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Cultivating Clients: Reputation, Responsiveness, and Ethnic Indifference in India's Slums

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  • Adam Michael Auerbach
  • Tariq Thachil

Abstract

Studies of clientelism overwhelmingly focus on how brokers target voters with top‐down benefits during elections. Yet brokers also receive requests from voters for assistance between elections, initiating the processes through which they cultivate clients. Why are brokers responsive to the requests of some voters and not others? We provide the first study of broker preferences when evaluating client appeals. Theories emphasizing brokers as vote monitors anticipate they will prefer co‐partisans and coethnics, whose reciprocity they can best verify. Theories emphasizing brokers as vote mobilizers anticipate they will prefer residents who will maximize their reputations for efficacy. We test these expectations through a conjoint experiment with 629 Indian slum leaders, ethnographic fieldwork, and a survey of 2,199 slum residents. We find evidence of reputational considerations shaping broker responsiveness. We find mixed support for monitoring concerns, highlighted by an absence of the strong ethnic favoritism assumed to dominate distributive politics in many developing countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Michael Auerbach & Tariq Thachil, 2020. "Cultivating Clients: Reputation, Responsiveness, and Ethnic Indifference in India's Slums," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(3), pages 471-487, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:64:y:2020:i:3:p:471-487
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12468
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Posner,Daniel N., 2005. "Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521541794, September.
    2. Lucas M. Novaes, 2018. "Disloyal Brokers and Weak Parties," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(1), pages 84-98, January.
    3. Posner,Daniel N., 2005. "Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521833981, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Raúl Duarte & Frederico Finan & Horacio Larreguy & Laura Schechter, 2019. "Brokering Votes With Information Spread Via Social Networks," NBER Working Papers 26241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Baldwin, Kate & Karlan, Dean & Udry, Christopher & Appiah, Ernest, 2023. "How political insiders lose out when international aid underperforms: Evidence from a participatory development experiment in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    3. Auerbach, Adam Michael & Thachil, Tariq, 2021. "How does Covid-19 affect urban slums? Evidence from settlement leaders in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).

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