Political Clientelism

Pointing to a number of informal dynamics in small societies that are supposed to
enhance cooperation and consensus, traditional studies on power-sharing posit that small states are
‘most likely’ candidates for stable, multiethnic democracy. These assumptions are, however,
challenged by the case study literature on small states which highlights a variety of informal
patterns that undermine democratic governance. Addressing this contradiction, the present paper
provides an in-depth analysis of power-sharing politics in Suriname, a small, culturally
heterogeneous country in South America that initially figured as a prominent case in consociational
theory. The analysis reveals that the smallness of Suriname strongly affects and shapes the nature
of democracy in the country. On the one hand, clientelism ensures that members of each ethnic
group included in power-sharing arrangements have access to state resources and services, thus
providing a large measure of political stability. On the other hand, clientelism undermines the
functioning of multiethnic democracy by a host of negative side effects, among which economic
and social dependency of citizens, executive dominance and authoritarian politics, endemic
corruption that goes largely unpunished, and state predation by elites. The upshot is that whereas
power-sharing arrangements in small societies might indeed be facilitated by a small population
size, there is a heavy price to pay in terms of the quality of democracy.

The purpose of this article is to highlight the clientelistic strategies and informal practices that the ruling political parties in Albania use during the elections to ensure an unfair advantage in their favour over the opposition challengers One of the main characteristics of the political developments of the transition period in Albania since 1991 has been the flourishing of informal practices and clientelist networks of political parties within state structures, which has produced an extreme politicization of these

Nigeria’s democracy is under threat following growing trend of vote buying and selling in elections. Capacity, competence and character are not parameters for assessing electoral candidates. Cash-for-vote or ‘see and buy’ is emerging as the major determinant of electoral choice. Besides being illegal as explicitly stated in Nigeria’s electoral laws, vote buying also has a tendency to aggravate corruption in public offices as those who hold public mandates are made to seek corrupt means of enriching themselves towards future elections. This menace is undermining electoral choices and could imperil Nigeria’s democracy if not abated.
Vote buying is gradually replacing anti-polls or rigging tactics of politicians. This is attributed to checks and balances in the electoral process that has made electoral brigandage unattractive to politicians. Vote buying is the latest strategy adopted by politicians undermine the electoral process. This was evident in the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti state where politicians deployed multiple tactics to buy votes at the polling stations.

In the final analysis, the study contends that resolving the issue and reversing the trend may involve general economic empowerment of voters (citizens), far more than and beyond casual tinkering with modalities of voting and improving balloting secrecy by the authorities. It will take good governance, legal enforcement, prioritisation of employment generation, restoration of ideological base for political parties, holistic war on corruption, and effective poverty reduction as policy options towards reversing and remedying the ugly trend.

The central question in this volume is, what is the relationship between clientelism and democracy? The traditional answer to this question has been that clientelism is a vestige of authoritarian regimes that undermines democratic institutions and processes (see the discussion in Roniger 1994). In our view, the dynamics of clientelism and democracy on the ground are more complex. In third-wave countries with developing economies, the realities of doing politics while coping with markets whose benefits are not broadly accessible are far from the democratic ideals of equality, universality, and participation. Formal democratic rules are implanted on deeply unequal societies, in which the poor are socially and politically marginalized as a result of scarce economic opportunities, and the state is faced with continuous fiscal shortages and real or potential political instability. In a context of uncertainty, actors often prefer the use of personal relationships, such as clientelism, that create predictability, to trusting in the doubtful outcome of formal channels.

Whilst often mentioned and sometimes hammered out, the “economic origins” of the revolution have mostly been ignored. Why is that so? The article attempts to explain this surprising oversight. The emphasis on what was at stake with “the democratic ground rules” has perniciously diverted attention away from the daily economic struggles and their (lack of) regulations as well as the political contradictions they entail. yet, with the end of the “single window approach” of the Democratic Constitutional Rally (Ben Ali’s all-pervasive party), the question of welfare protection and the various shocks it has received remains acute.

The article explores the conditions under which incumbent leaders in initially competitive political systems manage to offset democratic resistance and establish an authoritarian regime. Autocratisationthe transition from a competitive political system to a regime dominated by a single political forceis a challenging effort for an incumbent and involves interventions in three 'arenas' to achieve a) public legitimation, b) institutional reforms increasing political repression and c) mass-scale co-optation. Focusing on Slovakia and Belarus in the 1990s, where autocratisation efforts failed and succeeded respectively, the article finds that cooptation plays a catalytic role in helping the incumbent pass institutional reforms and escalate repression without risking de-legitimation. In Belarus, co-optation engulfed society and the economy whereas, in Slovakia, a socioeconomic environment with greater autonomy from government limited the scope for co-optation. The Slovak opposition was able to find the resources and supporters necessary to fight back against the incumbent.

The paper uncovers determinants of turnout in Iran by studying the role of institutional and socio-economic variables in parliamentary politics since the 2000s. The paper argues that Iran’s electoral system has dichotomized the pattern of participation between center and periphery. The dynamic of participation in the center stems primarily from national shifts in the factional rule. However, in provincial peripheries, Iran’s electoral system promotes the personal particularistic demands of voters in the MP-citizen linkage. In this environment, the discretionary power of local state machinery over the daily lives of provincial citizens lays the ground for the role of local bureaus to influence participation. This argument draws on statistical analysis of parliamentary turnout and the study of several Iranian newspapers and official reports. The findings of the paper suggest a new mechanism by which institutional settings may shape the pattern of participation more generally.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-020-09605-6

El libro responde a la necesidad de indagar en el funcionamiento real de las democracias latinoamericanas, analizando las reglas informales de intercambio político y de distribución de recursos en Colombia y México. Desde distintas disciplinas del conocimiento, los académicos aquí reunidos proveen fundamentos teóricos, conceptuales y empíricos para acercarse al fenómeno del clientelismo, el patronazgo y la corrupción. Se pretende conocer cómo es que políticos y partidos cooptan votos más allá de las actividades profesionales o publicitarias, qué tipo de recursos –materiales o simbólicos- son utilizados para conseguir apoyo político, quiénes son los actores que intervienen en los intercambios informales, cuáles son sus funciones y, finalmente, cómo afecta y convive el clientelismo con el régimen democrático.

Este artículo reexamina la idea de Lijphart (1997) de que el voto obligatorio sea un instrumento efectivo para reducir la desigualdad del ingreso con un diseño de investigación cuasi experimental basado en la técnica de matching. Los resultados muestran que el voto obligatorio no tiene un impacto significativo sobre las políticas redistributivas. En base a la experiencia de América Latina, donde predomina el voto obligatorio junto a alta desigualdad de ingresos, el artículo sostiene que el problema empírico del argumento lijphartiano se encuentra en el supuesto implícito de la existencia de un vínculo programático entre políticos y electores. Se sugiere como hipótesis alternativa que la combinación de alta participación electoral y alta desigualdad puede deberse a la prevalencia de un vínculo clientelar, frecuente en democracias con instituciones débiles.

In elections around the world, candidates seek to influence voters' choices using a variety of intermediaries and by relying on either positive electoral inducements or coercive strategies. What explains candidates' choices among different forms of clientelism? When do candidates incentivize voters using positive inducements and when do they choose coercive strategies? This article proposes a new typology of clientelism and tests two families of explanations for why candidates would choose to use state versus non-state brokers, and inducements versus coercion, as private incentives to voters. First, existing theory predicts that political conditions such as incumbency or co-partisanship with the national party should enable the use of public over private brokers and resources. In addition, we conjecture that clientelism carries programmatic signals, such that the choice between inducements and coercion depends on local political conditions. We test our predictions using a post-electoral survey fielded in 2014 in ninety rural Hungarian communities. We find little evidence that local political conditions are related to the choice between state versus non-state brokers, but significant support for the prediction that programmatic signals explain the choice between inducements and coercion.

In this article, Kurt Bassuener assesses the Biden administration's recent strong advocacy for the "Open Balkan" initiative, championed by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, in the context of the current security crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Not only has the Biden administration effectively adopted a variant of the Trump administration's transactional policy in the Western Balkans, the policy represents an embrace of the EU's functionalist approach in the region - a failure. What this means is a de facto embrace of a Serbian/Albanian/Croatian co-prosperity sphere in the region.

Contemporary analysis of clientelism aims to revisit the core of the concept in order to study its potencial capacity for making work the relationships between social groups and the State.
The paper is about a PH D research in wich is pointed out the topic of clientelistic relationships in the contemporary Mexican State. Heading from the main research in rural communities it is possible to identify bridges wich have allowed the moving of the relationships marked by clientelistic relationships to some horizontal linkages. The question is whether it is possible that new client networks may contain structural and functional elements capable of activating networks of social capital.

The text looks into the importance of sate capture for the stability of hybrid regimes from the Serbian post-2000 perspective. It argues for an integration of these two research fields. Part one gives a list extractive institutions related to political state capture. These institutions provide better measurement of state capture. Part two emphasizes
the importance of state capture for other hybrid regimes’s critical areas such as elections and media. Although rigged elections and controlled media are important pillars of
hybrid regimes, they depend to a large extent on the public funds by which they can be financed. Extraction of public funds matters because these are used to pay both activists
who manipulate the electoral process in the field and the media that hide information on the basis of which citizens can decide how to vote. The issue of extraction has been understudied in the debates on the consolidation of democracy in Serbia after 2000 but also in the discussios on democratic decline.

Last year, independent and secular segments of civil society ran against the established traditional political parties in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections. While their campaign elicited much hope, the results were disappointing. Why did they fail in breaking through and what lessons can be drawn from the campaign?

Conventional models of clientelism often assume poor voters have little or no choice over which local broker to turn to for help. Yet communities in many clientelistic settings are marked by multiple brokers who compete for a following. Such competition makes client choices, and the preferences guiding such choices, pivotal in fueling broker support. We examine client preferences for a pervasive broker—slum leaders—in the context of urban India. To identify resident preferences for slum leaders, we conducted an ethnographically informed conjoint survey experiment with 2,199 residents across 110 slums in two Indian cities. Contra standard emphases on shared ethnicity, we find residents place heaviest weight on a broker's capability to make claims on the state. A survey of 629 slum leaders finds client-preferred traits distinguish brokers from residents. In highlighting processes of broker selection, and the client preferences that undergird them, we underscore the centrality of clients in shaping local brokerage environments.

«Il ponderoso 'carteggio' intercorso tra Donato Di Marzo e Giustino Fortunato, [...] copre il ventennio 1891-1910, un periodo particolarmente intenso della storia dell'Italia unita, che, segnato - come è noto - da una serie di grandi temi [...], fa da sfondo al fitto scambio epistolare intercorso fra i due uomini politici meridionali, che si distinsero per il loro coerente impegno ideologico-politico. [...] Due uomini diversi ma complementari, 'fratelli di elezione'. A cementare l'amicizia fra i due furono le loro idee politiche, la militanza nelle fila della Sinistra moderata e la convergenza delle loro posizioni sulle difficili scelte che l'Italia dovette affrontare negli anni compresi tra il trasformismo depretisiano, l'autoritarismo crispino, la crisi di fine secolo e l'età giolittiana».
(Dalla Prefazione di Giovanni Brancaccio)

This paper is an initial assessment of the current efforts at institutionalizing political party reforms. Specifically, it will provide an overview of current debates, within and initiatives of, two political parties in the area of party reforms. Looking at the experience fo the Liberal Party and Akbayan, the paper will argue for an institutional-competitive approach to political party reform that strengthens citizen-party linkage.

