The Logic of Clientelism in Argentina: An Ethnographic Account

Abstract

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a shantytown in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, this article studies the workings of Peronist “political clientelism” among the urban poor. It analyzes the web of relations that some slum-dwellers establish with local political brokers to obtain medicine, food, and solutions to other everyday concerns. The article also explores the main functions of the “problem-solving networks,” which are resource control and information hoarding, and pays particular attention to an underexplored dimension of the operation of clientelism: clients' own views on the network.

Brokers, Social Networks, Reciprocity, and Clientelism

“…Specifically, we have endeavoured to directly probe two sets of findings in the literature-(1) the importance of both instrumental and intrinsic reciprocity in sustaining clientelism (Finan and Schechter 2012;Stokes 2005), and (2) the capacity (or lack thereof) of brokers to identify and utilize voter reciprocity to facilitate clientelistic exchanges (Brierly and Nathan 2019;Schneider 2019). We also considered the strength of our argument in light of other explanations for targeting behavior-namely, swing versus core arguments (Auyero 2000;Stokes et al 2013), and polling station size (Rueda 2017)-and find that our results hold when controlling for these alternative explanations. We believe that our core finding about the importance of social network density for shaping broker targeting strategies is generalizable across a wide variety of political contexts, though the details of particular social networks will certainly vary.…”

“…This could be an important confounder if campaign strongholds tend to overlap with dense social networks (c.f. Auyero 2000). Alternatively, it may be that brokers' targeting strategies are contingent not on the density of social networks per se, but on the size of the polling stations in such networks.…”

“…This could be an important confounder if campaign strongholds tend to overlap with dense social networks (c.f. Auyero 2000).…”

Squatting behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of the informal settlement “Los Hornos” in Buenos Aires

“…Although tenure security is a rule in informal settlements, there is no program to improve its conditions, except in some cases through political patronage. The punteros may also benefit politically from their local power, but in exchange, they are often highly receptive to the needs of the communities, building trust over time by developing personal relationships with households ( Auyero, 2000 ). Clientelism locks residents of informal settlements into dependency, as political punteros have little incentive to allow the poor to access land and services independently ( Benjamin, 2005 ).…”

Large and Honest COVID-19 Relief: A Subnational Qualitative Comparative Approach with Evidence from Colombia

“…More generally, studies have found strong relationships between low state capacity and the incidence of clientelism (Bustikova and Corduneanu-Huci 2017). In contexts of weak administrative capacity, citizens are more likely to accept (and even demand) nonprogrammatic social transfers (Auyero 2000;Nichter and Peress 2017). At the same time, the most effective forms of nonprogrammatic distribution-the kinds that maximize returns for those exercising it-also require considerable capacity, especially in terms of information.…”