Clientelism

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.

Clientelism involves an asymmetric relationship between groups of political actors described as patrons, brokers, and clients. In client politics, an organized interest group benefits at the expense of the public. Client politics may have a strong interaction with the dynamics of identity politics. This is particularly common in an elite pluralist or rigidly duopolistic system, such as in the United States, where lobbying 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:

Contingency and iteration are the two components shared across most definitions of clientelism.

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. There is, as is usual, ambiguity in the use of political terminology and the terms "clientelism", the "patron–client relationship", "patronage", and the political machine are sometimes used to describe similar or related concepts.

The reigns of Julius Caesar (49–44 BCE) and Tiberius (14–16 AD) have been characterized as examples of widespread clientelism. In the 1500s, French political theorist Étienne de La Boétie 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:

Susan Stokes 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.

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. 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 clientelism 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 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?"

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.