Clientelism or client politics is the exchange of goods and services for political support, often involving an implicit or explicit
quid-pro-quo.
It is closely related to
patronage politics and
vote buying Vote buying (also referred to as electoral clientelism and patronage politics) occurs when a political party or candidate distributes money or resources to a voter in an upcoming election with the expectation that the voter votes for the actor handi ...
.
Clientelism involves an asymmetric relationship between groups of political actors described as ''patrons, brokers'', and ''clients''. In client politics, an organized
minority or
interest group
Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy. They play an important role in the developm ...
benefits at the expense of the public. Client politics may have a strong interaction with the dynamics of
identity politics
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
. This is particularly common in a
pluralist system, such as in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, where minorities can have considerable power shaping public policy. The opposite of client politics is 'entrepreneurial' politics, or
conviction politics.
Although many definitions for clientelism have been proposed, according to the political scientist Allen Hicken, it is generally thought that there are four key elements of clientelistic relationships:
* Dyadic relationships: Simply, these are two-way relationships.
* Contingency: Delivery of a service to a citizen by a politician or broker is ''contingent'' on the citizen's actions on behalf of the politician or party through which they are receiving services.
* Hierarchy: The politician or party is in a higher position of power than the citizen.
* Iteration: The relationship is not a one-off exchange, but rather, ongoing.
Contingency and iteration are the two components shared across most definitions of clientelism.
Origins
The origin of the practice has been traced to ancient Rome. Here relationships between the
patron ''(patronus)'' and client ''(cliens)'' were seen as crucial to understanding the political process. While the obligations between these were mutual, the key point is they were hierarchical. These relationships might be best viewed not as an entity but rather as a network ''(clientela)'', with the ''patronus'' himself perhaps being obligated to someone of greater power, and the ''cliens'' perhaps having more than one patron. These extensions increase the possibilities of conflicting interests arising. While the ''familia'' was the basic unit underlying Roman society, the interlocking networks ''(clientela)'' acted as restrictions on their autonomy but allowed a more complex society to develop. Historians of the late medieval period evolved the concept into
bastard feudalism
"Bastard feudalism" is a somewhat controversial term invented by 19th century historians to characterise the form feudalism took in the Late Middle Ages, primarily in England in the Late Middle Ages. Its distinctive feature is that middle-ranki ...
. There is, as is usual, ambiguity in the use of political terminology and the terms "clientelism", the "patron–client relationship", "
patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...
" and the
political machine
In the politics of Representative democracy, representative democracies, a political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives (such as money or political jobs) and that is characterized by a hig ...
are sometimes used to describe similar or related concepts.
[Tornquist, Olle (1999) Politics and Development: A Critical Introduction, SAGE]
The reigns of
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
(49–44 BCE) and
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
(14–16 AD) have been characterized as examples of widespread clientelism. In the 1500s, French political theorist
Étienne de La Boétie
Étienne or Estienne de La Boétie (; oc, Esteve de La Boetiá; 1 November 1530 – 18 August 1563) was a French magistrate, classicist, writer, poet and political theorist, best remembered for his intense and intimate friendship with essayist ...
did not use the term ''clientelism'', but described the practice of emperors who used gifts to the public to gain loyalty from those who were eager to accept what amounted to
bribery:
:Tyrants would distribute largesse, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a
sesterce
The ''sestertius'' (plural ''sestertii''), or sesterce (plural sesterces), was an ancient Roman coin. During the Roman Republic it was a small, silver coin issued only on rare occasions. During the Roman Empire it was a large brass coin.
The na ...
oin
Oin, Óin or OIN may refer to:
Folklore and fiction
* Óin, son of Gróin, a Dwarf from J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, companion of Thorin Oakenshield
* Oin-Oin, a character of Swiss folklore
Other
* Open Invention Network
Open Invention Netw ...
and then everybody would shamelessly cry, "Long live the King!" The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them. A man might one day be presented with a sesterce and gorge himself at the public feast, lauding
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
and
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...
for handsome liberality, who on the morrow, would be forced to abandon his property to their avarice, his children to their lust, his very blood to the cruelty of these magnificent emperors, without offering any more resistance than a stone or a tree stump. The mob has always behaved in this way—eagerly open to bribes.
Mechanics
Susan Stokes
Susan Carol Stokes (born 1959) is an American political scientist and the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science department of the University of Chicago, and the faculty director of the Chicago Center on ...
et al. distinguish clientelism as a form of non-programmatic policy within distributive politics. It meets the criteria through failing to meet the two requirements of programmatic distribution, that are (1) 'formalized and public' and (2) 'shape actual distribution of benefits or resources'.
Within non-programmatic policy, clientelism is then distinguished from 'pork-barrel politics' in that voters are given a benefit or are able to avoid a cost conditional on their returning the favor with a vote.
The patron/client system can be defined as a mutual arrangement between a person that has authority, social status, wealth, or some other personal resource (patron) and another who benefits from their support or influence (client). The patron provides selective access to goods and opportunities, and place themselves or their support in positions from which they can divert resources and services in their favor. Their partners-clients- are expected to buy support, and in some cases, votes. Patrons target low-income families to exchange their needed resources for their abundant resources: time, a vote, and insertion into networks of other potential supporters whom they can influence. However, patrons are unable to access the information needed to effectively form the exchange; thus they hire intermediaries, brokers, that more equipped to find out what the targeted voter needs, which voters will require less prodding, and if the voter followed through on their end of the bargain.
As Stokes, Dunning, Nazareno, and Brusco emphasize, brokers in turn serve political leaders, and they may also not target resources exactly as leaders would wish; the resulting
principal-agent problems can have important implications for understanding how clientelism works.
Standard modeling of clientelism assumes that politicians are able to monitor votes, and in turn, reward or punish voters based on their choices. Quid pro quo would dissolve in the absence of such monitoring, rendering clientielism highly inefficient at best and completely ineffective at worst. However, evidence suggests that systematic monitoring of voter choice at the polls is surprisingly uncommon.
Patronage, turnout buying, abstention buying, and
vote buying Vote buying (also referred to as electoral clientelism and patronage politics) occurs when a political party or candidate distributes money or resources to a voter in an upcoming election with the expectation that the voter votes for the actor handi ...
are subcategories of clientelism.
Patronage refers to an intra-party flow of benefits to members.
Turnout buying, coined by Nichter, treats or bribes voters to the polls whereas abstention buying treats or bribes voters to keep them from going to the polls. Vote buying is a direct transfer of goods or services, in exchange for one's support and vote. The result for the good or service is a question of did you or will you vote for me?
A key to understanding clientelism might come in stressing not only the mutually beneficial relationships of exchange but also asymmetries in power or standing. Implied is a certain selectivity in access to key resources and markets. Those with access, the ''patrons'' (and/or sometimes ''sub-patrons'' or ''brokers'') rely on the subordination and dependence of the clients. In return for receiving some benefits the clients should provide political support.
Forms of clientelism
Politicians can engage in clientelism on either (or both) a group or individual level. One way individual level clientelism can manifest itself is in a vote buying relationship: a politician gives a citizen goods or services, and, in exchange, that individual citizen promises to vote for that politician in the next election. Individual level clientelism can also be carried out through coercion where citizens are threatened with lack of goods or services unless they vote for a certain politician or party.
The relationship can also work in the opposite direction, where voters pressure politicians into clientelistic relationships in exchange for electoral support.
Stokes' research on clientelism in Argentina assumed that the
Peronist Party
The Justicialist Party ( es, Partido Justicialista, ; abbr. PJ) is a major political party in Argentina, and the largest branch within Peronism.
Current president Alberto Fernández belongs to the Justicialist Party (and has, since 2021, served ...
was providing financial support to prospective voters to buy their votes. It was hypothesized that Peronists targeted moderately-opposed voters because they were thought to be easily persuaded to change sides at the party's minimal expense.
Stokes elaborated on the need of the Peronist Party to be able to track its clientele despite the
secret ballot
The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote ...
system. Stokes's argument was that the potential for vote buying depends on the accuracy with which the patron party, the Peronists in the case of Argentina, can monitor votes.
She uses evidence to show that overall smaller communities offer less anonymity, which makes it easier for the patrons to find out who committed to supporting them. Thus, Stokes concluded that to be one of the reasons that vote buying is more frequent in relatively-small communities. Another reason is that smaller communities are generally poorer. Furthermore, smaller communities, which are generally poorer and have a greater need for resources, are a more attractive target.
Research by Nichter promoted a simpler hypothesis for the Argentinian election cycle: to prove Peronists that were solely buying supporting voters' turnout, not all of their votes.
He dismissed Stokes's arguments on patrons spying on smaller and poorer communities and instead said the Peronists initially targeted votes assumed to be their strong supporters. In that case, the patrons would be reasonably sure that they received a vote from a person who receives a good from them.
In many young low-income democracies, clientelism may assume the form of group-level targeting in which parties channel benefits to specific groups of voters that are conditional on past or future electoral support.
For group-based targeting to work, parties must find efficient ways to distribute benefits while also holding voters accountable, ensuring that they keep their commitments. That leads parties to hire intermediaries, often referred to as 'brokers', who supply them with fine-grained information about who needs what and what sorts of voters will and will not vote for them, regardless of the benefit(s) provided.
''Party brokers'' are not the only type of intermediaries that mediate clientelist exchanges. There are also ''organizational brokers'' who represent specific interest groups but mobilize voters for multiple parties, ''hybrid brokers'' who also represent specific interest groups but demonstrate strong party loyalties, and ''independent brokers'' who neither represent specific group interests nor exhibit stable partisan attachments.
Scholarly consensus has thus far eluded the question of why parties channel clientelist benefits to certain groups more than others. Some of the earlier work on group-level targeting argues that politicians are more likely to direct party largesse to their co-ethnics because ethnicity helps parties solve the commitment problems that are so critical to making clientelism work. Some of the more contemporary work underscores the salience of partisan loyalties: politicians direct the bulk of their vote-buying efforts at persuadable swing voters, those who are either indifferent to the party's professed programmatic goals or moderately opposed to them. Some studies have challenged those claims but suggest that most instances of vote-buying in clientelist democracies might actually be instances of turnout-buying in which parties shower benefits on their most loyal supporters in the hope they will show up at the polling booth on election day. However, the lack of well-developed political machines does not preclude clientelist targeting. Recent studies have shown that in many emerging democracies, parties often lack the organizational capacity to monitor individual-level voting behavior and so they finetune their targeting strategies by updating their beliefs about what sorts of groups have been most responsive to their clientelist appeals.
Clientelism in context
Clientelism may not look the same from context to context.
Several individual and country-level factors may shape if and how clientelism takes hold in a country including the types of individual leaders, socio-economic status of individuals, economic development, democratization, and institutional factors. In some contexts, clientelistic behavior is almost expected, as such interactions can become embedded in the formal political structures.
Some types of leaders such as hereditary traditional leaders, who remain in power for extended periods of time, are more effective in carrying out clientelistic relationships than others such as elected officials. Research has also shown that politicians can benefit electorally from clientelistic relationships by gaining support from those who receive goods from them, but there are also potential costs since clientelistic politicians may lose support from wealthier voters, who do not engage in clientelistic relationships themselves view the practice negatively.
Not all voters view clientelistic behavior as a positive trait in politicians, especially voters of higher socioeconomic statuses.
In short, there is no single factor that causes clientelism to take hold.
Consequences
Clientelism has generally-negative consequences on democracy and government and has more uncertain consequences on the economy.
The accountability relationship in a democracy in which voters hold elected officials accountable for their actions, is undermined by clientelism. That is because clientelism makes votes contingent on gifts to clients, rather than the performance of elected officials in office. Clientelism also degrades democratic institutions such as the secret ballot and administrative oversight. Such factors both weaken democratic institutions and negatively impact the efficiency of government.
Corruption and the perception of corruption have also been established as strongly correlated with clientelist systems for many reasons. One is that patrons often appear above the law in many clientelist systems. Also, some acts in clientelist systems such as vote buying, could be inherently illegal. Finally, resources needed for patrons to maintain the clientelist system may require illicit means to obtain goods. A 2021 study found that voters in clientelist systems are less willing to punish corrupt politicians electorally.
Some scholars believe that because patrons focus on the control and procurement of private goods, they also neglect public goods such as roads and public schools, which aid economic development.
Scholars also note that rent-seeking and corruption, prevalent in clientelist systems, could negatively impact the economy as well. Nevertheless, there is still great uncertainty in the economic effects of clientelism.
Controversy
It is common to link clientelism with corruption; both involve political actors using public and private resources for personal gain, but they are not synonymous. Corruption is commonly defined as "dishonest and fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery", while political clientelism is seen as "the distribution of benefits targeted to individuals or groups in exchange for electoral support". It is common to associate the two together because they moderately overlap. There are different forms of corruption that have nothing to do with clientelism, such as voter intimidation or ballot stuffing. "Clientelism is considered negative because its intention is to generate 'private' revenue for patrons and clients and, as a result obstruct 'public' revenue for members of the general community who are not a part of the patron-client arrangement."
