Political Science 35712
Clientelism
Instructor: Adam Ziegfeld
Autumn 2012
Monday 9:30am-12:20pm
Room: Gates-Blake 321
Office: Pick 123
Phone: 773-834-2156
Email: ziegfeld@uchicago.edu
Office hours: Tuesday, 12-2pm
Course Overview
Democratic politics is most often theorized in programmatic terms, playing out along a left-right spectrum
or reflecting the public's endorsement or rejection of a government's policies. But, in much of the world,
democratic politics adheres to a very different—clientelistic—logic in which votes are bought and sold
and politicians win support through the individualized distribution of resources rather than through public
policy. This course examines clientelism, defined broadly to include vote-buying, patronage, and machine
politics. The course has three major intellectual goals. The first is to grapple with clientelism as a concept
by identifying the variety of practices that fall under the rubric of clientelism and differences among those
practices. The second is to understand clientelism the logic of clientelism—how it works on the ground
and how political parties deploy it as a vote-winning strategy. The third is to identify the causes of
clientelism. Readings will draw on the experiences of countries in both the developing and developed
worlds, and we will pay particular attention to variation in the ways that clientelism is practiced across
different regions of the world.
Assignments and Assessment
Participation/Reading responses (20%): Each week you will submit a response to something in the week’s
readings. These are not meant to be formal papers. They will not be graded, though their satisfactory
completion is required as part of your participation in the course. The response should be no more than
one single-spaced page. You should treat these responses as a way to prepare for class, start thinking
critically about the week’s readings, and generate your own ideas about the week’s topic. The responses
could be a critique of a specific article/book/chapter, an observation about a tension between multiple
readings, a comment on something missing from across the week’s readings, or anything else that strikes
you as relevant. You may be called on in class to talk about your response. After the first class, we will
have eight class meetings. You will be required to submit seven responses, meaning that you can skip one
week. Responses must be emailed to me by 6pm Sunday, so that I have time to read them before class.
Expanded response paper (30%): You will be asked to expand one of your responses into a paper of five
to seven double-spaced pages that develops your response in more detail. You may choose the response
on which you would like to expand. Expanded response papers are due in class the week after the class
session on which you are writing. Thus, a paper on the readings for October 22 will be due on October 29.
Research proposal (50%): As a final paper, you will write a research proposal. The aim of this is to get
you thinking about potential dissertation topics or journal-length papers. As a part of this proposal, you
will need to:
1. Identify an interesting, unanswered research question and justify why it is worth studying;
2. Situate the question in the existing literature;
3. Decide upon and justify a research design;
4. Present some preliminary findings that would convince a skeptical reader that the project is worth
pursuing;
5. Outline a plan for how you would carry out the full project.
The nature of the preliminary findings will vary depending on your topic. For proposals that rely mainly
on qualitative research, you could present one or more abbreviated case studies based on secondary
1 research. For more quantitatively-inclined proposals, you could present a first cut at your analysis. For
example, if the proposal calls for the collection and analysis of original data, you could present analysis
from an off-the-shelf dataset that provides suggestive results. Or, you might actually collect the data and
provide descriptive statistics that highlight how it differs from other data sources. Since this is not a
research paper, the emphasis here is not on the findings as much as it is on designing a high quality,
promising research project.
You must submit a short description of your planned proposal by November 16. The final research
proposal is due Saturday, December 8.
Readings
The following books are available for purchase at the Seminary Co-Op and on reserve at Regenstein
Library.
Required books:
Auyero, J. (2000). Poor people’s politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Chandra, K. (2004). Why ethnic parties succeed: Patronage and ethnic headcounts in India. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Chubb, J. (1982). Patronage, power, and poverty in southern Italy: A tale of two cities. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Kitschelt, H., & Wilkinson, S.I. (Eds.). (2007). Patrons, clients, and policies: Patterns of democratic
accountability and political competition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Recommended books:
Schaffer, F.C. (Ed.). (2007). Elections for sale: The causes and consequences of vote buying. Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner.
Scheiner, E. (2006). Democracy without competition in Japan: Opposition failure in a one-party
dominant state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
All journal articles and working papers are available online at the course’s Chalk site
(http://chalk.uchicago.edu) in the Course Documents folder. All book chapters not drawn from required or
recommended books are available as part of the electronic course reserves, also accessed through the
course’s Chalk site.
