Labeling: Citizens internalize societal labels that categorize transactional behavior as normative or inevitable, influencing future choices.
Cognitive Dissonance: Voters and politicians reconcile conflicts between ethical norms and transactional actions through rationalization, further normalizing the behavior.
These processes explain why individual rational decisions, though psychologically adaptive, contribute to a broader pattern of democratic degradation.
2. Meso-Level (Community/Social Networks)
The meso-level captures community dynamics, social norms, and collective interactions. Repeated micro-level transactions generate:
Normative Reinforcement: Widespread acceptance of vote buying and transactional politics establishes social norms that legitimize such behavior.
Social Network Effects: Peer influence and observational learning amplify acceptance of transactional practices, creating clusters of compliance and reinforcing the expectation that votes can be "purchased."
Collective Alienation: Communities gradually experience diminished civic engagement, weakened solidarity, and estrangement from political processes, as trust in institutions declines.
At this level, individual rationalizations are socially magnified, shaping collective political culture and reinforcing systemic feedback loops.
3. Macro-Level (Systemic/Structural)
At the macro-level, TDD links micro and meso processes to institutional and structural outcomes: