Political Agency, Election Quality, and Corruption

How does electoral manipulation affect elected officials’ willingness to satisfy their constituents? Although the literature has highlighted the role of elections as mechanisms of accountability, we do not know how elections whose integrity is compromised influence elected officials’ actions in offi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of politics 2020-10, Vol.82 (4), p.1256-1270
Main Authors: Rueda, Miguel R., Ruiz, Nelson A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accountability
Constituents
Corruption
Corruption in government
Discontinuity
Elections
Extraction
Manipulation
Morality
Public officials
Sanctions
Voter fraud
Voting
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Summary:How does electoral manipulation affect elected officials’ willingness to satisfy their constituents? Although the literature has highlighted the role of elections as mechanisms of accountability, we do not know how elections whose integrity is compromised influence elected officials’ actions in office. We present a model of accountability that allows for electoral manipulation and derive three results: (i) rent extraction increases with the level of electoral manipulation, (ii) the value of holding office is positively related to rent extraction for high values of office, and (iii) electoral manipulation increases with the value of office. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design that exploits rules determining the sizes of polling stations in Colombia, we estimate a positive causal effect of vote buying on the likelihood of the election winner being sanctioned for violating the disciplinary code of public officials. Consistent with the theory, we find that higher values of office are not linked to fewer sanctions but are associated with more vote buying.
ISSN:0022-3816
1468-2508
DOI:10.1086/708243