scholarly journals Elite clientelism in Nigeria: The role of parties in weakening legislator-voter ties

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110302
Author(s):  
Leila Demarest

Political parties in Africa and other developing countries are known to forge clientelist rather than programmatic ties to voters. Yet this does not mean that parties reward strong legislator-voter ties. In this paper, I argue for the case of Nigeria that lawmakers seeking to advance their political careers are incentivized to direct public resources to party members and senior party elites rather than serve their constituents in general. I draw on interviews with 8th National Assembly (2015–2019) lawmakers as well as quantitative data on MP re-election, targeted bills and motions, and the use of constituency development funds to demonstrate the predominance of narrow clientelism in Nigeria. I also place the Nigerian case in comparative perspective to argue that the extent to which legislators devote attention to constituents is likely to exist on a continuum, with the causes and consequences of this variation requiring further attention from scholars.

Asian Survey ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 969-990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Kushner

How do political parties in developing countries, without access to accurate polling data, understand their voters? I examine the role that various sources of information play in political party platforms, and how the method of data collection affects parties’ policy and political efforts, primarily by using interview data from 2012 and 2013 with workers from four leading parties in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. I theorize the role of party workers as a key conduit for information between party leaders and the voters they represent.


2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher L. Anderson

Even though political parties maintain control of presidential nominations, little is known about what leads individual party members to participate in the process. Party elites have a collective incentive to nominate an electorally viable and ideologically unifying candidate, and they also have personal, strategic incentives that may foster or prevent their participation in the nominating process. Using endorsement data on a subset of party elites—members of the U.S. House of Representatives—this article finds that individual members of the extended party are strategic with their decision to participate in or abstain from the nomination process.


Author(s):  
Robert E. Mutch

Money in some form has always been needed to finance politics, even in the eighteenth century, before there were any political parties or election campaigns in the modern sense. The ways of raising and spending that money have changed many times since then, as have opinions about how it should be raised and spent. As long as that money was raised and spent inside the parties, and as long as it came from politicians themselves and from rank-and-file party members, regulation of campaign funds was minimal. That began to change toward the end of the nineteenth century, when political money began to come from rich donors outside the parties. Government regulation began when opinions about how campaign funds should be raised and spent became legitimate questions of public policy. This chapter reviews how campaign finance practices and the laws regulating them have changed over the course of American history.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergiu Gherghina ◽  
Clara Volintiru

The study of clientelism has pointed in the direction of a pyramid structure in which selective benefits are distributed with the help of brokers to individuals or groups in exchange for political support. This approach treats the resources aimed to enhance electoral mobilization as endogenous and fails to explain what happens when brokers have very low capacity. To address these problems this article proposes a bi-dimensional model of clientelism that emphasizes the role of exogenous resources. Accordingly, the vertical linkage between political parties and the electorate is complemented by a horizontal nexus between parties and private contributors. In an environment characterized by low internal resources, parties involve external actors to get the necessary money. To illustrate how this mechanism works we focus on Romania between 2008 and 2012, a crucial case for the study of clientelism.


2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-300
Author(s):  
Domenico Fruncillo

This paper comments on Professor Papanikos’ recent publication in this journal entitled, “The Use of Primaries by Political Parties: The Case of PASOK”. I make a number of observations regarding the argument of the author that primary elections are an application of democracy in the internal procedures of a political party. The question raised is whether primaries enhance democracy, or restrict it, by diminishing the role of party members only in selecting party representatives and have no role in the discussion of policies. Another important issue is the age structure of the participants in the primary elections. Did it matter? More analysis and evidence is needed on this issue to find out whether the relatively younger candidate mobilized more young members and friends to participate in the primary elections of PASOK. Keywords: primaries, elections, voting, political parties, PASOK, Greece


1983 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-435
Author(s):  
Martin Rudner

Malaysia's planning organization has become the institutional centrepiece of that country's development effort. Indeed, Malaysia ranks as one of the non-Communist developing countries where planning is most highly institutionalized. Malaysian planning evolved as an effective policy mechanism for directing the authoritative allocation of public resources towards declared developmental objectives. Despite this attachment to national planning, Malaysia remains a staunchly market-oriented, open, and predominantly private enterprise economy. Nevertheless, as the role of planning expanded, private sector activity became increasingly subject to policy interventions predicated upon the politically-determined goals of development planning.


1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Obler

Leaders and activists in most Western political parties, appreciating Schattschneider's adage1 that parties are controlled by those who control nominations to public offices, jealously guard their right to choose parliamentary candidates. They realize that candidates play a crucial role in shaping voters’ images of the parties as well as in formulating the party policies. Not surprisingly, candidates are usually recruited through rather oligarchical procedures. Extra-parliamentary party leaders normally pick the nominees in closed private meetings and then submit their choices to rank-and-file party members and/or delegates who nearly always grant their approval. Such procedures reduce the role of party members to one of docile acquiescence, and completely exclude party voters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 695
Author(s):  
Bayu Dwi Anggono

Penerapan Pancasila sebagai cita hukum bangsa Indonesia dan sekaligus sumber segala sumber hukum negara masih menghadapi sejumlah permasalahan salah satunya kemauan politik pembentuk peraturan perundang-undangan yang merupakan anggota Partai politik. Akibat pembentukan yang tidak bersumber pada Pancasila maka peraturan perundang-undangan yang diberlakukan di pusat maupun daerah menimbulkan permasalahan. Permasalahan yang dibahas dalam tulisan ini mengenai cara meningkatkan peran partai politik untuk mewujudkan peraturan perundang-undangan yang berdasarkan kepada nilai-nilai Pancasila. Metode pendekatan yang dipergunakan dalam tulisan ini adalah dengan pendekatan konseptual, dengan mendasarkan pada kedudukan Pancasila sebagai cita hukum, serta fungsi partai politik dalam negara demokratis. Temuan yang didapat yaitu fungsi legislasi sering dikesampingkan dibanding fungsi pengawasan dan anggaran, politik mayoritas menjadi dasar pemikiran para pembuat peraturan perundang-undangan dan bukan ukuran ideologi atau konstitusional, pragmatisme perekrutan calon anggota parlemen, serta adanya perilaku korupsi legislasi. Untuk meningkatkan peran partai politik mewujudkan peraturan perundang-undangan yang berdasarkan pada Pancasila dapat dilakukan dengan cara mewajibkan Parpol di semua tingkatan menyusun desain politik legislasi dalam masa kampanye Pemilu, kepengurusan Parpol dibagi ke dalam 3 (tiga) komponen salah satunya calon anggota lembaga perwakilan, ketegasan Parpol untuk menarik atau mengganti anggotanya di lembaga perwakilan yang lalai dalam menjalankan politik legislasi Pancasila, memasukkan kurikulum pendidikan Pancasila dalam pengkaderan anggota Parpol secara berjenjang dan berkelanjutan, dan negara segera membuat panduan atau pedoman sebagai dokumen resmi dalam menafsirkan dan memahami sila-sila Pancasila.The application of Pancasila as the legal idealsm of the Indonesia and as the source of all legal sources still dealing with some problems, one of which were the political will of laws and regulations maker which are the members of political parties. As a result of the formation that does not originate from Pancasila, the laws and regulations that are enforced at the central and regional levels cause problems. The issues discussed in this paper are about how to increase the role of political parties to refine laws and regulations based on Pancasila values. The method of approach used in this paper is a conceptual approach, based on the standing of the Pancasila as a legal idealism, as well as the function of political parties in a democratic country. The findings obtained are that the legislative function is often ruled out compared to the controlling and budgeting functions, political majorities become the rationale for legislators and not ideological or constitutional measures, pragmatism for recruiting parliament candidates, and the existence of corrupt behaviour in the legislation. To increase the role of political parties in refining laws and regulations based on Pancasila can be done by requiring the political parties at all levels to construct political legislation design in the election campaign period, management of political parties are divided into three (3) components one of which members of the legislature candidate, the firmness of political parties to withdraw or change the members in the legislature that fail to implement the Pancasila political legislation, including the Pancasila education curriculum in the cadre of political party members gradually and continuously, and the state immediately made guidelines as official documents in interpreting and understanding the Pancasila principles.


1983 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Rudner

Malaysia's planning organization has become the institutional centrepiece of that country's development effort. Indeed, Malaysia ranks as one of the non-Communist developing countries where planning is most highly institutionalized. Malaysian planning evolved as an effective policy mechanism for directing the authoritative allocation of public resources towards declared developmental objectives. Despite this attachment to national planning, Malaysia remains a staunchly market-oriented, open, and predominantly private enterprise economy. Nevertheless, as the role of planning expanded, private sector activity became increasingly subject to policy interventions predicated upon the politically-determined goals of development planning.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Dwi Sugiarto ◽  
Yuwanto Yuwanto

The 2019 Legislative Election featured many celebrities involved in the contestation, where a total of 11 of the 16 political parties had legislative candidates from the celebrity circles. Democratic National Party (NasDem) became the party that nominated most celebrities as legislative candidates. Armed with the popularity that has made celebrities attract political parties to nominate them to increase the vote acquisition and even the number of seats. The process of recruiting legislative candidates from celebrities by the NasDem Party is the focus of this research on how the approach and process are carried out. The study uses qualitative analysis with a descriptive approach to describe the process that occurs through interviews and review of documents and news as a source of data. The results obtained indicate that the NasDem Party’s legislative candidate was recruited using an approach that involved the NasDem Party elite and fellow celebrities as intermediaries. Factors driving celebrities to become the NasDem Party’s legislative candidates are moral support (debriefing, fostering, and active interaction with party elites) and material (Campaign Props, campaign costs, financial reimbursement), Indonesian Restoration slogans, and anti-dowry politics, as well as egalitarian politics attitudes. Celebrity-related research in politics has focused a lot on the role of transformation from entertainment to politics. In contrast, this research has focused on recruiting celebrities as legislative candidates by the NasDem Party. 


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