Good customers

According to data from theArab Barometer (2016-2017), Arab public opinion would perceive corruption as a massive phenomenon: 84.6% of respondents think that public administrations are corrupt, and only 42.2% believe that the government is trying to suppress these practices. Furthermore, 66.9% affirm that obtaining a job through “connection” (wasta) is an “extremely widespread” practice. In such a context, the approach initiated by Daniel Corstange will not fail to arouse interest. While the negative economic externalities of corruption have been frequently addressed in the literature, this professor of political science at Columbia University suggests studying the notion of clientelism by recontextualizing it, through the mobilization of the following variables: the competitive or non-competitive nature of electoral competition, as well as the degree of confessional homogeneity or heterogeneity. The case studies on which he relies focus on two religious communities, the Sunnis of Lebanon and the Zaidi Shiites of Yemen, whose particularity is to be represented by a single political actor, on the contrary of their compatriots of other faiths who benefit from a greater plurality in terms of electoral offer.

The clientelist mechanics

D. Corstange defines clientelism as follows:

As states become more democratic or use electoral mechanisms to allocate resources, votes come to represent the most common resource that the average customer can offer, although politicians may also value other forms of support (…). In return, patrons offer money, an impressive array of consumer goods (…). (p. 5)

The author recalls in this regard that, in most developing countries, the electoral transaction is not structured around programmatic issues, but around promises of granting goods to the population (pp. 7-8). However, this transaction does not involve an equal relationship between the two parties. On the contrary, three asymmetries characterize the clientelist exchange: the much greater number of “clients” than “patrons”, the unobservable nature of electoral remuneration, due to the secret ballot, as well as the weight of social norms that condemn the purchase of votes (p. 11). These asymmetries contribute to explaining the attempts of political elites to control their clientele: the use of “supervision machines” (p. 12) involved in sociability networks therefore falls within this strategic imperative, through the enterprise of seducing hesitant voters and perpetuating relationships with loyal supporters. Thus, in the context of a clientelistic relationship, the voter can punish the politician who does not keep his promises, but the latter can also monitor his voters and not reward those who fail to support him (p. 29). D. Corstange, however, underlines the existence of a paradox of clientelistic remuneration in the context of ethnic favoritism. Indeed, this clientelism is distinguished by a meager remuneration of the client compared to other forms of favoritism (p. 1). Consequently, the political scientist offers us an original theorization of the influence of ethnicity on the clientelistic relationship.

When cronyism pays off

D. Corstange uses an economic type of analysis: the instrumentalization of the ethnic factor makes it possible to reduce costs, particularly those relating to information (pp. 8, 12-13 and 35). This hypothesis is also reminiscent of the theory proposed by JK Birnir, according to which the politicization of ethnicity would reduce the information costs related to the electoral decision. In addition, the mobilization of ethnic networks by the boss ensures him a stable clientele (p. 41). However, the political scientist points out that, while promoting exchange, ethnic clientelism gives no guarantee as to the content of the exchange (p. 8). At the beginning of his work, for example, the author notes the discontent of Lebanese Sunni and Yemeni Zaidi notables with the poor quality of the infrastructure at their disposal (pp. 2-3).

To explain this lack of resources, the author uses the economic concept of “monopsony”, which describes a market where there are a multiplicity of suppliers, but only one demander. In the perspective adopted by D. Corstange, an “ethnic monopsony” therefore designates “a political constituency defined according to community lines which is dominated by a single boss or vote-buying party” (p. 1). However, such situations exist in Lebanon and Yemen. While the Lebanese Shiites and Christians benefit from a plurality of parties aspiring to represent them, since the beginning of the 1990s we have witnessed the maintenance of a Sunni monopsony through the Hariri clan (pp. 18 and 77). The Zaidis of Yemen find themselves in a similar situation, due to the collaboration of their tribal leaders with the authorities; Conversely, the local Sunni community benefits from a relatively pluralistic electoral offer, despite the authoritarian domination of the General People’s Congress (pp. 18-19 and 93-95). The author therefore proposes the following theory:

Politicians reward their co-ethnic clients (…) because ethnic social networks reduce transaction costs and make it more efficient to cultivate relationships with members of one’s own ethnic community than with other communities. (…) Moreover, when they can eliminate intra-ethnic competition (…) they can afford to pay their clients modest rewards, in the absence of electoral incentives to pay more. (…) With no other viable option, (clients) support their co-ethnic patrons because small rewards are always better than no reward at all. (pp. 14–15)

Since constituencies are ethnically based, internal political competition helps increase the value and number of clientelistic transactions; voters receive greater rewards when the competitive dimension of the ballot is asserted, but compete with each other when this competitiveness declines. Consequently, communities that are dominated by a single patron will receive meager remuneration (pp. 50-51). Indeed, the author notes that dominated communities benefit from lower quality public services: in urban areas, Sunnis in Lebanon and Zaydis in Yemen suffer 22% and 34% more electricity cuts, respectively, than their compatriots belonging to other religious communities (p. 168). Similarly, urban Sunni Lebanese face 42% more water cuts, while this proportion of interruptions rises to 34% for urban Zaidi Yemenis (p. 170).

Politicians try to maximize their rewards when they can distinguish their supporters among voters (p. 175), so as not to waste their resources on paying potential opponents (p. 160). While bosses opt for collective rewards in homogeneous districts, they favor individualized rewards in mixed areas (pp. 192-193), targeting voters who support them, for example through the granting of public jobs. As a result, residents of mixed districts have access to poorer infrastructure than residents of homogeneous districts (pp. 184, 187, and 192). However, heterogeneity positively influences the granting of public jobs (p. 176): Lebanese Sunnis living in diverse districts are granted more public jobs than those residing in homogeneous areas (pp. 189-190). Cultural diversity therefore helps to alleviate the situation of voter dependency (pp. 184 and 187).

What it means to be dominated

What motivates a political act? This nagging question has continued to run through political science studies. Taking the example of subgroups within parties, Giovanni Sartori explained in 1976 how difficult it was to distinguish factions guided by interest and “ideological” factions, due to the practice of “camouflage”. The same goes for voting: how can we interpret electoral participation in a context of electoral domination and, in the Yemeni case, authoritarianism? If D. Corstange explains the motivations for voting in the case of political domination (better to obtain little than nothing at all), his research also sheds light on the function of elections in authoritarian regimes: people do not vote for a program, but to obtain resources. This observation is also shared by other analyses taking Arab countries as their setting, such as Jordan or Algeria.

Furthermore, D. Corstange’s conclusions tend to confirm those of the literature, which highlights the links between clientelism and the perpetuation of social hierarchical relationships. Based on an exploration of the Marseille case, sociologist Cesare Mattina has demonstrated that, far from benefiting the most modest backgrounds, local clientelistic practices rather benefit the middle and working classes in a phase of social ascension since the Defferre years, while the most disadvantaged segments of the population remain apart from these networks. The political scientist also notes that the mechanisms of identity assignment can lead to situations of domination to the detriment of voters. Hence the distinction he draws between “descriptive” and “substantive” representations (p. 228): the fact of being administered by an elected member of one’s community does not necessarily imply beneficial repercussions.

Recalling that electoral competition on programmatic bases remains the most desirable option to counteract clientelistic relations, the author also pleads, at the end of his work, for support for democratization reforms on the lessons of academic work: indeed, the analysis of the methods of achieving democratic transitions, or indeed returns to authoritarianism, constitutes a particularly fruitful line of research for contemporary political science.