See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279296293

Mayors, ethnic intermediaries and party brokers:

Explaining variation in clientelistic strategies in
rural settings

Conference Paper · June 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2440.8162

CITATION READS

1 31

2 authors:

Isabela Mares Aurelian Muntean

Columbia University National University of Political Studies and Pub…
42 PUBLICATIONS 430 CITATIONS 10 PUBLICATIONS 11 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Isabela Mares on 29 June 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document
and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.
 1

Mayors, ethnic intermediaries and party brokers:

Explaining variation in clientelistic strategies in rural
settings

Isabela Mares
Columbia University
im2195@columbia.edu

Aurelian Muntean
SNSPA Bucharest
and Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu
muntean@politice.ro

Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the European Political Science Association,
Vienna, June 25-27, 2015. We are grateful to Daniel Corstange, Donald Green, Kimuli Kasara, George
Matu and Lauren Young for invaluable help and advice in preparing this study. All outstanding errors
remain our own.
 2

Abstract

While clientelistic mobilization is a pervasive phenomenon in contemporary elections, one encounters a

wide variation in the type of brokers deployed by politicians. This paper formulates and tests a number of

hypotheses that seek to explain the variation across localities in the types of brokers mobilized by

politicians. We examine the relationship between partisan favors and political conditions in a locality and

ability of candidates to mobilize the resources of three types of brokers: employees of the local

administration, ethnic brokers and partisan brokers. To test these propositions, we conducted a survey that

includes a battery of list experiments measuring different clientelistic strategies in 85 Romanian rural

communities after the 2014 presidential election.

 3

Non-programmatic politics or clientelism is a pervasive phenomenon in many contemporary

settings. In contexts, where candidates compete on the basis of such clientelistic mobilization, candidates

rely on a variety of brokers to mobilize voters at times of elections and also to influence their political

choice at the ballot box (Stokes et al. 2013). These brokers seek to influence the choices of voters through a

variety of strategies, including the offer of gifts or money, administrative favors or through coercion or

harassment.

In a recent seminal contribution, Susan Stokes and collaborators have brought to the forefront the

importance of political brokers as intermediaries between candidates and voters (Stokes et.al. 2013). Yet

while the recent literature has recognized the importance of brokers, a number of additional questions

pertaining to the operation of such broker-mediated clientelistic relationships remain still insufficiently

understood. Most studies focus primarily on partisan brokers. However, in a variety of contexts, candidates

enlist support from other agents. One important type of brokers are employees of the state – such as

officials of local welfare administration like mayor or councilors, employees of the local city hall like tax

collectors, social workers or policemen. Other types of brokers, like former officials, party activists, NGO

members, clergymen, teachers, postmen, money lenders, informal community / ethnic leaders, or even

candidate’s family members, do not necessarily have a direct employment relation with the local state

institutions, but they are part of the electoral mechanism of brokerage used by candidates and parties. These

brokers can mobilize a sizeable group of voters on the day of elections and rely on a combination of

inducements and pressure to influence the choice made by their co-ethnics in the ballot box.

If candidates competing at elections can mobilize a variety of different types of brokers, what

factors explain the variation in the type of brokers deployed in different communities? When and under

what conditions are politicians more likely to rely on state employees as political brokers? Under what

conditions do candidates turn to ethnic intermediaries? What is the relative importance of locality level

political and economic conditions and partisan factors in explaining the variation in the incidence of

brokers across localities? Turning from analysis of variation across localities to an analysis of variation

across individuals, we will also examine a range of questions about individual level characteristics of voters

that make these more vulnerable to clientelistic appeals.

 4

In addressing these questions, our paper seeks to contribute to two distinct literatures. First, we

seek to contribute to the rapidly growing literature on electoral clientelism. Our study attempts to explain

the systematic variation across localities in candidates’ reliance on different types of brokers. We also

examine the variation in the strategies pursued by these brokers and seek to identify the particular voters

that are targeted by these strategies.

Secondly, our study also has implications for the literature examining the development of party-

like organizations in contexts with weakly developed political parties. Our study, which seeks to

characterize the systematic variation across localities in the use of different clientelistic strategies, sheds

light on the formation of institutions that are functional substitutes to party organizations. As, such, our

study seeks to explain the variation in political institutions that are functional substitutes to party

organizations across different localities. This micro-level approach to the questions on party organization

complements existing studies on political parties that explain variation in party organizations as a result of

choices made by national party leaders (Tavits 2014).

The empirical data used in our paper draws on two surveys conducted in rural Romanian

communities in the aftermath of the 2014 presidential election. To examine a range of illicit electoral

strategies on the basis of which candidates appealed to voters, our surveys made use of item-count

techniques or list experiments, which allow us to elicit truthful responses to highly sensitive political

questions (Kuklinski, Cobb and Gilens 1997, Blair and Imai 2012). We use a variety of such ‘lists’ to

assess both the variety of political brokers deployed by candidates and, in some cases, the strategies

deployed by these brokers.

The remaining paper will be organized as follows. We begin by locating our study within the

rapidly growing literature on electoral clientelism. Next, we present a number of theoretical hypotheses

about the variation in the type of brokers deployed by politicians in different localities. The following

section discusses the design of our study and of the various lists included in our surveys. Section 3

discusses the results about the variation in the incidence of non-programmatic strategies across localities,

while the next section discusses the variation in the type of voters targeted by different strategies. We

conclude, by discussing theoretical and policy implications of our study.

 5

Political clientelism: a variety of brokers, a variety of strategies

The study of electoral clientelism is a vibrant and recently growing literature in comparative

politics (Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007, Stokes et al. 2013). In its first iterations, the literature on

clientelism established conceptual distinctions between programmatic and clientelistic competition

(Kitschelt 2000, Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007). In the former, candidates appealed to voters on the basis of

policy promises, in the latter, they appealed on the basis of offers of gifts, money or favors. In this early

literature that examined tradeoffs between clientelistic and programmatic promises, political clientelism

remained a highly aggregate category. An important recent development in the literature of electoral

clientelism has attempted to disaggregate among the various clientelistic strategies (Luna 2014; Gans-

Morse, Mazzuca and Nichter 2014; Mares and Petrova 2014; Mares and Young 2014). This paper seeks to

contribute to the growing literature that attempts to disaggregate clientelistic practices. We disaggregate

clientelism by examining the different types of brokers deployed by politicians and by understanding the

political factors that account for the mobilization of different types of brokers.

To understand the menu of possible brokers, we will start by considering the types of brokers that

have been documented in previous studies. The clientelistic exchange that has been investigated most

extensively has been vote-buying, understood as the offer of monetary benefits to voters by partisan

brokers (Brusco et al. 2004, Stokes 2005, Stokes et al. 2013). Stokes defines partisan brokers as “locally

embedded agents of the machine who command the knowledge of voter preferences and partisan

inclinations.” (Stokes et al. 2013: 100) Finan and Schechter describe these brokers as professional in

politics and the backbone of the election campaign who “[…] know their fellow villagers well […]” (Finan

and Schechter 2012: 867). One of the respondents in their study provided the following definition of

partisan brokers. “The operative does his work, buying the conscience of the voter with money, with

alcohol, buying his ID card, a little medicine, sugar, bread, tea and in this way he goes buying and winning

adherents.” (Finan and Schechter 2012: 867)

 6

A second type of brokers that can be mobilized by candidates are state employees. While earlier

studies of electoral clientelism have neglected the importance of these brokers, state employees occupy a

central position in more recent research on clientelism (Oliveros 2013, Mares 2015). Examples of state

employees who can be deployed as brokers include policemen, city infrastructure employees, agricultural,

veterinary and forest inspectors, tax collectors or employees of the local social policy administration. These

brokers can attempt to influence the choices of voters through a combination of positive and negative

inducements. Positive inducements can refer to offers of administrative favors delivered in exchange for

political support. Such offers may include assistance with administrative matters, such as certificates of

land-ownership or various licenses for small- and medium-sized enterprises, or provision of privileged

access to social policy benefits in expectation for a vote. By contrast, negative inducements refer to the use

of threats by state employees to withhold access to welfare benefits for voters that made the incorrect

political choice.

