The Demand Side of Clientelism

政治裙带主义是一种垂直关系，客户放弃政治话语权，以换取赞助人个性化的物质利益。裙带主义在学术界和政策界引起了浓厚的兴趣，主要是因为它被认为对政治问责、公共产品的提供和不平等的持续存在产生了有害影响。最近关于裙带主义的政治学研究主要集中在其供应面(即政党或赞助人的选择)上，而对需求面(即客户的角度)基本上没有进行探索。然而，人种学研究强调了客户对于维持客户关系的相关性。该项目力求对突尼斯和南非的裙带关系的需求方进行系统调查，采用定量和定性相结合的方法。这些国家的地理位置各不相同，但却是典型的裙带主义和方案政治(即以政策为基础)的国家。我们的重点主要是了解总体上对裙带主义的需求，但我们也试图提供对不同形式的裙带主义的见解，例如“传统”裙带主义与选票收买。我们就某些微观因素(如对政治效能的看法和关于社会不平等合法性的价值观)以及背景因素(如社区的孤立程度)如何影响对裙带主义的需求提出假设。为了检验这些假设，我们将在突尼斯和南非进行个人水平调查。这些调查(每个国家抽样调查约2,500人)将收集有关个人社会经济特征、价值观和观念以及对裙带关系的需求的信息。重要的是，客户关系的需求将通过列表实验来衡量，这是一种用于在敏感问题上获得可信估计的技术，例如客户关系。我们对经验方法的选择非常注重获得因果推论。我们的微观层面的假设将使用“调查实验”(即嵌入在我们的调查中的随机处理)进行测试，信息处理改编自社会心理学文献。调查将在每个国家的不同地点进行，这些地点将被有目的地选择，以测试背景因素的作用。焦点小组讨论将产生关于客户关系的看法和形式的丰富的定性和可比较的数据，并以对调查实验结果背后的机制的洞察来补充调查结果。我们的国际团队由在裙带关系和行为经济学方面拥有专业知识的知名学者组成，并在突尼斯和南非进行实验性调查和定性工作方面拥有丰富经验。

Political clientelism is a vertical relation where a client gives up political voice in exchange for personalized material benefits from a patron. Clientelism has generated strong interest in the academic and policy world, mainly because of its supposed harmful implications for political accountability, provision of public goods, and the persistence of inequality. Recent political science work on clientelism has focused mainly on its supply side (i.e. the party or patron choices), leaving the demand side (i.e. the client's perspective) largely unexplored. Ethnographic research, however, highlights the relevance of the client for sustaining clientelistic relationships. This project seeks to undertake a systematic investigation of the demand side of clientelism in Tunisia and South Africa, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. These countries are geographically diverse but typical of countries that exhibit clientelistic as well as programmatic (i.e. policy-based) politics. Our focus is primarily on understanding demand for clientelism in general, but we also seek to provide insights on different forms of clientelism, such as "traditional" clientelism vs. vote buying. We develop hypotheses on how certain micro factors such as perceptions of political efficacy and values regarding the legitimacy of social inequalities, as well as contextual factors such as the degree of isolation of the community, affect demand for clientelism. In order to test these hypotheses, we will conduct individual level surveys in Tunisia and South Africa. These surveys (with a sample of around 2,500 individuals per country) will collect information on individual socioeconomic characteristics, values and perceptions, and demand for clientelism. Importantly, demand for clientelism will be measured using list experiments, a technique used to obtain trustworthy estimates on sensitive issues, such as clientelism. Our choice of empirical methods has a strong focus on obtaining causal inferences. Our micro level hypotheses will be tested using "survey experiments", (i.e. randomized treatments embedded in our surveys), with information treatments adapted from social psychology literature. The surveys will be conducted in different locations within each country, and these locations will be selected purposefully in order to test the role of contextual factors. Focus group discussions will generate rich qualitative and comparable data on perceptions and forms of clientelism and complement survey findings with insights into the mechanisms underlying the survey experiment results. Our international team is composed of renowned scholars with expertise in clientelism and behavioral economics, and ample experience in conducting experimental surveys and qualitative work in Tunisia and South Africa.