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Votes, money can buy. The conditional effect of EU Structural Funds on government MPs’ electoral performance

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  • Zsófia Papp
Abstract
Members of Parliament are often thought to attract funding into their constituencies to increase their local support, and eventually, secure re-election. Nevertheless, there is only limited research focusing on the question whether or not government funding indeed affects the MPs’ electoral performances . I focus on pork barrel politics in a single country, namely Hungary, and use town-level European Union Structural Funds data between 2007 and 2010 to explain the electoral performance of single-member district MPs at the 2010 general elections. I find that increasing funding improves government MPs’ electoral performances and that the size of the effect is conditional upon the mayors’ party affiliations. In towns with government mayors, government MPs perform significantly better than in towns with opposition mayors. The results have consequences in the fields of the distribution of Structural Funds, the electoral connection between legislators and voters and the European Union’s contribution to regime legitimation.

Suggested Citation

  • Zsófia Papp, 2019. "Votes, money can buy. The conditional effect of EU Structural Funds on government MPs’ electoral performance," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(4), pages 543-561, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:20:y:2019:i:4:p:543-561
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116519862875
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    Cited by:

    1. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Lewis Dijkstra, 2021. "Does Cohesion Policy reduce EU discontent and Euroscepticism?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(2), pages 354-369, February.
    2. Peter Spáč, 2021. "Pork barrel politics and electoral returns at the local level," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 479-501, September.
    3. María-José Solís-Baltodano & José-Manuel Giménez-Gómez & Josep E. Peris, 2022. "Distributing the European structural and investment funds from a conflicting claims approach [Verteilung der europäischen Struktur- und Investitionsfonds aus einem kollidierenden Forderung Ansatz]," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 42(1), pages 23-47, April.
    4. Paweł Charasz & Jan P Vogler, 2021. "Does EU funding improve local state capacity? Evidence from Polish municipalities," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(3), pages 446-471, September.

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