Mobilizing Poor Voters
Machine Politics, Clientelism, and Social Networks in Argentina

Using network analysis and quantitative and qualitative data, this book explains why candidates use clientelistic strategies to mobilize poor voters.

Mariela Szwarcberg (Author)

9781107534629, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 July 2015

185 pages, 7 b/w illus. 3 maps 13 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.1 cm, 0.28 kg

'Despite flourishing research on network analyses, most of the literature takes individuals (nodes) for granted and relationships (vertices) as unproblematic. In most network analyses, a node is a node is a node. This is definitely not the case in this wonderful book by Mariela Szwarcberg, which uses extensive ethnographic research to describe the making of clientelistic individuals and relationships. This is an original and rich theory of clientelistic mobilization through network building.' Ernesto Calvo, Associate Chair of Government and Politics, University of Maryland

Democracy has provided opportunities for political representation and accountability, but it has also created incentives for creating and maintaining clientelistic networks. Why has clientelism consolidated with the introduction of democracy? Drawing on network analysis, Mobilizing Poor Voters answers this question by describing and explaining the emergence, maintenance, and disappearance of political, partisan, and social networks in Argentina. Combining qualitative and quantitative data gathered during twenty-four months of field research in eight municipalities in Argentina, Mobilizing Poor Voters shows that when party leaders distribute political promotions to party candidates based only on the number of voters they mobilize, party leaders incentivize the use of clientelistic strategies among candidates competing to mobilize voters in poor neighborhoods. The logic of perverse incentives examined in this book explains why candidates who use clientelism succeed in getting elected and re-elected over time, contributing to the consolidation of political machines at the local level.

1. Politics on the ground: mobilizing poor voters in Argentina
2. The microfoundations of political clientelism
3. Building a party network: political, partisan and social networks in Argentina
4. Moral hazard and asymmetric information in clientelistic networks
5. The logic of perverse incentives
6. Scaling up: the logic of perverse incentives at the subnational level
7. Politics on the ground: a comparative perspective
8. Conclusions: winners lose.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]