The Effect of Clientelism on Ideological Congruence in Latin America

A key feature of democratic representation is competition between political parties for public office and power. Political parties channel and express interests and they are the main actors selecting political elites for elected positions in democratic states (Sartori, 1976; Mainwaring & Scully, 1995). The importance of political parties and party competition for democratic representation has been especially emphasized by the literature on the responsible party government model (Schattschneider, 2004 [1942]; APSA, 1950). In line with a substantive conception the quality of democratic representation is understood as the congruence between citizens’ preferences and the preferences of their elected representatives (Pitkin, 1967; Manin, Przeworski & Stokes, 1999). Empirical research on this topic has recently been applied to new democracies like those in Latin America (Luna & Zechmeister, 2005; Otero-Felipe & Rodríguez-Zepeda, 2010). In this respect, however, classical assumptions made in studies on advanced democracies (e.g. Miller & Stokes, 1963; Huber & Powell, 1994; Blais & Bodet, 2006), may not be easily transferred to the different contexts of new democracies. This is especially the case for the demanding assumptions of the responsible party government model (Kitschelt & Wilkinson, 2007). As research on party politics shows, the role of political parties in new democracies seems less central and political parties and politicians maintain other forms of relationships with society than the classic programmatic linkage form that is predominant in Western European democracies. This has implications for the quality of democratic representation in new democracies. Concerning the Latin American region research has even postulated the existence of a crisis of representation (see Hagopian, 1998; Mainwaring et al., 2006). Besides these differences between new and established democracies, Kitschelt et al. (2010) show that the degree of programmatic party system structuration varies across Latin American countries. Incentives for politicians to offer collective goods in form of policy bundles to their voters diverge in the region and so does the quality of representation. Especially in so called patronage-based systems (Kitschelt & Wilkinson, 2007), where clientelistic practices prevail, programmatic representation is expected to be relatively low. The aim of my paper is to investigate the impact of different party-society linkages on the congruence between political parties’ advocated policies and the policy interests of their supporters in new democracies. The specific research question is: How does clientelism affect the degree of ideological congruence between political parties and their voters? By answering this question, this study contributes to the research areas on democratic accountability mechanisms and democratic representation in new democracies. Taking the literature on political representation and party-society linkages into account, a theoretical model of the relationship between clientelism and ideological congruence will be developed. The paper, thereby, focusses on ideological congruence as the correspondence between the positions of citizens and their representatives in a one-dimensional left to right policy space (Achen, 1978; Goldman & Stramski, 2010). The main focus lies on political parties as units of analysis (Weissberg, 1978; Dalton, 1985). The measurements are based on two different datasets: (1) the public opinion surveys from the Latinobarómeter, and (2) a newly compiled expert survey on democratic accountability mechanisms in Latin America (Altman et al., 2009). The latter dataset includes both expert judgements on left-right positions of political parties and their preferred linkage strategies (see Kitschelt et al., 2009). Especially in light of the possibilities of portfolio diversification of political parties, i.e. the combination of clientelistic practices and programmatic linkages (Magaloni, Diaz-Cayeros & Estévez, 2007), two distinct effects of clientelism on ideological congruence are expected: first, clientelism produces a level effect and reduces a political parties’ degree of ideological congruence with their supporters. Second, a distorting effect of clientelism on ideological congruence in favour of high skill, high income voters is expected. To get a better understanding of the effects of clientelism on ideological congruence, it is important to compare political parties and party systems in contexts as similar as possible. A cross-national comparison of political parties in Latin America offers suitable units of observation in this respect. The effects will be tested in a cross-national multivariate analysis covering political parties from 18 Latin American democracies. References Achen, Ch. H. (1978). Measuring Representation. American Journal of Political Science, 22(3), 475-510. Altman, D., Luna, P. L., Piñeiro, R., & Toro, S. (2009). Partidos y sistemas de partidos en América Latina: Aproximaciones desde la encuesta a expertos 2009. Revista de Ciencia Política, 29(3), 775-798. APSA (1950). Toward a more Responsible Two-Party System. A Report of the Committee on Political Parties. American Political Science Review, 44(3), Supplement. Blais, A., & Bodet, M. A.( 2006). Does Proportional Representation Foster Closer Congruence Between Citizens and Policy Makers? Comparative Political Studies, 39(10), 1243-1262. Corporación Latinobarómetro (2007-2009). Latinobarometer survey data. Santiago, Chile. Dalton, R. J. (1985). Political Parties and Political Representation: Party Supporters and Party Elites in Nine Nations. Comparative Political Studies, 18(3), 267-299. Golder, M., & Stramski, J. (2010). Ideological Congruence and Electoral Institutions. American Journal of Political Science, 54(1), 90-106. Hagopian, F. (1998). Democracy and Political Representation in Latin America in the 1990s: Pause, Reorganization, or Decline? In F. Agüero & J. Stark (Eds.), Fault Lines of Democracy in Post-Transitional Latin America. Boulder: North-South Center Press, 99–143. Huber, J. D., & Powell, G. B. (1994). Congruence Between citizens and Policymakers in Two Visions of Liberal Democracy. World Politics, 46(3), 291-326. Kitschelt, H. (2000). Linkages between Citizens and Politicians in Democratic Polities. Comparative Political Studies, 33(6/7), 845–879. Kitschelt, H., & Wilkinson, S. I. (2007). Citizen-politician Linkages: An Introduction. In H. Kitschelt & S. I. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–49. Kitschelt, H., Freeze, K., Kolev, K., & Wang, Y.-T. (2009). Measuring Democratic Accountability: An Initial Report on an Emerging Data Set. Revista de Ciencia Política, 29(3), 741-773. Kitschelt, H., Hawkins, K. A., Luna, J. P., Rosas, G., & Zechmeister, E. J. (2010). Latin American Party Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Luna, J. P., & Zechmeister, E. (2005). Representation in Latin America: A Study of Elite-Mass Congruence in 9 Countries. Comparative Political Studies, 38(4), 388-416. Magaloni, B., Diaz-Cayeros, A., & Estévez, F. (2007). Clientelism and Portfolio Diversification: A Model of Electoral Investment with Applications to Mexico. In H. Kitschelt & S. I. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patrons, Clients, and Policies. Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 182–205. Mainwaring, S., & Scully, T. R. (1995). Introduction. Party systems in Latin America. In S. Mainwaring & T. R. Scully (Eds.): Building Democratic Institutions. Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1-34. Mainwaring, S., Bejarano, A. M., & Pizarro, E. L. (2006). The Crisis of Democratic Representation in the Andes: An Overview. In S. Mainwarin, A. M. Bejarano & E. L. Pizarro (Eds.): The Crisis of Democratic Representation in the Andes. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1-44. Manin, B., Przeworski, A., & Stokes, S. C. (1999). Introduction. In A. Przeworski, S. C. Stokes & B. Manin (Eds.): Democracy, Accountability, and Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-26. Miller, W. E., & Stokes, D. E. (1963). Constituency Influence in Congress. American Political Science Review, 57(1), 45-56. Otero-Felipe, P., & Rodríguez-Zepeda, J. A. (2010). Measuring Representation in Latin America: A Study of Ideological Congruence between Parties and Voters. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the APSA, Washington DC, September 2-5. Pitkin, H. F. (1967). The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Powell, G. B. (2004). Political Representation in Comparative Politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 7, 273-296. Sartori, G. (1976). Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press. Schattschneider, E.E. (2004 [1942]). Party Government: American Government in Action. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Weissberg, R. (1978). Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress. American Political Science Review, 72(2), 535-547.