From Welfare to Votes: Social Assistance, Incumbency, and Electoral Outcomes

The use of social assistance by incumbent governments has become a pervasive electoral strategy, yet its effectiveness in converting welfare into votes is the subject of ongoing academic debate due to fragmented and often contradictory empirical evidence. This study aims to address this gap by systematically reviewing the literature to: (1) measure the aggregate strength of evidence regarding the electoral impact of social assistance; (2) identify the key contextual factors that moderate this relationship; and (3) synthesise the most common targeting strategies and the characteristics of the most responsive voter groups. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. The findings reveal social assistance's consistent and statistically significant positive effect on incumbent electoral outcomes, primarily through voter mobilisation. However, this effect is heavily moderated by political context, economic conditions, and institutional design. Incumbents employ a pragmatic portfolio of targeting strategies, including rewarding partisan loyalists and courting swing voters, with economically vulnerable populations consistently demonstrating the most significant electoral response. This review provides a holistic, evidence-based understanding of the conditions under which social assistance is effectively translated into electoral advantage, confirming it as a powerful, albeit context-dependent, political instrument.