O presente trabalho busca construir um perfil social dos juízes de paz eleitos, entre 1848 e 1871, no 1º Distrito da Freguesia do Arroio Grande, Sul da Província de São Pedro do Rio Grande. A partir desse estudo de caso, pretendemos contribuir para o conhecimento histórico a respeito da magistratura eletiva no período posterior às contra-reformas que reduziram as suas atribuições. Nossa hipótese é de que a eleição para o juizado de paz continuou sendo do interesse das elites locais, para as quais a conquista do posto significou uma possibilidade de acesso a recursos materiais e imateriais.

El objetivo general del curso es explorar los principales enfoques y núcleos de debate propios de la antropología política como especialidad disciplinar. El programa se propone discutir ejes claves del área, incluyendo un panorama sobre su surgimiento y sobre las discusiones contemporáneas. En particular, el curso pretende contribuir a desnaturalizar algunas prenociones acerca de “lo político” que son recurrentes tanto en los usos sociales así como en los usos académicos puestos en juego en el ámbito de las ciencias sociales y de las humanidades (por ejemplo, el tratamiento de la política como un campo diferenciado y autónomo; como un ámbito dominado más por el interés y lo pragmático que por la dimensión moral; o a la reificación del estado al tratarlo analíticamente como una entidad bien delimitada y diferenciada de la “sociedad civil”). A fin de promover una perspectiva crítica, el curso se propone problematizar las relaciones entre conceptos teóricos y categorías nativas, entre instrumentos analíticos y concepciones locales sobre la política, lo político, el gobierno, el estado, la justicia, etc. La propuesta se centra en el análisis de “la política”, “lo político” y términos asociados, abordándolos como categorías prácticas que forman parte de los universos sociales que estudiamos antes que como definiciones teóricas preestablecidas. En ese camino, el curso articulará la perspectiva de la “antropología política” tradicionalmente interesada en la identificación y estudio de los procesos políticos y aquella de la “antropología de la política” preocupada por el modo en que las personas entienden, clasifican y producen los límites de aquello que en diferentes contextos se reconoce como “lo político”. Se pretende promover el análisis de las formas en que las representaciones sociales sobre lo político, el Estado, el gobierno, la militancia, etc. son socialmente producidas, reproducidas, desplegadas e impuestas por actores situados en el marco de procesos sociales concretos, incorporando el rol de la/s propias/os antropóloga/os en la producción de conocimiento sobre el tema.

In 2004, an unlikely combination of rural insurgent groups and urban gangs fought over the fate of President Aristide and brought Haiti to the brink of civil war. Ten years on, the country is still plagued by instances of armed violence. While most policy experts and practitioners seem to agree that over the last decade, violence transformed from a political into a criminal phenomenon, scholars remain divided over the question of whether Haiti's urban armed groups should be framed as a political movement or as hardened criminals. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and overt observation conducted during six months of fieldwork in Haiti in 2013, this article argues that it is crucial to refocus the analysis on the functions gangs fulfil on behalf of their politico-criminal sponsors. In contrast to the proclaimed internal shift from political to criminal motivation, this approach suggests that the constantly changing priorities of political entrepreneurs and organised crime groups shape the nature of the violent service offered by urban armed groups. The findings of this article mirror comparable dynamics in other countries in Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa and have crucial implications for international agencies working in the urban environment and dealing with urban armed groups.

"There is a striking contrast between the dissemination of the concept of neopatrimonial rule in Africa and its more parsimonious mobilisation outside the continent. The increasing assimilation of the African neopatrimonial state to integral and predatory forms of politics has contributed to its perception as a global prototype of the ‘antidevelopmental’ state. The article contrasts this trajectory with those observed in Latin America, South East Asia, Russia and Central Asia. There, patrimonialism and neopatrimonialism have been associated with
a greater axiological neutrality than in Africa due, inter alia, to the
preservation of an analytical dichotomy between regulated and predatory forms of neopatrimonialism. Neglected for all too long, the study of regulated forms of neopatrimonialism in Africa calls for fresh empirical and theoretical attention."

