Chapter 9 A Formal Analysis of Patronage Politics

Abstract

Clientelism as a political strategy has been used in a wide variety of societies across time. The last democratization wave brought high expectations for the new democracies. Economic development, efficient governments and the decline of corrupt political behavior were some of the expected results in the new democratic regimes. Unfortunately, in many cases these promises have panned out. What we have learned from these experiences is that these outcomes are not necessarily inherent of political systems where individual rights of free speech and association are constitutionally enshrined and open and free competitions for elected offices takes place regularly. One characteristic that has prevailed in the new democracies is political competition based on patron–client relations. However, this result should not be surprising since political clientelism has been a practice in many developed democracies as well as in authoritarian regimes. This phenomenon has been extensively studied from different theoretical perspectives and in particular from culturalist and developmentalist approaches. However, there is still a lack of an approach capable to explain the resilience and existence of this strategy in so many different contexts as well as the theoretical and empirical contradictions that this implies. The classical literature on clientelism characterizes the patron–client relation in a way that is usually attached to traditional groups and societies. There is no doubt that in such traditional societies, and also authoritarian regimes and dictatorships, patronage and clientelism have been used to gain support within the citizenry. However, this practice can also be found in some developed democracies and prosperous economies (see Kristinsson, 1996, 2001; Warner, 1997, 1998; Blakeley, 2001 for an analysis of some European countries; for the United States and Canada, see Clark, 1994; Alesina et al., 1998; Fletcher, 1994). These approaches also argue that dyadicity, personalism and inequality of power and resources, are important determinants of clientelist relations (Graziano, 1976; Schmidt et al., 1977; Silverman, 1977; Einsestand and Lemarchand, 1981; Einsestand and