Description: 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.
Brief description: Allen Hicken is Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of Building Party Systems in Developing Democracies (2009), Politics of Modern Southeast Asia (2010), Party and Party System Institutionalization in Asia (2014), and Electoral Dynamics in the Philippines (2019).
Review Quotes: 'In exemplary fashion, this book manages to combine a significant contribution to the theory of democratic accountability and linkage formation between electoral constituencies and political elites with a thorough and subtle multi-method empirical analysis of partisan competition in three important, but often understudied Southeast Asian countries. Especially the conceptualization of electoral mobilization regimes - how partisan networks are intertwined with the deployment and targeting of resources on electoral constituencies - should resonate in the research community.' Herbert Kitschelt, George V. Allen Distinguished Professor of International Relations Professor of Political Science, Duke University