Clientlism and electoral competition : the case of Chile’s municipalities

Autor(en)

Felipe Bernabé Livert Aquino

Abstrakt

Patronage is often considered a subtype of clientelism that arises through reciprocal arrangements between a politician and a citizen, where electoral support is rewarded with public employment. In Chile, there is evidence of clientelist practices at the municipal level. However, these studies have mainly had a qualitative focus. To complement these studies, this research aims to provide quantitative evidence using panel data and two-way fixed effects. Thus, we analyse the personnel hiring through the Mercado Público platform between 2009 and 2017 across the country’s 345 municipalities, finding evidence that support two hypotheses: (i) there is a political budget cycle, increasing spending by 14.9% during the election year and (ii) independent politicians spend less on hiring people than mayors who are militants of political parties, being this expenditure -9.8% less for independents than for the latter. These results seek to complement other research on clientelism and patronage in a context of the rise of independent politicians and citizen questioning of traditional political parties, as well as the relevance of public spending in local governments.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Geographie und Regionalforschung

Journal

Ciencia Politica

ISSN

1909-230X

DOI

https://doi.org/10.4067/s0718-090x2023005000120

Publikationsdatum

2023

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

507015 Regionalforschung, 502027 Politische Ökonomie, 506014 Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/c9f1d9e7-98b0-4cb3-b879-f66486a3e652