Political participations in political clientelism: The case of Cuautitlán 2018-2021

Abstract

The objective of this article is to describe political clientelism as a provider of conventional and unconventional participations in Cuautitlán State of Mexico during the period 2018-2021, from a qualitative approach. This municipality is characterized by being one of the leaders at the state level in terms of socioeconomic indicators and by partisan alternation in its government structure. Even so, it is a municipality with clientelist roots, which can be delimited as a hybridization between vertical and horizontal clientelism. For the analysis, this is based on the general theory of Weberian rationalization, who establishes that state institutions are becoming more specialized, although patrimonial structures typical of traditional associations can also be found. Political clientelism will be treated as an institution that has been rationalized and, at the same time, has maintained traditional roots within it. One way to observe this duality is with the participation of citizens through conventional (universal) as well as non-conventional (particular) means. For this purpose, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with citizens and officials from different political parties in the municipality; in this way, the proposed ideal types were contrasted and a typology of the relationship between clientelism and political participation in the context studied was developed.