Party Brokers Research Articles

Slum upgrading and participation: Insights from a marginalized neighbourhood in Buenos Aires

This paper rethinks participation in slum upgrading beyond a well-established dichotomy of “top-down” and “bottom-up” processes and instead proposes a relational and strategic approach to urban transformation. Based on qualitative research with a small informal settlement, Barrio Saldías, in Buenos Aires, that fell off the city government's agenda, this paper explores the role of participation in promoting upgrading from the margins. It argues that Saldías differs from instances of community-led upgrading due to the central role of party brokers and political representatives (especially from the local state) alongside residents, all of whom participate together in a political climate dominated by the discourses of citizen participation and slum upgrading. Rather than collapsing these experiences into the logic of clientelism, participation is centred as the articulatory logic based on a shared desire and commitment to transforming urban space, towards multiple political ends. Participatory upgrading in Saldías exceeds the narrow focus of project-centric approaches and draws on a wider trajectory of participation in Buenos Aires. It demonstrates this through an analysis of three moments of participatory upgrading in Saldías.

Participatory clientelism: A socio-spatial approach to popular politics in Buenos Aires

Abstract What is the relationship between clientelism and political participation in popular urban neighborhoods? This article addresses the question based on qualitative research in two popular neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, drawing on participant observation and interviews with residents, activists, and party brokers. Adding to a growing literature on “participatory clientelism,” we argue for greater attention to the urban context through which this unfolds. To date, research into participatory clientelism has predominantly considered specific practices—participatory innovations or contentious politics—and been limited to the survival of the urban poor and the demand for political support by party brokers. While these are crucial practices, they are not exhaustive of the relations that sustain participatory clientelism, particularly in contexts of territorialized politics. Based on the socio-spatial approach of Henri Lefebvre, influential in urban studies, we define three interconnected dimensions of participatory clientelism and identify them in the cases under study.

Abstract 42: Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplants and Treatment of Severe Blood Disorders: Role of Providers in Medical Tourism

Abstract Purpose: Medical tourism provides international patients with medical services, but little data is present on the role of medical tourism in regard to hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) services. Over the last 10 years, the University of Illinois at Chicago Blood & Marrow Transplant program has established an international network (GlobalBMT) of LMIC centers, that includes hospitals in Nepal, India, Nigeria, Tanzania, Bolivia, Cuba, Argentina, Ukraine. This project involves each hospital of the GlobalBMT network to: 1. qualitatively assess the current role of medical providers in international care of HSCT patients and 2. quantitatively and qualitatively assess the current policies of medical institutions for sending and accepting international transplant candidates. Methods: This is a mixed-methods cross-sectional study with a quantitative component (questionnaire) and a qualitative component (interview). A questionnaire was disseminated to 12 medical providers in 8 countries, who either refer or accept international HSCT patients, to assess the demographics, volume, and frequency of international referrals. We also conducted semi-structured virtual interviews with willing healthcare providers to qualitatively assess the current infrastructure in medical tourism for international HSCT candidates, as well as elicit ways in which this structure can be improved. Results: Here we will report on the results of the mixed-methods cross-sectional study that was conducted within the GlobalBMT network. In the setting of this research project, we suggest a need for a formalized provider-to-provider framework in the sphere of medical tourism for HSCT patients to be sent outside of their home countries to receive a HSCT, diminishing the impact of third party brokers and misinformation. Our data have uncovered themes in the existing structure of third-party agents searching for a profit, difficulty connecting with home physicians to coordinate care, and limited information for patients on the procedure. Conclusion: The data collected in this project provide an example of existing structures in medical tourism for HSCT in some LMICs. Gaps in center-to-center patient information, role of middle-men directly contacting patient families, or lack of advanced medical care in LMIC, are some of the relevant findings that based on this initial study could be exploited in a large multicenter international registry study. Citation Format: Deepika Khanna, Damiano Rondelli. Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplants and Treatment of Severe Blood Disorders: Role of Providers in Medical Tourism [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 11th Annual Symposium on Global Cancer Research; Closing the Research-to-Implementation Gap; 2023 Apr 4-6. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2023;32(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 42.

