FAO Quotables

"But being right, even morally right, isn't everything. It is also important to be competent, to be consistent, and to be knowledgeable. It's important for your soldiers and diplomats to speak the language of the people you want to influence. It's important to understand the ethnic and tribal divisions of the place you hope to assist."
-Anne Applebaum

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Clientelist State-Society Relations Notes (Barkan, Fatton, Pitcher et al)


Clientelist-State-Society Relations

BONUS LINK:  My entire (so far) grad school notes collection can be found here. 

Below are my class notes on the following three articles:

Clientelism and Patronage in Senegal by Robert Fatton Jr. 
Rethinking Patrimonialism andNeopatrimonialism in Africa (144-156) by Pitcher, Moran and Johnston


SUMMARY:  The legislative and electoral processes in Kenya and Tanzania have survived and are based on the relationship between the citizens of the periphery and the center of the political systems.  This is a post-colonial phenomenon.  More the modernization model (but really in the rational choice camp)—these are the mechanisms that the states connects to society—and the mechanism that gives the (rural) society some voice.  Rural constituent expectations are low which helps—their representatives don’t have to deliver too much (monetarily).  Doesn’t address resource extraction. 

    Brit parliamentary and electoral institutions were transferred to Kenya & Tanzania - the Westminster model
    Result of '57 to '63 elections:
    Emergence of single party
    Transfer of power to govern & granting independence
    Emergence of political structure responsive to local interests instead of nat'l interests    
    Because political control was by single group, the process of competition, mutual criticism, and bargaining between gov't and opposition parties was never established
    Legislature was not important for public policy making & electoral process did not provide voters a choice of policy alternatives, but a choice btwn governing elites.

The Legislative Process as Political Linkage
    Legislators (MPs = Members of Parliament) are of more importance than legislature
    Linkages between gov't and society are necessary for communication and exchange of resources.
    Legislators in Kenya & Tanzania are 'agents of the center' - facilitate the center's penetration and control of the periphery rather than for connecting periphery to the center.  They are recruited/evaluated by the center and are not responsible for the local people they are assigned to serve.
    Legislative process is not as a member of the Nat'l Assembly, but as lobbyists on their constituents' behalf the senior bureaucrats of ministries that run programs in their constituents' areas.
    Linkage role based upon:
            - Capacity of individual legislators to engage in entrepreneurial activities to make                           successful links
        - Amount of access each legislator has
           The role of the nat'l political party & ideological goals it is committed to.
           Posture of the civil service toward legislators
           Nature of the electoral process

The Propensity of Legislators to be Linkers
    Success depends on their willingness to go out & organize members of their constituencies into political base whose support is valued by the center...and to mediate reciprocal demands of constituents and center.
    MPs must balance the creation of political base with parliamentary combat; must do the former if they want to remain in office, but must also do the latter well to provide constituent resources to also stay in office.
    An increasing proportion of MPs have shifted their attention to constituency service and other linkage activites

Access to Resources
    The challenge for MPs to organize and link projects to the center is gaining access
    Kenya encourages linking activities on the part of its MPs, but Tanzania did not.
    Challenge for MP is to create political base that is enough for the regime to value and coopt, but not so large for it to fear.
    Kenyan system - MPs make direct claims on the ministers and asst ministers.
    Kenya had four tiered system of informal, personal relationships: president, cabinet ministers (ethnic/regional leaders), asst ministers (future regional leaders), backbenchers (constituency leaders), and tribal elders/businessmen (local notables)
    Tanzanian legislators are highly restricted and the opportunities for obtaining resources are few.  Creation/establishment of linkages from the periphery to the center are limited because privileged access they might have to the center are cut off.

Legislators and Parties
    Kenya - MPs are the leading political figures in their constituencies and are unencumbered by party org's beyond their control
    Tanzania - Legislators must work within an elaborate and centralized party structure where they have minimal influence and org doesn't parallel the constituencies they have been elected to represent.  Legislators have not been able to develop personal machines independent of party control.

