots is strictly enforced and voters can free ride on other voters.

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