The Puzzle Of Clientelism (Elements In Political Economy)

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.

• | Author: Miriam A. Golden, Eugenia Nazrullaeva
• | Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• | Publication Date: Feb 23, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 84 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1009323210
• | ISBN-13: 9781009323215