Finally, a number of recent studies have discussed candidates’ reliance on local leaders as brokers

(Baldwin 2012, Koter 2013). Such leaders may include traditional chiefs, religious dignitaries, local

leaders, such as leaders of ethnic communities. These brokers control access to goods and services that are

valued by voters and can use this control to threaten to influence voters’ choice. As Koter has argued, the

relationship between local leaders and their followers is complex in that it can be based both on reciprocity

and on some degree of exploitation. Voters can trust and rely on their leaders but also feel trapped in their

subordinate position (Koter 2013: 193). Local ethnic leaders often possess unrivaled information not just

about the political preferences of the voters in the respective community, but also about their respective

personal histories of interaction with state authorities, their economic needs and so on. Ethnic leaders can

use selective positive and negative inducements to influence the political choice of voters or to coerce

voters to support a particular candidate.

In cumulation, existing studies present a very rich characterization of possible brokers that can be

mobilized at elections and of possible clientelistic strategies. However, with few notable exceptions, very

few studies examine how candidates select among the variety of possible brokers, or how they configure

the specific mix of brokers and strategies. The empirical strategy in most studies is to examine one type of

broker deployed by candidates. The most widely studied clientelistic exchange has broker-mediated vote-
 7

buying. Studies of the deployment of state employees as brokers (such as Oliveros) have turned to state

employees, but ignored other possible clientelistic strategies that are mediated by partisan brokers. This

empirical strategy focusing on one broker at-a-time has important empirical and theoretical shortcomings.

One significant empirical shortcoming is that such approaches produce biased estimates of the magnitude

of clientelistic phenomenon. Theoretically, these approaches leave important questions still unanswered.

These questions concern the choices among different types of brokers and the political and economic

factors the variation across localities in the political brokers deployed at elections.

We take up these questions in our paper. In contrast to these studies, the starting premise of our

analysis is that candidates can deploy a variety of different brokers during elections. We start by developing

a number of hypotheses about the political conditions and partisan factors that might affect the choice of

different brokers. We discuss the relationship between political conditions in different localities and the

supply of possible brokers and their willingness to offer political support to candidates. The following

section develops these hypotheses.

Explaining the variation across localities in the deployment of different

brokers

In most settings characterized by weakly developed party organizations, candidates competing for

national office cannot rely on support from local party offices during campaigns. Party organizations

employing full-time employees may exist in some large urban communities but they are rare or absent in

smaller urban and rural settlements. In these localities, candidates confront in each election the challenge to

establish organizations that can substitute for a local party branch and carry out some of its functions.

Candidates construct party organizations by deploying and combining the resources that are available in

each locality.

Mayors occupy a central position among the potential actors who can provide electoral support to

candidates competing in national elections. They preside over an extensive network of state employees who

can be mobilized at elections. This includes welfare officials, tax collectors, law and order enforcers and

the like. Mayors also have access to significant local-level political information about the political
 8

attachments of various citizens. Due to their informational and logistical resources, mayors often become

the central node in the proto-partisan organization set up by candidates that compete for national elections

in each locality. Mayors differ, however, in the level of resources they can supply to candidates at elections

and in the local political constraints they encounter in attempting to mobilize these resources. Let us

consider several variables that might affect this variation.

The length of political incumbency is an important factor affecting the political resources that can

be mobilized by mayors. As a vast literature on political bureaucracies has established, longer political

incumbency allows mayors to appoint a higher number of loyal partisan activists in the local

administration. These members of the local administration can become an important political resource

during campaigns. Local government officials can be mobilized as brokers during elections. The interaction

by employees of local administration with citizens can become an opportunity to sway political support on

behalf of a candidate. Two such strategies are available to members of the local bureaucracy. On the one

hand, they can promise future access to certain policies or programs in exchange of voters’ support of

particular candidates. We refer to this strategy as the provision of favors. Alternatively, local state

employees can threaten to cut future access to a policy program they are administering to those voters that

support the ‘incorrect candidates’. We refer to this second strategy as welfare threat or welfare coercion.

While the length of incumbency may affect the supply of state employees that can be mobilized on

behalf of a candidate, other political conditions in the locality may constrain the ability of mayors to deploy

the employees of the local administration during elections. One such variable is the political composition of

the local city council. We conjecture that mayors that encounter a city council with a similar partisan

majority face low levels of constraint in deploying members of the local administration at elections.

(Hypothesis 1) However, we expect that the mayor will be constrained from deploying the resources of the

state for political purposes if the political majority in the local city council is of a different partisanship. In

these cases, we expect to find lower levels of deployment of state employees at elections. (Hypothesis 2)

While the previous two hypotheses conjecture that variation in political conditions across localities

affects the incidence in the mobilization of state employees as brokers, the partisanship of the mayor might

also affect his ability to engage in clientelistic mobilization. We hypothesize that parties that benefit from

national incumbency might have an advantage over opposition parties in directing resources towards
 9

mayors that provide additional political support at elections. (Hypothesis 3) Incumbent parties are likely to

transfer material resources (such as budgetary transfers from national and county levels) to the co-partisan

mayors. They can also enact changes in legislation that promise rewards for mayors for particular electoral

results. One example of such legislation, encountered in Romania in September 2014, the site of our study,

is a decree that encourages the ‘migration’ of mayors to the incumbent party prior to the election, which we

will detail below. We expect to find to find a higher incidence of clientelistic mobilization among mayors

aligned with the incumbent party.

Ethnic intermediaries

State employees – such as policemen, administrators of public welfare or tax collectors – are not

the only political brokers that can be deployed by candidates during election. Local leaders of ethnic

minorities can also provide important political services during elections. Such ethnic brokers may use a mix

of coercion and inducements to persuade co-ethnics to support a particular candidate. On voting day, ethnic

leaders may bring out voters to the voting place, engaging thus in turnout buying activities.

The contact between national political campaigns and local ethnic leaders is, usually, mediated by

other political actors. Most often these include the partisan activists, such as mayors or politically appointed

members of the local administration. Local mayors can use a variety of strategies to incentivize leaders of

local ethnic communities to commit time and effort on behalf of a political candidate. On the one hand

mayors can offer policy advantages to leaders of the ethnic minority in exchange for their political support.

Such positive inducements include access to commonly-held land or access to subsidized housing for

members of the small ethnic groups. Other inducements may involve the forbearance of past irregularities

committed by the leader or members of the ethnic group or outright blackmail invoking future prosecution

of irregularities. Furthermore, this collaboration between ethnic leaders and local politicians can be an asset

in leaders’ legitimation vis-a-vis their co-ethnics.

Local political conditions affect the ability of national candidates to rely on political services

provided by ethnic political brokers and also the willingness of these brokers to supply electoral support.

We will examine three political hypotheses about the factors that affect the reliance of candidates on ethnic
 10

leaders. First, we conjecture that long-term incumbents will find it easier to mobilize local ethnic leaders as

brokers. (Hypothesis 4) Longer political incumbency gives these mayors access to more resources that can

be offered to these brokers in exchange for political support. At the same time, a longer incumbency gives

mayors more information about past possible irregularities and a higher ability to blackmail ethnic leaders

to provide political support.

Secondly, we conjecture that the political fragmentation in the locality by the presence of partisan

majority that is not aligned with the incumbent mayor will constraint the capacity of local mayors to forge

these electoral alliances with local brokers. (Hypothesis 5a) We conjecture that in localities with a higher

number of local veto players, the ability of mayors to offer a variety of political and legal advantages to

leaders of ethnic groups in exchange for their support at elections is more limited. (Hypothesis 5b)

Finally, we hypothesize that the partisanship of the mayor may affect ethnic based clientelistic

mobilization. Mayors that are aligned with the national incumbent party may access higher levels of

political resources, which they in turn can offer to ethnic leaders for in exchange for the clientelistic

mobilization of the ethnic minority. Expecting these favors, leaders of ethnic groups are also more likely to

exert higher levels of effort on behalf of these mayors. It follows that we should see a higher incidence of

ethnic clientelistic mobilization in localities with mayors aligned with the incumbent party. (Hypothesis 6)

Partisan brokers

In addition to state employees and ethnic leaders, candidates can also enlist political support from

partisan brokers. As discussed above, the existing literature on electoral clientelism has privileged this type

of broker. Broker-mediated clientelism has been documented in a variety of settings, ranging from

Argentina, Colombia and Mexico in Latin America, to Benin and Nigeria in Africa. Despite the significant

emphasis of the literature on broker-mediated clientelistic strategies, there is remarkably little systematic

research that examines how these strategies vary across localities. Most studies have taken an individual

level perspective, examining the voters that are targeted by these strategies.

Does the presence of partisan brokers vary in systematic ways across localities and what factors

explain this variation? Let us begin by considering the relationship between mayor incumbency and the
 11

deployment of partisan brokers. Our theoretical predictions are ambiguous. On the one hand, if we consider

available resources and information in the locality, long-term incumbents have an advantage relative to

mayors with shorter incumbency in identifying and recruiting local level brokers. These considerations lead

us to expect to find a higher incidence of partisan brokers in localities with long-term incumbency. By

contrast, other studies have taken into consideration not just the abundance of resource, but the strategic

considerations of mayors, given the mix of available brokers and the relative abundance of campaign

resources, financed by the individual candidates (Mares and Petrova 2014). These studies have conjectured

that in contexts of relative abundance of state employees as brokers, candidates will refrain from the use of

vote-buying as a clientelistic strategy, because the latter strategy is costlier. The corollary of this conjecture

is that one should see a higher relative incidence of partisan brokers in localities that have experienced

recent political turnover. (Hypothesis 7)

Political fragmentation in a locality, in other words, a situation where the city council has a

different partisan majority than the mayor, is likely to constrain the deployment of partisan brokers. In

localities with high levels of political fragmentation, candidates are less willing to deploy partisan brokers

fearing the possible denunciation by local employees affiliated with the other campaign. Thus, we expect to

find a lower incidence of vote-buying in localities with fragmented political majorities.

Table 1
Predictions about variation in the deployment of brokers across localities

State- Ethnic Partisan-

employees brokers brokers
Mayor incumbency + + ?
Locality-level
conditions
Local political fragmentation - - -

Mayor aligned with national

Partisanship + +
incumbent party
 12

Table 1 summarizes our theoretical predictions about the variation in the deployment of different

types of brokers across localities. Before discussing the design of our study that tests these hypotheses, we

present some brief political background on Romania, the site of our study.

The Romanian 2014 presidential election

To test the above hypotheses, our study examines the variation in the type of political brokers and

resulting clientelistic strategies deployed during the 2014 presidential election in Romania. Romania

presents us with a good opportunity to study the incidence and variation in clientelistic practices. Both

studies monitoring electoral irregularities and academic research on partisan politics concur that electoral

clientelism is pervasive in Romanian elections. In Herbert Kitschelt’s comparative study of linkages

between parties and citizens, a dataset based on expert-coding of different parties in over 100 countries,

Romania is ranked as one of the East European countries that exhibits some of the highest levels of

electoral clientelism among post-communist countries (Kitschelt, Wang and Kolve 2012).

A variety of reports characterizing electoral practices in Romanian conducted by non-

governmental associations or election observers identified the presence of a wide variety of brokers in

Romanian elections. Election monitors revealed a variety of brokers used by candidates and their parties,

such as public administration employees, party activists, partisan non-governmental organizations,

members of the local electoral office, or even the incumbent mayor that offered an elector money in

exchange of the vote, former local councilors, or candidates’ family members (Pro Democratia Report

2008, 55-70; (Pro Democratia Report 2012, 45-46). Candidates used brokers to offer gifts and favors to

voters and as agents of electoral intimidation. In addition, brokers paid an important role in breaching voter

secrecy. These reports presented various ways that the secrecy of the ballot could be breached by

politicians and their brokers, especially the party representatives in the polling stations. The Pro

Democratia Association (APD) report of 2012 national elections documented cases of the use of the mobile

ballot box as a mechanism for party representatives to tell voters, especially older ones, to vote for a
 13

specific candidate or party1. Similar strategies of breaching voting secrecy as documented by the same

report in the case of voters that requested the help of an outside the station person, which thus could enter

the polling booth with the voter using reasons that voters were unable to read the ballot 2. A different

strategy for breaching the voting secrecy is the so called “suveica votului” (vote shuttle). This strategy

mixes vote buying with breaches in voting secrecy breaching. More specifically the party broker obtains a

blank ballot and a voting stamp, either by stealing them or by counterfeiting 3 . Party brokers give the

stamped ballot to a client voter to place them in the ballot box. The client has to return the unstamped ballot

he/she received at the polling place to brokers. This ballot is then used for the next voter, and so on. In

exchange for taking part in this exchange, voters were reported to have received a payment. Finally another

strategy for breaching voting secrecy involves the use of a smartphones. The client voter takes a snap of the

stamped ballot in order to show it as a proof to the broker. Candidates’ use of gifts and monetary offers to

sway the decision of voters was identified as a pervasive electoral strategy, which was especially

pronounced during the 2008 and 2012 local elections (Interview Focsani March 2013, Interview Bucharest

March 2013). Finally, a recent study has documented the use of workplace intimidation by employers in

urban settings and the existence of significant variation across localities in the incidence of this coercive

electoral strategy (Mares, Muntean and Petrova 2014).

These reports also note however on important temporal patterns in the incidence of electoral

clientelism in Romania. The 2012 referendum to impeach Romania’s president Traian Basescu marked a

high point for a variety of clientelistic practices, even for Romanian standards. At this time, the electoral

coalition of political parties that sought to impeach Romania’s president – which included the left wing

Social Democratic Party and the right wing National Liberal Party – used a variety of illicit strategies to

mobilize supporters and also bring turnout above the 50 percent threshold, out of the total number of

registered electors, that was necessary to impeach the president in case a positive vote. Such illicit electoral

strategies included busing, intimidation, turnout buying etc. Yet the blatant and unabashed use of a variety

1 This is a special case of voting regulated by electoral law, according to which a voter that is clinically unable to travel
to the voting station could ask for a special ballot box to be delivered at home by polling station officials in order for
him/her to cast the vote. This special box is sealed and its ballots are counted separately at the end of the elections day,
against the votes casted in the ballot box placed at the polling station
2 Pro Democrația Association 2012: 32.
3 Both the ballot and the stamp bear no security mechanism neither in the paper nor in the ink used for stamping the

ballot
 14

of strategies that trespassed the provisions of the electoral law backfired. In the aftermath of the

referendum, which failed to impeach the incumbent president, anti-corruption public prosecutors began to

investigate electoral irregularities. Such investigations resulted in the prosecution of important political

leaders, known also as local barons.

Investigations of other important political leaders – such as Liviu Dragnea, the secretary general of

the Social Democratic party – were ongoing during the 2014 presidential election. Dragnea’s investigation

was concluded only in May 2015 and resulted in an indictment of prison for one year, with probationary

suspension, for the electoral irregularities conducted during the referendum (Romania Libera 15 Mai 2015).

His appeal will be judged by the High Court of Cassation and Justice of Romania. It is unambiguous, that

the shadow of investigations of irregularities committed during the 2012 referendum had a strong deterring

effect on the strategies used by Romanian politicians during the 2014 elections (Interview Bucharest March

2013).

Like previous presidential elections, the 2014 Romanian presidential election was extremely

contested. The two candidates that faced each other in the runoff were Victor Ponta – the incumbent prime

minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party – and Klaus Iohannis, an ethnically German candidate

and mayor of Sibiu, who represented a coalition of political parties on the right. The election was won by

Klaus Iohannis with 54.43 percent of the vote.

In this election, the Social Democratic candidate made use of his power as incumbent prime

minister to affect electoral outcomes. One such decision imposed severe restrictions on the ability of

overseas Romanians to cast their ballot. This decision led to long waiting and created a mass wave of

protest that was widely publicized on social networks (Gherghina 2015; Mediafax 2014a, 2014b). To

increase his political advantage, the incumbent prime minister issued on August 2014 an emergency decree

which gave mayors, and representatives in city and county councils the ability to switch political parties

prior to the election (Mediafax 2014c, 2014d). The exception allowed a one-time only defection. In

addition, the decree opened a migration window valid for only 45 days, during which the local

representatives could decide whether to switch party or not. Such decree resulted in wide-spread party

switching of a significant number of mayors. An estimated total of 552 mayors (out of 3,180), 4607 city

councilors (out of 40,022) and 184 county councilors (out of 1,338) migrated mainly to PSD, PLR and
 15

UNPR (the three governmental parties). There was not a single county where local representatives would

not migrate based on this ruling. (ExpertForum 2015). The decision was clearly an invitation granted to

undecided mayors to enlist.

