Changes in Clientelism and Urban Government: A Comparative Case Study of Naples and Marseilles

Abstract

This article discusses changes to political clientelism and forms of urban government in Naples and in Marseilles in the period from the 1960s to the 2000s. From a socio-historical, comparative perspective I show that, even in two Southern European cities, the expansion of political clientelism does not depend principally on cultural factors, but rather on politico-institutional processes. The generalization of clientelistic relationships and the increase in policies for redistributing resources on the basis of clientelistic criteria go hand in hand with two historical trends that were evident in the 1960s and 1970s. Those decades were a period both of demographic development and of welfare state expansion at both central and local levels, the latter leading to the distribution of public resources to growing masses of individuals and social groups. In this phase, clientelistic redistribution policies promoted the integration and the upward social mobility of sections of the middle classes and some strata of the working classes in the local and national political system. From the late 1970s and early 1980s onwards, however, these policies were less and less able to promote this upward mobility and social integration. The article ends with a favourable account of some of the new urban management policies conducted by new political leaderships. Copyright (c) 2007 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2007 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

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“…Les ÉP créent des iné-galités, mais ils peuvent également servir de mécanisme d'inclusion sociale (Mattina, 2007), comme dans la tentative, couronnée de succès, d'une communauté brésilienne pour obtenir des services urbains grâce à la pratique de son commanditaire de vendre les votes de la communauté aux candidats à l'élection publique, à condition toutefois que le règlement de leur dû soit effectué avant le jour du scrutin. Certes, les activités du commanditaire n'étaient pas démocratiques, mais elles ont fait en sorte que les votes de la communauté ne soient pas dévolus en pure perte à des candidats généreux en promesses qu'ils oublieraient après l'élection, une fois confortablement installés dans un bureau éloigné.…”

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