Ruling Party Patronage, Brokerage, and Contestations at Urban Markets in Harare

ABSTRACT This study contributes to debates on varieties of clientelism through an analysis of brokerage and ruling party patronage at urban markets in Harare, Zimbabwe. Urban markets are sites of contestation between the opposition-dominated city council and actors aligned with the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). Based on qualitative case study research at two designated markets, the article demonstrates how ruling party brokers are central to organizing patronage and political mobilization, thus sustaining authoritarian politics. While ruling party patronage is a deliberate strategy to control urban spaces, the article demonstrates how it is being negotiated. Factionalism within ZANU-PF shifted the power of brokers, and the lockdown enforced in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in 2020 caused a rupture, offering the city council and opposition-aligned youth the opportunity to (re)claim control over vending spaces. This article contributes to debates on clientelism in authoritarian regime settings, by showing the imbrication of coercion and patronage in the role of the broker and demonstrating how patronage is organized vertically through brokerage. This study extends the study of clientelism beyond electoral politics, since brokers are not always politicians, but nonetheless are part of the systems of ruling party patronage.

The Connections of Party Brokers: Which Brokers Do Parties Select?

Seminal models of clientelism assert that parties value brokers for their strong downward ties to voters. Despite its dominance, scholars have not empirically scrutinized key assumptions of this th...

Sourcing truckload capacity in the transportation spot market: A framework for third party providers

Due to uncertainty in supply chains and carrier networks stretched thin by demand, it is sometimes necessary for shippers to procure capacity for shipments on the transportation spot market. The transportation spot market is a mechanism by which unfulfilled and urgent demand is satisfied. Shipments are tendered one at a time on a load-by-load basis. Because of the often severe shortage of spot market capacity and its relatively high and volatile prices, shippers must actively as opposed to passively seek carrier capacity. Often, they turn to third parties. This research considers third party brokers (3PL, or non-asset carriers) operating in the spot market. On behalf of shippers, these brokers take responsibility for shipments and secure capacity for them. The paper proposes a behaviourally-based conceptual framework that uses 3PL broker data to improve the search for capacity on the spot market. It seeks to improve the effectiveness of the search process by combining (1) broker data on the availability of carrier capacity, (2) a priori information on a particular carrier’s likely response to various prices to service a load (the reservation price), and (3) the ability to source multiple loads simultaneously (bundling). These components are incorporated into a framework that enables brokers to better prioritize the carriers they contact, thereby improving outcomes in terms of lower carrier costs and reduced search effort.

Beyond the Machine

Organizational membership is one of the strongest, yet overlooked, predictors of vote buying across Latin America. We argue that this relationship is driven by the fact that politicians outsource some of their vote-buying efforts to interest associations. In contrast to the existing literature that focuses on party brokers, who are loyal to a single political machine, we introduce the concepts of organizational brokers, who represent interest associations and renegotiate ties to political parties between election cycles, and hybrid brokers, who split their loyalties between an interest association and a single political party. We illustrate the operation of these alternative broker types through case studies of street-vending organizations in an uninstitutionalized party system, Colombia, and peasant organizations in an institutionalized party system, Mexico. Attention to the role of brokers and the organizations that they represent has implications for political accountability, collective action, and the persistence of clientelism.

Good Democrats, Bad Targets: Democratic Values and Clientelistic Vote Buying

Who do parties target for clientelistic vote buying? Existing research looks almost exclusively at individuals’ socioeconomic and, especially, electoral profiles—which parties and candidates they support, professed ideological leanings, past voting turnout, and choice. We argue party brokers also consider democratic attitudinal profiles. Specifically, they are more likely to avoid full-fledged democrats and target citizens who are ambivalent to or reject core democratic principles. We test this proposition with the 2010 Argentina AmericasBarometer. To address selection bias on observables and unobservables, respectively, we preprocess the data with entropy balancing and employ instrumental variables regression. Results from both strategies are consistent with the notion that democrats are less likely vote-buying targets than their less democratic counterparts. Effect sizes are on par with or exceed other theoretical variables, and the results are robust to a variety of checks and specifications.

