Large-Scale Distributive Programs and Democratic Backsliding

• In Event: Popular Support for Democracy in Lower and Middle-Income Countries

Abstract

In recent years, a number of right-wing populist regimes have taken advantage of favorable economic conditions to launch large-scale, targeted welfare programs that serve to guarantee continued popular support while they dismantle democratic institutions. The Hungarian and Polish governments have both introduced sweeping distributive programs targeting young people, families, and the elderly. These programs represent exorbitant sums of money: Hungary's new income tax exemption for young people increased under-26s income by 18%, while in Poland every family receives a monthly cash transfer of $125 per child. Political analysts have suggested that these welfare programs may lead beneficiaries to vote for the governing parties despite disapproving of their undemocratic record. The governing parties’ narrative often plays into this: for instance, in the 2022 parliamentary elections in Hungary, some of Fidesz’s main campaign messages focused on their generous welfare programs and how the incompetent opposition, if elected, would fail to maintain these. Indeed, voters commonly noted that they voted for Fidesz for fear that the opposition would discontinue new welfare benefits if they were elected. So, commentators have suggested that the generous distributive programs may have secured Fidesz’s sweeping victory in 2022 and may partly explain the ineffectiveness of the opposition’s campaign focused on restoring democracy. But what are the exact electoral returns for distributing such exorbitant sums of money in democratic backsliding settings? How does it shift voters’ attitudes and behaviors? Do voters really give up on democracy for material benefits? This project is the first to empirically evaluate the consequences of large-scale distributive programs for democratic erosion.

The first part of the paper shows that large-scale programs indeed increase regime support in democratic backsliding countries by causally estimating the effects of two welfare programs on support for the governing party in Hungary. First, it focuses on a program that generously subsidizes families' construction of new, own-use houses and employs a difference-in-differences design leveraging differential program uptake based on land availability. I find that the program significantly increased Fidesz’s vote share, especially in poor, rural areas. Second, I study the Youth Income Tax Exemption Program launched in January 2022 - four months before the elections - that granted automatic income tax exemption to under-26 years olds. I use an original survey of young adults and an age cut-off regression discontinuity design that exploits the as-if random variation in participants’ birth dates around the eligibility cut-off. Once the survey data collection is complete, I will estimate whether voters who receive material benefits exhibit higher support for Fidesz and tolerance for democratic erosion.

The second part focuses on individual voters’ attitudes and preferences and evaluates whether voters indeed trade off material benefits and democratic backsliding, and, if yes, to what degree. The common view is that, at election time, voters in such countries believe they are choose between two bundles: large material benefits and democratic erosion - the governing party - or little material benefits and the reconstruction of liberal democracy - the opposition. More pre-election material benefits increase voters’ expectation of material benefits if the governing party is reelected, incentivizing them to vote for the incumbent. However, voters may not think of their vote choice as a tradeoff: they may not value liberal democracy or may believe that the incumbent is more democratic than they are. I will collect original survey data in Hungary and employ a candidate choice vignette experiment and a priming experiment to evaluate this. The candidate choice experiment asks respondents to choose between two candidates, randomly varying undemocratic positions and welfare program proposals, to estimate whether, how, and when voters trade off material benefits and democratic quality. The priming survey experiment exposes some respondents to the incumbent’s propaganda on the opposition’s incompetence and elicit support for Fidesz or a united opposition in a hypothetical election. Having recently received IRB approval, I will conduct this survey and the survey of young adults in March-May 2023.

This paper sheds light on when and why voters support right-wing populist incumbents who dismantle democratic checks and balances, despite their increasingly undemocratic actions. It introduces the role of material incentives to the growing literature on why voters support incumbents who erode democracy (e.g. Graham, Svolik, 2020; Grossman et al., 2022; Svolik, 2019, 2020) and demonstrates the centrality of new forms of co-optation as a strategy of rule in democratic backsliding regimes (e.g. Levitsky, Ziblatt, 2018).

Author

• Hanna Folsz, Stanford University