Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Understanding the Decline of Clientelism in Brazil

政治学博士论文研究：了解巴西侍从主义的衰落

• 批准号: 1023884
• 负责人: Susan Stokes
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-15 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1023884&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

In older democracies, political parties often traded individualized rewards--food, cash, clothing--for voters' support. Such strategies, while rare in these countries today, are still deployed in developing countries such as India, Argentina, and the Philippines. In Brazil, vote buying was once widespread but now is in decline. What explains this shift? Answering this question is essential to understanding why some democratic governments seek to respond to the needs of their citizens. This dissertation explores the process by which vote buying is replaced by programmatic politics, where politicians seek to attract voters' support with policy proposals. In the NSF-funded component of the project, the researcher will conduct two large sample surveys in Brazil in order to test original hypotheses about why voters shift their support to programmatic politicians. A nationally representative survey will identify the type of people who sell their vote. Another survey will focus on the state of Bahia, which has undergone dramatic political changes over the past decade. This targeted survey will allow the researcher to test hypotheses about local characteristics that support a shift to programmatic politics. Data from this project will also be used to conduct cross-national comparisons with other countries where vote buying has been prevalent. The literature on vote buying, which tends to focus on improving understanding of how party machines work, does not offer a good explanation for why this strategy gives way to programmatic appeals. One long-running debate, for example, pits scholars who believe that party machines target apolitical "swing voters" against others who think that politicians focus on cultivating relationships with "core voters." Why politicians might forsake vote buying altogether--or lose to those who do--is left unasked. Some older research did explore why vote buying declines, but explanations were generally tied to broader social shifts and lacked rigorous empirical testing. Such research does not fully account for the regional disparities in how politics is practiced in Brazil, nor does it provide sufficient insight into why particular political machines break down. This project takes prior research and current debates as a point of departure. While most contemporary research on vote buying assumes that current political systems are immalleable, this project breaks new ground by providing data that will allow for rigorous quantitative analysis of the factors that lead voters to sell their vote. By explaining regional variation in the prevalence of vote buying in Brazil, this research will provide insight into what causes vote buying to decline--both in some regions of contemporary Brazil and in other contexts. This study will also provide important but previously unavailable data to other researchers. In addition to advancing the literature on vote buying and democratic consolidation and generating new data on topics that have received little scrutiny, this research will have important implications beyond academia. Understanding why some political systems adopt programmatic politics while others do not is an important step towards understanding--and overcoming--the impediments to constructing a democracy that truly represents its citizens.

在较老的民主国家，政党经常用个性化的奖励--食物、现金、衣服--来换取选民的支持。这样的战略虽然在今天的这些国家很少见，但仍然部署在印度、阿根廷和菲律宾等发展中国家。在巴西，收买选票一度很普遍，但现在正在减少。如何解释这种转变？回答这个问题对于理解为什么一些民主政府寻求满足其公民的需要至关重要。本文探讨了政治纲领政治取代收买选票的过程，即政客们试图通过政策建议来吸引选民的支持。在该项目的NSF资助部分，研究人员将在巴西进行两次大样本调查，以检验选民为什么将他们的支持转向计划型政客的原始假设。一项具有全国代表性的调查将确定出卖选票的人的类型。另一项调查将集中在巴伊亚州，该州在过去十年中经历了戏剧性的政治变化。这项有针对性的调查将使研究人员能够测试有关支持向程序性政治转变的地方特征的假设。该项目的数据还将被用于与其他盛行收买选票的国家进行跨国比较。有关收买选票的文献往往侧重于提高对政党机器如何运作的理解，但它们并没有很好地解释为什么这一策略让位于程序性呼吁。例如，在一场旷日持久的辩论中，学者们对立起来，他们认为政党机器针对的是不关心政治的“摇摆选民”，而另一些人则认为政客专注于培养与“核心选民”的关系。为什么政客们可能会完全放弃收买选票--或者输给那些这样做的人--没有人被问到。一些较早的研究确实探索了为什么买票会减少，但解释通常与更广泛的社会变化联系在一起，缺乏严格的实证检验。这类研究没有完全解释巴西在政治实践方面的地区差异，也没有提供足够的洞察力来解释为什么特定的政治机器发生了故障。这个项目以先前的研究和当前的争论为出发点。虽然大多数当代关于收买选票的研究都假设当前的政治制度是不可改变的，但这个项目通过提供数据开辟了新的天地，它将允许对导致选民出卖选票的因素进行严格的量化分析。通过解释巴西买票盛行的地区差异，这项研究将提供关于是什么导致买票下降的洞察--无论是在当代巴西的一些地区还是在其他背景下。这项研究还将为其他研究人员提供重要但以前无法获得的数据。除了推进有关收买选票和巩固民主的文献，并就几乎没有受到仔细审查的主题产生新的数据外，这项研究还将具有超出学术界的重要影响。了解为什么一些政治制度采用纲领性政治，而另一些政治制度不采用，这是理解--并克服--建设一个真正代表其公民的民主的障碍的重要一步。