brokerage and clientelism

brokerage and clientelism, forms of behaviour in which public representatives explicitly or implicitly trade political favours for electoral support. Brokerage refers to the practice by which public figures offer their services in liaising with the authorities on behalf of those who believe that they do not themselves have effective access, as when a Dáil deputy seeks to obtain redress for a constituent in respect of some grievance. Clientelism refers to a more permanent set of relations between relatively powerful ‘patrons’ who extract concessions from the public authorities on behalf of relatively powerless ‘clients’; the latter reciprocate by offering personal support to their patrons, typically but not necessarily in the electoral arena.

Elements of brokerage and clientelism are to be seen in varying degrees in all societies. Analysts agree that the work of Irish politicians has been characterized to a marked extent by brokerage type activities. There is, however, no consensus that these activities can be described as clientelist, since the capacity of politicians to deliver real (as opposed to imaginary) favours has been greatly reduced by the development of meritocratic procedures within the public sector, and there is little evidence of the existence of sustained, semi institutionalized networks linking patrons with clients.

It may be true that the Irish electoral system, permitting or even encouraging intense intra party competition within multi‐seat constituencies, has placed Dáil deputies under pressure to give close attention to the needs of their constituents. But as Irish society has developed, and as the bureaucratic procedures of the modern state have replaced the personal linkages characteristic of more agrarian societies, the opportunities for brokerage and clientelism have in general diminished.

John Coakley