Study design: locality selection and design of list experiment

The incidence of clientelistic strategies such as offers of goods and money, the offer of privileged

access to government policy in exchange of political support or coercive strategies, such as threats to

remove access to a particular policy benefits, is particularly difficult to measure using traditional survey

techniques. A variety of considerations, such as fear of retribution or social desirability bias, may prevent

respondents from providing accurate answers. To overcome these problems, many recent studies of

political clientelism have attempted to measure the incidence of clientelistic practices using list experiments

(Corstange 2008; Imai 2011; Glynn 2013; Gonzalez-Ocantos et al. 2012; Corstange 2011; Oliveros 2013;

Weitz-Shapiro and Winters 2013). Our study joins this large and vibrant literature.

List experiments differ from traditional surveys in two important respects. First, respondents are

randomly divided in a treatment and control group and presented with different versions of the survey.

Secondly, respondents are not asked to address whether a particular behavior is true, but are presented with

various lists and are asked how many items on each respective list apply to them. While respondents in the

control group are given lists that include non-sensitive items only, respondents in the treatment group are

presented with lists that include the same list of non-sensitive items presented to the control group but also

an additional sensitive item. If randomization is successful, one can back out the prevalence of the sensitive

item in the population, by computing the difference in the mean number of items reported by respondents

in the treatment and in the control group.

While the ‘principle’ of list experiments is deceptively simple, its implementation necessitates

extremely careful design. First, significant pre-testing of both the sensitive items as well as of the control

items included in the lists are necessary. Such pretesting both ensures that the wording of the questions

capture the political experiences of citizens in the communities where the studies are conducted and helps
 16

improve the precisions of the estimates of the sensitive behavior. To design the questions included in our

lists, we began by conducting interviews with election observers, journalists and non-governmental

organizations. We also conducted focus groups that allowed us to identify the types of strategies used by

politicians and the brokers used at elections. We used the information obtained in the focus groups to word

the treatment items included in our list.

We carried out two small surveys (of about 120 respondents each) to pretest both individual items

considered for inclusion in our list and several possible lists of control items. We implemented both of

these pretests in rural communities in the immediate aftermath of the presidential election. The pretests had

two different goals. First, we attempted to test among different wording for particular sensitive items.

Secondly, we attempted to improve the design of the control lists to avoid “ceiling” and “floor” effects and

to increase the confidence of our respondents in reporting truthfully the sensitive behavior.

Please think about the last presidential elections held in November 2014. I am now going to read a

few statements about the recent presidential election. For each statement, I would like to know

how many of these events happened here, in your community. You don’t have to tell me which of

these events happened, but only how many.

 When I arrived at the voting place, I saw many observers from Germany that came to see

how the elections take place.

 When I arrived at the voting place, the voting place was open.

 Traian Basescu visited our locality during the elections.

Our lists included treatments that attempted to measure the incidence of three types of brokers:

state employees, ethnic brokers and partisan agents. In the case of state-employees, our lists also attempted

to differentiate among the different strategies deployed by these brokers. In this case, we distinguished

among positive strategies (inducements) and coercive electoral strategies (welfare threats). Table 2

summarizes the wording of our treatments included in the surveys.

 17

Table 2
List of sensitive items included in or survey

Broker Type Strategy Wording of sensitive question

State- To serve me also in future, somebody employed at the city hall told me
employee Inducement which candidate to vote for.
State- I was afraid to lose assistance from the city hall, if I voted for the wrong
employee Coercive candidate
Ethnic leader Inducement An important person in the Roma community pressured me to support a
particular candidate.
Partisan Inducement During the campaign, someone offered me money or food to support a
broker particular candidate

We administered the list-experiment through face-to-face interviews in 85 rural communities

located in two counties in Southern Romania (Teleorman and Buzau). The surveys were administered by a

team of graduate students in political science and sociology from SNSPA, Bucharest, with extensive field

experience and training as enumerators. Table 1 in the Appendix presents the list of localities included in

our survey. Within these two counties, we have selected localities in order to maximize the variation along

all political variables that are conjectured to affect the mix in the type of brokers, such as the length of

incumbency, the partisanship of the mayor, the political fragmentation in the locality and the migration

status of the mayor. The localities also differ in the share of their Roma population, an ethnic minority that

is conjectured to be particularly vulnerable to clientelistic strategies.

Within each locality, we used quota sampling to select the respondents included in our survey. In

each locality, the distribution of respondents is similar to the distribution in the 2011 Romanian census on

covariates such as gender and age. In each locality, enumerators chose a central starting location and then

selected randomly a direction along the walk for the survey. Only one questionnaire was applied per

household and within the household, the enumerator selected the respondent with the birthday closes to the

date of the survey to participate in the survey. Enumerators avoided consecutive households, the main road

in each locality and were given special instructions to interview only respondents in their own home, but

not respondents on streets, stores or encountered during visits to friends or neighbours.

The implementation of our list experiment was successful. In Table 3, we present summary

statistics about the distribution of respondents with different characteristics to the control and treatment
 18

version of our list experiment survey questionnaire. We do not find any statistically significant difference

in the observable characteristics of respondents assigned to the control and treatment groups, respectively.

Table 3
Tests of balance results

Questionnaire 1 Questionnaire 2 Difference P Value

Female 0.50 0.50 0.00 0.93

Age 50.11 50.46 0.03 0.69

Roma 0.20 0.20 0.00 0.74

Very Poor 0.57 0.60 0.03 0.19

Note: This table displays the proportion of respondents with different demographic group for different
versions of the questionnaire and the difference between them. Due to rounding, percentages may not add
up to 100%.

Results

Variation across localities

How pervasive are the different clientelistic strategies in rural Romania? We begin by presenting

descriptive results on the mean number of list-items for respondents that received the ‘control’ and

‘treatment’ version of the questionnaire. By subtracting the mean number of items of the control group

from the mean number of items in the treatment groups, we obtain the list experiment estimate of the

magnitude of different electoral irregularities. Consider the example of our list that seeks to measure the

incidence of political favors provided by state brokers. The mean response of the respondents in our control

group is 0.98 and the mean response of respondents in our treatment group is 1.05. The difference in these

means is 7% and the t-test of this difference yield a p-value of below 0.001. We infer that the incidence of

the provision of favors by mayors is 7% in our sample.

 19

Table 4
Estimated incidence of clientelistic strategies

Non-programmatic Number of Mean response Mean response Difference

strategy Respondents control group treatment group
State brokers 0.98 1.05
(offer of 1494 (0.97; 1.00) (1.02; 1.07) 7%***
advantage)
State brokers 1.15 1.19
(welfare threat) 1495 (1.11; 1.19) (1.22; 1.30) 11%***
Partisan brokers 0.98 1.00
(vote-buying) 1495 (0.97; 1.00) (0.98; 1.01) 2%
0.94 0.97
Ethnic brokers 1491 (0.92; 0.96) (0.95; 0.99) 3%**
The numbers in parentheses are the 95% confidence intervals.
^^ We report the results of a two-sampled t-test with unequal variances.
*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.

Some discussion about the results in Table 4 are now in order. Our list experiments found

evidence of state brokers and ethnic brokers during the most recent presidential election in Romania. With

respect to state-brokers, we find both evidence of ‘inducements’ – offer of administrative favors and

privileged access to policy benefits in exchange for political support – and also coercive strategies. These

findings are in agreement with results of earlier studies of political clientelism in the region, which suggest

that the dominant clientelistic strategies in East European countries are strategies that deploy the resources

of the state during elections (Mares, Muntean and Petrova 2014, Mares and Young 2014). With respect to

vote buying, we do not find robust evidence of the incidence of this strategy in the entire sample. A brief

analysis of the results on vote-buying suggests that this strategy was used in localities with incumbent

mayors. In localities with long-term mayors, the mean value of the responses to the control version of the

survey is 0.97, while the mean value of the responses to the survey that includes the sensitive question is

1.00 and this difference is significant at conventional levels (p < 0.02). As a result, we will also present the

analysis of the results on vote-buying.

