Clientelism Changes Voter Loyalty: New Evidence from Brazil

Political clientelism traditionally influences voter behavior by swaying existing supporters.

But this paper reveals something more fundamental:

Reward Distribution & Targeting Voters as Outsiders

Voter buying—directly incentivizing outsiders to join the machine—is a common strategy globally, including Brazil. This practice fundamentally shapes district composition and can underpin electoral fraud when monitoring is difficult.

Our analysis focuses on Brazil's municipal elections:

Regression Discontinuity Design (RD) Findings

Using voter audits as an exogenous shock, we found that these interventions significantly reduced outsider voting inflows by 12 pp and lowered mayoral reelection chances by nearly 20%. These effects were concentrated in areas with high prior outsider participation.

Robustness Checks

Findings held across different data sets when testing alternative research designs.