Social Science Research Council

"Machine Politics in Latin America: Lessons from the Argentine Case"

Why do some political machines succeed in getting votes while others fail? In a world in which political machines flourish in many new democracies, understanding the conditions under which such machines succeed or fail to win votes with clientelist inducements is of critical importance to political scientists and policy makers. Drawing on a detailed study of the performance of political brokers and clientelist networks in Argentina and Peru, my dissertation will build a theory about machine politics in new democracies. I hypothesize that it is the combination of how brokers compete for scarce resources, how they build networks to trade goods and favors for votes, and their ability to monitor voters and make good inferences about how they voted that explains the success or failure of clientelist parties. I will test my hypothesis by making comparisons among brokers from different political parties and competing in various Argentine regions and in the city of Lima in Peru. In accomplishing this objective, I will employ individual level survey research and network analysis to identify the factors that determine the performance of different partisan brokers. Although my dissertation focuses on Latin America, it will provide theoretical and methodological tools with which to study political machines in other new democracies.