Forms of participation

1
Forms of participation

• Social Capital and
• Patron-client relations
• What difference do they make?

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Social capital and civil society

• Social capital refers to features of social
  organization such as networks, norms, and social
  trust that facilitate coordination and
  cooperation for mutual benefit
• Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone
• Civil society
• sometimes used as a surrogate for society
• Defined as a society capable of self organization
  -- thus capable of organizing itself

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Where does social capital come from?

• Wealth?
• Education?
• Organizations and situations which stimulate
  trust?

4
Patron-Client Relations

• An exchange relationship in which participation
  in politics is mediated through one or more
  intermediaries or patrons (clientelism)

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How patron-client relations work

• Clients, at the base, give support to patrons in
  exchange for specific benefits e.g. jobs,
  favours, preferential treatment
• Lower-level patrons provide support to higher
  level patrons in exchange for benefits or
  resources
• Politicians and/or bureaucrats use their control
  of government to generate resources for
  intermediaries (patronage)

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Where do resources for patron-client relations
come from?

• Control of government, resulting in
• Colonization of the state supporters
  sympathizers placed in patronage appointments
• Rules procedures waived in exchange for
  kickbacks, bribes
• Rake-offs taken on all contracts, licenses
• Resources, benefits allocated only in exchange
  for past or future support

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Clientelism more likely in

• Places in which the population is dependent on
  government largesse for its economic survival
  (e.g peripheral or less developed regions)
• Populations unable to fend for themselves (e.g.,
  peasants, immigrants)
• Transitional or less developed societies
• Countries with complex and cumbersome regulations

9
What difference does it make?

• Impact of clientelism on political culture?
• How well does clientelism mesh with
• Ideological politics?
• Post-materialism?
• Are patron-client relationships compatible with a
  civil society?
• Does clientelism create or destroy social
  capital?

10
Some questions

• Are social capital and civil society
  prerequisites of liberal democracy?
• What kinds of participation generate social
  capital?
• Direct face-to-face participation?
• Participation in credit card organizations?
• Is social capital declining? (Robert Putnams
  argument in Bowling Alone)

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Problem

• Do post-materialism the more the more
  hypothesis address the same question?
• Does one tell you more about who participates and
  the other more about the values of those who
  participate?
• What difference does post-materialism make?
• Can the power of numbers counter the advantages
  of access and skill?

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Who gets what, when, and how?
(Harold Lasswell)

• Do the phenomena of post-materialism and the
  more the more hypothesis mean that the demands
  of the poor and the working classes are always
  neglected?