El clientelismo: el incesante juego de políticos y clientes en la construcción y reproducción de la democracia subnacional y nacional

Abstract

Patronage has been regarded as one of the main ways in which a political system, mostly in developing and rural societies, is legitimized and reproduced to establish interactive relations between politicians and citizens in a framework of exchange for political support. This relationship has been mostly considered depraved for democracy, while other research has pointed out the role that patronage has played in articulating the policy of marginal sectors and the provision of services and goods in contexts where institutions are precarious. From this tension, this article resumes some of the major works in this topic to analyze different theoretical, conceptual and methodological perspectives of patronage.