Clientelism and programmatic redistribution: Evidence from a conjoint survey experiment in Brazil

Mogens K. Justesen, Sigrid Koob and Sina Smid

World Development, 2025, vol. 195, issue C

Abstract: In real-world elections, voters mostly do not face a choice between ’good’ or ’bad’ candidates but rather between candidates who attempt to mobilize electoral support by mixing normatively desirable policies on issues like social protection with normatively undesirable practices like vote buying. In this paper, we study how voters reward or punish candidates who differ in their mix of clientelistic and programmatic distribution. We gather evidence from a conjoint experiment of voter preferences for city councilors in Brazil. Our findings show that clientelism negatively affects voter support, even when candidates add programmatic redistribution to their policy platform. However, clientelism involving offering work is punished less harshly and may even make candidates more electorally viable. Low-income voters, in particular, are more lenient towards clientelistic distribution involving work when it is combined with pro-poor programmatic distribution. Our findings help explain why politicians continue to use certain types of clientelism and how these are paired with programmatic redistribution to mobilize voter support.

Keywords: Clientelism; Distributive politics; Pro-poor programmatic redistribution; Electoral corruption; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:195:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x25002098

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107124

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