The Puzzle of Clientelism
Political Discretion and Elections Around the World

This Element presents novel data on legislator reelection rates of lower house national legislators from nearly 100 democracies.

Miriam A. Golden (Author), Eugenia Nazrullaeva (Author)

9781009323215, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 February 2023

75 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 0.4 cm, 0.135 kg

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.

1. Introduction
2. Dimensions of clientelism
3. Interpretations of clientelism in existing literature
4. Is clientelism effective? New empirical evidence
5. An interest group interpretation of the prevalence of clientelism
6. Rethinking clientelism and development
Appendix A – data definitions
Appendix B – data sources
References.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Elections & referenda [JPHF], Politics & government [JP]