User:Shannon.chensee/sandbox

Wiki Article - Final Draft

Clientelism is a relationship between client and patron based on an explicit or implicit quid-pro-quo or 'take there, give here'. More specifically, political clientelism refers to an asymmetric but mutually beneficial relationship in which the patron (usually a public official) delivers a particularistic benefit to the client (usually an individual or specific group) in exchange for political support. Conversely, this definition can be broadened to include "proffering of material goods" that may be threats to the client, rather than benefits. This exchange can sometimes involve a third political actor, referred to as a broker. The broker is often located near to or in the same context as the client, and acts as an intermediary between the patron and client. Actors that engage as patrons in political clientelism are also referred to as political machines. Key factors related to clientelism include economic development, political competition, and democracy. The relationship between these factors and clientelism are often disputed in the literature, and different authors' perspectives are noted below. Studies done on voter and turnout seek to conceptualize clientelism in a game theory framework. Ethnographic approaches to studying clientelism also demonstrate the relational dimensions to complex relationships amongst patron, client, and broker.

Related Factors

The first wave of literature on clientelism in the late 1960s to early 1970s assumed that clientelism was a feature of "traditional" societies and that development and democratization would lead to lower levels of clientelism and its eventual disappearance. However, this assumption proved simplistic, and the second wave of literature in the 1980s and early 1990s recognized clientelism persists in a variety of political and economic contexts, including developed democracies. Academia has moved towards efforts to "build and test generalizable arguments about [clientelism's] causes and consequences" and recognizing that the conceptualization of presence or absence of clientelism is a false dichotomy. Some factors associated with clientelism that have been considered are: economic development, political competition, and democracy.

Economic Development

There is a robust correlation between economic development and prevalence of clientelism both cross-nationally and within countries. Cross-nationally, as economic development increases, prevalence of clientelism tends to decrease. Within countries, "poorer voters appear to be more susceptible to clientelist offers than richer voters". However, the causal mechanisms are debated in the literature, and can be broadly categorized into supply and demand side explanations. Supply side explanations focus on the patron and development's effect on their capacity to provide clientelist benefits, whereas demand side explanations focus on the client and the effect development has on how much the client values a clientelist benefit relative to other alternatives.

Supply vs. Demand Side

The difference between supply and demand side explanations can also be explored using the observation that political machines tend to target poorer voters. Two explanations behind this is observation are: diminishing marginal utility of income (supply side), and voter risk aversion (demand side).

Diminishing marginal utility of income posits that as the wealth of the average citizen increases, patrons must spend greater sums of money to secure their votes. Therefore, clientelism ought to be easier and more attractive to patrons in countries where poverty is prevalent and the cost of giving constituents particularistic benefits is low.

Risk aversion asserts that voters perceive political machines as less risky votes, and poorer voters’ vulnerability make them more risk averse than their more affluent fellow constituents. As a result, the poor will be more susceptible to voting for political machines since the poor value the benefit with perceived low risk. In other words, the poor prefer the short term clientelist benefit over the promise of a future policy, as there is a risk this policy may not be implemented, and even if it is, there is no guarantee it will directly benefit them.

Nazareno et al. used original surveys from Argentina to test these two explanations. They found that their data better supports the Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income explanation. However, it is important to note that this is one data set from one empirical example, and other contexts may yield different results. Ultimately, it is difficult to disentangle the causal mechanism between clientelism and economic development, since economic development may also be related to other factors that reduce the likelihood of clientelism, such as stronger institutions, erosion of the importance of ethnocultural differences, and higher human capital which improves constituents' abilities to critically engage with media reports on corruption scandals.

Political Competition

Political competition refers to the extent to which different actors strive to secure decision making power and shape political outcomes. The relationship between political competition and clientelism remains unclear in the literature, and has often depended on the strain of literature in question. Driscoll notes that Good Governance and Democracy literature has found political competition constrains clientelism, whereas Democratization literature has found the opposite.