Uncertainty, Political Clientelism, and Voter Turnout in Latin America: Why Parties Conduct Rallies in Argentina

Party brokers have information about voters’ political preferences and their likelihood of turning out to vote, and are able to target clientelistic inducements and monitor voter participation in exchange for voters’ electoral support. Yet, brokers may also use the clientelistic inducements they receive from party bosses to pursue their personal enrichment, at the cost of lost votes for their party. Why would brokers distribute party goods to voters? I argue that bosses force brokers to pursue the party’s electoral goals rather than their own material gain by distributing rewards and punishments based on their ability to turn out voters. Drawing on an original dataset that traces the political careers of 555 municipal candidates between 1995 and 2005, with field and archival research, participant observation, and over 100 in-depth interviews gathered during 24 months of fieldwork across precincts in Argentina, I show how bosses combine information from voter turnout at rallies and elections. I find that it is by comparing a broker’s ability to mobilize voters to rallies and elections that bosses are able to make better inferences about reliable brokers who will distribute party goods to voters, and unreliable brokers who will use party goods to pad their own pockets.

Political parties and rallies in Latin America

This article provides a novel answer to explain the persistence of party rallies in the mass and social media era. I argue that rallies contribute to the organizational structure of clientelistic parties by providing information to different members within and outside the machine. Rallies provide party leaders with information that enables them to monitor brokers’ capacity to mobilize voters, party brokers with an opportunity to display their ability to turn out voters while monitoring voters’ responses, and voters with an opportunity to display their gratitude or fear towards brokers. In addition, rallies provide the opposition with an opportunity to gather information about the electoral strength or weakness of the clientelistic party. Drawing on participant observations, over a 100 interviews, archival research in Argentina and Peru, and secondary literature for the cases of Mexico and Brazil, I explain why political parties conduct rallies and why rallies will continue in the future.

Optimal pricing solution for VoIP service in 802.16/802.11 combined networks

Future wireless networks are envisioned to be all IP and capable of running real time applications like VoIP. IEEE 802.16 and IEEE 802.11 based networks popularly known as Wimax and Wifi are already being widely used for internet and other services. The combined Wimax/Wifi scenario can be ideal public-private partnership solution for distributing VoIP-based telephony solutions in villages using Wimax-based private backbone operator and Wifi community network for end distribution. Internet bandwidth is still a scarce resource and should be used optimally from both the user as well as backbone service provider’s point of view. Game theory can be effectively used for optimising service for both the parties in combined Wimax/Wifi scenarios. The results indicate that the utilities for both user and backbone service provider can be improved with cooperation between both parties. Third party broker agent realises cooperation between the two entities for an optimal solution. Using this approach, it is possible to obtain an optimal VoIP solution, which is beneficial for both user and backbone service provider.

Informal coalitions and policymaking in Latin America: Ecuador in comparative perspective

1. Pushing Reforms through the Eye of a Needle 2. A Proposed Model for Legislative Cooperation 3. Presidential Success in a Fragmented Legislature 4. Party Brokers and Voting Unity in the Ecuadorian Congress 5. Voting at the Margins: Pivotal Players and Coalition Making 6. Ghost Coalitions in the Making of Economic Reforms 7. Ghost Coalitions, Institutional Change and Democratic Accountability

The Dynamics of Collective Violence: Dissecting Food Riots in Contemporary Argentina

This article combines a statistical analysis with qualitative research to investigate the dynamics of collective violence in one of its most recurrent forms - the food riot. Using an original dataset collected by the authors on 289 food riot episodes occurring in Argentina in December 2001, the article argues for the need to dissect the local, contextualized inner- dynamics of the episodes. We fi nd signifi cant interrelationships between three important factors: the presence or absence of police, the presence or absence of political party brokers, and the type of market looted (big/ chain or small/local). We then conduct a qualitative and ethnographic analysis to illustrate how these interactions might play out in two ideal type looting scenes - one illustrating the role of public authorities at big, chain supermarkets, the other showing the importance of party brokers at small, local food markets. We conclude by calling for more such research to better understand the mechanisms and processes, especially the relationship between state power and party politics, involved with all forms of collective violence.

