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Replication Data for: I Don’t Like It Unless It’s for Me: Voters’ Perceptions of Pork-Barrel Politics in Central and Eastern Europe

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for: I Don’t Like It Unless It’s for Me: Voters’ Perceptions of Pork-Barrel Politics in Central and Eastern Europe
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GYHP2Q
 
Creator Nemčok, Miroslav
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description The effective and fair distribution of public resources is seen as one of the key elements of a well-functioning democracy. In the real world, however, it turns out that resources are often allocated neither effectively nor equitably, and that the allocation of public finances serves as a tool for securing votes and re-election. Despite compelling evidence for pork-barrel patterns in distributive politics, little is known about voters’ perceptions of this inherently unfair situation. Existing findings are not only limited but also contradictory – voters perceive such a strategy both positively and negatively – while data have been gathered solely in Western countries with a long democratic tradition. We aim to contribute to these findings by identifying patterns present in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), for which a higher degree of clientelism and corruption is characteristic. Thus, we conducted two survey experiments – in Slovakia and the Czech Republic – both involving a representative sample of each country’s population. We manipulated two main factors – (1) fairness of the distribution and (2) profit for the respondent’s country – in order to study their influence on support for a decision-maker responsible for the distribution. Based on the findings, we conclude that once voters realise their own profit from pork-barrel politics, they tend to be less critical of unfair distributions of resources.
 
Subject Social Sciences
pork-barrel
survey experiment
Central and Eastern Europe
voters’ perceptions
 
Language English
 
Contributor Nemčok, Miroslav