Clientelism in Power-Sharing Systems

There is a growing body of literature demonstrating that there is a link between clientelism and ethnic politics: Considerable empirical evidence is there on preferential public provisions by political leaders to their co-ethnics (i.e., ethnic favoritism), ethnic parties engaging in the distribution of patronage, and socioeconomic mobilization along ethnicity-focused networks. These studies reveal that ethnic politics are often underpinned not only by identity-based political mobilization but are sustained by material resources distributed along the clientelist networks. However, there remain questions about causal relations: does ethnic politics encourage clientelist relations, or does clientelism sponsor preferential treatment of co-ethnics? Does ethnicity inherently play a role in fostering clientelism, or does clientelist distribution entrench people’s preference for identifying along ethnic lines?
 
Since in many postconflict places, power-sharing institutions are erected to encourage intergroup cooperation, our panel invites papers that elucidate the linkage between the distribution of patronage and political stability in divided societies. Institutions of power-sharing are expected to settle interethnic conflicts by ensuring autonomy alongside access to (political, economic, societal, territorial, military, etc) resources for the main conflicting (usually) ethnic groups. However, recent scholarship points out that ethnic politics under power-sharing regimes often turn clientelist in a bid to stability, as clear from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia, South Tyrol, Northern Ireland, Burundi, and Lebanon. This poses the question of whether power-sharing has the institutional preference for and reinforces clientelist-based exchange. If so, whose clientelism does it reinforce, and by what mechanism? Do different institutional settings, such as corporate/liberal and centripetal designs, affect clientelist distribution differently? Are clientelist practices limited to postconflict societies, or can also be observed in ‘traditional’ consociational democracies, such as Belgium, Austria, and the Netherlands?
 
This panel invites papers that address the relationship between clientelism, ethnic linkages, and power-sharing politics theoretically and empirically. We welcome contributions investigating the questions of distributive politics in divided societies, the institutional impact on political elites and publics’ choices comparatively; case studies, comparative investigations, and quantitative analyses are all equally welcome.