The Chilean Socialist Party (PSCh) is defined as complex institution characterising by its capacity to adapt to its contexts (Panebianco, 1988). PSCh political culture (Elkins, 1993) is characterized by the presence of internal factions headed by strong leaders within factions, it is found clientelistic power relations between members and leaders as a consequence of highly individualised power relations, mixed with authoritarian practices. Clientelism is described as the exclusive distribution of private goods selective incentives between members and leaders in order to assure leaders positions. Resulting from Neoliberalism the collective incentives are replaced by selective incentives between leaders and members with internal electorial purpose. Therefore, the individual link between leaders and members replaced collective linkages among party members. During the "Consertacion de Partidos por la Democracia" administration (1990-2010) clientelism took place through the distribution of positions withi the state bureaucratic apparatus. This paper wants to focus on disussing wHether such practices represent behaviours related to populism due to the fAct that the distribution of public incentives is used as currency, with the aim of securing the party's electoral apparatus in internal and external elections.
