Varieties of Patronage: Second-Order Colonial Legacies and Public Expenditure in Independent Morocco

• In Event: Political Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Political Processes (Table 18)

Abstract

Extant political economy research in colonial ‘legacies’ prioritizes tracing the direct effects of imperial rule, attending little to mediating factors during decolonization and in early postcolonial states. In this paper, I examine what I term `second-order’ effects: outcomes derived from colonial institutions that are fundamentally mediated or transformed by decolonial and postcolonial social processes. Through an examination of postcolonial Morocco, I demonstrate that the pattern of public expenditures was a second-order effect of colonial rule. Expansions in education, healthcare, and infrastructure transformed rural communities and economies, but did so unevenly across the country. Where some rural districts saw investment in heavy infrastructure, others gained clinics, schools, or nothing at all. I argue that variations in colonial institutions led the postcolonial monarchy to utilize different styles of patronage to gain rural support, focusing on elites in areas of significant land consolidation and irrigation infrastructure, and local communities in areas with limited land consolidation and hydraulic systems. Using original longitudinal geospatial data, I use a difference-in-difference model to determine if previous landholding consolidation and infrastructure led to increased investment in irrigation systems in those localities and neighboring areas, including analysis of spillover effects from irrigation system expansion and controls for agricultural and irrigation suitability. Using the same difference-in-difference strategy, I test if the absence of significant agricultural settlement increased investment in community-oriented public goods, comparing school construction, placement of health clinics, electrification, and the expansion of government services. In evaluating how and why local communities received different kinds of public investment, this paper contributes to our understanding of rural inequality, patronage politics, and the institutional foundations of socioeconomic development in Morocco.

Author

• Benjamin Kaplow, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor