The practice of political rights and patron–client relations: a case study of a party in Armenia

Abstract

This article investigates how patron–client relations impact the practice of citizens’ political rights, including the rights of free and voluntary suffrage and party membership, in Armenia. It presents a case study of a pervasive clientelist network reaching from a powerful patron, the founder of a political party, to intermediaries in positions of authority, and large numbers of citizens. It illustrates how politicians use the informal power of directors/managers of private and state organizations and bureaucrats over citizens’ social security in order to maintain power. Referring to the debate on coexistence or contradictions between political citizenship and clientelism, the article highlights the importance of clarifying if the notion of political citizenship is used in normative or in descriptive terms. It argues that in descriptive terms patron–client relations strongly impact the practice of citizens’ political rights in Armenia. Furthermore, in normative terms, in this case study clientelist relations involved various illicit activities and violations of citizens’ political rights.