[Kawata, Junʼichi. Comparing Political Corruption and Clientelism. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2006. Print.]
Clientelism as a strategy of political organisation is substantially different from other strategies which rely on appeals to wider programmatic objectives or simply emphasize higher degrees of competence. It is often assumed that clientelism is a vestige of political underdevelopment, a form of corruption, and that political modernization will reduce or end it. But alternative views stressing the persistence of clientelism – and the patronage associated with it – have been recognized.
[Graham, Richard (1997) Clientelismo na cultura política brasileira. Toma lá dá cá, Braudel Center Papers No. 15]
Examples
Tariffs
An example of this is
tariffs
A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and polic ...
on imported goods in order to keep prices high. The public is largely unaware and/or indifferent to a slight increase in the prices of goods while manufacturers are dependent and very aware of the subsidizing effect of tariffs on competing products. Thus, local manufacturers will most likely strive to maintain tariffs and may succeed quite often.
Pesticides
Another example with farmers is the common use of potentially harmful
pesticides
Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampric ...
. Due to the sheer amount of pesticides on the market and the difficulty on testing each one, there lacks conclusive evidence that many of the pesticides in use would harm the environment, leading to a lack of public consensus of what to do. Farmers, on the other hand, are extremely sensitive to the benefits that such chemicals have on crop yield and will organize to keep pesticides available for use.
Pork barrel legislation
Most
pork barrel legislation would be considered to be client politics.
See also
*
Big man
*
Politics of the Belly
*
Corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
*
Earmark (politics)
*
Electoral district
An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...
*
Cronyism
Cronyism is the spoils system practice of partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations. For example, cronyism occurs when appointin ...
*
Graft
Graft or grafting may refer to:
*Graft (politics), a form of political corruption
* Graft, Netherlands, a village in the municipality of Graft-De Rijp
Science and technology
*Graft (surgery), a surgical procedure
*Grafting, the joining of plant t ...
*
Identity politics
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
*
Interest group liberalism
Interest group liberalism is Theodore Lowi's term for the clientelism resulting from the broad expansion of public programs in the United States, including those programs which were part of the "Great Society."
Lowi's seminal book, first published ...
*
Lobbying
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agency, regulatory agencie ...
*
Minoritarianism
In political science, minoritarianism (or minorityism) is a neologism for a political structure or process in which a minority segment of a population has a certain degree of primacy in that entity's decision making. Minoritarianism may be cont ...
*
Money loop
"Follow the money" is a catchphrase popularized by the 1976 docudrama film ''All the President's Men'', which suggests political corruption can be brought to light by examining money transfers between parties.
Origin
For the film, screenwriter Wil ...
*
Neopatrimonialism
Neopatrimonialism is a system of social hierarchy where patrons use state resources to secure the loyalty of clients in the general population. It is an informal patron–client relationship that can reach from very high up in state structures do ...
*
Pay to play
Pay-to-play, sometimes pay-for-play or P2P, is a phrase used for a variety of situations in which money is exchanged for services or the privilege to engage in certain activities. The common denominator of all forms of pay-to-play is that one mus ...
*
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain.
Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, in ...
*
Political machine
In the politics of Representative democracy, representative democracies, a political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives (such as money or political jobs) and that is characterized by a hig ...
*
Pork barrel
*
Political family
*
Political dynasty
A political family (also referred to as political dynasty) is a family in which multiple members are involved in politics — particularly electoral politics. Members may be related by blood or marriage; often several generations or multiple sibli ...
*
Prebendalism
Prebendalism refers to political systems in which elected officials and government workers feel they have a right to a share of government revenues, and they use them to benefit supporters, co-religionists and members of their ethnic group.
Origi ...
*
Rent-seeking
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth without creating new wealth by manipulating the social or political environment.
Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic effi ...
*
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
*
Votebank
Votebank (also spelled vote-bank or vote bank), in the political discourse of India, is a term referring to a loyal bloc of voters from a single community, who consistently back a certain candidate or political formation in democratic elections. ...
References
{{Authority control
Political terminology
Political corruption
Public choice theory