Focusing exclusively on external forces risks producing an over-generalized account of a ubiquitous neoliberalism, which insufficiently accounts for the profusion of local variegations that currently comprise the neoliberal project as a series of articulations with existing political economic circumstances. Although neoliberal economics were initially promoted in the global south through the auspices of structural adjustment programs designed by the International Financial Institutions, powerful global south elites were only too happy to oblige. Neoliberalism frequently reveals opportunities for well-connected government officials to informally control market and material rewards, allowing them to easily line their own pockets. It is in this sense of the local appropriation of neoliberal ideas that scholars must go beyond conceiving of ‘neoliberalism-in-general’ as a singular and fully realized policy regime, ideological form, or regulatory framework, and work towards conceiving a plurality of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’ with particular characteristics arising from mutable geohistorical outcomes that are embedded within national, regional, and local process of market-driven socio-spatial transformation. What constitutes ‘actually existing’ neoliberalism in Cambodia as distinctly Cambodian is the ways in which the patronage system has allowed local elites to co-opt, transform, and (re)articulate neoliberal reforms through a framework that ‘asset strips’ public resources, thereby increasing peoples’ exposure to corruption, coercion, and violence. It is to such an 'articulation agenda' that this article attends, as in seeking to provide a more nuanced reading to recent work on neoliberalism in Cambodia by outlining some of its salient characteristics, I reveal a more empirical basis to theorizations of ‘articulated neoliberalism’.

""Anti-vote-buying campaigns led by NGOs and political elites denounce the practice as a crass economic transaction
detrimental to democracy. Do potential clients stigmatize vote buying to the same degree, or does the mass public have a
more conditional view of the acceptability of vote buying? We theorize that normative evaluations of vote buying vary based
on individuals’ understanding of the transaction itself and abstract societal costs associated with the practice. We assess this
perspective using survey experiments conducted in several Latin American countries that present hypothetical vote-buying
situations for evaluation by respondents, varying the socioeconomic status of the hypothetical client and the client’s political predispositions. We find that the disapproval of vote buying is highly conditional on the attributes of the hypothetical client and that evaluations of vote buying depend on conceptions of the concrete benefits and abstract costs of vote buying as a
part of electoral politics.""

This article examines power dynamics in political groupings during
the 2014 Afghanistan presidential election and assesses the impact on
political stability and order. The focus is the power dynamics of local
political-economic and identity networks that have come to underpin
and constitute the state in post-2001 international state-building.
The article first seeks to understand how the complex relationships
between the two leading presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and
Abdullah Abdullah, and key powerbrokers were negotiated and
subsequently influenced electoral outcomes. Second, focusing on
negotiations over the appointment of the Cabinet ministers, advisers
and staff, and governors, the study maps the restructuring of political
networks within the Afghan state. The analysis reveals the impact of
the election on the redistribution of power and resources, and the
consequences for political order and state stability in the post-2014
period.

Ghana's fourth attempt at constitutional democratic governance which started in 1992 has been plagued with negative acts of political vigilantism. Political vigilante groups play a key role in securing electoral victory for their parties. But they are also key agents in pushing their parties to opposition. Vigilante groups, particularly those belonging to the party that won elections have over the years, taken the laws of the country into their own hands, forcibly ejected officials of previous administration from their apartments and physically assaulted them, as well as engaged in seizures of public property and assets in the custody of public officials in an uncoordinated manner. These acts have fuelled polarization in Ghana's body politic and undermined the nation's drive towards democratic maturity. What accounts for the rise in the activities of vigilante groups? How useful are these groups to political parties? In what specific ways do vigilante groups pose a threat to Ghana's democratic governance? These and other allied questions are addressed in this article.

