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Brokers Beyond Clientelism: A New Perspective Through the Argentine Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Rodrigo Zarazaga
Rodrigo Zarazaga*
Affiliation:
Centro de Investigación y Acción Social, Buenos Aires. rzarazaga@jesuitas.org.ar
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Abstract

Party machines and brokers have been widely researched in political science since 1950, yet a full description of brokers' roles is still missing. This article contributes by describing in detail the many roles brokers perform for their parties and explaining why each broker performs all these roles. In particular, it shows that besides fulfilling clientelistic strategies, brokers perform important executive governability functions once their party is in power. Brokers multitask because they have the neighborhood knowledge required to successfully perform political activities at the local level. Moreover, performing nonclientelistic roles prepares brokers to perform clientelistic strategies. The article also presents a novel theoretical account for why voters abide by the clientelistic deal. Based on interviews with 120 brokers, it analyzes the complete set of brokers' strategies, and detailed narrative accounts show the clientelistic machine at work.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , Fall 2014 , pp. 23 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2014

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