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Vote-buying is pervasive, but not everywhere. What explains significant variations across countries in the greater use of pre-electoral transfers to mobilize voters relative to the use of pre-electoral promises of post-electoral transfers? This paper explicitly models the trade-offs that politicians incur when they decide between mobilizing support with vote-buying or promises of post-electoral benefits. Politicians rely more on vote-buying when they are less credible, target vote-buying to those who do not believe their political promises, and only buy votes from those who would have received post-electoral transfers in a world of full political credibility. The enforcement of a prohibition on vote-buying reduces the welfare of those targeted with vote-buying, but improves the welfare of all other groups in society.

Civic Participation and Corporate Governance --- Electoral Mobilization Strategies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Political Credibility --- Politics and Government --- Pre-Electoral Promises --- Vote-Buying --- Wages, Compensation & Benefits

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Citizens in developing countries support politicians who provide patronage or clientelist benefits, such as government jobs and gifts at the time of elections. Can access to mass media that broadcasts public interest messages shift citizens' preferences for such benefits? This paper examines the impact of community radio on responses to novel survey vignettes that make an explicit trade-off between political promises of jobs for a few versus public services for all. The impact of community radio is identified through a natural experiment in the media market in northern Benin, which yields exogenous variation in access across villages. Respondents in villages with greater radio access are less likely to express support for patronage jobs that come at the expense of public health or education. Gift-giving is not necessarily traded off against public services; correspondingly, radio access does not reduce preferences for candidates who give gifts. The pattern of results is consistent with a particular mechanism for radio's impact: increasing citizens' demand for broadly delivered health and education and thereby shaping their preferences for clientelist candidates.

Clientelism --- Communities & Human Settlements --- E-Business --- Education --- Education for All --- Health --- Health Monitoring & Evaluation --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Housing & Human Habitats --- Mass Media --- Patronage --- Population Policies --- Private Sector Development --- Radio Broadcasting --- Vote-Buying

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Nothing is more integral to democracy than voting. Most people believe that every citizen has the civic duty or moral obligation to vote, that any sincere vote is morally acceptable, and that buying, selling, or trading votes is inherently wrong. In this provocative book, Jason Brennan challenges our fundamental assumptions about voting, revealing why it is not a duty for most citizens--in fact, he argues, many people owe it to the rest of us not to vote. Bad choices at the polls can result in unjust laws, needless wars, and calamitous economic policies. Brennan shows why voters have duties to make informed decisions in the voting booth, to base their decisions on sound evidence for what will create the best possible policies, and to promote the common good rather than their own self-interest. They must vote well--or not vote at all. Brennan explains why voting is not necessarily the best way for citizens to exercise their civic duty, and why some citizens need to stay away from the polls to protect the democratic process from their uninformed, irrational, or immoral votes. In a democracy, every citizen has the right to vote. This book reveals why sometimes it's best if they don't. In a new afterword, "How to Vote Well," Brennan provides a practical guidebook for making well-informed, well-reasoned choices at the polls.

Voting --- Applied ethics. --- Ethics. --- Voting ethics. --- Polls --- Elections --- Politics, Practical --- Social choice --- Suffrage --- Moral and ethical aspects. --- Agency Argument. --- Civic Virtue Argument. --- Public Goods Argument. --- abstention. --- autonomy. --- bad governance. --- bad voting. --- beneficial policies. --- causal responsibility. --- citizens. --- civic duty. --- civic virtue. --- common good. --- community volunteering. --- contemporary liberal democracies. --- deference. --- democracy. --- egoistic voting. --- epistemic justification. --- epistemic standards. --- extrapolitical conception. --- fortuitous voting. --- good governance. --- good intentions. --- good policy. --- good voting. --- government policies. --- government. --- harmful policies. --- harmful voting. --- independent judgment. --- informed decisions. --- military service. --- moral obligation. --- moral obligations. --- moral virtue. --- national interest. --- news. --- personal biases. --- political beliefs. --- political judgment. --- political movements. --- political participation. --- political parties. --- politics. --- public-spirited voting. --- self-interest. --- social order. --- social science. --- social-scientific literature. --- sound evidence. --- vote buying. --- vote commodification. --- vote selling. --- voters. --- voting ethics. --- voting rights. --- voting. --- welfare. --- Balloting --- Democracy --- Moral and ethical aspects --- Voting - Moral and ethical aspects