2 Weekly Readings
Week 1 (October 1)—Defining clientelism
Recommended readings for this week:
Hicken, A. (2011). Clientelism. Annual Review of Political Science 14, 289-310.
Hilgers, T. (2011). Clientelism and conceptual stretching: Differentiating among concepts and among
analytical levels. Theory and Society 40 (5): 567-588.
Kitschelt, H., & Wilkinson, S.I. (2007). Citizen-politician linkages: An introduction. In H. Kitschelt, H.,
& S.I. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patrons, clients, and policies: Patterns of democratic accountability and
political competition (pp. 1-49). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schaffer, F.C. (2007). Why study vote buying? In F.C. Schaffer (Ed.), Elections for sale: The causes and
consequences of vote buying (pp. 1-16). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Schaffer, F.C., & A. Schedler (2007). What is vote buying? In F.C. Schaffer (Ed.), Elections for sale: The
causes and consequences of vote buying (pp. 17-30). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Stokes, S.C. (2007). Political clientelism. In C. Boix & S.C. Stokes (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of
comparative politics (pp. 604-627). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stokes, S.C. (2009). Pork by any other name…Building a conceptual scheme of distributive politics.
Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto,
Canada.
Week 2 (October 8)—Inside political machines
Auyero, J. (2000). Poor people’s politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Read the Introduction,
Chapters 3 & 4].
Chubb, J. (1982). Patronage, power, and poverty in southern Italy: A tale of two cities. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. [Read Part II].
Curtis, G.L. (1971). Election campaigning Japanese style. New York: Columbia University Press. [Read
pp. 33-58, 67, 233-242].
Scott, J.C. (1969). Corruption, machine politics, and political change. American Political Science Review,
63 (4), 1142-1158.
Week 3 (October 15)—Clientelism as vote buying
Brusco, V., Nazareno, M., & Stokes, S.C. (2004). Vote buying in Argentina. Latin American Research
Review, 39 (2), 66-88.
Gonzalez-Ocantos, E., Kiewiet de Jonge, C., Meléndez, C., Osorio J., & Nickerson, D.W. (2012). Vote
buying and social desirability bias: Experimental evidence from Nicaragua. American Journal of
Political Science, 56 (1), 202-217.
3 Medina, L.F., & Stokes, S.C., (2007). Monopoly and monitoring: An approach to political clientelism. In
H. Kitschelt, H., & S.I. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patrons, clients, and policies: Patterns of democratic
accountability and political competition (pp. 68-83). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nichter, S. (2008). Vote buying or turnout buying? Machine politics and the secret ballot. American
Political Science Review, 102 (1), 19-31.
Stokes, S.C. (2005). Perverse accountability: A formal model of machine politics with evidence from
Argentina. American Political Science Review, 99 (3), 315-325.
Wang, C.-S., & Kurzman, C. (2007). The logistics: How to buy votes. In F.C. Schaffer (Ed.), Elections
for sale: The causes and consequences of vote buying (pp. 61-78). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Week 4 (October 22)—Targeting and opting out
Cammett, M., & Issar, S. (2010). Bricks and mortar clientelism. Sectarianism and the logics of welfare
allocation in Lebanon. World Politics, 62 (3), 381-421.
Corstange, D. (2010). Vote buying under competition and monopsony: Evidence from a list experiment in
Lebanon.” Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association,
Washington, DC.
Finan, F., & Schechter, L. (2012). Vote-buying and reciprocity. Econometrica, 80 (2), 863-881.
Gans-Morse, J., Mazzuca, S., & Nichter, S. (2010). Varieties of clientelism: Machine politics during
elections.” Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law Working Paper Number
119, Stanford University.
Szwarcberg, M. (Forthcoming). The microfoundations of political clientelism: Lessons from the
Argentina case. Latin American Research Review.
Weitz-Shapiro, R. (2012). What wins votes: Why some politicians opt out of clientelism. American
Journal of Political Science, 56 (3), 568-583.
Week 5 (October 29)—Clientelism as jobs and state access
Calvo, E., Murillo, M.V. (2004). Who delivers? Partisan clients in the Argentine electoral market.
American Journal of Political Science 48 (4), 742-757.
Calvo, E., & Murillo, M.V. (Forthcoming). When parties meet voters: Assessing political linkages
through partisan networks and distributive expectations in Argentina and Chile. Comparative
Political Studies.
Chandra, Kanchan. 2004. Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Headcounts in India.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Read Chapter 6].
