Distributive politics and electoral advantage in the 2022 Australian election

Abstract

Distributive politics—or pork barreling—is prevalent across many political systems. It aims to influence the vote by directing discretionary spending to constituencies and/or groups of voters that are important for their re-election. We term this the objective dimension to pork barreling. However, we argue that for pork barreling to deliver rewards, voters must also be aware that they are gaining a special benefit from government—the subjective dimension. Using a unique Australian dataset that matches spending on electoral areas with a large scale national survey that asked voters if their area had received special benefits, we clarify the mechanisms behind pork barreling. Our results show that about one in five voters believed that their electorate had received additional benefits. Objectively, spending was disproportionately directed to government-held seats. Despite this largesse, we find that pork barreling had little or no effect on the vote in the 2022 Australian election.