Electoral clientelism is a transaction. The citizen promises to support the politician in the upcoming elections and the politician offers in return something that the citizen desires, but is not entitled to. What the citizen does is immoral, but what the politician does is also illegal, because he bypasses rules that do not “serve” the citizen he wants to favor at the expense of others. Thus, the distribution of public resources is not based on the principles of justice, equality, meritocracy, or with the aim of economic efficiency and the public interest, but is directed to where it will increase the political power of an individual or a party.
When clientelism is not an isolated phenomenon, but is so widespread that it creates its own informal rules which replace the formal and impersonal ones, then the rule of law becomes a vulgar, clientelist state. In the clientelist state, access to public resources, state positions and privileges is not regulated by legal rules, but by networks of personal relationships of dependence between politicians or state officials and citizens or pressure groups. The latter are, in other words, clients of the former.
In a state structured on a clientelist basis, dispensing favors – known as rousfeti in Greece – constitutes its basic operating mechanism. The relationship is organic, as the quid pro quo constitutes the daily practice through which the clientelist system is reproduced. It establishes ties of dependence that replace institutional procedures and violate legality.
In public debate in Greece, clientelism is often treated in moral terms or as a bad habit of our political system, a remnant of a pre-modern society that has not yet fully become familiar with the functioning of the institutions of a modern state governed by the rule of law. This interpretation is inadequate. First, the fight against clientelism cannot be limited to moral appeals; it requires institutional guarantees that reinforce the impersonal functioning of the state and limit personal discretion where clientelism arises.
Its historical root is indeed found in the formation of the Greek state in the 19th century, in a society where institutions were weak and the state administration had limited power. In this context, political mediation was the main mechanism for accessing resources, protection and opportunities. Clientelism was not simply a product of corruption – it was a way of organizing society and politics. A citizen did not resort to impersonal rules, but to persons (patrons) who could help him in two different cases: (a) when the institutional framework was corrupt and created barriers to entry or (b) when the institutional framework was open and competitive, but the citizen did not have the necessary qualifications or conditions in relation to others.
Since the founding of the Greek state, the “modernizing” elites have played a leading role in the construction of the clientelist state and the legitimization of its methods through its widespread use for their own benefit. I put the word modernizers in quotation marks to include the real modernizers, but also those – many more – who declare themselves modernizers, but either are not or do not manage to become so. Almost all of them treat this system of favors as a useful tool. One will often hear from “modernizers” the argument that clientelistic practices are necessary for their election – which is a prerequisite for the implementation of their “modernizing” program. But this trite and weak argument ultimately reinforces the undermining of the institutions that the “modernizers” supposedly support. Any attempt at modernization undertaken within a clientelistic framework is doomed to failure, as the entire endeavor is flawed.
This system of favors survived because while the institutions in Greece were nominally modernized, they were not internalized by the political system and society. But the spoils system does not only erode the effectiveness of the state, it erodes the legitimacy of any system of governance – including, of course, of liberal democracy. When citizens believe that access to any rights depends on personal acquaintances, trust in institutions collapses. And without trust, even the best official institutions will fail.
In periods when the state proclaims its modernization, tolerance of such practices takes on particular importance, as any deviation cannot be attributed to ignorance or weakness; it constitutes a conscious choice or, at best, a lack of political will. And here the crucial question arises: Can a government claim the title of modernizer when it tolerates or downplays such practices? Modernization is not a matter of rhetoric or individual reforms. It is, first and foremost, a matter of consistency.
Aristides Hatzis is professor of philosophy of law and theory of institutions, and director of the Laboratory of Political & Institutional Theory and the History of Ideas at the University of Athens.