The authors start from the assumption that clientelism is not a structural feature that results from certain cultural traits or political development deficiencies, but rather a strategy for the acquisition and maintenance of power (for the patrons) and for the protection of interests (for the clients). They develop an economistic approach that views patron-client relations as voluntary exchange relations that depend on the relative powers of the parties and the contextual circumstances affecting demand and supply. They take as their point of departure the thesis introduced by Martin Shefter (Political Parties and the State 1994), according to which the entrenchment of clientelism is determined by the relative timing of bureaucratization and democratization.

The authors argue that while Shefter's supply-based thesis helps to explain why some countries such as Sweden avoided clientelism and others used it (e.g., Italy, Greece, and Spain), it does not explain adequately developments in other countries in which for a substantive period of time parties flirted with clientelism (e.g., England, France, and the Netherlands). Hence, they focus on two sets of circumstances that influence the choice to use clientelistic strategies. On the “supply side” they examine the institutional circumstances that may induce party leaders to use clientelism as a strategy to attract voters: an independent bureaucracy, the ideals and objectives of politicians, and the dominant ideas and expectations about the sources of legitimate power. On the “demand side” they analyze the circumstances that make citizens accept or reject clientelism: their level of empowerment, cognitive capabilities, and organizational capacity.

In order to account for different outcomes (among all the countries examined, only Sweden rejected clientelism altogether), the authors stress the need to examine the autonomous choices of individual and collective actors. By comparing the strategies of political leaders of different countries at different historical junctures, they demonstrate that even under identical institutional circumstances, political leaders can make different choices that affect the contextual circumstances and, hence, the adoption and consolidation of clientelism. In Italy, supply created and strengthened clientelism, while in France, supply weakened it. The main conclusion of the book is that, the “urgency of the situation” at the time of mass political mobilization largely determined the strategy of the ruling political elites to adopt or reject clientelism. However, the authors argue that clientelism is a dynamic phenomenon that can be affected by changes in the supply and demand sides. Indeed, once a system is in place, its costs and benefits mediated by social and economic transformations may contribute to modify it (e.g., in Iceland).

Clientelism, Interests, and Democratic Representation makes several important contributions to the literature. First, by treating clientelism as another form of interest representation, the authors succeed in rescuing the concept of clientelism and making it into an acceptable term for the political science discourse. In addition, this volume shatters structural explanations of clientelism based on cultural or developmentalist explanations and introduces an open-ended view of clientelism as a strategy, while rejecting its inevitability and pathological nature. While political scientists have generally regarded clientelism as a function of social fragmentation and cultural backwardness, and the result of organizational and cultural weaknesses of the state administration, this volume shows that particularistic distribution of material benefits to voters is not exclusive of less advanced contexts and that even so-called civic-polities promote particularistic interests at the expense of the general interest. This approach helps to account for the adaptation of clientelism to different countries and political systems, regardless of culture and the level of political development. Moreover, by examining the experiences with clientelism of northern European countries, such as Iceland, this volume debunks the myth according to which clientelism is a phenomenon typical of certain geographical areas, that is, the Latin countries.

Furthermore, the authors disallow a deterministic approach and stress the need to explain why certain modes of interest representation become possible. Although they acknowledge that the strategic choices of politicians and voters are constrained by the institutional and structural context in which they operate, they demonstrate that these actors are capable of choices and can change contextual circumstances. They emphasize the contextual circumstances in which actors chose their strategies and use demand and supply side contextual circumstances to account for outcomes. This is a powerful approach to explain differences and avoid institutional or cultural determinism.

At the same time, the authors challenge the pathological nature of clientelism that results from the advancement of particular interests and the selective access to collective goods, and examine its costs and benefits. While they recognize that clientelism may generate economic and political externalities that may accumulate over time with devastating effects and degenerate into outright corruption (i.e., Italy), they also stress the benefits of this system, which can be useful as a party-building strategy, particularly for new parties, and can help aggregate interests at different levels.

Finally, in a context of increasing globalization and European integration (marked by the absence of ideological mobilization, emphasis of particularistic interests, and the decline in social cleavages and collective identities) that is rendering national institutions relatively powerless and shaking citizens’ faith in their governments and the traditional political actors, the authors stress that clientelism may function as a counterbalance to unyielding and blocked institutional channels, and constitute a valuable source of social integration.

Many readers may be surprised by the treatment of clientelism as a system of interest representation. The literature on interest representation has argued that the higher the level at which particular interests are aggregated, the more likely it is that compromise will be attained. Other scholars, however (i.e., Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action 1971), have contended that collective action problems are more likely to be solved when there are selective benefits attached to membership in a group, or when the group is small. Hence, clientelism can be considered a rational system of interest representation. The book, however, is not rooted in this literature. To strengthen that argument, the volume would have benefited from a more inclusive and theoretically oriented approach that integrated more extensively the vast literature on interest representation.

Nonetheless, this is an outstanding contribution to the literature on clientelism and paves the way for future scholars to build on this superb contribution in order to study clientelism as another form of interest representation, and to extend this analysis to other areas (e.g., Latin America) with a similar cultural heritage and social structure, in which countries share similar historical processes of state building and political mobilization. It will prove to be a lasting addition to the field.