Political Participation II

1
Political Participation -- II

• Patron-client relationships
• Social capital and civil society

2
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

3
Where does social capital come from?

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

4
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)

5
Patron-Client Relations

• An exchange relationship in which participation
  in politics is mediated through one or more
  intermediaries or patrons (clientelism)
• Clients, at the base, give support to patrons, in
  exchange for specific benefits, such as 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)

6
Clientelistic relationships more likely to occur
in

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

7
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 develop or destroy social
  capital?

8
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?

9
Problem

• Do post-materialism and 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?
• Or can the power of numbers counter the
  advantages of access and skill?

10
When do revolutions occur?

• The J-curve hypothesis revolutions do not
  occur in abjectly poor societies, but rather in
  those in which there has been some improvement.