Electoral Incentives

This article asks whether U.S. leaders time arms transfers to autocratic states for electoral advantage during presidential election years. Using several empirical tests, the author documents an electoral cycle in arms deals with autocracies, connects those deals to increases in defense contract awards in swing U.S. states, and investigates process mechanisms. The analysis examines how timing shifts after regime change, the role of U.S. allies in driving the autocratic arms-deal cycle, and the correspondence between platforms sold in arms deals and platforms that generate swing-state defense contracts. The author frames these findings as evidence that an electoral motivation helps explain patterns of U.S. security cooperation with autocratic partners, while preserving the observational limits of the study.

Ethnic minority voters often face biased service from politicians. This study tests whether electoral incentives or candidate selection reduces such bias.

This study investigates how property taxation policies influence electoral incentives and voting behavior. By analyzing municipal-level data from Brazilian states between 2005-2018, we demonstrate that changes to local tax structures significantly impact political competition.

Existing arguments suggest parties use domestic and international institutions to lock in policy preferences by restricting successors. This paper argues that these views overlook the incentives of office-seeking parties.

Voters care about representatives' competence. Political parties face an incentive to signal this valence trait to win elections.

Electoral incentives drive members of Congress to tackle issues on their agenda, but they often face uncertainty about the costs and benefits. A key finding reveals that even after passing legislation—especially important bills—the same policy area sees increased attention.

Congressional representation operates at two distinct levels. This article introduces new measures to examine how electoral incentives shape both individual and collective forms of representation.