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This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.
This book investigates the impact of vote buying on the accountability of democratic institutions and policy representation in newly democratic countries, with a focus on Indonesia. In doing so, the book presents a wide-ranging study of the dynamics of vote buying in Indonesia´s young democracy, exploring the nature, extent, determinants, targeting and effectiveness of this practice. It addresses these central issues in the context of comparative studies of vote buying, arguing that although party loyalists are disproportionately targeted in vote buying efforts, in total numbers -given the relatively small number of party loyalists in Indonesia- vote buying hits more uncommitted voters. It also demonstrates that the effectiveness of vote buying on vote choice is in the 10 percent range, which is sufficient for many candidates to secure a seat and thus explains why they still engage in vote buying despite high levels of leakage.

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1. Introduction. 2. The Prevalence of Vote Buying in Indonesia: Building an Index. 3. The Determinants of Vote Buying: The Profile of Typical Vote ´Sellers´. 4. Do Candidates Target Loyal or Swing Voters? Beyond the Core- versus Swing Voter Debate. 5. How Targeting Goes Astray: Explaining the Gap between Intentions and Outcomes. 6. Vote Brokerage, Personal Networks, and Agency Loss. 7. Does Vote Buying Affect Voting Behaviour? Chasing Winning Margins and the Prisoner´s Dilemma. 8. Conclusion.

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Burhanuddin Muhtadi is a lecturer at State Islamic University, Jakarta. He is also an executive director of Indonesian Political Indicator and Director of Public Affairs at Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI). He has published his articles in scholarly journals such as Asian Studies Review, Bijdragen, and Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies.

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