Vote buying, turnout and trust: democratic consequences of electoral clientelism in the Polish 2023 election

What are the democratic implications of electoral clientelism? While studies point to the negative effects of electoral clientelism on the functioning of democratic institutions, few studies seek to investigate how personal experiences of electoral clientelism affect both electoral turnout and trust. This study suggests that while electoral clientelism can induce democratically desirable behaviour such as electoral turnout, it also undermines citizens trust in core democratic, electoral institutions. Leveraging the fact that the most recent European Quality of Government Index (EQI) survey was fielded in the midst of the Polish election, an election described as one of the most fiercely competitive election in post-communist Europe with implications for democratic backsliding, we use coarsened exact matching to show that citizens that experienced vote buying offers were more likely to turn out to vote, yet also expressed a lower level of trust in the integrity of elections. However, decreased trust in specific electoral institutions did not translate into a more generalized distrust in national level institutions. Our study provides unique evidence on individual level experiences of electoral clientelism in Europe and indicate that experiencing clientelistic offers may lead to some level of indignation and demand for accountability rather than resignation or acceptance of clientelist practices.