This paper takes a formal theory approach to the question: how do elites achieve state capture in electoral democracies? We formulate a model of programmatic versus clientelistic politics and show that elites choose different clientelist strategies or policy platforms in order to capture the state, depending upon the composition of the electorate.
By integrating models of clientelism and pork-barrel politics, this paper seeks to answer two primary questions: first, under what conditions do rent-seeking elites choose a particular form of vote-targeting over another; and second, why do clientelistic parties utilize pre-election transfers as an electoral strategy despite a secret ballot? We do so by allowing for programmatic as well as competence differences by candidate and studying the behaviour of an electorate that has a significant informal sector. The primary contribution is to delineate the conditions under which programmatic platforms (for instance, tax policy) are less deterministic than signaling via pre- or post-election targeted transfers, and how the resultant policy distortions contribute to extraction by elites from the state.