Clientelism: How It Works, Why It Persists and How to Break It

This chapter surveys the economics and political science literature on clientelism. We define clientelism as the exchange of votes or electoral participation for targeted material benefits and argue that it undermines electoral accountability, fostering rent-seeking and the underprovision of public goods. We document the prevalence of clientelism across countries and over time and examine how economic underdevelopment both facilitates clientelistic practices and may be perpetuated by them. We then analyze the agency problems that characterize clientelistic exchanges, focusing on broker–voter and politician–broker relationships, and review evidence on the roles of monitoring, selection, and social networks in sustaining these relationships. Finally, we discuss how clientelistic machines are financed, assess interventions aimed at weakening clientelism and promoting programmatic competition, and outline directions for future research.