With its deep economic crisis and dramatic political developments Greece has puzzled Europe and the world. What explains its long-standing problems and its incapacity to reform its economy? Using an analytic narrative and a comparative approach, the book studies the pattern of economic reforms in Greece between 1985 and 2015. It finds that clientelism - the allocation of selective benefits by political actors (patrons) to their supporters (clients) - created a strong policy bias that prevented the country from implementing deep-cutting reforms. The book shows that the clientelist system differs from the general image of interest-group politics and that the typical view of clientelism, as individual exchange between patrons and clients, has not fully captured the wide range and implications of this phenomenon. From this, the author develops a theory on clientelism and policy-making, addressing key questions on the politics of economic reform, government autonomy and party politics. The book is an essential addition to the literatures on clientelism, public choice theory, and comparative political economy. It will be of key interest to scholars and students of European Union politics, economic policy and party politics.

Using network analysis and quantitative and qualitative data, this book explains why candidates use clientelistic strategies to mobilize poor voters.

Offers a groundbreaking analysis of the distinctive substantive, theoretical and methodological contributions of subnational research in the field of comparative politics.

Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism studies distributive politics: how parties and governments use material resources to win elections. The authors develop a theory that explains why loyal supporters, rather than swing voters, tend to benefit from pork-barrel politics; why poverty encourages clientelism and vote buying; and why redistribution and voter participation do not justify non-programmatic distribution.

Democracy has provided opportunities for political representation and accountability, but it has also created incentives for creating and maintaining clientelistic networks. Why has clientelism consolidated with the introduction of democracy? Drawing on network analysis, Mobilizing Poor Voters answers this question by describing and explaining the emergence, maintenance, and disappearance of political, partisan, and social networks in Argentina. Combining qualitative and quantitative data gathered during twenty-four months of field research in eight municipalities in Argentina, Mobilizing Poor Voters shows that when party leaders distribute political promotions to party candidates based only on the number of voters they mobilize, party leaders incentivize the use of clientelistic strategies among candidates competing to mobilize voters in poor neighborhoods. The logic of perverse incentives examined in this book explains why candidates who use clientelism succeed in getting elected and re-elected over time, contributing to the consolidation of political machines at the local level.

Cover -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Rethinking Mobilization after the Arab Uprisings -- James M. Jasper and Frédéric Volpi -- 1. The Social Life of Contentious Ideas -- Piracy and Unruly, Translocal Appropriation in the Arab Uprisings and Beyond -- John Chalcraft -- 2. Routines and Ruptures in Anti-Israeli Protests in Jordan -- Jillian Schwedler -- 3. Shaping Contention as a Salafi Movement -- The Rise and Fall of Ansar al-Sharia in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia -- Frédéric Volpi -- 4. Contingency and Agency in a Turning Point Event -- March 18, 2011, in Daraa, Syria -- Wendy Pearlman -- 5 .It Takes Two (or More) to Tango -- The Local Coproduction of the Alexandrian Revolutionary Moment -- Youssef El Chazli -- 6. Violence, Social Actors, and Subjectivation in the Egyptian Revolution -- Farhad Khosrokhavar -- Conclusion -- Unruly Protest -- Charles Kurzman -- Index

Why have efforts to strengthen quality of governance so often failed in some of the world's most troubled states? Because they almost always ignore the human side of politics.