Clientelistic Linkage in Post-Communist Europe, 2009 – 2023: DALP II Evidence

• In Event: Political Partisan Linkages in Competitive Party Systems: DALP II 2022-24 Survey

Abstract

Over three decades of multipartism in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe have led to the proliferation of a plethora of party-voter linkages, encompassing both non-programmatic and programmatic types. In relation to the former, political competition in these contexts has also facilitated the emergence of various clientelistic linkage mechanisms. These mechanisms differ in transaction duration and frequency (short-term and one-shot vs. long-term and iterated, e.g., electoral vs. relational clientelism, see Nichter 2018), their purpose from the perspective of political parties (whether for electoral mobilization or for building and maintaining party organizations, see Kopecký and Mair, 2012), the types of goods used in clientelist targeting (e.g., material handouts, access to social benefits, procurement contracts), and the nature of targeting inducements (positive and negative, see Mares and Young, 2018), among other characteristics. Clientelistic linkage mechanisms vary not only between political parties but also across different party systems. They coexist with other linkage mechanisms, creating a complex landscape of political mobilization across the region, where in some polities, clientelism plays a key role.

This paper presents DALP’s initial descriptive findings from two waves (2008-2009 and 2022-2024) in the region of post-communist Europe, focusing specifically on the relationship between parties’ organizational structures and the nuances of clientelistic targeting, which includes types of goods distributed, brokerage and monitoring mechanisms, target groups, and the effectiveness of targeting. The paper probes the connection between party organizations and clientelistic targeting, delivering insights on linkage mechanisms relevant for different types of party organizations, as well as the overall political landscape. It aims to identify specificities related to post-communist Europe, bridging past research on clientelism in the region with DALP’s data, thereby highlighting DALP's utility in studying the variety of party-voter linkages in this context.

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Author

• Jovan Bliznakovski, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje