An emerging literature emphasizes the importance of vote brokers for electoral politics in the developing world. Yet in spite of the great interest in the topic, attempts to assess the impact of vote brokerage on election returns are exceedingly rare. This paper provides the first explicit assessment of the electoral returns to politicians from purchasing the allegiances of brokers. It does so by drawing upon a unique dataset documenting the allocation of off-the-books payments to vote brokers during a gubernatorial reelection campaign in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. The study finds that in the typical municipality buying off local brokers was associated with a 4–6 percentage point increase in the vote share obtained by the governor. All told, the findings suggest that vote brokerage is a resilient form of political linkage that can shape vote choice even in contexts of vote secrecy and intermediate levels of economic development.
Brokered Politics in Brazil: An Empirical Analysis* Available to Purchase
The author would like to thank Pablo Beramendi, John Echeverri-Gent, Frances Hagopian, Herbert Kitschelt, David Lewis, Olivia Miljanic, Virginia Oliveros, Karen Remmer, David Samuels, Hillel Soifer, the Editors, two anonymous referees, and seminar participants at Duke University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Virginia, and the annual meetings of the American and Midwest Political Science Associations for helpful comments and suggestions. Special thanks go to Ana Araujo Alves for excellent research assistance.
Gingerich DW (2014), "Brokered Politics in Brazil: An Empirical Analysis*". Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Vol. 9 No. 3 pp. 269–300, doi: https://doi.org/10.1561/100.00013040
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