Legislators and the Electoral Process
    Process in both countries is to recruit new individuals into the present ruling elite, promote other individuals, and to renew legitimacy of elite and its mode of governance in the minds of the electorate.
    Elections are a series of local contests to select representatives of the periphery to lobby at the center.  Concerned about local (not national) issues; ideology rarely discussed.
    Voters know their MP as what he has and has not done to further interest of local community.
    Victorious candidates are better educated, earn higher incomes, and are much less likely to be farmers.  Access to top decision makers is the name of the game.
    Cleavage btwn backbenchers and frontbenchers in Kenya is much less pronounced than in Tanzania, because KANU (in Kenya) has withered from disuse and TANU (in Tanzania) is very restrictive.
    Both Tanzania and Kenya produce more representatives than leaders.

Clientelism and Patronage in Senegal by Robert Fatton Jr. 
SUMMARY:  The patron/client relationship is not a substitute for class analysis.  President reaches out directly to Marabouts (vs. the MPs doing this in Kenya).  Because of his broader approach he could show that when the state is able to adjust peanut prices to extract a large indirect tax (because the farmers have to eat the difference) with the support of Marabouts. 
            While the system described by Barkan may appear to be representative—it really is cementing a ruling elite class.  More dependency theory which is a bit dated.  Class formation point is an important one but perhaps overstated. 
            In East Asia, economic success and industrialization is being traced back to patrimonialism and clientilism. 

    Patron/client relationships have been called the national disease of Senegal.  However, it also assures social stability, aids in distribution of political spoils, and assures a degree of popular participation.  It provides some political order.
    Patron/client are marked by reciprocity / affection, and personal / diffuse linkages rather than class power and control
    Patron/client have reinforced the existing structures of wealth and privilege, and have served the interests of the ruling class.
    The more the state and the party penetrated society, the more they enhanced the value of clientelism and patronage.
    Distribution of spoils, jobs, and promotion in politics fragmented the Senegalese ruling class into clans and factions.  It is inherently hierarchic, exploitative, and corrupt.
    The system is a flawed reciprocity since it unilaterally benefits the patron.  The patron can command the obedience of those whose survival depends on the access of the resources.
     
    In Senegal, the marabouts (heads of major Islamic brotherhoods) enjoyed autonomy and have always been religious and political actors in the clientelist system
       They are in intermediary positions between the center and their periphery (taalibe), who represent free labor in peanut farms. 
       Marabouts became clients in patron colonial state.  Now are involved in mutually supportive and beneficial relations with the state.  Marabouts represent transmission belt btwn urban center and agricultural periphery.
                      Peanut products accounted for 40 to 50% of Senegalese exports.
    Patron/client are coercive dependence, not ties of genuine reciprocity.  Yet, this dependence has not yet generated resistance.
    Factionalism is inherent as clients are prepared to shift their allegiances to the highest bidder.
    Urban loyalties rest on self-interest, not on principles of the collective good.
    Senegal had adopted industrial strategy based on export promotion, not internal consumption.
    Patron/client was modernized to support penetration of external economic forces and institutions.
    Tri-partism in '76 from the Union Progressiste Senegalaise (UPS) attempted to modify patron/client relationships.  Clientelist forces were not eliminated, but persisted.

Rethinking Patrimonialism andNeopatrimonialism in Africa (144-156) by Pitcher, Moran and Johnston
SUMMARY: Botswana has a successful neopatrimonial system intertwined with their democracy that has been highly functional.  Some point to the fact, however, that their success was more due to that they were a protectorate instead of a territory and because they were such a small, closely connected elite and this made accountability easier.

    Use personal power and reciprocities to solidify legitimacy as "open elite democracy"; brings traditional loyalties into the public arena
    Has fostered stability and growth - and has also resisted challenges to the nation's economic inequalities.
    Tribal groups, called Kgotlas, were groups of men who built consensus behind tribal chief decisions.  These groups became the core leadership for the state, were legitimate, and did not have to significantly change their system.  The Bechuanaland Democratic Party (BDP) brought together tribal chiefs and kgotlas into its base.
    BDP has multistranded ties and loyalties that have sustained it in a modern state.

OVERALL:
Patrimononialism is a form of authority which is different from clientilism. 
Neopatrimonialism—an office isn’t literally sold.  Informal ownership. 
Both forms of authority within the state.

*Anytime you have patrons that are more powerful than clients you have clientilism—which can exist outside the state.  Anytime it happens inside the state though you have neopatrimonialism OR massive corruption (i.e., it’s not legitimate). 

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