Political Clientelism and Capture: Theory and Evidence from West Bengal, India

Dilip Mookherjee and Pranab Bardhan

No wp-2012-097, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: We provide a theory of political clientelism, which explains sources and determinants of political clientelism, the relationship between clientelism and elite capture, and their respective consequences for allocation of public services, welfare, and empirical measurement of government accountability in service delivery. Using data from household surveys in rural West Bengal, we argue that the model helps explain observed impacts of political reservations in local governments that are difficult to reconcile with standard models of redistributive politics.

Keywords: Local government; Corruption; Political science; Clientelism; Political reservations; Reservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (59)

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Working Paper: Political Clientelism and Capture: Theory and Evidence from West Bengal, India (2013)
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