The patronage effect: a theoretical perspective of patronage and political selection

This article investigates the patronage phenomenon under a theoretical point of view. Legislative dissent could have damaging effects for both party and legislator, i.e., legislators depend on their party for reelection, which in turn partially depends on its reputation of cohesiveness. Nevetheless dissent allows the legislator to build a good reputation with local constituents for re-election sake. Then parties may sometimes bene- fit from tolerating some level of dissent. As a result the party has a double goal: it should require the maximum loyalty from legislators, not ignoring the legislators’ reputation with the voters. In this paper we consider patronage as an additional tool for the party to calibrate parlamentarians’ loyalty towards the party itself and towards constituencies.