formal democratic institutions have not gained sufficient strength to rein in undemocratic or corrupt informal practices. clientelism, nepotism, and rent seeking vitiate the rule of law and the quality of governance and politics. The distribution of patronage to build and maintain bases of support overruns fiscal responsibility. loyalty to leaders trumps fidelity to rules and institutions. And cynical and ambitious politicians mobilize identity—ethnicity, clan, religion, region, and, where useful, xenophobic nationalism—as a substitute for programmatic politics and the delivery of developmental progress.