Mobilizing for Elections

Patronage and Political Machines in Southeast Asia

Meredith L Weiss author Edward Aspinall author Allen Hicken author Paul D Hutchcroft author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:11th Aug '22

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Mobilizing for Elections cover

Provides a new framework for understanding how and why politicians distribute patronage to win elections using Southeast Asian case studies.

This book compares patronage politics in Southeast Asia, examining the sources and implications of cross-national and sub-national differences. It will be useful for scholars and students interested in comparative and Southeast Asian politics, electoral politics, clientelism and patronage, and the historical development of political institutions.Politicians in Southeast Asia, as in many other regions, win elections by distributing cash, goods, jobs, projects, and other benefits to supporters, but the ways in which they do this vary tremendously, both across and within countries. Mobilizing for Elections presents a new framework for analyzing variation in patronage democracies, focusing on distinct forms of patronage and different networks through which it is distributed. The book draws on an extensive, multi-country, multi-year research effort involving interactions with hundreds of politicians and vote brokers, as well as surveys of voters and political campaigners across the region. Chapters explore how local machines in the Philippines, ad hoc election teams in Indonesia, and political parties in Malaysia pursue distinctive clusters of strategies of patronage distribution – what the authors term electoral mobilization regimes. In doing so, the book shows how and why patronage politics varies, and how it works on the ground.

'In exemplary fashion, this book manages to combine a significant contribution to the theory of democratic accountability and linkage formation between electoral constituencies and political elites with a thorough and subtle multi-method empirical analysis of partisan competition in three important, but often understudied Southeast Asian countries. Especially the conceptualization of electoral mobilization regimes – how partisan networks are intertwined with the deployment and targeting of resources on electoral constituencies – should resonate in the research community.' Herbert Kitschelt, George V. Allen Distinguished Professor of International Relations Professor of Political Science, Duke University
'Mobilizing for Elections is a major contribution to studies of clientelism, patronage and elections. It fundamentally shifts attention away from micro-level, voter-broker-politician linkages and toward distinct electoral mobilization regimes through which politicians distribute resources, mobilize networks, and implement public policies. And drawing on extensive, well-executed research across Southeast Asia, it makes a convincing argument that historical legacies, institutional differences, and social-group characteristics explain the different mobilization regimes. This is a seminal study that cautions against assumptions that findings on clientelism transfer easily from one context to another, provides a framework for understanding different findings, and raises important new research questions.' Ellen Lust, Professor and Founding Director of the Program on Governance and Local Development, University of Gothenburg

ISBN: 9781316513804

Dimensions: 235mm x 158mm x 25mm

Weight: 630g

380 pages