Poor people’s beliefs and the dynamics of clientelism
| Author | Eva Wegner,Lindsay J. Benstead,Miquel Pellicer,Ellen Lust |
| Date | 01 July 2021 |
| Published date | 01 July 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/09516298211003661 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Journal of Theoretical Politics
2021, Vol.33(3) 300–332
ÓThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/09516298211003661
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Poor people’s beliefs and the
dynamics of clientelism
Miquel Pellicer
Department of Economics, MaynoothUniversity, Ireland
Eva Wegner
Institute of PoliticalScience, University of Marburg, Germany
Lindsay J. Benstead
Department of PoliticalScience, Portland State University, Portland,OR, USA
Ellen Lust
Department of PoliticalScience, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Abstract
Why do some poor people engage in clientelism whereas others do not? Why does clientelism
sometimes take traditional forms and sometimes moreinstrumental forms? We propose a formal
model of clientelism that addresses thesequestions focusing primarily on the citizen’s perspective.
Citizens choose between supporting broad-based redistribution or engaging in clientelism.
Introducing insights from social psychology, we study the interactions between citizen beliefs and
values, and their political choices. Clientelism, political inefficacy, and inequality legitimation beliefs
reinforce each other leading to multiple equilibria. One of these resembles traditional clientelism,
with disempowered clients that legitimize social inequalities. Community connectivity breaks this
reinforcement mechanism and leads to another equilibrium where clientelism takes a modern,
instrumental, form. The model delivers insights on the role of citizen beliefs for their bargaining
power as well as for the persistence and transformation of clientelism. We illustrate the key
mechanisms with ethnographic literature on the topic.
Corresponding author:
Miquel Pellicer, Department of Economics,Maynooth University, Co.Kildare, Ireland.
Email: pellicer.miquel@gmail.com
Keywords
Clientelism; Redistribution; System Justification; Political Efficacy
1. Introduction
The last few decades brought a wealth of new insights on the nature, mechanics,
and drivers of clientelism. We have learned a great deal about party strategies (e.g.,
whether to target swing or core voters) and the mechanics of the exchange (e.g., the
role of monitoring, reciprocity, and brokers). The literature made particular strides
in understanding vote-buying, which it has come to view often as synonymous with
clientelism.
1
We have learned far less about why voters engage in clientelism. The
calculations of voters have remained relatively simplified, mostly involving a simple
trade-off between material benefits from clientelism and expressive benefits from
voting for a programmatic alternative. The key result is that poorer individuals
tend to sell their votes because their marginal utility of material benefits offered for
their votes is higher (see Dixit and Londregan, 1996; Stokes et al., 2013). Variation
in the poor’s engagement in clientelism is mostly explained as the result of differ-
ences in party targeting (e.g., Finan and Schechter, 2012; Gans-Morse et al., 2014;
Stokes, 2005)
The current emphasis on the supply side of the vote-buying variety of clientelism
has left two significant gaps in our understanding. First, the political choices of the
poor remain inadequately understood. Although clientelism indeed correlates with
poverty (Brusco et al., 2004; Justesen and Manzetti, 2017; Stokes et al., 2013) and
the mechanism in the literature explaining this correlation is compelling, poor indi-
viduals often purposefully establish political linkages other than clientelistic ones.
A relevant literature on demand for redistribution argues that the poor ought to
support political platforms promising income redistribution, precisely because their
low income implies that they stand to gain the most from it (Alesina and Giuliano,
2011; Alesina and La Ferrara, 2005; Meltzer and Richard, 1981). The apparent
contradictory conclusions of these two strands of literature suggest that factors in
addition to income may matter for the poor’s political choices. Second, the focus
on vote-buying (or one-shot, material exchanges for votes) fails to shed light on the
variation in forms of clientelism. As evidenced by classical literature on the topic
(see the articles in Schmidt et al. (1977)), and increasingly acknowledged by current
research (e.g., Hilgers, 2009; Lawson and Greene, 2014; Nichter, 2014, 2018;
Pellicer et al., 2020), clientelism not only exists in its one-shot election-time instru-
mental form, but also in forms involving long-standing relations of insurance and
support. These ‘traditional’ or ‘relational’ forms of clientelism may include affec-
tive ties and are embedded in social norms and personal relationships. Importantly,
this type of clientelistic relationship is not a phenomenon of the past, but often still
forms the backbone of modern, machine-style clientelistic organizations at the local
level or organizes votes for candidates in the absence of such machines (Gottlieb,
2017; Lemarchand, 1972). Reaching a more complete understanding of clientelism
requires considering both forms of exchanges.
Pellicer et al. 301
Following these observations, this paper seeks to address two core questions.
First, what factors other than income drive the choice between clientelism and
redistribution? Second, under which circumstances do the poor engage in tradi-
tional forms of clientelism, socially embedded, hierarchical, personal, and long-
term, rather than in modern, essentially vote-buying, types?
We argue that broadening the theoretical framework of clientelism choice can
yield insights into the two questions posed here. We propose to broaden this focus
by integrating recent research from social psychology, and in particular on the
legitimation of inequality. Prominent theories in social psychology such as ‘belief
in a just world’ or ‘system justification’ argue that it can be psychologically adap-
tive in certain contexts to legitimize inequality (Jost et al., 2004; Lerner, 1982).
Social psychology work on collective action argues that inequality delegitimation is
one of the key psychological prerequisites of horizontal mobilization (Jost et al.,
2012; Van Zomeren et al., 2008)). These insights have already expanded our under-
standing of demand for redistribution beyond material determinants (Alesina and
Giuliano, 2011; Benabou and Tirole, 2006). Integrating inequality legitimation into
the study of clientelism can also help understanding why some poor people engage
in clientelism and others do not, and why some engage in traditional versus mod-
ern types of clientelism.
This article proposes a model that incorporates recent social psychology work
on inequality legitimation to the study of clientelism. The model has the following
key features. First, citizens choose whether to engage in clientelism or support a
redistributive platform. Second, citizens hold efficacy perceptions concerning the
chances of success of the redistributive platform, and perceptions on the legitimacy
of inequality. Third, efficacy perceptions and inequality legitimation values are
endogenously determined and interact with clientelism choices to generate different
types of equilibria.
The model delivers three equilibria. One equilibrium features a high degree of
inequality legitimation, low perceptions of efficacy, and widespread clientelism, the
characteristics of traditional clientelism. A second equilibrium features the oppo-
site characteristics, with the poor strongly condemning inequality and supporting
the redistributive platform.
The key mechanism generating these equilibria is the complementarity between
the extent of clientelism, perceptions of inefficacy, and legitimation of inequality.
Perceptions of inefficacy induce citizens to believe that inequality is inevitable; fac-
ing this prospect they adapt psychologically by legitimizing inequality. Legitimizing
inequality, in turn, leads them to better tolerate clientelism, leading to more cliente-
lism, more inefficacy, and even more inequality legitimation.
These complementarities, however, can break down when communities become
more informationally connected. This leads to a third equilibrium where clientelism
and support for redistribution co-exist. Crucially, inequality in this equilibrium is
not legitimized by the poor, in contrast to the traditional clientelism equilibrium.
Clientelistic exchanges in this form can be considered more instrumental from the
citizen’s perspective, corresponding to vote-buying or modern clientelism.
302 Journal of Theoretical Politics 33(3)
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