VOTE BUYING IN INDONESIA: CANDIDATE STRATEGIES, MARKET LOGIC AND EFFECTIVENESS

What underlying logic explains candidate participation in vote buying, given that clientelist exchange is so difficult to enforce? We address this question through close analysis of campaigns by several dozen candidates in two electoral districts in Java, Indonesia. Analyzing candidates’ targeting and pricing strategies, we show that candidates used personal brokerage structures that drew on social networks to identify voters and deliver payments to them. But these candidates achieved vote totals averaging about one quarter of the number of payments they distributed. Many candidates claimed to be targeting loyalists, suggestive of “turnout buying,” but judged loyalty in personal rather than partisan terms, and extended their vote-buying reach through personal connections mediated by brokers. Candidates were market sensitive, paying prices per vote determined not only by personal resources, but also by constituency size and prices offered by competitors. Accordingly, we argue that a market logic structures Indonesia's system of vote buying.

The Effects of Malapportionment on Cabinet Inclusion: Subnational Evidence from India

Malapportionment doubly penalizes people from relatively large electoral districts or constituencies by under-representing them in the legislature and in the political executive or cabinet. The latter effect has not been studied. This article develops theoretical reasons for large constituency disadvantage in the cabinet formation process, and tests them using a new repeated cross-sectional dataset on elections and cabinet formation in India’s states, from 1977–2007. A one-standard-deviation increase in relative constituency size is associated with a 22 per cent fall in the probability of a constituency’s representative being in the cabinet. Malapportionment affects cabinet inclusion by causing large parties to focus on winning relatively small constituencies. These effects are likely to hold in parliamentary systems, and in other contexts where the legislature influences cabinet inclusion.

The Congressional Representation of Muslim-American Constituents

Legislators' responsiveness to constituency preferences is an accepted cornerstone of American representative democracy. Focusing on key domestic anti-terrorism votes during the 109th Congress, this study explores whether or not the presence of Muslim-Americans in a district influenced House members' roll-call behavior. We apply and test two competing theories of representation: the congruence theory and the minority backlash hypothesis. Using original data on Muslim-American constituency size, our analysis indicates little evidence of a representational backlash and some evidence that both Democratic and Republican members are positively responsive in their roll-call behavior to the presence of Muslim voters in their districts.