Do we find variation in the incidence of these clientelistic strategies across localities? What factors

explain this variation? We now turn to an analysis of these questions. In our empirical analysis of each of

the clientelistic strategies, we examine variation in the incidence of clientelistic strategies across localities

and across voters with different characteristics. For each of the four lists, we estimate the following model:
 20

𝑌𝑖 = 𝛽0 + 𝛽1 𝑇𝑅𝐸𝐴𝑇𝑀𝐸𝑁𝑇𝑖 + 𝛽2 𝑍𝑗 + 𝛽3 𝑇𝑅𝐸𝐴𝑇𝑀𝐸𝑁𝑇 × 𝑍𝑗 + 𝛽4 𝑊𝑖 + 𝛽5 𝑇𝑅𝐸𝐴𝑇𝑀𝐸𝑁𝑇 × 𝑊𝑖 + 𝜀𝑖

where 𝑍𝑗 = N(0, 𝜎𝑗 )

The dependent variable 𝑌𝑖 represents the list response to different lists, subscripted i for different

individuals. 𝑇𝑅𝐸𝐴𝑇𝑀𝐸𝑁𝑇𝑖 is a variable that takes the value 1 for those individuals that have received the

version of the questionnaire that includes the treatment item for workplace intimidation. 𝑍𝑗 is a battery of

locality level variables (that will be discussed below). 𝑊𝑖 is a battery of individual-level characteristics and

𝜀𝑖 is the error term. We estimate our models using hierarchical models.

Our hypotheses formulated above predicted that both locality-level variables and partisan factors

affect the variation in the incidence of various non-programmatic strategies. Table 5 presents the main

locality-level variables included in our models. With respect to locality-level variables, we include a

variable INCUMBENT that takes the value 1 if the mayor has been in office for more than one term, and 0

otherwise. To control for the fragmentation of local political authority and include the variable OPPOSED

CITY COUNCIL that takes the value 1 if the city council has a different political partisanship than the

mayor.

We include several measures that control for the partisanship of the mayor, which allow us to test

for differences in the types of clientelistic strategies across parties. We include variables that code the

partisanship of mayors in Romania’s largest political parties, the Social Democratic Party (PSD MAYOR),

the National Liberal Party (PNL MAYOR) and the Democratic Party (PD MAYOR). One difficulty we

encountered in coding mayor partisanship was that during Romania’s last local election, the Social

Democratic Party and the National Liberal Party formed an electoral alliance in some but not all localities,

the SOCIAL LIBERAL UNION. This alliance was no longer in place during the 2014 presidential election.

The additional variable SOCIAL LIBERAL UNION MAYOR takes the value 1 for mayors that were

elected under this alliance. A final partisanship variable, MIGRANT MAYOR takes the value 1 for mayors

that changed partisanship immediately prior to the 2014 election, following the governmental decree issued

by Prime Minister Ponta in 2014.

 21

As discussed in Table 5, all the models reported in Tables 6-8 include a battery of individual level

controls. We include controls for the gender, age and income of the respondents and whether the

respondent is a member of Roma minority. We also include a variable that measures the strength of the

partisanship of the respondent, which takes the value 1 if the respondent “feels close to a particular party”

and 0 otherwise.

Table 5
Locality- and individual-level variables predicting incidence of clientelistic strategies

Variable type Variable name Coding/Source

INCUMBENT 1 if mayor has been in office for
Locality-level political conditions over one term
OPPOSED CITY COUNCIL 1 if city council has different
partisan majority than mayor
PSD MAYOR 1 if mayor elected in 2010 as
PSD mayor
PNL MAYOR 1 if mayor elected in 2010 as
Partisanship of mayor PNL
PDL MAYOR 1 if mayor elected in 2010 as
PDL mayor
USL MAYOR 1 if mayor elected in 2010 as
USL mayor
MIGRANT MAYOR 1 if mayor changed partisanship
after the August 2014
governmental decree

Locality-level economic and POPULATION Population (logged)

demographic controls
Individual-level controls
Share of Roma population in
SHARE ROMA POPULATION locality based on 2011 census
Percentage unemployment based
UNEMPLOYMENT on data
POVERTY Takes value 1 if individual
income is below poverty line
ROMA Takes value 1 if respondent are
member of Roma ethnic minority
GENDER Takes value 1 if respondent is
female
PROXIMITY TO PARTY Takes value 1 for respondents
that are close to political party
 22

Table 6 reports the results about the variation across localities in the use of brokers who are

employees of the state. The lists included in our survey included two sensitive items that attempted to

measure two distinct electoral strategies deployed by employees of the state, which involved ‘welfare

pressure’, the threat to cut voters from welfare benefits and the provision of administrative favors in

exchange for political support. The results about the variation across localities in the use of welfare

pressure support our main hypothesis. We find a higher incidence of welfare pressure in localities with

long-term incumbents. We also find that institutional constrains at the level of the locality do not limit

mayors from deploying this coercive strategy. Model 3, which includes the full battery of partisan variables

demonstrate the existence of differences across parties in the use of coercive strategies. We find that

mayors affiliated with the National Liberal Party (PNL) were less likely to use coercive strategies. While

incumbency and partisanship remain significant predictors in the variation in the incidence of welfare

coercion, they do not explain variation across localities in the incidence of the provision of welfare favors.

None of the economic or political variables included in our model explain the variation across localities in

the provision of administrative favors at elections.

 23

Table 6
Variation across localities in the incidence of state brokers

Welfare pressure Favors

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6

TREATMENT 0.69 0.77 0.77 0.0027 -0.036 0.0067

(0.57) (0.59) (0.61) (0.31) (0.32) (0.33)
INCUMBENT -0.050 -0.050 -0.048 0.021 0.021 0.024
(0.050) (0.050) (0.053) (0.025) (0.025) (0.027)
INCUMBENT X TREATMENT 0.13** 0.13** 0.14** -0.039 -0.039 -0.059
(0.065) (0.065) (0.069) (0.035) (0.035) (0.037)
MIGRANT MAYOR -0.043 0.023 0.019 0.0058 0.0056 0.012
(0.051) (0.087) (0.087) (0.025) (0.043) (0.044)
MIGRANT MAYOR X
TREATMENT 0.12* 0.077 0.100 -0.046 -0.024 -0.030
(0.065) (0.11) (0.11) (0.035) (0.061) (0.062)
OPPOSED CITY COUNCIL -0.075 -0.087 0.00026 -0.021
(0.080) (0.086) (0.040) (0.044)
OPPOSED CITY COUNCIL X
TREATMENT 0.054 0.061 -0.025 -0.038
(0.10) (0.11) (0.056) (0.061)
PSD MAYOR 0.095 -0.016
(0.074) (0.037)
PSD MAYOR X TREATMENT -0.085 -0.011
(0.097) (0.052)
PNL MAYOR 0.13** 0.0042
 24

(0.064) (0.032)
PNL MAYOR X TREATMENT -0.17** 0.043
(0.084) (0.045)
PDL MAYOR 0.053 -0.027
(0.087) (0.044)
PDL MAYOR X TREATMENT -0.094 -0.025
(0.11) (0.062)
USL MAYOR -0.040 -0.031
(0.063) (0.031)
USL MAYOR X TREATMENT -0.13 0.044
(0.087) (0.047)
POPULATION (ln) 0.070 0.085 0.071 0.013 0.013 0.0064
(0.052) (0.054) (0.055) (0.026) (0.027) (0.027)
POPULATION (ln) X TREATMENT -0.080 -0.090 -0.081 0.011 0.016 0.012
(0.067) (0.070) (0.071) (0.036) (0.038) (0.039)
UNEMPLOYMENT 0.0038 0.0047 0.0042 -0.00061 -0.00062 -0.00044
(0.0035) (0.0036) (0.0036) (0.0018) (0.0018) (0.0018)
UNEMPLOYMENT X
TREATMENT -0.0040 -0.0047 -0.0034 -0.000015 0.00028 -0.00033
(0.0045) (0.0047) (0.0047) (0.0024) (0.0025) (0.0025)
ROMASHARE 0.014 -0.079 -0.090 0.18 0.18 0.16
(0.32) (0.33) (0.33) (0.15) (0.16) (0.16)
ROMASHARE X TREATMENT 0.38 0.45 0.44 0.042 0.012 0.019
(0.40) (0.42) (0.42) (0.22) (0.23) (0.23)
Individual level variables included but not reported
CONSTANT 0.74* 0.63 0.68 0.83*** 0.83*** 0.90***
(0.45) (0.46) (0.47) (0.22) (0.23) (0.24)

