The Impact of Neopatrimonialism on Poverty in Contemporary Latin America

Abstract

Neopatrimonial exercise of power, combining ruler appropriation of resources with ruler discretionality in the use of state power, remains present to varying degrees in contemporary Latin America. Building on an extensive literature, this article provides a delimited conceptualization and measurement of neopatrimonialism for 18 countries in the region and examines the effects of neopatrimonial legacies on poverty with cross-national quantitative analysis. The study finds that higher levels of neopatrimonialism have a significant, substantive impact on poverty levels, controlling for other relevant demographic, socioeconomic, and political factors. It confirms the importance of a cumulative record of democracy for poverty alleviation, while the analysis indicates that neopatrimonialism limits the effects of the political left in power on poverty reduction.

Understanding the Global Patrimonial Wave

“…Political scientists have ascribed poor economic performance at various points in time in Africa, Eurasia, and Latin America to "neopatrimonialism" as a general description of the political economies of developing countries (Bratton and van de Walle 1994;Giraudy et al 2020;Laruelle 2012). Clapham's (1985, 48) definition of neopatrimonialism captures much of this work: "a form of organization in which relationships of a broadly patrimonial type pervade a political and administrative system which is formally constructed on rational-legal lines.…”