Front cover image for Clients and constituents : political responsiveness in patronage democracies

Clients and constituents : political responsiveness in patronage democracies

Jennifer Bussell (Author)
"Existing work suggests that legislators in countries like India should spend little time engaging with individual citizens and, if they do, should focus their attention on co-partisans. Yet, there is anecdotal evidence that these politicians actually spend substantial time assisting individual citizens with access to basic state services. In this book, I show that helping individual voters is a key part of these representatives' activities and that, in contrast with existing expectations, they do not generally discriminate against their non-copartisans in providing assistance. Yet, this constituency service differs from that observed in Western democracies, as it arises from the partisan nature of distribution at the local level. Thus, Indian politicians are more accountable to citizens than we previously expected, but this accountability is linked to, and constrained by, the character of patronage-based politics"-- Provided by publisher
Print Book, English, 2019
Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2019
xvi, 369 pages ; 24 cm.
9780190945398, 9780190945404, 9780190945411, 9780190945428, 0190945397, 0190945400, 0190945419, 0190945427
1080546057
Introduction: representation, distribution, and constituency service
Political responsiveness in a patronage democracy
The provision of constituency service
Clients or constituents? A theory of assistance in patronage democracies
Access to services in a patronage democracy: the case of india
Partisan targeting and local distributive politics
Local blocking and appeals for assistance
Partisanship, the personal vote, and constituency service
Which politicians respond?
When is responsiveness partisan bias?
Constituency service in comparative perspective
Constrained accountability in patronage democracies