Clientelism, Public Goods Provision and Governance

• In Event: Clientelist Politics and Development

Abstract

It is widely believed that clientelism – the giving of material goods in return for electoral support – is associated with poorer development outcomes. However, systematic cross-country evidence on the deleterious effects of clientelism on development outcomes is lacking. We examine two mechanisms by which clientelism may affect development outcomes. Firstly, clientelism may lead to the under-provision of public goods as political leaders choose inefficient forms of redistribution such as offers of employment in the bureaucracy to ensure that they have the support of a particular group of citizens (Robinson and Verdier 2013).They may also exhibit a larger bias towards private transfers over public goods provision (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2018). Secondly, cllentelism may be associated with weakening enforcement of property rights, and the phenomenon of “forbearance, leading to weaker governance quality (Holland 2015). We examine the relationship between clientelism, public goods provision and governance quality using cross country panel data. Drawing from the VDEM data-base, we distinguish between three manifestations of clientelism – whether vote buying exists, whether government spending is narrow targeted to specific groups, regions or parties or intended to benefit all communities, and whether political parties offer material goods in exchange for political support to their constituents, examining the effects of each of these components of clientelism on public good provision and governance quality.

Authors

• Kunal Sen, UNU-WIDER

• Maria C. Lo Bue, UNU-WIDER

• Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg