The Main Characteristic and Mechanisms of Party Patronage in Serbia

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the crucial actors, resources and in-formal mechanisms of the party patronage within Serbia's political fir-ld. Taking into account that important parts of political and economic I-F.-- production are held beyond institutional channels, the goal is therefore to represent key informal power networks, channels and arrangements in Serbia between political and economic actors on the national level. A particular study had been conducted in Serbia over the past year, and consisted of 98 face-to-face semi-structured interviews with various ex¬perts, political and economic actors (i.e. people within high public ad¬ministrative positions, politically influential people, appointed members in public enterprises, executives/managers/owners in private compa¬nies). The theoretical framework was based on concepts developed as an alternative to the institutional approach, such as clientelism, informality and party patronage (Kitschelt, Wilkinson, 2007; Kitschelt, 2000; Helmke, Levitsky, 2004, Ledeneva, 1998, 2013). The results indicated that political parties are the key actors in shaping informal relations inside the politi¬cal arena. Political competition -and the necessity to provide funding for these organizations- represents a crucial factor for structuring informal, clientelistic relations and party patronage. Economic actors are, in most cases, adaptable to the rules and party requests which are -more or less-fixed. Furthermore, the results showed that the power networks consist of the party cadre and institutions, and are therefore representative of more exclusive and centralized systems. Although these systems are not monolithic, they do however have a parallel function with several inter¬est groups which consequently, leads to competitions and conflicts in- de (and among) politicalparties.