Graduate Student in Political Science
The Department of Political Science would like to congratulate Ph.D candidate Joby Schaffer on receiving the 2017 Inaugural Seligson Prize from (LAPOP). Both Schaffer and his co-author Andy Baker, an Associate Professor at CU, received high praise for their publication entitled听Clientelism as Persuasion-Buying: Evidence from Latin America.
Schaffer's research focused on analyzing why听political parties use material inducements to acquire votes from their constituents in Latin American countries. 鈥淚n many Latin American countries, political parties engage in a practice called 'clientelism,'听Schaffer said. 鈥淭hey go out and purchase voters by offering them food, small consumer items, or other inducements, and in some places in Latin America, this is a rampant practice.
鈥淎mong those who study clientelism, there鈥檚 this question of听given party machines having听limited resources--they can鈥檛 just go out and give away food and other goods to just anybody--who do they target with clientelism; who do they go after to try and get their votes.
鈥淎 lot of scholars have suggested that clientelistic political parties attempt to directly buy votes, which means that they likely try to target people who are undecided in order to sway them to vote for their party. Other scholars say that clientelistic political parties instead try to buy people鈥檚 turnout, which means they likely try to buy people that are already loyal, that already care about the party鈥檚 positions, who they only have to get听to the polls.鈥�
The problem with the first explanation--vote-buying--is largely empirical. Those who have been targeted for clientelism also tend to report higher levels of partisanship. While this supports turnout buying, that strategy isn鈥檛 really cost-effective. There are other ways to more efficiently mobilize people.
鈥淲e were trying to find a way to balance those two out and address both of these puzzles. We came up with this idea that what these political parties are actually doing听is targeting those in a community听who tend to engage in political discussion. This comes听with the expectation that these individuals will then attempt to persuade those in their personal networks. We call this 鈥榩ersuasion-buying.鈥� This is cost-effective because it creates a 鈥榤ultiplier effect,鈥� where I鈥檒l give you some resources and I tell you to go out and start persuading those you鈥檙e close to to vote in the same way. So听I鈥檓 not only getting your vote, but I鈥檓 getting these people around you because you have this network.
鈥淚t also works in terms of what we find empirically听because we noticed in our analysis of data from the 2006 elections in Mexico that people鈥檚 partisanship gets stronger as the election gets closer. Our argument there is that once they鈥檝e received some goods early on from a political party, they start to solidify their position in the direction of that party,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat allows us to make sense of why strong partisans get targeted benefits.鈥�
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The LAPOP award accepts papers that have been published one to two years prior to that year鈥檚 award recipient, so when Schaffer received notice he had won, he was pleasantly surprised. 鈥淚 haven鈥檛 thought about this paper in over a year, and I had no idea that it was even been considered.鈥�
Schaffer currently works in Denver as a researcher in a company that helps foundations, non-profits, and other social impact organizations use research and evaluation听to improve their work. 鈥淭he training that I got from CU in terms of doing quantitative and qualitative research is now being used to help these groups understand 鈥榓re we being effective,鈥欌�� he said. Schaffer plans on continuing his work there and remain in Colorado after he completes his Ph.D.
鈥淭wo things I learned through the process are that it takes a long time to publish a paper--this started in 2011, we published in 2016," he said.听"And听it鈥檚 really useful to rely on professors that have a ton of experience and are not only smart but know how to engage with other scholars to get feedback and know how to navigate the process of getting published. For me, it was invaluable having someone like Dr. Baker on the paper. He came in and did so much work to improve it.鈥�
The university is proud to have academics who are dedicated to understanding the global community in a way that allows for deeper connections and learning opportunities to be made.