Introduction: representation, distribution, and constituency service -- Political responsiveness in a patronage democracy -- The provision of constituency service -- Clients or constituents? A theory of assistance in patronage democracies -- Access to services in a patronage democracy: the case of india -- Partisan targeting and local distributive politics -- Local blocking and appeals for assistance -- Partisanship, the personal vote, and constituency service -- Which politicians respond? -- When is responsiveness partisan bias? -- Constituency service in comparative perspective -- Constrained accountability in patronage democracies.
Summary:
"Existing work suggests that legislators in countries like India should spend little time engaging with individual citizens and, if they do, should focus their attention on co-partisans. Yet, there is anecdotal evidence that these politicians actually spend substantial time assisting individual citizens with access to basic state services. In this book, I show that helping individual voters is a key part of these representatives' activities and that, in contrast with existing expectations, they do not generally discriminate against their non-copartisans in providing assistance. Yet, this constituency service differs from that observed in Western democracies, as it arises from the partisan nature of distribution at the local level. Thus, Indian politicians are more accountable to citizens than we previously expected, but this accountability is linked to, and constrained by, the character of patronage-based politics"-- Provided by publisher.
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