Political Parties and Electoral Clientelism

Contemporary political parties often use state resources to win elections. In this context, electoral clientelism evolved from the straightforward vote buying to sophisticated exchanges in which the relationship between patrons (parties or candidates) and clients (voters) is sometimes difficult to grasp. We address the question how do the distributive politics and electoral clientelism interact, how these forms of interactions differ across various context, and what implications they bring for the functioning of political systems. The special issue provides theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to the burgeoning literature about the multi-faceted feature of electoral clientelism. It unfolds the complex relationship between distributive politics and clientelism, and conceptualizes electoral clientelism as a dynamic process that occurs through different sequences. It enriches the methodological tools aimed at investigating electoral clientelism. Finally, the specialissue approaches clientelism from several perspectives and brings together substantive empirical evidence about the varieties of clientelism around the world.

Discusses whether patterns of electoral clientelism bear implications for the political systems in which they occur Fills a gap in the literature by examining electoral clientelism from a broad comparative perspective Considers the ways that electoral clientelism differs across various political and social contexts

Autorentext

Sergiu Gherghina is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics, University of Glasgow, UK.

Miroslav Nemcok is Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Political parties, state resources and electoral clientelism.- Chapter 2: Clientelism and distributive politics in Australia: comparing partisan pork barrel with contingency-based vote-buying.- Chapter 3: Administrative clientelism and policy reform failure: the Western Canada Integrated Land Management experience 19902015.- Chapter 4: Authoritarian clientelism: the case of the president's 'creatures' in Cameroon.- Chapter 5: Coordinating the machine: subnational political context and the effectiveness of machine politics.- Chapter 6: Political parties and clientelism in transition countries: evidence from Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.- Chapter 7: Does clientelism hinder progressive social policy in Latin America?.- Chapter 8: Conclusion