The 2010 regional elections in Greece were significantly influenced by revelations of prior accounting fraud, which reduced expected government spending.

* Rent-Seeking Voting

This effect was particularly strong in regions characterized by high clientelism*, where voters previously loyal to dominant parties shifted their support due to decreased anticipated benefits. Client-voters abandoned the big parties en masse because they felt shortchanged, while citizen-voters remained unaffected.

Using public sector size as a proxy for patronage intensity (Hicken 2011), we quantified this opportunistic shift: support for dominant parties dropped by an average of 5 percentage points more in high-patronage regions. This means at least one in six voters apparently switched allegiance purely to avoid being taxed.

Our research highlights the profound impact that institutional constraints can have on political power-sharing dynamics.