The Price of Poverty: Inequality and the Strategic Use of Clientelism in Divided Democracies
This article investigates the political cost of poverty in democracies marked by deep social divisions. We develop a probabilistic voting model that incorporates clientelism as a strategic tool employed by elite political parties to secure electoral support from non-elite voters. Unlike models based...
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MDPI AG
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Economies |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/13/7/205 |
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| author | Andrés Cendales Hugo Guerrero-Sierra Jhon James Mora |
| author_facet | Andrés Cendales Hugo Guerrero-Sierra Jhon James Mora |
| author_sort | Andrés Cendales |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article investigates the political cost of poverty in democracies marked by deep social divisions. We develop a probabilistic voting model that incorporates clientelism as a strategic tool employed by elite political parties to secure electoral support from non-elite voters. Unlike models based on ideological proximity, our framework conceptualizes party competition as structured by the socioeconomic composition of their constituencies. We demonstrate that in contexts of high inequality and widespread poverty, elite parties face structural incentives to deploy clientelistic strategies rather than universalistic policy agendas. Our model predicts that clientelistic expenditures by elite parties increase proportionally with both inequality (GINI index) and poverty levels, rendering clientelism a rational and cost-effective mechanism of political control. Empirical evidence from a cross-national panel (2013–2019) confirms the theoretical predictions: an increase of the 1 percent in the GINI index increase a 1.3 percent in the clientelism, even after accounting for endogeneity and dynamic effects. These findings suggest that in divided democracies, poverty is not merely a condition to be alleviated, but a political resource that elites strategically exploit. Consequently, clientelism persists not as a cultural residue or institutional failure, but as a rational response to inequality-driven constraints within democratic competition. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-1fa9b77636a3442ca3e19084d1202fc4 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2227-7099 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
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| series | Economies |
| spelling | doaj-art-1fa9b77636a3442ca3e19084d1202fc42025-08-20T03:07:57ZengMDPI AGEconomies2227-70992025-07-0113720510.3390/economies13070205The Price of Poverty: Inequality and the Strategic Use of Clientelism in Divided DemocraciesAndrés Cendales0Hugo Guerrero-Sierra1Jhon James Mora2Departamento de Economía y Administración, Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales, Universidad de Caldas, Manizales 170001, ColombiaFacultad de Relaciones Internacionales, Estrategia y Seguridad, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Cajicá 250240, ColombiaDepartamento de Economía, Universidad Icesi, Cali 760031, ColombiaThis article investigates the political cost of poverty in democracies marked by deep social divisions. We develop a probabilistic voting model that incorporates clientelism as a strategic tool employed by elite political parties to secure electoral support from non-elite voters. Unlike models based on ideological proximity, our framework conceptualizes party competition as structured by the socioeconomic composition of their constituencies. We demonstrate that in contexts of high inequality and widespread poverty, elite parties face structural incentives to deploy clientelistic strategies rather than universalistic policy agendas. Our model predicts that clientelistic expenditures by elite parties increase proportionally with both inequality (GINI index) and poverty levels, rendering clientelism a rational and cost-effective mechanism of political control. Empirical evidence from a cross-national panel (2013–2019) confirms the theoretical predictions: an increase of the 1 percent in the GINI index increase a 1.3 percent in the clientelism, even after accounting for endogeneity and dynamic effects. These findings suggest that in divided democracies, poverty is not merely a condition to be alleviated, but a political resource that elites strategically exploit. Consequently, clientelism persists not as a cultural residue or institutional failure, but as a rational response to inequality-driven constraints within democratic competition.https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/13/7/205clientelisminequalitypovertydemocracygame theoryGINI |
| spellingShingle | Andrés Cendales Hugo Guerrero-Sierra Jhon James Mora The Price of Poverty: Inequality and the Strategic Use of Clientelism in Divided Democracies Economies clientelism inequality poverty democracy game theory GINI |
| title | The Price of Poverty: Inequality and the Strategic Use of Clientelism in Divided Democracies |
| title_full | The Price of Poverty: Inequality and the Strategic Use of Clientelism in Divided Democracies |
| title_fullStr | The Price of Poverty: Inequality and the Strategic Use of Clientelism in Divided Democracies |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Price of Poverty: Inequality and the Strategic Use of Clientelism in Divided Democracies |
| title_short | The Price of Poverty: Inequality and the Strategic Use of Clientelism in Divided Democracies |
| title_sort | price of poverty inequality and the strategic use of clientelism in divided democracies |
| topic | clientelism inequality poverty democracy game theory GINI |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/13/7/205 |
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