Brokers, Rents, and Electoral Strategies: Evidence from Nigeria

• In Event: Elections and Politics in Africa

Abstract

Politicians around the world invest heavily in ground-level campaign strategies such as rallies, canvassing, handouts, or violence. Existing literature largely assumes that politicians have financial and organizational capacity for campaigning, ignoring that in much of the world, public party financing is scarce and local party organization weak. We argue that politicians in the Global South rely on the diversion of state resources and non-party brokers to fund and organize various campaign activities. The availability of these resources varies subnationally, which has implications for the campaign strategies politicians invest in. Politicians with access to rents and broker networks can rely on all campaign strategies; we expect them to prioritize persuasive strategies such as canvassing, rallies, and handouts, using coercive campaigning more sparingly. In contrast, politicians with deep pockets but lacking organizational strength will invest more in coercion than other campaign strategies. On the other hand, political elites lacking easy access to rents will invest in low-cost electioneering such as canvassing and rallies if they have networks with organizational brokers, while politicians lacking either will be capable only of minimal campaign activity, such as isolated rallies. We explore these expectations empirically in Nigeria, Africa’s largest democracy. Our research design consists of three parts; first, we systematically explore expectations using multiple rounds of Afrobarometer data for Nigeria; second, we design an original survey of 1,500 citizens to distinguish broker types and incumbent and opposition campaign strategies in Lagos, the most populous and influential state in Nigeria; and third, we conduct 50 interviews with party and non-party brokers in Lagos to confirm causal mechanisms. Preliminary findings support our expectations.

Authors

• Ursula E. Daxecker, University of Amsterdam

• Maureen Asehtongha Fubara, University of Amsterdam

• Neeraj Vimal Prasad, University of Amsterdam