CONSTANT -2.47*** -2.47*** -2.54*** -20.0 -26.7*** -20.7***

 25

(0.24) (0.25) (0.27) (3393.8) (2.26) (2.25)

CONSTANT -0.64*** -0.64*** -0.64*** -1.25*** -1.25*** -1.25***

(0.019) (0.019) (0.019) (0.018) (0.018) (0.018)
N 1493 1493 1493 1492 1492 1492
Ll -1183.3 -1182.9 -1179.1 -250.6 -250.4 -245.9
2
𝜒 64.9 65.8 74.0 39.6 40.0 49.3
P 0.0000023 0.0000053 0.000022 0.0083 0.015 0.020
AIC 2414.7 2417.8 2426.2 549.2 552.8 559.7
BIC 2542.1 2555.8 2606.7 676.6 690.8 740.2
 26

In Table 6, we examine variation across localities in the reliance on ethnic leaders as brokers. (In

the examination of this strategy, we restrict our sample to Roma respondents). Consistent with our

theoretical expectation, we find that the deployment of ethnic leaders as brokers is higher in localities with

long-term incumbents as compared to localities with significant political turnover of mayors. As discussed

above, the length of their term in office gives incumbents a higher ability to forge political ties with leaders

of ethnic minority groups. This glue linking the interests of mayors and leaders of ethnic groups can be

based on favorable policy decisions, granted to the leaders of the ethnic group, but also forbearance,

decisions of mayors not to prosecute leaders or members of the ethnic minority for violations of existing

regulations.

In Model 2 reported in Table 7, we add an additional variable measuring fragmentation in political

authority between the mayor and the city council. We examine whether city councils with a different

partisan majority than the mayor can constrain the reliance on ethnic leaders as brokers. We find that such

political fragmentation does not act as a political constraint. Finally, model 3 adds a variety of controls for

the partisanship of the mayor. We do not find any systematic differences among mayors of different

partisan orientation in their reliance on ethnic leaders as brokers.

Table 7
The variation across localities in the reliance of ethnic brokers

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

TREATMENT 0.89 0.99 0.62

(0.82) (0.83) (0.87)
INCUMBENT -0.037 -0.036 -0.053
(0.061) (0.061) (0.063)
INCUMBENT X TREATMENT 0.21** 0.20** 0.25***
(0.085) (0.084) (0.087)
MIGRANT MAYOR 0.037 -0.074 -0.11
(0.071) (0.12) (0.12)
 27

MIGRANT MAYOR X TREATMENT -0.044 -0.053 0.032

(0.099) (0.16) (0.17)
OPPOSED CITY COUNCIL 0.12 0.10
(0.10) (0.12)
OPPOSED CITY COUNCIL X
TREATMENT 0.013 0.0066
(0.14) (0.16)
PSD MAYOR -0.096
(0.099)
PSD MAYOR X TREATMENT 0.19
(0.14)
PNL MAYOR -0.0070
(0.082)
PNL MAYOR X TREATMENT 0.043
(0.11)
PDL MAYOR -0.010
(0.10)
PDL MAYOR X TREATMENT 0.035
(0.14)
USL MAYOR 0.10
(0.070)
USL MAYOR X TREATMENT -0.14
(0.15)
POPULATION (ln) 0.045 0.037 0.043
(0.068) (0.068) (0.072)
POPULATION (ln) X TREATMENT -0.11 -0.12 -0.094
(0.096) (0.096) (0.100)
UNEMPLOYMENT 0.0074 0.0064 0.0063
(0.0046) (0.0047) (0.0050)
UNEMPLOYMENT X TREATMENT -0.0078 -0.0077 -0.0029
(0.0066) (0.0067) (0.0073)
ROMASHARE -0.94*** -0.82** -0.77**
(0.32) (0.33) (0.33)
ROMASHARE X TREATMENT 0.95** 0.96** 0.75
(0.44) (0.46) (0.46)
Individual variables included but not reported
CONSTANT 0.60 0.65 0.65
(0.58) (0.57) (0.62)

CONSTANT -27.7*** -27.6*** -28.0***

(2.84) (3.35) (3.10)

CONSTANT -1.25*** -1.25*** -1.27***

 28

(0.042) (0.042) (0.042)

N 279 279 279
Ll -47.6 -45.9 -41.5
2
𝜒 28.1 32.0 41.9
P 0.081 0.058 0.058
AIC 139.2 139.7 147.0
BIC 219.1 226.9 263.2
Standard errors in parentheses

The final results reported in Table 8, examine the variation in the incidence of vote-buying across

localities. The main finding is this electoral strategy was more likely to be deployed in localities with long-

term incumbents. None of the other locality-level variables, such as a city council with a different partisan

majority, the level of unemployment or the share of minority Roma voters can explain the variation in the

use of this strategy. We do not find a systematic differences in the use of vote-buying among localities with

mayors of different partisan orientation.

These findings run counter to our initial conjecture that vote-buying and state coercion represent

substitute clientelistic strategies (Mares and Petrova 2014). We find that vote-buying and state coercion are

complementary strategies that are both deployed in localities with long-term incumbents. In a recent paper,

van Ham and Lindberg report similar results about the complementarity between government intimidation

and vote-buying using cross-national data of a sample of African countries (van Ham and Lindberg 2015).

One possible explanation of these findings is that incumbent mayors have an advantage in identifying and

mobilizing local brokers who can appeal to voters distributing money, goods or small favors. Higher

incumbency, we find, translates into a higher ability to establish any network of brokers, irrespective of the

appeal deployed by these brokers.

 29

Table 8
The variation across localities in the use of vote-buying

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

TREATMENT -0.18 -0.26 -0.20

(0.21) (0.22) (0.23)
INCUMBENT -0.038** -0.039** -0.036*
(0.018) (0.018) (0.019)
INCUMBENT X TREATMENT 0.064*** 0.065*** 0.073***
(0.024) (0.024) (0.026)
MIGRANT MAYOR -0.021 -0.040 -0.040
(0.018) (0.032) (0.032)
MIGRANT MAYOR X TREATMENT 0.0071 0.051 0.062
(0.024) (0.042) (0.042)
OPPOSED CITY COUNCIL 0.022 0.026
(0.029) (0.031)
OPPOSED CITY COUNCIL X
TREATMENT -0.050 -0.063
(0.038) (0.042)
PSD MAYOR 0.019
(0.027)
PSD MAYOR X TREATMENT 0.0078
(0.036)
PNL MAYOR 0.010
(0.023)
PNL MAYOR X TREATMENT 0.0019
(0.031)
PDL MAYOR 0.012
(0.031)
PDL MAYOR X TREATMENT -0.020
(0.042)
USL MAYOR -0.0094
(0.023)
USL MAYOR X TREATMENT -0.046
(0.032)
POPULATION (ln) -0.013 -0.017 -0.017
(0.019) (0.020) (0.020)
POPULATION (ln) X TREATMENT 0.013 0.022 0.016
(0.025) (0.026) (0.026)
UNEMPLOYMENT -0.0026** -0.0029** -0.0029**
 30

(0.0013) (0.0013) (0.0013)

UNEMPLOYMENT X TREATMENT 0.0015 0.0021 0.0025
(0.0017) (0.0017) (0.0017)
ROMASHARE 0.064 0.090 0.091
(0.12) (0.12) (0.12)
ROMASHARE X TREATMENT 0.17 0.11 0.089
(0.15) (0.16) (0.16)
Individual level variables included but not shown
CONSTANT 1.14*** 1.18*** 1.16***
(0.16) (0.17) (0.17)
CONSTANT -3.59*** -3.59*** -3.70***
(0.31) (0.31) (0.37)
CONSTANT -1.63*** -1.63*** -1.63***
(0.019) (0.019) (0.019)
N 1493 1493 1493
Ll 301.3 302.2 306.8
𝜒2 34.5 36.2 46.1
P 0.032 0.039 0.040
AIC -554.6 -552.3 -545.5
BIC -427.2 -414.3 -365.0
Standard errors in parentheses

Individual-level variation

We now turn to an analysis of the individual-level variation in the incidence of non-programmatic

strategies. Who are the voters targeted by different clientelistic strategies? Do politicians and brokers

operating on their behalf target voters with similar characteristics using different non-programmatic

strategies or do brokers deploy different non-programmatic strategies towards different groups of the

electorate?

