Clientelism and Patronage in Turkish Politics and Society

The concepts of clientelism and patronage have been widely used in the analysis of political and social relations. In contemporary political science literature, both concepts have increasingly come to denote a particular strategy of gaining political support by individuals or parties through the distribution of individual or collective goods to prospective voters. 1 Although there is some degree of overlap between clientelism and patronage, the former is generally used with reference to a dyadic relationship between two individuals of unequal socioeconomic status, while the latter is more commonly understood as the distribution of state resources by office holders. In a clientelistic relationship, the more powerful individual, or the patron, may or may not be someone who holds an official position such as local party boss or deputy in the parliament. Consequently, the " favors " that he does for his clients may come from his own personal influence, status, and economic power and not necessarily from his access to public resources. The practice of political patronage, however, involves the distribution of individual or collective " favors " by a political party which controls governmental power and uses the resources of the state to gain votes and political support. Political clientelism and patronage emerged as key analytical concepts in studies on social and political change by political scientists and anthropologists during the 1960s and 1970s. Their work offered empirical evidence based on ethnographic case studies as well as new analytical constructs and theoretical perspectives, especially on traditional patron-client relations in predominantly agrarian societies. The first wave of research on clientelist relationships underscored the dyadic and asymmetrical nature of the ties between individuals of unequal power and status such as those which existed between landlords and peasants in Southeast Asia. 2 While the work on pre-industrial, agrarian societies largely emphasized the economic bases of clientelistic networks, studies on clientelism and patronage in Southern European countries such as Spain and Italy sought to explain clientelistic social and political