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57 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 1 (2013)

handle is hein.journals/amjorpolisci57 and id is 1 raw text is: Do Conditional Cash Transfers Affect Electoral Behavior? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Mexico Ana L. De La 0 Yale University This article reexamines the argument that targeted programs increase pro-incumbent voting by persuading beneficiaries to cast ballots against their first partisan choice. The evidence comes from the randomized component of Progresa, the pioneering Mexican conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. Experimental data show that early enrollment in the program led to substantive increases in voter turnout and in the incumbent's vote share in the 2000 presidential election. The experiment also reveals that opposition parties' vote shares were unaffected by the program. Thus, the electoral bonus generated by CCTs may be best explained by a mobilizing rather than persuasive mechanism. Thesefindings are difficult to reconcile with the notion that the electoral effects ofCCTs are a result ofprospective concerns triggered by threats ofprogram discontinuation or endogenous program enrollment. Instead, the evidence in this article suggests that CCTs' mobilizing effects are compatible with programmatic politics. o targeted government programs increase pro- incumbent voting? One strand of literature con- tends that the introduction of government wel- fare programs offers ample opportunities for incumbents to claim the credit for positive program results.' Another strand of literature typically assumes that strategic allo- cations of public resources effectively sway voters in favor of the incumbent.2 It seems likely, therefore, that gov- ernment programs targeted to a specific subset of the population raise support for the incumbent. However, the empirical record remains mixed.3 Moreover, most theories linking government expenditures to electoral outcomes predict that voters change their vote choice in response to distribution, while for the most part ignoring potential mobilizing effects. This article provides evidence that a targeted govern- ment program can help the incumbent party mobilize its supporters, in a case where a traditionally clientelis- tic party shifted away from discretionary to program- matic spending. The evidence comes from Progresa (now Oportunidades), the Mexican conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. This government transfer is broadly Ana L. De La O is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University, 77 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511 (ana.delao@yale.edu). I am grateful to Jim Snyder, Chappell Lawson, Abhijit Banerjee, Jonathan Rodden, Michael Piore, Oliver Azuara, Michiko Ueda, Alejandro Poir&, Susan Stokes, Don Green, Thad Dunning, Greg Huber, Beatriz Magaloni, the editor Rick K. Wilson, and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. I would also like to thank participants of the work in progress colloquium at MIT, the comparative politics workshop and the Institution for Social Policy Studies seminar at Yale, the colloquium on comparative research at Brown University, the development seminar at Georgetown University, the Experiments in Governance and Politics conference, the applied statistics seminar at Columbia, APSA 2008 and 2009, and MWPSA 2007. All errors remain my own responsibility. Supplementary information and replication data for this article are available at http://anadelao.commons.yale.edu. 'See, for example, Pierson (1996). 2For an insightful review of this literature, see Cox (2010). 3To name just a few examples, Cerda and Vergara (2008) estimate that in Chile throughout the 1990s direct welfare payments were electorally profitable, and Manacorda et al. (2010) find that a cash transfer in Uruguay generated support for the incumbent party even after the discontinuation of the program. On the other hand, Levitt and Snyder (1997) estimate that in the United States, expenditures such as social security, Medicare, low-income housing payments, and veterans' retirement benefits produce no electoral payoffs. Even within countries, targeted programs produce inconsistent electoral returns. In Argentina, a program that granted benefits to the unemployed improved the electoral performance of the peronismo, but not that of the radicalismo (Nazareno, Stokes, and Brusco 2006). American Journal ofPolitical Science, Vol. 57, No. 1, January 2013, Pp. 1-14 02012, Midwest Political Science Association DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00617.x 1