This is my HD thesis in Polish. Short version of this book in English was published under the title "Social Bonds in the Political Culture in Kyrgyzstan". This pdf file includes: table of contents and summary in English and Russian, additionally  also theoretical & methodological introduction, conclusions, and name index.

Praca powstała dzięki grantowi habilitacyjnemu MNiSW (rozliczany już w NCN). Recenzentami wydawniczymi byli prof. Wojciech Jakubowski (UWM) i prof. Andrzej Wierzbicki (UW), a recenzentami w przewodzie habilitacyjnym: śp. prof. Andrzej Chodubski (UG), prof. Franciszek Gołembski (AON), prof. Alicja Stępień-Kuczyńska (UŁ) i prof. Stanisław Tokarski (PAN).

Whereas the belief that political parties are necessary elements of democracy is widespread in political science, it is in fact empirically false. Six small Pacific island democracies function without parties, and several explanations for the absence of parties in these countries have been developed. In the present article, an interview-based qualitative analysis of one of these six democracies without parties – the Republic of Palau – is offered in order to examine why parties are absent here, and how the Palauan democracy functions without parties. The findings of this case study indicate that both size and culture contribute to the non-existence of parties in Palau, and that the role of parties is in many ways fulfilled by clan
structures. In several respects the absence of parties is found to undermine the functioning of Palauan democracy,
whereas respondents paradoxically indicate that non-elected traditional leadership contributes positively to the performance of democracy in Palau.

he article discusses the concepts of democracy and political participation through different perspectives aimed at pointing out the limitations as well as the contributions of some of those concepts for the analysis of Latin-American democracies. In the first section the article analyses democratic transition and democratization literature pointing out the deficiencies of the concept of democracy present in this literature when it comes to the approach of historical Latin American political process and more recent phenomenon of social mobilization in various countries. The second section discusses the participatory democracy literature and contrasts it with a minimalist conception of democracy. We argue that working under this perspective might lead to incomplete and superficial analysis of the Latin American democratization process.

Corrupt exchanges are often brokered by a third party, but this phenomenon has not been satisfactorily explored by researchers of corruption. Literature on brokerage in general provides interesting models but they have not previously been applied to corrupt exchanges. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with respondents who participated in actual corrupt transactions, this paper identifies several distinct brokerage types in low-level corruption in contemporary Hungary. The paper also provides explanation of variation in corruption brokerage in terms of actors' group affiliations, forms of the corrupt exchanges, brokerage mechanisms, as well as neutrality, benefit and motivation, risk distribution, and stability of the brokerage structure. Finally, we discuss some policy implications of corruption brokerage.

The aim of this paper is to systematize existing research on media reporting related to various aspects of citizenship, and to contribute with a primary analysis of media content, in order to define how the leading print media in four states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia) reported on these issues. After establishing the profile of each state, this paper provides a profile of the analysed media, followed by a short summary of how these media reported on selected citizenship-related issues and topics. The main trends in media reporting were analysed within an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that includes the selected approaches / theories in media and communication studies, but also the studies on citizenship. The main assumption is that the mass media in the states under scrutiny, while reporting on citizenship-related issues,, have mostly legitimized governments in determining their citizenship policies. Only in Montenegro and, to some extent, in Croatia, when it comes to external voting, have oppositional media outlets continuously criticized the “official” citizenship policies, while in other states the leading media discourses lack a polemical and critical stance towards citizenship-related issues.

