Essays on the Political Economy of Distributive Politics

Abstract

Despite democratic theory’s fundamental expectation that voters punishing corruption at the polls is a key mechanism whereby democracies secure accountability, voters in many countries fail to vote out corrupt parties, even while expressing indignation at its pervasiveness. Instead, the pattern that emerges across transitioning and consolidated democracies is that while in some countries corrupt parties and representatives are effectively voted out of office, in others they are able to maintain voters’ electoral support and even consolidate their hold on power. Why is this the case? What types of strategies, resources, and policies do corrupt governing parties employ to assuage voters’ electoral wrath, counter electoral backlash, and optimize their political payoffs? And how do international actors and organizations respond to migration pressures that often arise as a consequence of the underperforming economies of corrupt states?

My dissertation examines the relationship between political corruption, electoral accountability, distributive politics, and the political economy of fiscal lending by international organizations in the age of migration. The research revolves around three major questions which I examine via a combination of qualitative and empirical methods: “What types of distributive strategies do corrupt political parties adopt to curtail voters’ electoral wrath?”, “Do fiscal funds allocated by the European Union to member states deliver an electoral advantage to corrupt incumbent parties?”, and “Do migration pressures faced by the IMF’s major shareholder states affect the size and conditions attached to the loans granted by the IMF to migrant sending countries?”

My first chapter examines the types of strategies, resources, and policies that corrupt governing parties employ to deter electoral accountability. I develop a model of “corruption compensation” whereby, in a bid to preempt electoral backlash, corrupt incumbents strategically target higher shares of government resources to regions where corruption perceptions are higher and demands for political accountability are more likely to emerge. To systematically examine the theory I engage in a cross-time, within-country analysis of the highly corrupt, post-socialist state of Albania. Using an originally constructed, district-level data set, I employ a methodological approach that combines qualitative evidence with a multivariate empirical analysis and find support for my hypotheses.

The second chapter builds on these findings to examine additional sources of funds available to corrupt governing parties and the impact they have on their electoral advantage. Focusing on the EU’s geopolitical space, this chapter takes into account the degree of executive corruption in EU member states to examine and confirm the novel theoretical expectation that higher fiscal allocations to corrupt recipient states deliver political latitude that incumbents utilize to advance their electoral outcomes and governing authority.

The third chapter assesses the migration dimension of the link between political corruption, accountability, and distributive politics. It focuses on the policy and fiscal measures taken by international organizations and migrant-hosting states in response to rising migration pressures from migrant-sending states. Drawing on novel data on all IMF programs from 1978 to 2013, this chapter examines and finds empirical support for the theoretical expectation that the IMF grants larger loans and less stringent loan conditions to migrant-sending states that pose greater migration pressures to the Fund’s largest shareholder states.

Combined, this project contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between political corruption, distributive politics, electoral accountability, and the political economy of fiscal lending by international organizations, particularly the EU and the IMF.