On differences in clientelism, patronage and freebies

 On differences in clientelism, patronage and freebies

Collective good: A large number of women wait to travel on BMTC buses, one year after the launch of free bus travel, in Bengaluru on June 5, 2024. MURALI KUMAR K

In most political commentaries, there is a tendency to conflate these different phenomena, since there are some overlaps between these practices. However, such conflation leads to overlooking harmful relationships

Sarthak Bagchi 

In recent times, a lot of scholarship has emerged espousing a call to end the politics of patronage and clientelism, advocating a move away from the politics of distribution of ‘freebies’ and calling an end to the use of populist schemes. The opposition to populist schemes has been mostly advanced as an academic argument by both economists and political scientists as such redistributive practices are seen as negatively affecting the political culture of a polity, enfeebling the democratic credentials of voters and making them dependent on the distribution of such largesse.

However, we often see that in such commentaries there is a tendency to conflate many different phenomena, since there are some overlaps between these practices. This article will highlight some subtle yet important differences between clientelism, patronage and ‘freebie’ distribution.

On clientelism

Clientelism or clientelistic politics is defined typically as a kind of reciprocal exchange in which politicians offer or promise to offer certain tangible material benefits to voters based on the offer or promise of their electoral support. This reciprocal relationship, between those who can deliver the resources and those who can give support in return for these resources has been the focal point of many studies in political science, anthropology and sociology. The delivery or selective distribution of resources in clientelism is contingent on the continuance or expectation of electoral support in terms of voting and/ or campaign participation. This reciprocity factor means that while politicians are offering gifts, money or other distributive largesse to their supporters, they too in return, must be able to monitor the voting action of their supporters and ensure that the supporter who is receiving this benefit is also returning the ‘favour’ by voting in support of the politician. Politicians ensure this reciprocity by monitoring the compliance of their supporters. Such monitoring is often done by dense networks of local level leaders, political brokers or karyakartas (party workers). An important distinction between a clientelistic exchange and any other type of distributive politics is the threat of retribution on non-compliance of reciprocity.

Clientelistic relationships or patron-client ties are typically asymmetrical in nature, in which politicians as patrons and voters as clients are linked through bonds of hierarchy, caste-identity or resources, or both. As the Indian polity has undergone democratic upsurges that have levelled some hierarchies of caste and made democratic politics more representative, the asymmetry of resources has only increased, as the wealth of India’s politicians has increased manifold as compared to their voters. So, it is quite possible that a wealthy politician will be in a position to punish a poor voter for not voting for him/her.

However, we don’t usually see such situations. This is in part due to the robustness of India’s secret ballot system which enables voters to believe that their voting action cannot be monitored efficiently by politicians. Voters therefore do not feel compelled or forced to vote for the politician from whom they receive a gift or money, and instead tend to take gifts across parties (even demand in some cases, as our fieldwork shows). Another factor affecting the ability of politicians to monitor the compliance of their supporters is a decline and lack of dense networks of party activists, that are typically found in political machine models populating the favellas of Rio De Janeiro or the slums of Buenos Aires.

In India, a high voting population and large constituency size restricts a politician’s ability to implement effective monitoring strategies to check the voting actions of their voters. These limitations are only multiplied with an increasing democratic culture imbibed by voters through repeated participation in elections, which has been captured as a deepening of democracy in the Indian context. To put it simply, clientelism in the Indian context, operates in an atypical manner, in which neither are voters suppressed clients who are compromising their autonomy of voting choice nor are patrons or politicians able to punish their voters for their non-compliance, even if there exists a hierarchy of resources between the two.

Patronage networks and freebies

Another manner in which this hierarchy of unequal resources is manifested is through patronage networks, which allow politicians to disburse resources of a permanent nature, such as jobs, loans or subsidies, to cultivate electoral loyalty among their supporters. While clientelistic exchanges takes place in the immediate proximity of elections and usually involves the exchange of tangible material benefits like money, liquor, food, gifts, clothes, phones etc., patronage ties are more long-standing relationships, in which the interaction between the distributing politician and the receiving voter is more recurring and reiterative. Patronage ties are usually not one-time exchanges between politicians and voters.

Freebies can be classified as universally distributed goods, which are not selectively distributed based on individual targeting (whether a person has voted for me or not, or will vote for me or not). The distributive criteria for freebies is more inclusive than in clientelism. Freebies are typically distributed to an entire population group or a class of voters like women, or female children above the age of 15 or men under the age of 30. The idea is to expand the scope of distribution on a large scale, by defining the contours of that scale very clearly, in order to justify the distribution. Theoretically, freebies do not carry any reciprocity condition or retribution, though there is always a hope of garnering electoral support. But, such hope can be embedded in each and every action taken by a politician and not just in shaping schemes of universal distribution. Moreover, the distribution of freebies does not necessarily need to be monitored by political agents to check reciprocal compliance by recipients. In fact, by the introduction of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and increased usage of banking channels for such distribution, the role of party brokers and karyakartas in mediating such welfare schemes is waning. Goods distributed through such universal distribution schemes or what political scientist James Manor has called, post-clientelistic schemes, can also bring important transformations at the household level as well as the societal level.

Some ‘freebies’ like free bus rides for women in Delhi and Karnataka or free bicycles for female school going children in Bihar and West Bengal can have positive effects on women’s participation in the work force and education by increasing school enrolment numbers as research has shown. DBT cash transfers to women’s bank accounts could also have positive effects on household spending patterns, although longitudinal data for such schemes is yet to come.

In such a scenario in which universal distributive schemes are not mediated or monitored (or at least less monitored) through political workers, and do not bring along any retributive clauses based on reciprocity in terms of electoral support, a criticism of freebies as undemocratic or violating the voters’ right to vote freely or promoting the suppression of voters is not a fair criticism.

More scrutiny on clientelisticnetworks

Politicians taking part in India’s highly competitive electoral market are distributing a lot of resources besides what are called ‘freebies’. Much of the spending in India’s exorbitant election campaigns are done via politician’s private resources which are often mobilised to pay for hiring campaign teams, loudspeakers, stages, vehicles and transportations for mega rallies, publicity and social media advertisements, political consultants and on distributing tangible material benefits like gifts, money or liquor — in short on actual clientelistic distribution, that is largely informal in nature and therefore undocumented.

Formal distribution in the form of freebies are much open for audits and therefore also open for restructuring and subsequent reforms at a later stage. However, conflating these practices often leads to overlooking informal clientelistic transfers which need more researched focus to capture their long-term impact on democracy and economy. Focusing the criticism on universal distributive schemes which are more inclusive in their distributive criteria and have shown positive affects in the long-term, instead of looking at actual clientelistic practices that are exclusionary in nature and undermine the quality of democracy, is therefore akin to missing the woods for the trees.

Sarthak Bagchi teaches courses on Indian politics and populism in Ahmedabad University and studies politics of clientelism and patronage in Bihar and Maharashtra.