This is an empirical contribution to the study of the implications of political engagement for the social and political lives of informal workers in the Global South, by exploring the world of the... Show moreThis is an empirical contribution to the study of the implications of political engagement for the social and political lives of informal workers in the Global South, by exploring the world of the taxi-moto drivers (zemidjan) in Benin. The ethnographic research methodology mobilized a variety of sources for comparing the associational and political dynamics of the zemidjan in several towns (Cotonou, Parakou, Natitingou, and Kandi).The central preoccupation of this research has been to explain the perception among the zemidjan that their working and living conditions have not improved, despite their strategic use of the political sphere by way of the leaders of their diverse organisations. The main results show that despite their efforts to access certain platforms, the influencing capacity of the leaders in public decision making bodies is limited. This does not preclude that collective initiatives of the zemidjan have brought significant improvements to the corporation over time.It was highlighted that beyond those convincing gains facilitated by zemidjan engagement in the political arena, their insatisfaction is rather linked to the non-realisation of profound aspirations for a professional reconversion in order to improve their social status due to the negative connotation which makes zemidjan a "profession by default". Show less
Studies of clientelism increasingly focus on the brokers, networks and party machines that make clientelism work in mass democracies. This article highlights the different forms clientelistic... Show moreStudies of clientelism increasingly focus on the brokers, networks and party machines that make clientelism work in mass democracies. This article highlights the different forms clientelistic politics can take by looking at small, rather than large, democracies in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Countries in both regions experience considerable clientelistic politics, but without the same dependence on brokers, networks and party machines. Based on extensive fieldwork in 15 different Caribbean and Pacific small states, resulting in over 200 interviews, we uncover how clientelism is practised in these hitherto neglected cases. We find that the size of these states contributes to the emergence of clientelistic relations based on (1) the ‘face-to-face’ connections and overlapping role relations between citizens and politicians, (2) politicians’ electoral dependence on a very small number of votes, and (3) enhanced opportunities for monitoring and controlling clientelistic exchanges. Smallness is furthermore found to limit, albeit not entirely dispense with, the need for brokers, networks and party machines, and to amplify the power of clients vis-à-vis their patrons, altering the nature and dynamics of clientelism in important ways. In a final section we discuss how clientelism contributes to other dominant trends in small state politics: personalism and executive domination. Show less
