Protecting the Ballot by Isabela Mares;

Author:Isabela Mares;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2022-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

In panel (b) of figure 4.2, I examine the importance of economic constraints for support for reforms. This analysis tests the hypothesis advanced by Susan Stokes and her coauthors (2015) that economic development limited the use of vote-buying. We find mixed support for this hypothesis. While legislators representing more populous districts are more supportive of electoral reforms, the variable does not reach statistical significance at conventional levels. Consistent with the predictions of the modernization perspective, however, we find that legislators representing districts with higher levels of agricultural employment are more likely to oppose these reforms. Other variables measuring economic development—such as the level of urbanization—are not systematically correlated with support for electoral reforms.

The results reported in panel (c) examine the importance of electoral costs in shaping support for reforms. Electoral costs are proxied here using a measure of the programmatic promises of candidates in their professions de foi. I conjectured that candidates competing on the basis of programmatic promises find it electorally costlier to use illicit strategies. For these candidates, reforms that impose higher sanctions on illicit exchanges are advantageous because they constrain competitors who may incur lower electoral costs from using such strategies. The results presented in figure 4.2 test this conjecture. The bivariate correlation shows a positive relationship between the programmatic commitment of a candidate and support for electoral reforms. However, the relationship is not robust to the inclusion of additional controls. Panel (d) in figure 4.2 includes the full model. Electoral reforms limiting vote-buying were supported by resource-constrained politicians and resisted by resource-endowed legislators. We find support for the conjectures of the modernization perspective. Politicians from more populous and economically developed districts were more supportive of reforms to limit vote-buying.

The composition of the electoral coalition supporting vote-buying reforms contrasts with the coalition that came about during the reform of the candidature officielle discussed in chapter 3. In both cases, considerations about access to political resources predicted support for reforms, leading to different positions taken by parties on the right toward these reforms. While Conservative legislators supported reforms to limit the use of state resources, they resisted the introduction of reforms to limit vote-buying. By contrast, Radicals and some centrist Republicans supported reforms to limit vote-buying but resisted reforms to limit patronage. By documenting heterogeneity in the position of rightist parties toward electoral reforms, these findings contradict an important assumption in the literature on democratization that assumes that politicians connected with wealthy assets consistently oppose democratizing reforms. This heterogeneity in the positions of parties on the right also demonstrates that one cannot infer legislators’ positions toward electoral reform from their connection to various economic factors—such as land—or assume that wealth always translates into opposition to reforms.

The electoral reform to limit bribery was adopted by the French parliament in March 1914 and went into effect during the same year (JORF Lois et Décrets, 1 April 1914). The law departed from the status quo in two ways. First, it reformed some of the contradictions of the existing jurisprudence by removing the requirement to prove an intention to buy votes.

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