Clientelism and Subnational Politics in Latin America

Abstract

In Latin America’s federal countries, regime change produced a paradox: although, at the federal level, the transition to democracy was largely successful and has gradually consolidated, at the subnational level, some authoritarian regimes and repressive practices survived. It has been argued that neopatrimonialism allowed these subnational authoritarian elites to remain in power. By tapping into different sources of legitimacy and combining arbitrary power, tradition, and rule of law, these elites have constructed political intermediation monopolies in extremely heterogeneous societies (Durazo Herrmann 2010). Nevertheless, this same social heterogeneity forces neopatrimonial elites to construct large social coalitions, including the maximum possible number of both traditional and modern social sectors to guarantee local governance. These coalitions are complex and fragile by nature, since they depend on a continuous flow of material resources to survive (Eisenstadt 1973, Médard 1991).

The Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture generously funded this project. The author is grateful to Tina Hilgers and the participants of the workshops on clientelism and democracy at McGill University and at LASA’s Twenty-Ninth International Congress for their extensive comments on previous versions of this chapter. The author also wishes to acknowledge Daniel Schein’s research assistance.