IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15127.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

He Who Counts Elects: Determinants of Fraud in the 1922 Colombian Presidential Election

Author

Listed:
  • Isaías N. Chaves
  • Leopoldo Fergusson
  • James A. Robinson

Abstract

This paper constructs measures of the extent of ballot stuffing (fraudulent votes) and electoral coercion at the municipal level using data from Colombia's 1922 Presidential elections. Our main findings are that the presence of the state reduced the extent of ballot stuffing, but that of the clergy, which was closely imbricated in partisan politics, increased coercion. We also show that landed elites to some extent substituted for the absence of the state and managed to reduce the extent of fraud where they were strong. At the same time, in places which were completely out of the sphere of the state, and thus partisan politics, both ballot stuffing and coercion were relatively low. Thus the relationship between state presence and fraud is not monotonic.

Suggested Citation

  • Isaías N. Chaves & Leopoldo Fergusson & James A. Robinson, 2009. "He Who Counts Elects: Determinants of Fraud in the 1922 Colombian Presidential Election," NBER Working Papers 15127, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15127
    Note: POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15127.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Assar Lindbeck & Jörgen Weibull, 1987. "Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 273-297, January.
    2. Nichter, Simeon, 2008. "Vote Buying or Turnout Buying? Machine Politics and the Secret Ballot," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(1), pages 19-31, February.
    3. Camilo García Jimeno, 2005. "Colonial Institutions And Long-Run Economic Performance In Colombia: Is There Evidence Of Persistence?," Documentos CEDE 2152, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    4. Acemoglu,Daron & Robinson,James A., 2009. "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671422, November.
    5. Eddie Dekel & Matthew O. Jackson & Asher Wolinsky, 2008. "Vote Buying: General Elections," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(2), pages 351-380, April.
    6. Jean-Marie Baland & James A. Robinson, 2008. "Land and Power: Theory and Evidence from Chile," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1737-1765, December.
    7. Jean‐Marie Baland & James A. Robinson, 2012. "The Political Value of Land: Political Reform and Land Prices in Chile," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 601-619, July.
    8. Stokes, Susan C., 2005. "Perverse Accountability: A Formal Model of Machine Politics with Evidence from Argentina," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(3), pages 315-325, August.
    9. Ziblatt, Daniel, 2009. "Shaping Democratic Practice and the Causes of Electoral Fraud: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Germany," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(1), pages 1-21, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economic History > Regional Economic History > Latin American Economic History > Economic History of Colombia

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diego Jara & Felipe Parra & Alvaro Riascos & Mauricio Romero, 2011. "Análisis digital y detección de elecciones atípicas," Documentos CEDE 9064, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson & Rafael J. Santos, 2013. "The Monopoly Of Violence: Evidence From Colombia," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 5-44, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aidt, T.S. & Jensen, P.S., 2012. "From Open to Secret Ballot: Vote Buying and Modernization," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1221, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Timothy Frye & John Reuter & David Szakonyi, 2012. "Political Machines at Work: Voter Mobilization and Electoral Subversion in the Workplace," HSE Working papers WP BRP 08/PS/2012, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    3. Keefer, Philip & Vlaicu, Razvan, 2017. "Vote buying and campaign promises," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 773-792.
    4. Toke Aidt & Zareh Asatryan & Lusine Badalyan & Friedrich Heinemann, 2020. "Vote Buying or (Political) Business (Cycles) as Usual?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 409-425, July.
    5. Leight, Jessica & Foarta, Dana & Pande, Rohini & Ralston, Laura, 2020. "Value for money? Vote-buying and politician accountability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    6. Leopoldo Fergusson & Horacio Larreguy & Juan Felipe Riaño, 2022. "Political Competition and State Capacity: Evidence from a Land Allocation Program in Mexico," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(648), pages 2815-2834.
    7. Alice Guerra & Mogens K. Justesen, 2022. "Vote buying and redistribution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 193(3), pages 315-344, December.
    8. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Paul J. Gertler & Marco Gonzalez-Navarro & Simeon Nichter, 2022. "Vulnerability and Clientelism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(11), pages 3627-3659, November.
    9. Vladimir Shchukin & Cemal Eren Arbatli, 2022. "Clientelism and development: Vote-buying meets patronage," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(1), pages 3-34, January.
    10. Raúl Duarte & Frederico Finan & Horacio Larreguy & Laura Schechter, 2019. "Brokering Votes With Information Spread Via Social Networks," NBER Working Papers 26241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Nicole M. Mason & Thomas S. Jayne & Nicolas van de Walle, 2017. "The Political Economy of Fertilizer Subsidy Programs in Africa: Evidence from Zambia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(3), pages 705-731.
    12. Ali, Amin Masud & Savoia, Antonio, 2023. "Decentralisation or patronage: What determines government's allocation of development spending in a unitary country? Evidence from Bangladesh," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    13. Jessica Leight & Rohini Pande & Laura Ralston, 2016. "Value for Money? Vote-Buying and Politician Accountability in the Laboratory," Department of Economics Working Papers 2016-15, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    14. Amat, Francesc & Beramendi, Pablo, 2016. "Economic and Political Inequality: The Role of Political Mobilization," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 277, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    15. Frederico Finan & Laura Schechter, 2012. "Vote‐Buying and Reciprocity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(2), pages 863-881, March.
    16. Leopoldo Fergusson & Carlos Molina & Juan Felipe Riaño, 2018. "I Sell My Vote, and So What? Incidence, Social Bias, and Correlates of Clientelism in Colombia," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2018), pages 181-218, November.
    17. Prummer, Anja, 2020. "Micro-targeting and polarization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    18. Casas, Agustin, 2020. "The electoral benefits of unemployment, clientelism and distributive politics," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    19. Anand Murugesan & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2023. "The Puzzling Practice of Paying “Cash for Votes”," CESifo Working Paper Series 10504, CESifo.
    20. Ronconi, Lucas & Zarazaga, Rodrigo, 2017. "The Tragedy of Clientelism: Opting Children Out," IZA Discussion Papers 10973, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15127. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.