Peasants, Patrons, and Parties: The Tension between Clientelism and Democracy in Nepal

In democratic elections, candidates and parties promise to deliver public goods to segments of the electorate to win their support at the polls. In new democracies, especially in rural agrarian societies, existing networks of clientelist politics can alter this logic, so that candidates instead promise private goods to patrons in return for those rural patrons delivering the votes of their clients. This suggests that in such regimes, the distribution of public goods spending by the government should vary inversely with the strength of clientelist networks. Specifically, we propose that the strength of patron–client ties varies according to whether peasants farm as smallholders, sharecroppers, fixed rent tenants, or landless laborers. Accordingly, the strength of rural patrons should vary across districts with the distribution of households among various land tenure categories. Our theory then suggests that where land tenure patterns render rural patrons weaker, elected governments should invest more resources in public goods to win the votes of peasants. Where land tenure patterns give patrons more control over peasant farmers, government spending on public goods should be lower because candidates and parties have to devote more resources to private benefits to the patrons. We test this proposition with district-level data from Nepal on the patterns of land tenure and on the provision of public goods.

在民主选举中，候选人和政党为赢得选民支持，会承诺向特定选民群体提供公共品。在新兴民主政体，尤其是农村农业社会中，现有的庇护政治（clientelist politics）网络会改变这一选举逻辑：候选人转而向庇护人（patrons）承诺提供私人物品，以换取这些农村庇护人动员其依附者（clients）投出选票。这意味着，在这类政体中，政府的公共品支出分布应与庇护政治网络的强度呈负相关关系。具体而言，我们提出，庇护-依附关系（patron–client ties）的强度取决于农民是以小农户、分成佃农、固定租金佃户还是无地劳工的身份从事农业生产。因此，农村庇护人的影响力会随各辖区内不同土地保有制（land tenure）类型下的家庭分布而有所差异。据此我们的理论可推导出：当土地保有制模式削弱农村庇护人的影响力时，当选政府应投入更多资源用于公共品建设，以争取农民的选票；而当土地保有制模式赋予庇护人对农户更强的控制权时，政府的公共品支出则会更低——因为候选人和政党需要向庇护人投入更多资源以换取私人性利益回报。我们利用尼泊尔各辖区的土地保有制模式与公共品供给数据，对这一命题进行了实证检验。