Citizen Demand for Different Types of Clientelism

• In Event: Clientelism and Distributive Politics 1

Abstract

Research on clientelism shows the prevalence of different types of
clientelism in developing countries. Often, different forms of clientelism coexist in a community, in addition to programmatic offers. This means that, citizens have to evaluate and choose between a variety of political offers from candidates. From a citizen perspective, these offers consist of different components, such as the value of the particularistic goods or policy or how likely it is that the candidate delivers the good.
In this project, we seek to understand what drives the demand for different types of clientelism vs. programmatic offers. In particular, we aim to understand how supply conditions affect citizen demand for clientelism and for programmatic offers. The overall objective is to understand whether demand for a specific form of clientelism or programmatic politics is constrained by demand-side factors (when better supply conditions do not generate more demand) or by current supply conditions (when better supply conditions generate more demand). We investigate the role of supply conditions for demand for clientelism/ programmatic offers with a conjoint experiment in South Africa and Tunisia where respondents evaluate candidates making different clientelistic and programmatic offers.
Preliminary findings suggest that for collective and relational clientelism, objective supply conditions matter as much as for programmatic offers. This suggests that for these forms of clientelism the quality of the good as well as the reputation and previous interaction with the person making the offer are as relevant as when a programmatic offer is made. In contrast, for vote-buying, objective supply conditions matters less. This suggests that demand for vote-buying is constrained by other factors, e.g. moral ones.

Authors

• Miquel Pellicer, University of Duisburg-Essen

• Eva Wegner, University of Marburg