In the 1974 October Working Papers, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (1970-1981) announced that the government would launch an ambitious developmental project to populate the desert outside the Nile River Valley. Sadat hoped that this new urban development policy would solve the country's problems with urban congestion and provide access to housing and jobs for a rapidly growing population. A cornerstone of this new public policy was that the government would use America's suburban model and foreign direct investment to aid planners in the cultivation and settlement of the desert. After Sadat's death in 1981, his successors Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011) and Abdel Fatah al-Sisi (2013-present) continued to promote desert projects with even more ambitious goals for urban development outside the Nile River Valley. However, following Sadat's proclamation and four decades of extensive public and private investment into over 30 desert towns as well as hundreds of new industrial districts, agricultural reclamation projects, and tourist resorts, only a very small percentage of Egypt's population actually moved outside of the Nile River Valley. A disappointingly small number of full-time jobs were created in industry, agriculture, and tourism from these desert projects, and public and private capital was wasted on vacant housing. After conducting field work and analyzing a plethora of primary and secondary resources to answer these questions, I have concluded that poor governance derailed Sadat's plan to depopulate the Nile River Valley and Egypt's overcrowded capital. Consequently, a parasitic political elite in alliance with their loyal clients in the domestic and international business community have mainly benefited from these desert projects; the overwhelming majority of the population that continues to live on the Nile River Valley, to put it bluntly, have not. Most of Egypt's population had to solve their own housing and employment problems by constructing informal communities on the Nile River Valley with very little government assistance.

Corruption in politics and business is, after war, perhaps the greatest threat to democracy. Academic studies of corruption tend to come from the field of International Relations, analysing systems of formal rules and institutions. This book offers a radically different perspective -- it shows how anthropology can throw light on aspects of corruption that remain unexamined in international relations.The contributors reveal how corruption operates through informal rules, personal connections and the wider social contexts that govern everyday practices. They argue that patterns of corruption are part of the fabric of everyday life -- wherever we live -- and subsequently they are often endemic in our key institutions.The book examines corruption across a range of different contexts from transitional societies such as post-Soviet Russia and Romania, to efforts to reform or regulate institutions that are perceived to be potentially corrupt, such as the European Commission. The book also covers the Enron and WorldCom scandals, the mafia in Sicily and the USA, and the world of anti-corruption as represented by NGOs like Transparency International.

Questo volume invita a considerare la questione siriana, con le sue molteplici sfaccettature e rappresentazioni, come un laboratorio per comprendere l’intera area mediterranea alle prese con scommesse epocali che caratterizzeranno inevitabilmente le dinamiche politiche, sociali, culturali dei prossimi decenni. Il cuore di questo libro è dedicato all’analisi dei profondi e spesso celati meccanismi di potere siriani, mediorientali e mediterranei, da secoli frutto di un’incessante e articolata negoziazione tra élite locali, nazionali e internazionali. In questa dinamica emerge una costante che attraversa i periodi storici e le geografie e che ci tocca da vicino: il ruolo chiave di figure di intermediari nella gestione delle risorse e nella distribuzione dei servizi e delle rendite. Il caso siriano - arricchito da continui richiami agli altri contesti regionali - è illuminante. E si rivela particolarmente utile per accompagnare il lettore tra le pieghe delle nostre complessità.

Este libro que nos adentra en la etapa virreinal del Perú, en una etapa poco estudiada como es el siglo XVII. El texto se aboca a analizar la conformación y funcionamiento de la corte virreinal peruana, la cual fue una representación a menor escala de la que se encontraba en Madrid. Temas como el accionar de los virreyes al llegar al Perú, la reivindicación de los criollos frente a los peninsulares y la creación de redes de poder vinculadas a favoritismos y provisión de oficios, son los que recorren este erudito trabajo que nos plantea la configuración de un escenario de luchas por el poder signadas por el clientelismo. Por todo ello, este libro es un valioso aporte para comprender de manera más profunda el funcionamiento de nuestra etapa virreinal, entendiendo que en el Perú existió una sociedad y prácticas cortesanas.

This chapter will investigate the relationship between elections and democratic development in the Philippines. It will trace the emergence and institutionalization of electoral politics at various junctures in Philippine history. Essentially, it will determine the degree of proportionality in which votes are translated into political mandates. Lastly, it will explore the modalities of reforming the electoral system in order to enrich the democratization process.