Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy
The Rise of Programmatic Politics in the United States and Britain

In the United States and Britain, capitalists organized in opposition to clientelism and demanded programmatic parties and institutional reforms.

Didi Kuo (Author)

9781108426084, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 August 2018

174 pages, 13 b/w illus. 6 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

'When political scientists asking big questions really do historical work - digging in archives, finding new data sources - the results are powerful. Didi Kuo's Clientalism, Capitalism, and Democracy illustrates this beautifully. In an innovative account of the demise of clientelism in historical Britain and the United States, Kuo demonstrates the underappreciated role of business in smashing clientelist politics. With lively writing and systematic evidence, Kuo's work helps reshape debates about the North Atlantic World's democratization, party politics, and clientelism around the world today.' Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard University

Political parties in the United States and Britain used clientelism and patronage to govern throughout the nineteenth century. By the twentieth century, however, parties in both countries shifted to programmatic competition. This book argues that capitalists were critical to this shift. Businesses developed new forms of corporate management and capitalist organization, and found clientelism inimical to economic development. Drawing on extensive archival research in the United States and Britain, this book shows how national business organizations pushed parties to adopt programmatic reforms, including administrative capacities and policy-centered campaigns. Parties then shifted from reliance on clientelism as a governing strategy in elections, policy distribution, and bureaucracy. They built modern party organizations and techniques of interest mediation and accommodation. This book provides a novel theory of capitalist interests against clientelism, and argues for a more rigorous understanding of the relationship between capitalism and political development.

Introduction
1. Clientelism as a failure of governance: a theory of business, parties, and programmatic demands
2. Clientelism as a governing strategy in the United States
3. Business organization and the push for programmatic parties
4. Clientelism and governance in Britain, 1850–80
5. Administrative reform and programmatic parties in Britain
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Political structure & processes [JPH], Political science & theory [JPA]