GC: n

S: CUNY – http://www.rochelleterman.com/ComparativeExam/sites/default/files/Bibliography%20and%20Summaries/Comparative%20Politics_0.pdf (last access: 4 December 2014); NDRI – N: 1. Derived from client that at the same time comes from Anglo-French clyent (c.1300) and from Latin cliens “follower, retainer”.
2. Relationship between individuals with unequal economic and social status (“the boss” and his “clients”) that entails the reciprocal exchange of goods and services based on a personal link that is generally perceived in terms of moral obligation.
3. An early definition of clientelism emphasized the exchange of votes for favours, over a long period of time, among actors with asymmetric power, the clients having little power. Politicians would reward a portaion of their supporters with public resources in return for electoral support. Scholars have found this definition increasingly wanting: first, clients can offer politicians financial contributions and other non – monetary resources, not just votes. Second, clients could be rather “powerful”. Third, the sale of one’s vote in exchange for a benefit to which the client is not otherwise entitle qualifies as corruption.
4. It is more fruitful to understand clientelism as a type of principal-agent relationship. Clientelism involves three actors, a principal, an agent, and a “client”. Typically, a client (say, a politician’s supporter and financier). The agent will then transfer resources he obtains from the principal (the electorate) back to his client. The criterion of allocation is particularistic, rather than universalistic: clients are rewarded with public contracts, appointments and the like not because of merit of qualifications but prior support. Given the nature of this exchange, the relationship between agent and client tends to be long – term.
5. Contrary to corruption, the clientelistic exchange is done in the opan and contravenes neither a legal provision nor a custom: the US president openly appoints trusted friends and supporters to ambassadorships around the world. To the extent that such an allocation breaches a legal provision and is done secretly, clientelism turns into corruption, the exchange occurring in an illegal market. If the exchange goes counter to public sentiments, it still qualifies as clientelism although the public frowns upon it.

S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=client&allowed_in_frame=0 (last access: 4 December 2014). 2. EncBrit – http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1916881/clientelism (last access: 4 December 2014). 3, 4 & 5. CODP – http://books.google.es/books?id=8JkyAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT169&dq=concise+oxford+dictionary+of+politics+clientelism&hl=es&sa=X&ei=F0WAVJP0PM_TaMr7gogB&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false (last access: 4 December 2014).

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S:

CR: bribe, bribery, influence peddling, prevarication.