Folke, O., Hirano, S., & Snyder, J.M., Jr. (2011). Patronage and elections in U.S. states. American
Political Science Review, 105 (3), 567-585.
4 Krishna, A. (2007). Politics in the middle: Mediating relationships between citizens and the state in rural
North India. In H. Kitschelt, H., & S.I. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patrons, clients, and policies: Patterns
of democratic accountability and political competition (pp. 141-158). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
van de Walle, N. (2007). Meet the news boss, same as the old boss? The evolution of political clientelism
in Africa. In H. Kitschelt, H., & S.I. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patrons, clients, and policies: Patterns of
democratic accountability and political competition (pp. 50-67). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Week 6 (November 5)—Clientelism as public goods provision
Baldwin, K. (n.d.) “Why vote with the chief? Political connections and public goods provision in
Zambia.” Manuscript.
Magaloni, B. (2006). Voting for autocracy: Hegemonic party survival and its demise in Mexico.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Read Chapter 4]
Scheiner, E. (2006). Democracy without competition in Japan: Opposition failure in a one-party
dominant state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Read Chapter 3]
Thachil, T. (2011). Embedded mobilization: Nonstate service provision as electoral strategy in India.
World Politics, 63 (3), 434-49.
Wantchekon, L. (2003). Clientelism and voting behavior: Evidence from a field experiment in Benin.
World Politics, 55 (3), 399-422.
Week 7 (November 12)—Clientelism and political parties
Chandra, K. (2004). Why ethnic parties succeed: Patronage and ethnic headcounts in India. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. [Read Chapters 3, 4, 10].
Epstein, D. J. (2009). Clientelism versus ideology: Problems of party development in Brazil.” Party
Politics, 15 (3), 333-355.
Scheiner, E. (2006). Democracy without competition in Japan: Opposition failure in a one-party
dominant state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Read Chapters 1, 4, 5, 6]
Ziegfeld, A. (2012). Chapter 2: Regional parties, clientelism, and elites. Manuscript.
Week 8 (November 19)—No class
Week 9 (November 26)—Cause of clientelism: Institutions and the state
Cox, G.W., & Kousser, J.M. (1981). Turnout and rural corruption: New York as a test case. American
Journal of Political Science, 25 (4), 646-663.
Hicken, A.D. (2007). How do rules and institutions encourage vote buying? In F.C. Schaffer (Ed.),
Elections for sale: The causes and consequences of vote buying (pp. 47-60). Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner.
5 Hicken, A.D. (2007). How effective are institutional reforms? In F.C. Schaffer (Ed.), Elections for sale:
The causes and consequences of vote buying (pp. 145-159). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Keefer, P. (2007). Clientelism, credibility, and the policy choices of young democracies. American
Journal of Political Science, 51 (4), 804-821.
Pasotti, E. (2010). Political branding in cities: The decline of machine politics in Bogotá, Naples, and
Chicago. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Read Chapter 2]
Sadanandan, A. (2012). Patronage and decentralization: The politics of poverty in India. Comparative
Politics, 44 (2), 211-228.
Shefter, M. (1977). Party and patronage. Germany, England, and Italy. Politics & Society, 7 (4), 403-451.
Shefter, M. (1994). Political parties and the state: The American historical experience. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press. [Read Chapter 1].
Week 10 (December 3)—Causes of clientelism: The economy
Hagopian, F., Gervasoni, C., & Moraes J.A. (2009). From patronage to program: The emergence of partyoriented legislators in Brazil. Comparative Political Studies, 42 (3), 360-391.
Hale, H. (2007). Correlates of clientelism: Political economy, politicized ethnicity, and post-communist
transition. In H. Kitschelt, H., & S.I. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patrons, clients, and policies: Patterns of
democratic accountability and political competition (pp. 227-250). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kitschelt, H., & Kselman, D.M. (Forthcoming). Economic development, democratic experience, and
political parties’ linkage strategies. Comparative Political Studies.
Levitsky, S. (2007). From populism to clientelism? The transformation of labor-based party linkages in
Latin America. In H. Kitschelt, H., & S.I. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patrons, clients, and policies:
Patterns of democratic accountability and political competition (pp. 206-226). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Stokes, S.C. (2007). Political clientelism. In C. Boix & S.C. Stokes (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of
comparative politics (pp. 604-627). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Read pp. 617-619].
Robinson, J.A., & Verdier T. (2002). The political economy of clientelism. Centre for Economic Policy
Research Discussion Paper No. 3205.
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