Research
Incumbent-Sponsored Collusion: Fuel Theft and Electoral Competition (Working Paper)
Abstract:
In what I call incumbent-sponsored collusion, political actors approach organized crime groups (OCGs) to obtain campaign cash and voter mobilization from OCGs, while offering protection and cooperation in exchange. What are the electoral returns of such arrangements? Using the recent phenomenon of fuel, gas, and oil (FGO) theft in Mexico, I show that the electoral effects of collusive arrangements include a decrease in electoral competition at the municipal level of government. Using an original dataset on the number of FGO illegal taps in Mexican municipalities from 1997 to 2022, I find that incumbents in municipalities that experience FGO theft have a significantly higher probability of re-election than incumbents who govern municipalities without FGO theft. I also find that the incumbency effects associated with FGO theft are concentrated in precincts within 5km of the pipelines. Lastly, utilizing survey evidence, I find that significantly more vote-buying occurs in municipalities that experience FGO theft and in the precincts closest to the pipelines than in municipalities that do not experience FGO theft and in precincts farther away from the pipelines, suggesting that vote-buying is one possible causal mechanism mediating the effect of FGO theft on electoral outcomes.
Monitoring Capacity of Clientelistic Exchanges in Criminal Governance Settings (Working Paper)
Abstract
Some accounts on criminal governance have argued that clientelism is a common electoral strategy employed to mobilize voters in some criminal governance settings (CGS). According to traditional accounts on clientelism, its viability depends on politicians’ ability to overcome voters’ commitment issues via monitoring. Recent scholarship, however, has found little evidence of individual-level monitoring of clientelistic exchanges, which raises questions about its effectiveness as an electoral strategy. How do politicians and criminal groups that employ clientelism obtain voters’ compliance in CGS? I argue that compliance in CGS is enforced through voter’s fear of retribution which makes them more likely to comply with authorities. Using the recent phenomenon of fuel theft in Mexico, an original dataset on this criminal activity, and survey evidence on clientelism, I find that voters who received vote-buying offers in municipalities that experience fuel theft reported being significantly more fearful of local authorities than both, voters who did not receive vote-buying offers, and voters who received vote-buying offers but who live in municipalities without fuel theft. The evidence presented , thus, suggests that clientelism in CGS functions as the traditional accounts on clientelism envisioned, making a viable electoral strategy for voter mobilization.