Optimal Acquisition and Sorting Policies for Remanufacturing

The condition of the used items acquired by remanufacturers is often highly variable, and sorting is an important aspect of remanufacturing operations. Sorting policies—the rules specifying which used products should be remanufactured and which should be scrapped—have received limited attention in the literature. In this paper, we examine the case of a remanufacturer who acquires unsorted used products as needed from third party brokers. As more used items are acquired for a given demand, the remanufacturer can be more selective when sorting. Thus, two related decisions are made: how many used items to acquire, and how selective to be during the sorting process. We derive optimal acquisition and sorting policies in the presence of used product condition variability for a remanufacturer facing both deterministic and uncertain demand. We show the existence of a single optimal acquisition and sorting policy with a simple structure and show that this policy is independent of production amount when acquisition costs are linear.

The Political Makings of the 2001 Lootings in Argentina

Based on archival research and on multi-sited fieldwork, this article offers the first available description of the food lootings that took place in Argentina in December 2001. The paper joins the current relational turn in the study of collective violence. It examines the existing continuities between everyday life, routine politics and extraordinary massive actions, and scrutinises the grey zone where the deeds and networks of looters, political entrepreneurs and law enforcement officials meet and mesh. The article reconstructs the looting dynamics at one specific site and highlights the existence of three mechanisms during the episodes: 1. the creation of opportunities by party brokers and police agents, 2. the validation of looting by state elites, and 3. the signalling spiral carried out by party brokers.

Seeing the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidency through the March 31, 1968, Withdrawal Speech

Speaking from the Oval Office in a nationally televised address on March 31, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson stunned the nation with his announcement that he no longer was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. Because the speech attempted secure Johnson's place in history by severing Robert Kennedy from the legacy of his brother's presidency and positioning Johnson as John F. Kennedy's legitimate heir, empower Hubert Humphrey only if he would embrace Johnson's policies, and redefine the lines of argument defending Johnson's conduct of the war in Vietnam, it provides a filter through which view the rhetoric of the final year of the Johnson presidency. Johnson's rhetoric reveals a person both deeply ambivalent about relinquishing the presidency and calculatedly partisan. Instead of healing the divisions of the country, Johnson exacerbated divisions within his own party and undercut the electoral chances of his presumed heir apparent. The rhetoric of Johnson's final year in office can be viewed in three phases: Johnson the consensus-building unifier, Johnson the candidate and defensive war hawk, and Johnson the president and party broker. Johnson the Consensus-Building Unifier Begun with the proposed San Antonio formula, the consensus phase of Johnson's rhetoric continued until after the Tet Offensive. Articulated in September 1967, the San Antonio formula specified that the United States would halt its bombing if productive talks were scheduled and the other side was not jeopardizing the lives of U.S. and allied soldiers. During this stage, Johnson tried please multiple constituencies, including protesters of the war in Vietnam, with his announcement of a proposed bombing halt. The Great Society and the war in Vietnam both were being pursued successfully, argued Johnson. The country could have both butter in the form of the Great Society and guns in the form of the war in Vietnam. The war was the main topic of Johnson's 1968 State of the Union address. In it, he said, Since reported you last January, three elections have been held in Vietnam in the midst of war and under the constant threat of violence. A president, a vice president, a house and senate, and village officials have been chosen by popular, contested ballot. The enemy has been defeated in battle after battle. The number of South Vietnamese living in areas under government protection tonight has grown by more than a million since January of last year.(1) The speech hinted that Johnson felt somewhat under siege. I was thinking as was walking down the aisle tonight of what Sam Rayburn told me many years ago: `The Congress always extends a very warm welcome the president--as he comes in.' He spoke confidently of the will of the American people to meet the trials that these times impose. And he proclaimed that America will persevere. Our patience and our perseverance will match our power. Aggression will never prevail. The Tet Offensive called into question the accuracy of the assessment Johnson offered the American people in his State of the Union address two weeks earlier. On January 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese attacked five of the six largest cities in South Vietnam and entered the grounds of the U.S. embassy. From January 31 until February 24, the Communist forces held the sacred city of Hue. In a February 3 briefing from Saigon by General John Chaisson about Tet, the word recurred: It was surprisingly intensive, and think in conducting it, he [the enemy] showed a surprising amount of audacity because he has put an awful lot of his goods up on the table in this battle.... don't believe our intelligence at least never [sic] unfolded me any panorama of attacks such as happened this week.(2) Robert Komer, senior staff member of the National Security Council, recalled, We genuinely believed we were winning. …