Mobilizing for Elections

Politicians in Southeast Asia as in many other regions win elections by distributing cash goods jobs projects and other benefits to supporters but the ways in which they do this vary tremendously both across and within countries. Mobilizing for Elections presents a new framework for analyzing variation in patronage democracies focusing on distinct forms of patronage and different networks through which it is distributed. The book draws on an extensive multi-country multi-year research effort involving interactions with hundreds of politicians and vote brokers as well as surveys of voters and political campaigners across the region. Chapters explore how local machines in the Philippines ad hoc election teams in Indonesia and political parties in Malaysia pursue distinctive clusters of strategies of patronage distribution what the authors term electoral mobilization regimes. In doing so the book shows how and why patronage politics varies and how it works on the ground.