Inequality and Political Clientelism: Evidence from South India

Thomas Markussen

Journal of Development Studies, 2011, vol. 47, issue 11, 1721-1738

Abstract: Political parties can be vehicles for economic and social development in poor countries. They can also serve as rent seeking instruments. Uncovering how parties function is therefore key to establishing the preconditions for good governance. The article discusses when and why clientelism on the basis of party affiliation may arise. Operationally, party-based clientelism is defined as a bias of public policy in favour of members of the governing political party. In a sample of local governments in India, party-based clientelism is shown to exist in two out of four states and to be strongly affected by economic inequality.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2011.561330 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Inequality and Political Clientelism: Evidence from South India (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:47:y:2011:i:11:p:1721-1738

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2011.561330

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().