The dominant party system: clientelism, pluralism and limited contestability

The thesis extends the conceptual boundaries of authoritarianism to include dominant party systems that meet the procedural definition of democracy but exhibit low degrees of government contestability due to the extensive application of clientelism. The first part re-introduces Robert Dahl’s notion of ‘inclusive hegemony’ which encapsulates the stance of political pluralism on dominant party systems. The thesis develops two arguments in support of a Dahlian approach to dominant party systems. The formative argument discusses the associations between power, incentives, collective action and party organisation to indicate that, in the absence of physical coercion and intimidation, inclusive hegemony is a paradoxical outcome that can only be sustained by the application of a political strategy producing an effect on political behaviour similar to that of coercion. The discussion illustrates the practice of clientelism as the most pertinent explanatory variable. The second part develops a series of analytical arguments which update Dahl’s approach in order to meet the criterion set up by the contemporary literature for distinguishing between authoritarian and democratic dominant party systems, according to which the strategies and tactics associated with the establishment of a dominant party system determine the character of the regime. The set of argument addresses two questions: a) how clientelism can be causally associated with the rise and consolidation of an inclusive hegemony and b) whether clientelism is compatible with typical properties of democracy. The causal model presented indicates how clientelism affects political behaviour and overall competition. By incorporating agential and structural parameters it explains the consolidation of inclusive hegemonies. The same model provides the grounds for the formulation of two arguments on the democratic credentials of clientelism which allows the analysis to pass judgment on the character of inclusive hegemonies

From war reparations to ‘profligate Greeks’: why political rhetoric is obscuring the real issues in Greece

The present standoff between Greece and its creditors has centred around a package of reforms that must be approved before further financial assistance can be granted to the country. Aris Trantidis writes that while the focus has been on economics, the real cause of the deadlock stems from the realm of politics: both from the broad ideological commitments both sides have made and from the demands of domestic party politics. He argues that against this backdrop political rhetoric, such as the focus on Greece ‘spending beyond its means’, or the demand from the Greek government that Germany should pay around €279 billion in war reparations, has obscured the key macroeconomic issues that exist in Greece

Greece alone cannot convince Europe to pursue a different economic course

The new Greek government, led by Alexis Tsipras’ Syriza, has announced its intention to renegotiate the repayment of the country’s debt. Aris Trantidis writes that while some limited concessions may be possible, Syriza’s broader aims of encouraging Europe to adopt a different economic strategy will be far harder to achieve in the absence of any clear allies in other EU countries

Is Age a Case for Electoral Quotas? A Benchmark for Affirmative Action in Politics

Is age a suitable case for electoral quotas on the same grounds invoked for women in politics? If affirmative action should not be arbitrarily applied to a few social groups, we must specify the conditions that could serve as a benchmark which a group must pass in order to qualify for its application. Drawing from the literature on women in politics, this article sets up empirical indicators to examine the political under-representation of younger and older age groups: whether the age-related pattern of political under-representation is linked to stereotypes and bias that negatively affect its engagement in politics, and whether these age groups face special issues that give them a unique perspective, which only those who directly experience them can fully advocate in decision-making fora. Affirmative action raises questions about the boundaries of identity, the limits of politics as a vehicle for social change and the meaning of electoral choice

Clientelism and economic policy: hybrid characteristics of collective action in Greece

How does clientelism affect policy-making? Can patrons in government discard groups of clients in order to pursue reforms in conditions of crisis? The article argues that clientelism goes beyond the exchange of votes and may permeate organizations with the capacity for collective action such as labour unions. This merger gives rise to a clientelist-collective system that changes both patron–client relations and the context of collective action with important implications for the design of economic policy. As evidence from Greece shows, patrons in government are better off avoiding reforms that deprive their client groups of collective and personal benefits (clientelist bias in policy-making). Labour unions infiltrated by party clients have weak autonomy from the patron party but, operating inside the party network, they can effectively safeguard their access to club goods. Interdependent preferences and organizational linkages between the patron party and its client organizations favour collaboration and co-optation over open confrontation in policy-making processes

