Political Clientelism and the Quality of Public Policy

This workshop aims to examine the policy implications of clientelistic practices with respect to diverse societal groups and in different regions of the world. Though the decline of clientelism in democratic contexts has often been predicted, it has proven to be highly adaptive strategy of electoral mobilization and party building. Due to this persistence of clientelism in both new and old democracies it is important to study the effects of the phenomenon on different democratic institutions more thoroughly. Of particular importance for the present workshop are the consequences of clientelism for the quality of public policy. Arguments in the research literature allude to two implications of clientelism in this respect: Firstly, if parties in control of government focus their policy programs more likely on those voters that are not inclined to give their vote in exchange to material benefits, clientelism may lead to distorted policy representation. Secondly, if political elites face incentives to engage in rent-seeking and to generate targetable private goods, clientelistic practices like patronage may lead to distortive implementation of policy programs. Therefore, the workshop seeks to attract paper proposal with respect to three themes: (1) The general consequences of clientelism on the quality of public policy and public welfare. (2) The policy implications of clientelism with respect to specific voter groups. (3) The effect of clientelism on policy output and policy implementation.