Clientelism Without Party Machines: The Use of Claim-Making Groups as Organizational Substitutes

Abstract

While party machines have been extensively studied, far less attention has been given to the organizational substitutes that mayors rely on in non-machine contexts. In local settings where multiple citizens’ associations coexist, why do mayors partner repeatedly with some community groups, but not others, as substitutes for clientelistic mobilization? Drawing on five years of fieldwork in Chile—97 interviews, shadowing, and field notes—alongside descriptive statistics, I show that mayors shift key organizational costs onto territorially rooted groups whose primary activity is claim-making. These groups offer ready-to-use mobilization infrastructures, developed through claim-making routines, in exchange for targeted distribution that helps address members’ demands. Because their vertically integrated structures are embedded in neighborhood life, they are more likely to function as intermediaries than groups that lack these features. The article advances debates on voter mobilization amid party disaffection and weak vertical linkages between parties and citizens, and highlights the political implications of claim-making.