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The Puzzle of Clientelism

Political Discretion and Elections Around the World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2023

Miriam A. Golden
Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence
Eugenia Nazrullaeva
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science

Summary

This Element presents newly-collected cross-national data on reelection rates of lower house national legislators from almost 100 democracies around the world. Reelection rates are low/high in countries where clientelism and vote buying are high/low. Drawing on theory developed to study lobbying, the authors explain why politicians continue clientelist activities although they do not secure reelection. The Element also provides a thorough review of the last decade of literature on clientelism, which the authors define as discretionary resource distribution by political actors. The combination of novel empirical data and theoretically-grounded analysis provides a radically new perspective on clientelism. Finally, the Element suggests that clientelism evolves with economic development, assuming new forms in highly developed democracies but never entirely disappearing.
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