Offer money, they will accept: linkages between authoritarian tendencies and clientelist targeting in Africa

ABSTRACT

Understanding clientelist practices is one of the core issues to unravel to ensure the proper functioning of electoral institutions. This article focuses on the decision of patrons/brokers on who to target, introducing a new norm into the picture – authoritarianism. Building on the theories of norm-based compliance, I argued that authoritarian individuals should be more frequently targeted, as they should be more likely to comply with brokers demands without external monitoring. I posit that this is true because authoritarian individuals should be more willing to submit to the will and demands of authorities (brokers), and because they are likely to evaluate clientelism as morally acceptable and a legitimate electoral strategy. Furthermore, the rate of authoritarian targeting should be higher in institutional settings that limit the overall reach of clientelism. Utilizing Afrobarometer (2011-2013) data for 34 countries, through multilevel regression modelling I show that authoritarian individuals do have a higher chance of being targeted with the strength of this association increasing as the district magnitude rises. This article opens a new avenue of research that introduces individual level authoritarianism into the literature on clientelist targeting and complements the norm-based compliance approach with a focus on a new and potentially influential norm.

KEYWORDS:

• Clientelism
• targeting
• authoritarianism
• Africa
• district magnitude

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Kitschelt and Wilkinson, “Citizen-Political linkages.”

2 Stokes, “A formal model of machine politics.”

3 Stokes et al., Brokers, voters, and clientelism.

4 Lawson and Green, “Making clientelism work.”

5 Carlin and Moseley, “Good democrats, bad targets” and Carlin and Moseley, “When Clientelism Backfires.”

6 Robinson and Verdier, “The political economy.”

7 Dal Bó, “Bribing voters.”

8 Lawson and Green, “Making clientelism work.”

9 see Van de Walle, “Meet the new boss.”

10 Cohrs et al., “Effects of right-wing” and Crowson, “Authoritarianism, perceived threat.”

11 Arlin, “Right-wing authoritarianism.”

12 Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture in Lawson and Greene, “Making clientelism work.”

13 Chang and Golden, “Electoral systems.”

14 Pellicer and Wegner, “Electoral rules.”

15 see Mares, From open secrets, for XIX century German elections.

16 Hicken, “Clientelism”

17 Kitschelt and Wilkinson, “Citizen-Political linkages.”

18 Yildirim and Kitschelt, “Analytical perspectives” and Berenschot and Aspinall, “How clientelism varies.”

19 Stokes et al., Brokers, voters, and clientelism.

20 Note that this conceptualization of clientelism implicitly excludes negative clientelist strategies, such as threats, the withdrawal of benefits and ultimately violence. While I recognize that these can also constitute clientelist exchanges, this paper will focus only on those strategies that “promise” some sort of directly transferable benefits for future electoral support.

21 Mares and Young, “Buying, expropriating.”

22 Stokes, “A formal model of machine politics” and Stokes et al., Brokers, voters, and clientelism.

23 see Mares and Young, “Buying, expropriating” for an extensive review.

24 Calvo and Murillo, “Who Delivers?”

25 Gans-Morse et al., “Varieties of clientelism.”

26 Mares and Young, “Buying, expropriating.”

27 Stokes, “A formal model of machine politics,” Stokes et al., Brokers, voters, and clientelism, and Calvo and Murillo, “Who Delivers?”

28 Calvo and Murillo, “Who Delivers?” Stokes, “A formal model of machine politics” and Stokes et al., Brokers, voters, and clientelism.

29 Gonzales-Ocantos et al., “Vote buying.”

30 Bratton “Vote buying”

31 Kitschelt and Altamirano, “Clientelism in Latin America.”

32 Kitschelt and Wilkinson, “Citizen-Political linkages.”

33 Lawson and Green, “Making clientelism work.”

34 Kramon, “Electoral handouts as information.”

35 Ibid.

36 Vicente and Wantchekon, “Clientelism and vote buying.”

37 Kramon, “Electoral handouts as information,” 456.

38 Muno, “Conceptualizing and measuring clientelism.”

39 Lawson and Green, “Making clientelism work.”

40 Kitschelt and Wilkinson, “Citizen-Political linkages.”

41 Lawson and Green, “Making clientelism work,” Chang, “A behavioural model,” and Finan and Schechter, “Vote buying and reciprocity.”

