Can Clientelism Coexist with Populism?

• In Event: Authoritarian Governance in the Post-Soviet Space: Responsiveness, Control, and Institutional Legacies

Abstract

This paper asks how effectively regimes adapt clientelistic practices when they rule through populism. Populist politics, while usually considered a governing style or ideology, is also an effective means to win votes, by promising exclusive benefits to a subset of the population. Yet its logic of public appeals through the mass (or social) media conflicts with clientelist strategies, which are premised on personal contact and individual-level largesse. We test these competing logics through a survey experiment in Kyrgyzstan, a clientelistic political system that recently came under populist rule. We randomly assign vignettes that describe promises of clientelistic benefits through local brokers or from the president, and via personal contact or social media. We consider the competing effects of public pronouncements and private pledges for the credibility of redistributive promises.

Authors

• Scott Radnitz, U of Washington

• Masaaki Higashijima, U of Tokyo (Japan)