The term “clientelism” is often used, especially in anthropological studies, to refer to a dyadic transaction between traditional notables and their dependents bound by ties of reciprocity.
While “patronage politics” as used here certainly describes dyadic transactions between voters and politicians, the definition does not require voters and politicians to be connected by traditional status roles or traditional ties of social and economic
dependence.
In fact, as I will show later, voters and politicians can end up in a relationship of mutual obligation to each other without such pre-existing ties.