42 Finan and Schester, “Vote buying and reciprocity.”

43 Ibid.

44 Lawson and Green, “Making clientelism work.”

45 Hicken, “Clientelism.”

46 Ibid.

47 Ravanilla et al., “Brokers, social networks, reciprocity.”

48 Finan and Schester, “Vote buying and reciprocity”

49 Duarte et al., “Brokering votes with information.”

50 Vilchez et al., “A systemic framework.”

51 Lawson and Green, “Making clientelism work.”

52 Fox, “The difficult transition.”

53 Carlin and Moseley, “When Clientelism Backfires.”

54 Carlin and Moseley, “Good democrats, bad targets.”

55 Gonzales-Ocantos et al., “Vote buying.”

56 Altemeyer, “The other “authoritarian personality”.”

57 Ibid, 52.

58 Ibid, 48.

59 Finan and Schester, “Vote buying and reciprocity.”

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Bratton, “Vote Buying.”

63 Taylor, “Ethnic politics and election campaigns.”

64 See Koter, “King makers.”

65 Ibid.

66 Yildirim and Kitschelt, “Analytical perspectives” and Berenschot and Aspinall, “How clientelism varies.”

67 Ibid, 192.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 Finan and Schester, “Vote buying and reciprocity.”

71 Duarte et al., “Brokering votes with information.”

72 Ravanilla et al., “Brokers, social networks, reciprocity.”

73 Lande, “The Dyadic Basis.”

74 Hicken, “Clientelism.”

75 Yildirim and Kitchelt, “Analytical perspectives.”

76 see Altemeyer, The authoritarian specter.

77 see McKee and Feather, “Revenge, retribution.”

78 Ibid.

79 Schwartz, “Universals in the content”

80 For example, Bratton (2008) reported that most of Nigerian voters view vote buying as an infraction against public morality.

81 Altemeyer, The authoritarians.

82 Altemeyer, “The other “authoritarian personality”,” 48.

83 Cohrs et al., “Effects of right-wing”

84 see also Crowson, “Authoritarianism, perceived threat.”

85 Dunwoody and Plane, “The influence of authoritarianism.”

86 Arlin, “Right-wing authoritarianism.”

87 Markowski, Creating authoritarian Clientelism, 125.

88 see Mares and Young, “Buying, expropriating.”

89 Ibid.

90 Chang and Golden, “Electoral systems.”

91 Pellicer and Wegner, “Electoral rules.”

92 Chang and Golden, “Electoral systems.”

93 Ibid.

94 Mares and Young, “Buying, expropriating.”

95 Carey and Shugart, “Incentives to cultivate.”

96 Chang and Golden, “Electoral systems”

97 Gonzales-Ocantos et al., “Vote buying” and Carlin and Moseley, “Good democrats, bad targets.”

98 Country level data for Sierra Leone and Nigeria, that are a part of currently unpublished Afrobarometer Round 8 (2019-2021) was used for additional robustness analysis presented in Appendix.

99 Possible validity issues regarding this measurement and the subsequent analysis lies in the fact that it may be that authoritarian individuals are systematically different than the rest of the sample in reporting clientelist targeting. While this may be a valid criticism of the approach taken here, I would argue it does not reduce the validity of the findings. Admitting to being offered voting incentives is not an automatic admittance of accepting the offer, and, in itself, it does not constitute wrongdoing on part of the respondent. If it was an actual measure of the criminal behaviour of the respondents, it would be a much more serious shortcoming.

100 Altemeyer, “The other “authoritarian personality”.”

101 Item 1 – The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just “loud mouths” showing off their ignorance; Item 5 – It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabblerousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people”s minds; Item 25 – What our country needs most is discipline, with everyone following our leaders in unity.

102 Stokes et al., Brokers, voters, and clientelism.

103 See Koter, “King makers.”

104 Lawson and Green, “Making clientelism work.”

105 Mares and Young, “Buying, expropriating.”

106 Koter, “King makers.”

107 Corstrange, “Clientelism in competitive” and Dawson et al., “Electoral competition, political parties and clientelism.”

108 For a review see Hicken, “Clientelism”

109 Allen, “Clientelism and the personal.”

110 Hicken, “Clientelism.”

111 See adapted CVELI index – measure of the association between ethnic identity and vote choice by country in Koter, “King makers,” 189.

112 Chang and Golden, “Electoral systems”

113 Carlin and Moseley, “When Clientelism Backfires.”

114 see Altemeyer, The authoritarians.

115 Koter, “King makers.”

116 Batty, “Do Ethnic Groups.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nemanja Stankov

Nemanja Stankov is a teaching associate at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Montenegro. In his work, he focuses on political behavior and patterns of right-wing electoral support, mostly from a political psychology perspective.