Corruption Wins No More than Honesty? Electoral Interveners and Limited Control

• In Event: The Dynamics and Consequences of Internal Party Politics

Abstract

Elections are a widely recognized form of establishing legitimacy. Interventions by foreign powers in the elections of others are back in the spotlight after purported Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Over the course of history Great Powers have at all times been engaged in different types of behavior with the goal of influencing democratic procedures in other countries. Foreign interventions can contribute, both positively and negatively, to the legitimacy of elections and the resulting political setup.

Bubeck and Marinov (APSR 2017) systematically account for different types of intervention behavior by distinguishing between investment in candidates vs. investment in (electoral) processes. This includes the possibility of a “quest for legitimacy”: the part of interventions driven by genuine liberalism concerns. It also includes interventions driven by pure self-interest, i.e. electing one’s favored ‘dog in the race’. Bubeck and Marinov demonstrate that the mix and prevalence of such interventions can be explained within the framework of a new formal model of elections with outside influencers.

Many interesting cases can be addressed using the basic framework - but substantial extensions are useful in order to explain particular shifts in behaviour. For example, foreign powers may have only imperfect control over the use of their funds in target countries. By formally modelling “corruption” in a separate stage one can provide meaningful guidance for several cases in which there was a change in behavior under the absence of big shifts in political polarization or the preferences of the foreign power.

Think of post-war Greece, a country where “the sort of government that had emerged from the electoral process [...] was one that Americans found very hard to take” (McNeill, 1957). In 1950 this led the U.S. to “embark upon a determined and distinctly high-handed effort to get a government that would more nearly suit their wishes”. In terms of economic aid, they scaled back their efforts: “they would no longer tolerate the use of counterparty funds for balancing the national budget” (McNeill, 1957). In 1951, under “strong pressure from the United States Embassy” (McNeill, 1957), instead of proportional representation a majority system was instituted. With the resulting government the Americans “could do business” and economic aid was revived and as it was more likely to serve productive purposes rebuilding the Greek industrial infrastructure.

Lebanon, Brazil, the Palestinian Territories, Ukraine, are all cases where outsiders have provided substantial resources to domestic actors, in an effort to help them win or retain power.

We add an additional stage to the model and explicitly account for the preferences of local political actors: they choose between influencing election outcomes and alternative uses of funds targeted towards their platforms. We find that subdued candidate support activities may persist beyond a certain threshold of polarization. This can explain low levels of candidate support under high levels of polarization. Another promising direction we are working on in this paper is adding the introduction of a second period, such that the model covers two successive elections. In this case, investment in the electoral process has a more persistent effect than candidate interventions which leads to a substitution of the latter.

We also investigate the reasons for candidate support in the first place. Why would outsiders condition transfers on a candidate (that is, on who is in power) vs. policy outcomes (bargain with the leader, regardless of who is in power). Our hypothesis is that betting on candidates is explained by the existence of abnormal returns to betting on some candidate types. Fraud and political machines help some candidates over-promise to foreign powers. Especially when multiple powers are in conflict, such external betting may drive up corruption and have other bad consequences.

We continue the work started in Bubeck and Marinov (2017), to demonstrate the institutional drivers of external betting on candidates, and the consequences for domestic institutions. The work has implications for political regimes, foreign aid, and citizen welfare.

Authors

• Johannes Bubeck, University of Mannheim

• Nikolay V. Marinov, University of Mannheim