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This article examines how parties use clientelism in competitive and uncompetitive electoral environments. It argues that parties enjoy wide discretion to target clientelistic payoffs to inexpensive voters in their strongholds, but that head-to-head competition compels them to bid for more expensive voters. Empirically, it uses a list experiment embedded in a postelection survey to study electoral clientelism in Lebanon, a country with a mix of competitive and uncompetitive electoral districts. It finds respondents underreport clientelistic transactions by a factor of two. Proxies for the cost of a vote explain payoff targeting decisions in party strongholds, but lose their explanatory power in the competitive districts.

Discusses democratic consolidation and extension of substansive social, political, and civil rights to citizens, which is often undermined by clientelist social relations; theoretical and strategic issues and case studies; 5 articles. Contents: Theoretical and strategic issues: organizational empowerment versus clientelism, by Miguel Sobrado Chaves; Clientelism and citizenship: the limits of democratic reform in Sucre, Colombia, by Cristina Escobar; Levels of empowerment: marketers and microenterprise-lending NGOs in Apopa and Nejapa, El Salvador, by Serena Cosgrove; Changing patrons, from politician to drug don: clientelism in downtown Kingston, Jamaica, by Amanda Sives; Democracy, decentralization, and clientelism: new relationships and old practices, by María Pilar García-Guadilla.

This article examines the usefulness of the theory of clientelism for understanding the politics of Andhra Pradesh (AP), where pressures to secure election funds as populations became more mobile led political leaders to seek centralized control over state resources and access to private funds. Innovative chief ministers sought new ways of relating to voters that undercut local leaders, leading to populist politics and a shift towards programmatic politics that provided individual benefits rather than collective benefits as under the prior system of patronage politics. These changes created a system that was more amenable to individual leadership but also more vulnerable when the leadership collapsed. The theory of clientelism provides a useful guide to the political and economic costs of this system, including the democratic deficit, but does not provide for voters' innovative responses. The theory's emphasis on transactional politics does not adequately address the continuing role of social groupings such as caste nor does it acknowledge the critical role of leadership in building and sustaining the system.

It appears that elections increase chances for a smooth transition to democracy only in competitive authoritarian regimes where political instability already exists. This essay explores the process the author calls 'competitive clientelism' whereby elections supply ruling elites in authoritarian regimes opportunities to compete over limited sets of state resources that they then distribute to local elites a structure that reduces demand for any change to democracy. Adapted from the source document.

Backed by studies finding only limited propensity for free-riding when communities have an interest in self-provision, the last few decades have seen a surge of interest in community-based development. A major caveat to the "second wave" of collective action studies, however, is that collective action often breaks down under hierarchical social relationships. This is unfortunate news for developing countries' rural societies, which are often entrenched in patron-client networks. Using a natural experiment found in the construction of a motorway, the article finds that clientelist relationships do not, in and by themselves, block peasant collective action. Rather, it is the interaction between clientelism and isolation that empowers patrons to block community-based projects. Peasants in connected villages face no such constraints, but instead rely on their patrons' assistance in collective projects, making the hierarchical network an additional resource.

This paper explains inferior quality of governance in less affluent countries in terms of a patron–client relationship between political parties and a large section of voters. The client voters resort to strategic voting, which is shown to be contagious, leading to suboptimal effort choice by the incumbent government and a higher probability for the incumbent to remain in power. The possibility of competition between the incumbent and the opposition, in terms of expenditure on political propaganda, actually helps the incumbent and reinforces these results.

In many developing countries the rural poor often depend on patrons to act as brokers in order to get public provision from the government. The broker facilitates provision in return for securing peasants' votes for politicians. Yet, low bargaining power of peasants allows patrons to appropriate public resources for themselves. I propose increasing peasants' bargaining power by connecting them to markets outside their village. Making use of a natural experiment found in the construction of a motorway in Pakistan, I find public provision to be significantly higher in connected villages when compared to those which are isolated. Moreover, I find that the beneficial impact of connectivity is felt most strongly by the lower classes, who are most vulnerable to exploitation when isolated.