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Clientelism, Contagious Voting and Governance

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  • Abhirup Sarkar

Abstract

This paper explains inferior quality of governance in less affluent countries in terms of a patron–client relationship between political parties and a large section of voters. The client voters resort to strategic voting, which is shown to be contagious, leading to suboptimal effort choice by the incumbent government and a higher probability for the incumbent to remain in power. The possibility of competition between the incumbent and the opposition, in terms of expenditure on political propaganda, actually helps the incumbent and reinforces these results.

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  • Abhirup Sarkar, 2018. "Clientelism, Contagious Voting and Governance," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(339), pages 518-531, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:econom:v:85:y:2018:i:339:p:518-531
    DOI: 10.1111/ecca.12265
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    Cited by:

    1. Soumyanetra Munshi, 2021. "Criminality and clientelism: a game-theoretic exploration," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 375-403, December.
    2. Sarkar, Abhirup & Sinha, Abhinandan, 2022. "Clientelism and violence: The politics of informal economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).

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