Stokes argues that candidate-focused elections allow patrons to enforce direct trades of support for favours flowing from office. This helps foster personal relationships necessary in clientelism. In more politicized bureaucracies, elected officials have greater control over government services, meaning that patrons are better able to redirect public resources to their constituencies. Similarly, Barry Driscoll carries out a study on local government in Ghana to find that political competition can increase likelihood of patronage.

Examples of "constraining effect" studies are those carried out by Gryzmala-Busse and Conor O'Dwyer on post-Communist Central Europe. These authors posit that robust competition between political parties can constrain state exploitation, which includes but is not limited to patronage politics. For example, O'Dwyer looks at fluctuations in the size of state administrations and argues that political competition constrains the expansion of these state bureaucracies. However, it should be noted that these authors argue that political competition must involve "relatively stable, disciplined and institutionalised political parties" in order to have constraining effects. Newer democracies often exhibit more fluid party systems (parties break up and fuse more often) and will not have the required longer time horizon to constrain predatory behaviour.

Weitz-Shapiro finds that economic development can serve as a prior factor in determining the effect of political competition on clientelism. She finds that when there is limited poverty in a country, increased political competition are are associated with a decreased likelihood of clientelism. However, in countries where poverty is widespread, high levels of political competition are correlated with a high probability of clientelism.

Democracy

Clientelism persists in a wide range of political settings, from autocratic to democratic. Older democracies, such as Greece, Italy, and Spain, have also seen parties derive significant electoral support through clientelistic methods. Clientelism has also persisted in newer, "third wave" democracies, such as those in Latin America. Indeed, the pattern of Latin American countries transitioning from autocratic to democratic settings yet maintaining clientelism as a feature of their political system was a puzzle that caused academics to question their assumptions about the relationship between clientelism and democracy. Currently, academics are seeking to explain how clientelism manages to persist, support or even thrive under democratic conditions.

Similar to the aforementioned related factors, the relationship between clientelism and democracy is disputed in the literature. Jonathan Fox looks at the case of Mexico and argues that clientelism requires the poor to give up their political right to vote in order to access distributive benefits. This exchange ultimately undermines trust in democratic institutions. Conversely, Merilee Grindle notes that other scholars see clientelism as how democracy adapts to and manifests in environments where poverty is widespread.

Vote and Turnout Buying

Vote buying and turnout buying are both subcategories of clientelism. Vote buying is when a patron delivers a particularistic benefit in exchange for a client's vote, whereas turnout buying is when a patron delivers such a benefit in exchange for the client to show up and vote at the polls.

Susan Stokes uses game theory models and interviews from constituents in Argentina to argue that political machines’ extensive penetration of their constituencies at the grassroots level allow them to monitor how a person votes. As such, political machines will target people who are least opposed to them in attempts to swing their vote. Stokes’ argument relies on the assumption that machines can circumvent the secret ballot through deep social networks.

Simeon Nichter's uses Stokes data and argues that the assumption that political machines can monitor how constituents vote is unrealistic. Rather, machines engage in turnout buying and target strong, but unmobilized supporters. As a result, if a person shows up at the polls on election day, the machine is assured of their vote, and this acts as a more open monitoring mechanism.

Examples

Peronist Party in Argentina - The Peronist Party in Argentina is a key and frequently studied example of clientelism. The aforementioned work by Susan Stokes and Simeon Nichter on vote and turnout buying focus on this political party and their constituents. Javier Auyero uses an ethnographic approach to study clientelism in Argentina from the Peronist client's point of view. He offers an alternative explanation and argues that clientelistic relationships are not an exchanges, but “enduring webs” of relationships. Relational proximity to a broker determines how a client views the benefits they or others receive, and the role of the state in developing the community.

