Weapons of clients: why do voters support bad patrons? Ethnographic evidence from rural Brazil
Weapons of clients: why do voters support bad patrons? Ethnographic evidence from rural Brazil
Current approaches to voting behavior in clientelist contexts either predict that clients leave their preferences aside for fear of having their benefits cut off or voluntarily support politicians they perceive to be reliable patrons. These two approaches cannot account for clients’ vote choices in the Sertão of Bahia, Brazil, where voters were free to choose among competing candidates but supported patrons they knew were unreliable. This article argues that clients voluntarily voted for bad patrons as a strategy to gain symbolic power in their negotiations with politicians. By explaining clients’ paradoxical choices in the Sertão, this article reveals how clientelism can persist without monitoring mechanisms or positive attitudes toward patrons. In addition, this study shows the importance of incorporating voters’ perspectives and their everyday survival strategies to better account for clients’ political behavior.
22-46
Borges Martins da Silva, Mariana
ea921c95-b54f-4a2f-928c-3d5b19ad07c2
February 2023
Borges Martins da Silva, Mariana
ea921c95-b54f-4a2f-928c-3d5b19ad07c2
Borges Martins da Silva, Mariana
(2023)
Weapons of clients: why do voters support bad patrons? Ethnographic evidence from rural Brazil.
Latin American Politics and Society, 65 (1), .
(doi:10.1017/lap.2022.49).
Abstract
Current approaches to voting behavior in clientelist contexts either predict that clients leave their preferences aside for fear of having their benefits cut off or voluntarily support politicians they perceive to be reliable patrons. These two approaches cannot account for clients’ vote choices in the Sertão of Bahia, Brazil, where voters were free to choose among competing candidates but supported patrons they knew were unreliable. This article argues that clients voluntarily voted for bad patrons as a strategy to gain symbolic power in their negotiations with politicians. By explaining clients’ paradoxical choices in the Sertão, this article reveals how clientelism can persist without monitoring mechanisms or positive attitudes toward patrons. In addition, this study shows the importance of incorporating voters’ perspectives and their everyday survival strategies to better account for clients’ political behavior.
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Accepted/In Press date: 22 December 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 22 December 2022
Published date: February 2023
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Local EPrints ID: 489847
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/489847
ISSN: 1531-426X
PURE UUID: 7057a575-fb8b-4857-9545-61f1aaf73524
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Date deposited: 03 May 2024 16:38
Last modified: 11 May 2024 02:13
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Author:
Mariana Borges Martins da Silva
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