resources and positions within the military and bureaucracy. The distribu-
tion of rewards to supporters and clients on a personalized basis can be
crucial for the survival of a political party.
However, within parties different interests are often expressed through
factionalism which can have highly variable consequences for the durabil-
ity of political parties. Factionalism refers to informal aspect of party organ-
ization. It is an inevitable consequence of alliances and coalitions between
leaders and followers that have no ideological foundation but which are
designed to secure electoral support. Relationships between leaders of
factions and their followers are based on a range of social and economic
conditions, such as feudalistic tenure systems (when a landowner can guar-
antee electoral support from tenants because of their economic depend-
ency), cultural loyalties and other traditional obligations. Alternatively the
factional linkage may be tribal, linguistic or caste-based.
Factionalism within political parties is one manifestation of a more fun-
damental dimension of politics in the Third World (and elsewhere), namely
clientelism. Patron–client relations reflect interdependencies between
people with economic and political power and those who look to them for
security and the performance of duties and who, in return, offer personal
services, gifts, loyalty, deference and political support (Powell, 1970,
pp. 412–13; Roniger, 1994a). Though expressing interdependency, clien-
telism is essentially an unequal form of political exchange under conditions
where equality and citizenship are constitutional formalities at best, and
where the experience of lower classes is of material and political inequality
and discrimination, especially by state officials. It is a relationship between
the powerful and the weak (Gunes-Ayata, 1994).
Clientelism represents a rational form of behaviour for people under con-
ditions of inequality and when parties need the support of regional, ethnic
and personal factions (Clapham, 1982). Eisenstadt and Roniger identify
nine ‘core analytical characteristics’ of the social interactions and
exchanges involved in patron–client relations:
●they are particularistic and diffuse;
●resources are exchanged, both economic and political (support, votes,
protection, solidarity);
●resources are exchanged as a ‘package’, not separately;
●the relationship is strongly unconditional and long-term;
●there is a varying amount of solidarity in the relationship;
●it is based on informal and not necessarily legal understandings;
●patron–client relations are entered into voluntarily;
Political Parties and Party Systems 153