Clientelism in Developing Democracies: Divergent Explanations, Convergent Outcomes

Abstract

Clientelism is the distribution of private rewards in exchange for electoral support. While some consider this practice as a non-traditional way to engage in politics, in many developing contexts clientelism represents one of the most prevalent types of citizen-politician linkages. Why do some political parties opt for clientelist strategies when others do not? What are the socio-economic conditions that make voters more prone to engage in a clientelist manner with their representatives? In this panel we take these important questions as a starting point to explore the macro and micro conditions that make clientelism possible. Special attention was paid to consider a variety of approaches. First, this panel considers a wide range of cases (Mexico, India, South Africa, Tunisia and Chile). Second, the papers in this panel employ a variety of methods, e.g. ethnographic approaches, econometric tools for causal inference and different kinds of experiments. Third, this panel contributes analytically to the debate from different perspectives, from analyses centered on supply and demand aspects of clientelism, research designs focusing on parties and the civil society, to aesthetic issues related to clientelism. We believe this panel sheds light on a broad yet systematic set of issues that are necessary to understand the complexities of clientelistic linkages between the voters and the politicians in many of the world’s countries.

Title	Details
Electoral Risk and Vote Buying, Introducing Prospect Theory in the Experimental Study of Clientelism	View Paper Details
The Aesthetics of Clientelism: The Visual Symbolism of Election Campaigns in Indonesia	View Paper Details
Informal Civil Society, Electoral Politics and Local Public Goods Provision: Evidence from Mexico	View Paper Details