Clientelism and the classification of dominant party systems

The view of clientelism as an abuse of state power casts doubt on the democratic credentials of highly clientelistic political systems. The question is particularly relevant for the classification of dominant party systems that heavily rely on clientelism to elicit popular support and retain a relatively open structure of participation. Knowing that clientelism is a widespread practice in modern democracies too, how do we evaluate the impact of clientelism on political competitiveness in order to sort out the position of these regimes along the lines of democracy and authoritarianism? This task requires identifying the conditions under which clientelism becomes an essentially authoritarian practice and qualifies these regimes as such. The article puts forward two propositions about the circumstances under which clientelism infringes basic democratic standards under a thin and a thick definition of democracy. Clientelism under one-party monopoly engenders authoritarianism when it thwarts and punishes the contesting voice of citizens by effectively blocking exit from its incentives and sanctions

Fallacies of Democratic State-Building

This paper criticizes the epistemic foundations of democratic state-building, which are derived from a model of political transitions according to which liberal democratic institutions will transform a hitherto authoritarian and troubled country into a more prosperous and stable society and, therefore, foreign interventions to establish these institutions are realistic and worthy investments, provided they are properly planned based on knowledge of what has worked elsewhere. This expectation is based upon two epistemological premises. The first premise, linearity, is that social and institutional change exhibits identifiable input–output relations connecting socioeconomic conditions and outcomes. The second premise, ergodicity, is that these relations, inferred from past samples, provide reliable probabilistic projections about future outcomes, which can guide the focus of policy interventions. Drawing from the study of complex systems, the paper indicates why these two premises offer a flawed conception of political transitions and why radical and large-scale interventions, such as state-building, will tend to generate unintended consequences rather than the planned effect

Government externalities

Governments are expected to tackle externalities such as pollution, epidemics and environmental catastrophes, but whether and how governments themselves generate externalities is a question equally important for exploring socially beneficial policies and institutional reforms. The problem with defining government externalities is that governments, through regulation and distribution, inevitably allocate costs and benefits asymmetrically due to preference heterogeneity in society. This problem also concerns the rules and rights governing market transactions, blurring the boundaries between market failure and government failure. In this paper, I define government externalities as costs passed on us by government actions taken outside a decision-making system in which we participate as insiders. Views about what being an insider is differ. Some will be content with democratic citizenship in majoritarian decision-making processes. Others may subscribe to Buchanan and Tullock’s liberal and more demanding normative theory based on constitutional consent. In either case, I argue, there will be externalities generated by clientelism, namely informal deals between politicians and special interests for the distribution of benefits that occur outside, and in violation of, the formal norms of participation. These are complex externalities, infiltrating policymaking and distorting institutions governing the operation of markets too. They create government failure on the same grounds that some market externalities are considered market failure: (a) the costs fall on outsiders and (b) negatively affect the terms for the production and exchange of goods and services. Government externalities influence both governance and markets simultaneously and illustrate the limits of what institutional design can constrain or achieve

Macroeconomic policy as an epistemic problem

Macroeconomic theories picture the economy as a phenomenon tractable by their analysis and thus manageable by macroeconomic policies guided by this analysis. This approach has withstood recurrent policy failures, competing theories and several changes of policy paradigms, from Keynesianism to monetarism, because the development of economics as a discipline has been entangled with the demand from policymakers to receive clear macroeconomic policy prescriptions from the expert community. The idea that policymakers can steer the economy in a desired direction relies upon the development of theories with prescriptive and predictive claims, which, in turn, rely on a great deal of analytic reductionism. As a result, reductionist theories continue to offer misrepresentations of the macro phenomenon, particularly by overlooking how policy interventions generate diverse and intractable micro-adaptations that develop into undesired, unforeseen and unintended system-level consequences. This trend continues to cause trouble: reductionist macroeconomic theories foster overconfident interventionist policies that contribute to macroeconomic instability

Reforms and Collective Action in a Clientelist System: Greece during the Mitsotakis Administration (1990–93)

Economic reforms face a collective action problem: they trigger the reaction of groups that expect significant losses, while the government must forge a support coalition among those who anticipate gains. This problem may exhibit a distinct pattern in a clientelist system, when the affected groups are client groups attached to political party networks. The case of the Mitsotakis government in Greece (1990–93) illustrates that collective reaction to reforms that hurt client groups affects primarily the internal structure of the clientelist parties, their alliance with client groups and, thereby, their relative capacity for political mobilisation. This pattern makes certain types of economic reform, such as privatisation and structural reforms, particularly risky for governments in a clientelist system