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Geographically targeted spending: exploring the electoral strategies of incumbent governments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Margit Tavits
Margit Tavits*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1063, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Pork-barrel politics is traditionally associated with presidentialism, strong parties, candidate-centered elections, and/or developing democracies. This paper argues that vote-purchasing behavior by incumbent governments analogous to pork-barreling is likely to be universal. This paper develops a rationale according to which incumbent governments use their partisan ties to lower levels of government to pork-barrel effectively. This argument is tested and corroborated with original data on local government grant allocation from four Nordic countries – traditionally considered to be systems that are least prone to localism. Furthermore, the study also provides preliminary evidence that pork-barreling by incumbent governments is electorally rewarded and thereby a fully rational electoral strategy.

Keywords

clientelismpork-barrel politicsre-election strategylocal governmentScandinavia
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 103 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © European Consortium for Political Research 2009

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