Religious Clientelism A theory

Abstract

In today’s political science scholarship, the concept of clientelism often evokes an image of voters selling their votes to the highest bidder, where a substantial focus lies on the material nature of the exchange between patron and client. What remains scant is a theory of clientelism where non-material incentives are included as part and parcel of the client’s calculus in the exchange relationship between patron and client. In this paper, I present a theory of clientelism where non-material incentives, such as religious goods of salvation, form the larger part of the vote choice of the client-voter. I build this theory on empirical evi-dence collected through extensive fieldwork, from the perspective of the client. The inclusion of non-material incentives is activated through the inclusion of social identity of the actors (religion). I argue that religion, as a social identity, operates at two separate levels simultaneously – i.e., both at the collective and the individual level. At the collective level, religion provides a social identity to clients through which they relate to others in their spiritual community as well as the overall social life in a village. As such the indi-vidual belongs to a community of like-minded people bound by the spiritual connection to a common leader and congregation – where the connection to the individual leader remains centre stage. At the individual level, religion serves as an individual belief system. By this, I mean a private sphere through which individuals situate themselves in relation to the collective and make sense of the world. It also relates to the supernatural, addressing questions pertaining to life after death, the meanings associated with different aspects of life and the like. It is this function of religion, as both social identity and belief system in one that enables non-material goods to be part of the reciprocal exchange relationship between individuals and their patron, including, but not limited to, the exchange of their vote. At the collective level, it delivers the vote, at the individual level, it allows for the personal, private goods of salvation, spiritual guidance, and blessings.