This chapter has explored the prevalence of vote buying in Indonesian election campaigns. Elaborated from a wide range of methods –whether individual, observational or derived from the list-experiment– the results are mostly congruent with each other. The findings generated from the direct individual and neighbourhood measures as well as from the survey-based experiment are that 25 percent of Indonesian voters were exposed to vote buying in the 2014 legislative election when asked directly, 27.4 percent when asked via the list-experiment, and 28.9 percent when asked through the neighbourhood question. If we use the less obtrusive measure without concretely mentioning the 2014 election (as discussed in detail above), the level of vote buying rises slightly to 33 percent. Hence, the estimated proportion of people engaging in vote buying in Indonesia lies between 25 percent and 33 percent, considering that the difference between one measure to another is not statistically distinguishable.
In the 2014 legislative election, there were around 187 million registered domestic voters. A range of between 25 percent and 33 percent would mean an estimated 47
million to 62 million voters nationwide were offered cash or other material benefits in return for their votes. If we rely on the highest estimate, one out of three Indonesian voters was personally exposed to vote buying. It is noteworthy, however, that these figures define a range, rather than a precise point-estimate, of vote buying incidents. In addition, vote buying was not only a prominent feature of Indonesia’s national legislative elections. My large dataset of local elections across the country found fewer than four out of ten Indonesians thought of vote buying to be an acceptable practice. However, my study found empirical evidence that such practice in general is ubiquitous in Indonesian electoral politics.
Such findings generate more questions. Most obviously, given that vote buying is common but not universal: which voters are targeted in vote buying exchanges? The next chapter provides a comprehensive profile of the typical vote sellers and presents more rigorous analysis to predict the likelihood of a person being offered benefits in exchange for a vote. It does so by testing large number of variables that are generally believed to be the determinants of vote buying.
CHAPTER 3
THE DETERMINANTS OF VOTE BUYING AND CLUB GOODS:
THE PROFILE OF TYPICAL VOTE ‘SELLERS’
In the preceding chapter, I showed how prevalent vote buying and club goods provision are in Indonesian elections, even by international standards. The findings offered a systematic confirmation of thus far largely anecdotal accounts of political clientelism in Indonesia. Despite the ubiquity of such practices and a recent surge in publications on the topic (e.g. Aspinall, 2014; Allen, 2015; Aspinall and Sukmajati, 2016; Amick, 2016; Aspinall et al., 2017; Tawakkal et al., 2017), surprisingly the question of what types of individuals are targeted by vote buying and club goods operations remains largely unexplored. Accordingly, this chapter focuses on the analysis of the individual-level determinants of targeting of vote buying and club goods, and provides a comprehensive profile of the typical vote ‘sellers.’ I examine a wide range of variables that are generally believed to be the determinants of such electoral strategies. The final part of this chapter then identifies the most striking aspects of vote buying and club goods provision in two different election settings: the national legislative elections and local executive contests.
One of the key findings of this chapter is that voter identification with political parties is consistently and significantly linked to vote buying. This correlation is calculated from the two data sources used in this study: the post-national legislative survey and sub-national election dataset. The closer the ties of a voter to a political party, the more likely that voter is to receive offers of vote buying or be accepting of the practice. My post-legislative election data also shows that, contrary to prior expectations, most of the variables associated with modernisation theory have little correlation with vote buying. The insignificance of socio-economic factors indicates that the targeting of vote buying in the national parliamentary elections can be best
explained in terms of party identification rather than the modernisation paradigm. It
is worth noting, however, that while those who self-identify with a political party are more likely to become a prime target of vote buying, party closeness has little effect in determining the provision of club goods. This means that the distribution of this form of collective patronage is more inclusive than vote buying, with the political preference of recipients seemingly not a major factor in target selection.
While the legislative election dataset is about vote buying experience, the local election dataset is about vote buying acceptability. Regarding the local executive elections, there is strong statistical evidence that a combination of the party identification and socio-economic profiles help explain the extent to which vote buying is viewed as acceptable. However, I found substantial heterogeneity among party loyalists: those who feel close to large nationalist parties such as PDI-P, Golkar, and Democratic Party as well as parties that draw on the traditionalist Islamic community like PKB and PPP, and a newly nationalist party NasDem were more likely to accept vote buying as a normal practice during local elections. In contrast, partisan alignment to the Islamist party PKS and the pluralist-oriented but largely modernist Islamic PAN were less accepting of vote buying. The effects of partisan lean toward other nationalist parties such as Gerindra and Hanura, were not significant. Unlike in vote buying experience in the legislative elections, the modernisation argument remains persuasive in the context of local executive races. I present compelling evidence that socio-economically vulnerable individuals and rural residents are more likely to be tolerant of vote buying in local elections.