I Don’t Like It Unless It’s for Me: Voters’ Perceptions of Pork-Barrel Politics in Central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT

Public resources are often allocated neither effectively nor equitably, and they serve as a tool for securing re-election. Despite compelling evidence for pork-barrel politics, little is known about voters’ perceptions of this practice. Moreover, limited findings from Western countries are also contradictory – voters perceive such a strategy both positively and negatively. To contribute with findings from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), we conducted two survey experiments – in Czechia and Slovakia – which randomized people’s exposure to fairness of the distribution and profit for the respondent’s country. Our results suggest that once voters realize their profit from pork-barrel politics, they are less critical of unfair distributions of resources and the responsible decision-maker.

Supplementary Files

Supplementary files (experimental design, data, and code) are available at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GYHP2Q.

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1. Full wording of the experimental design and replications files are available in supplementary files at 10.7910/DVN/GYHP2Q.

2. Competing countries were selected in a way that allowed the expected effect to be verified under different conditions. Hungary shares a post-communist experience with Slovakia and is economically and politically similar. Germany represents an economically more efficient country and differs from the Czech Republic not only in its historical experience but also in its size, population composition, and so on.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (Grant no. GA18-16928S).