To examine these questions, Table 9 reports the results of the individual level variables for the

four different clientelistic strategies. For each of the strategies, we present the results of the most complete

model that includes the highest number of locality-level covariates (models 3 and 6 in Table 4 and model 3

in Table 5 and 6 respectively. We do not find evidence of differences among the voters that are targeted by

these clientelistic strategies.

 31

Table 9
Individual-Level results

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

BROKER StateEmpl StateEmpl Ethnic Partisan-brokers
STRATEGY Positive Coercion

TREATMENT 0.77 0.0067 0.62 -0.20

(0.61) (0.33) (0.87) (0.23)
(0.087) (0.047) (0.15) (0.032)
CORE 0.031 0.023 0.015 -0.000081
(0.046) (0.027) (0.055) (0.017)
CORE X TREATMENT 0.039 0.0059 0.0089 0.035
(0.067) (0.036) (0.086) (0.025)
POOR -0.046 0.0060 -0.0084 0.020
(0.041) (0.022) (0.058) (0.015)
POOR X TREATMENT 0.0094 -0.0011 -0.0028 0.013
(0.059) (0.031) (0.085) (0.022)
FEMALE -0.017 0.0083 -0.038 0.024
(0.040) (0.022) (0.047) (0.015)
FEMALE X TREATMENT 0.055 -0.0049 0.11 0.0012
(0.057) (0.031) (0.070) (0.021)
AGE -0.0029** 0.00050 0.00056 -0.00035
(0.0012) (0.00063) (0.0014) (0.00044)
AGE X TREATMENT -0.0013 -0.000068 -0.0030 0.000081
(0.0017) (0.00090) (0.0022) (0.00062)
ROMA 0.058 -0.011 . -0.0099
(0.054) (0.030) . (0.020)
ROMA X TREATMENT 0.051 0.051 . 0.0086
(0.078) (0.042) . (0.029)
N 1493 1492 279 1493
Ll -1179.1 -245.9 -41.5 306.8
𝜒2 74.0 49.3 41.9 46.1
p 0.000022 0.020 0.058 0.040
AIC 2426.2 559.7 147.0 -545.5
BIC 2606.7 740.2 263.2 -365.0
 32

Conclusion

Our paper advances both theoretically and empirically the analysis of clientelistic practices in

contemporary elections. We have argued for the importance of distinguishing among the different brokers

deployed by politicians and for understanding the variation across localities in the mobilization of these

brokers. The study of this variation provides us with important insights about the mechanisms and

strategies by which electoral autonomy of voters is subverted in contemporary elections. It also sheds light

on the bottom-up processes by which candidates in countries with weakly developed party organizations

seek to compensate for the absence of professional party organizations.

Our paper has formulated and tested a variety of hypotheses conjecturing how differences in

political conditions across localities as well as partisan differences might affect the ability of local mayors

to coopt different types of brokers during elections. We have tested these propositions in a survey that uses

multiple list experiments and that was administered in the aftermath of the 2014 Romanian presidential

election. The central finding of our analysis is that the political incumbency of the mayor is a strong

predictor of the variation in the deployment of a variety of brokers during elections. We find a higher

incidence in three out of the four clientelistic strategies measured in our survey in localities with long-term

incumbents as compared to localities that have experienced recent political turnover. As compared to

localities that have experienced recent turnover, localities with incumbent mayors experience a higher

incidence in deployment of state employees as brokers, a higher incidence in use of ethnic brokers and a

higher incidence of vote-buying. By contrast, other political conditions at the locality and partisan

differences across candidates do not explain the variation in the incidence of clientelistic strategies.
 33

References

Interviews

Obodariu, Gabriela – history high school teacher in Focsani, Vrancea, and president of the Pro Democratia

Association Focsani Club, interviewed on March 2013 in Focsani.

Paleologu, Toader – members of the Parliament, interviewed on March 2013, in Bucharest

Papahagi, Adrian -former campaign manager for Monica Macovei, candidate for the presidential elections

in 2014; e-mail exchange April 2014

Pirvulescu, Cristian – dean of the Faculty of Political Science, SNSPA, former president of the Pro

Democratia Association, interviewed on March 2013, in Bucharest.

Sorescu, Adrian and Costel Popa – Ecopolis Association and former national executive directors of the Pro

Democratia Association, interviewed on march 2013, in Bucharest.

Books, articles and manuscripts

Baldwin, Kate. 2013. “Why Vote with the Chief? Political Connections and Public Goods Provision in

Zambia: Why Vote with the Chief?” American Journal of Political Science 57 (4): 794-809.

Blair, Graeme, and Kosuke Imai. 2012. “Statistical Analysis of List Experiments”. Political Analysis. 20:47–

77.

Brusco, Valeria, Marcelo Nazareno, and Susan Carol Stokes. 2004. “Vote Buying in Argentina”. Latin

American Research Review 39 (2): 66-88.

Corstange, Daniel. 2008. “Sensitive Questions, Truthful Answers? Modeling the List Experiment with

LISTIT”. Political Analysis. 17:45–63.

Corstange, Daniel. 2011. Ethnic Clientelism in the Middle East. Unpublished manuscript. Columbia

University.

Darden, Keith. 2008. “The Integrity of Corrupt States: Graft as an Informal State Institution”. Politics &

Society. 36:35–59.
 34

ExpertForum. 2015. “Situatia migratiei pe OUG55/2014” (http://expertforum.ro/primari-migratori/). Accessed

on June 15, 2015.

Finan, F and Schechter, L. 2012. “Vote-buying and reciprocity”. Econometrica. (80):2, 863- 881.

Gans-Morse, Jordan, Sebastián Mazzuca, and Simeon Nichter. 2014. “Varieties of Clientelism: Machine

Politics during Elections”. American Journal of Political Science 58 (2): 415-432.

Gherghina, Sergiu. 2015. “The Romanian presidential election, November 2014. Electoral Studies. 38:109-

114.

Glynn, Adam N. 2013. “What Can We Learn with Statistical Truth Serum?: Design and Analysis of the List

Experiment”. Public Opinion Quarterly. 77:159–72.

Gonzalez-Ocantos, Ezequiel, Chad Kiewiet de Jonge, Carlos Meléndez, Javier Osorio, and David W.

Nickerson. 2012. “Vote Buying and Social Desirability Bias: Experimental Evidence from Nicaragua:

Vote Buying and Social Desirability Bias”. American Journal of Political Science. 56:202–17.

Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2007. Rebuilding Leviathan: Party Competition and State Exploitation in Post-

Communist Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Holland, Alysha and Palmer-Rubin, Bryan. 2015. “Beyond the machine: clientelistic brokers and interest-

organizations in Latin America”. Comparative Political Studies. 12: 1, 1-38.

Imai, Kosuke. 2011. “Multivariate Regression Analysis for the Item Count Technique”. Journal of the

American Statistical Association. 106:407–16.

Kitschelt, Herbert and Wilkinson, Steven. 2007. Patrons, clients and policies: patterns of democratic

accountability and political competition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kitschelt, Herbert, Yi-ting Wang, and Kiril Kolev. 2012. Research and Dialogue on Programmatic Parties

and Party Systems. IDEA.

Kitschelt, Herbert, Z. Mansfeldova, R. Markowski, and G. Toka. 1999. Post-Communist Party Systems:

Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kitschelt, Herbert. 2000. “Linkages between Citizens and Politicians in Democratic Polities”. Comparative

Political Studies. 33(6-7), 845-879.

Koter, D. 2013. “King-makers: Local leaders and ethnic politics in Africa”. World Politics, 65(2), 187-232.
 35

Kuklinski, James H., Michael D. Cobb, and Martin Gilens. 1997. “Racial Attitudes and the ‘New South’”. The

Journal of Politics. 59:323.

Luna, Juan Pablo. 2014. Segmented Representation: Political Party Strategies in Unequal Democracies.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mares, Isabela and Young, Lauren. 2014. “Conditionality as coercion: strategies of electoral mobilization in

rural Hungary”. Paper presented at the Political Economy Seminar, New York University, Abu Dhabi.

Mares, Isabela, and Tsveta Petrova. 2014. “Disaggregating Clientelism”. Paper presented at Duke University,

Political Economy Seminar.

Mares, Isabela, Muntean, Aurelian and Petrova, Tsveta. 2014. “Economic intimidation in contemporary

elections: evidence from Romania and Bulgaria”. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the

European Political Science Association, Edinburgh.

Mares, Isabela. 2015. From Open Secrets to Secret Voting Democratic Electoral Reforms and Voter

Autonomy. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mediafax 2014b. “Proteste in strainatate: Peste 1000 de romani nu au putut vota la Londra si au manifestat in

fata ambasadei” (http://www.mediafax.ro/social/proteste-strainatate-peste-1-000-romani-au-putut-vota-

londra-au-manifestat-fata-ambasadei-zeci-alegatori-au-intrat-forta-ambasada-paris-protest-fata-sediului-

mae-video-13485939). Accessed on June 15, 2015.

Mediafax 2014c. “Ordonanta de Urgenta privind migratia primarilor a fost adoptata de Guvern”

(http://www.mediafax.ro/politic/ordonanta-de-urgenta-privind-migratia-primarilor-a-fost-adoptata-de-

guvern-13160000). Accessed on June 15, 2015.

Mediafax 2014d. “OUG privind migratia alesilor locali, publicata in Monitorul official. Alesii pot migra doar o

singura data” (http://www.mediafax.ro/social/oug-privind-migratia-alesilor-locali-publicata-in-monitorul-

oficial-alesii-pot-migra-doar-o-singura-data-13191902). Accessed on June 15, 2015.

Mediafax. 2014a. “Incidente la sectiile de votare din strainatate: Gaze lacrimogene la Torino si Paris”.

(http://www.mediafax.ro/social/incidente-la-sectiile-de-votare-din-strainatate-gaze-lacrimogene-la-torino-

si-paris-peste-360-000-romani-din-diaspora-au-votat-pana-la-ora-23-00-foto-video-13565758). Accessed

on June 15, 2015.

 36

Oliveros, Virginia. 2013. A Working Machine: Patronage Jobs and Political Services in Argentina. PhD

thesis, New York, N.Y: Columbia University.

Pro Democrația Association. 2008. Reguli si nereguli in alegerile locale din 2008. Bucharest.

Pro Democrația Association. 2012. Radiografia Anului Electoral 2012. Raport de Monitorizare a Alegerilor

Locale, Parlamentare Și a Referendumului Pentru Demiterea Președintelui României. Bucharest.

Romania Libera. 15 mai 2015. “Liviu Dragnea, condamnat la un an de inchisoare cu suspendare in dosarul

Referendumul” (http://www.romanialibera.ro/actualitate/eveniment/liviu-dragnea-afla-vineri-verdictul-in-

dosarul-referendumul-378408). Accessed March 15, 2015.

Stokes, Susan Carol, Thad Dunning, Marcelo Nazareno, and Valeria Brusco. 2013. Brokers, Voters, and

Clientelism: The Puzzle of Distributive Politics. New York, N.Y: Cambridge University Press.

Stokes, Susan Carol. 2005. “Perverse Accountability: A Formal Model of Machine Politics with Evidence

from Argentina”. American Political Science Review. 99.

Tavits, Margit. 2014. Postcommunist democracies and party organizations. New York: Cambridge University

Press.

Van Ham, Carolien, and Staffan I. Lindberg. 2015. “From Sticks to Carrots: Electoral Manipulation in Africa,

1986-2012”. Government and Opposition 50 (03): 521-548.

Vicente, Pedro. C., and Leonard Wantchekon. 2009. “Clientelism and Vote Buying: Lessons from Field

Experiments in African Elections”. Oxford Review of Economic Policy. 25:292–305.

Winters, Matthew S., and Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro. 2013. “Lacking Information or Condoning Corruption:

When Do Voters Support Corrupt Politicians?” Comparative Politics 45 (4): 418–36.

Ziare.com. 2012. “Se pregătește fraudarea referendumului? Anchete în Vaslui, dosare penale în Gorj” .

(http://www.ziare.com/basescu/referendum-demitere/se-pregateste-fraudarea-referendumului-anchete-in-

vaslui-dosare-penale-in-gorj-1180547). Accessed 30 March 2015.

 37

Appendix
List of localities included in the study

Locality County Population

AMARU Buzau 2640
BALTA ALBA Buzau 2590
BECENI Buzau 4403
BERCA Buzau 8534
BOLDU Buzau 2380
BOZIORU Buzau 1161
BREAZA Buzau 2913
BUDA Buzau 2870
CALVINI Buzau 4536
CATINA Buzau 2544
CERNATESTI Buzau 3847
CISLAU Buzau 4697
COCHIRLEANCA Buzau 5092
COSTESTI Buzau 4817
COZIENI Buzau 2139
FLORICA Buzau 1597
GHERASENI Buzau 3456
GHERGHEASA Buzau 2493
GLODEANU-SILISTEA Buzau 3998
GREBANU Buzau 5319
MAGURABZ Buzau 2241
MARACINENI Buzau 8279
MARGARITESTI Buzau 697
MEREI Buzau 6803
MIHAILESTI Buzau 2084
MOVILA BANULUI Buzau 2726
NAENI Buzau 1805
PANATAU Buzau 2537
PARSCOV Buzau 5654
PIETROASELE Buzau 3301
POSTA CALNAU Buzau 5968
PUIESTI Buzau 4146
RACOVITENI Buzau 1424
RAMNICELU Buzau 4789
SAHATENI Buzau 3248
SAPOCA Buzau 3305
SARULESTI Buzau 1346
SCUTELNICI Buzau 2346
TINTESTI Buzau 4518
TOPLICENI Buzau 4080
VADU PASII Buzau 9311
 38

VALCELELE Buzau 1587

VALEA RAMNICULUI Buzau 5425
VERNESTI Buzau 8633
VINTILA VODA Buzau 3131
VIPERESTI Buzau 3493
ZARNESTI Buzau 5459
BABAITA Teleorman 3032
BECIU Teleorman 1641
BUJORU Teleorman 2027
CERVENIA Teleorman 3190
CIUPERCENI Teleorman 1549
CONTESTI Teleorman 3479
DRACEA Teleorman 1358
DRAGANESTI-VLASCA Teleorman 4325
FRASINET Teleorman 2623
FURCULESTI Teleorman 3063
GALATENI Teleorman 2967
GRATIA Teleorman 3005
IZVOARELE Teleorman 2578
LISA Teleorman 2107
LITA Teleorman 2687
MAGURA Teleorman 2811
MARZANESTI Teleorman 3885
NANOV Teleorman 3586
PIETROSANI Teleorman 2941
PLOPII-SLAVITESTI Teleorman 2581
PLOSCA Teleorman 5900
POENI Teleorman 3118
POROSCHIA Teleorman 4166
SAELELE Teleorman 2293
SCURTU MARE Teleorman 1838
SEACA Teleorman 2270
SEGARCEA-VALE Teleorman 3211
SLOBOZIA MANDRA Teleorman 1819
SMARDIOASA Teleorman 2385
STOROBANEASA Teleorman 3101
SUHAIA Teleorman 2338
TATARASTII DE JOS Teleorman 3779
TATARASTII DE SUS Teleorman 3197
TIGANESTI Teleorman 4508
TRAIAN Teleorman 1902
UDA-CLOCOCIOV Teleorman 1582
VEDEA Teleorman 3592
VIISOARA Teleorman 1889
VITANESTI Teleorman 2945
Source for population: 2011 Romanian Census.

View publication stats