See Also

• Big man
• Client politics

• Cronyism
• Neopatrimonialism
• Pay to play
• Political corruption

Political machine

Pork barrel

Tammany Hall

Votebank

Article Evaluation

The article evaluated here is on the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The main issue with this article is that it is yet to be fully developed. It largely contains several direct quotes and does not synthesize the information. In regards to relevance, the Outreach heading seems unnecessary. It only communicates that the ICIJ is active on its social media accounts, which adds little value to the article. Taking several direct quotes from either the ICIJ's website or reports from the Center for Public Integrity (which founded ICIJ) has resulted in minor instances of bias, such as referring to ICIJ's journalists with subjective, affirming terms such as "world-class" or "premier". It also makes sweeping, generalizing statements such as stating that the Panama papers released information on "some of the world's most powerful people".

As for citations, citation 6 is not working and leads to a dead web page. Citation 7 links to a webpage that irrelevant to the statement cited. Many of the citations are news articles or taken from the ICIJ's website, providing a limited perspective on the ICIJ. While news articles offer varying author's perspectives, most of the citations in this article come from one news source, which may result in a limited presentation of the organization. Citing the organization's own website means we must trust that how the organization publicly presents themselves is valid, but this may not always be the case. None of the information appears to be out of date, but each section could be better expanded upon, such as the section on the Global Tobacco Industry.

On the Talk page, we see that this article is rated C-Class, High-importance for WikiProject Journalism, C-Class Mid-importance for WikiProject Finance, and C-Class Low-importance on WikiProject Politics, and WikiProject Organizations. There hasn't been much conversation behind the scenes on topics covered in this article, apart from some suggested corrections that have already been made.

Project Proposal

Clientelism

The Clientelism article is currently rated Start-Class and of Mid-Importance. Many of the conjectures the article makes are both poorly developed and defended.

The Examples section heavily relies on the Stokes and Nichter articles, which could be better explained. For example, it is not mentioned that Nichter argues that parties target unmobilized supporters. This section could be further nuanced with other academic articles that provide alternative explanations on clientelism, such as the Auyero article.

The Causes section needs further expansion, as the main cause discussed is poverty. The Consequences section argues that Clientelism "generally negative consequences on democracy and government", which is extremely simplistic and vague. As someone said on the Talk page, no evidence is given for this conjecture, and a more balanced literature review is required.

In the Controversy section, the explanation of the relationship between corruption and clientelism is once again too simplistic, and would need some improvement.

On the Talk Page, someone suggested a section comparing Lobbying and Clientelism, which I will consider pursuing.

Oligarchy

The Oligarchy article has been rated Start-Class and a level-4 vital article in Society. The article is much too short to really provide a comprehensive presentation of the topic. The section on Minority Rule is too short, and perhaps it would be useful to expand on the examples listed, such as South Africa. The only two examples given for putative oligarchies are Russia and the United States. There is a reference to "The Quiet Coup" article, but the article then focuses on income distribution, and does little to explain the role of the U.S's Finance sector.

The Talk Page is quite extensive, but many of the comments are people suggesting examples of oligarchy. Some people on the Talk page suggest a complete overhaul of the article, breaking it down by types of oligarchies, and adding the Corporate Oligarchy article to this section.

I would probably focus on making the United States section more coherent, or add/ expand on a developing country example.

Transparency International

The Transparency International article has been rated C-Class, and Low-Mid Importance for different WikiProjects. Overall, this article requires better explanation of its chapter model, and controversies surrounding funding that TI receives. The section on the Corruptions Perceptions Index includes criticisms of the CPI that could be better explained. For example, one criticism that corruption is difficult to measure because "by definition [it] happens behind the scenes", which is insufficient to explain the difficulty of even defining corruption.

On the Talk page, key issues have been use of unreliable sources such as partisan blogs, and concerns (from TI officials) over the article being too criticism heavy. I would work on ensuring citations are credible throughout, and seek to balance between adding more information on TI's work and fact-checking the criticisms given.