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ABSTRACT
How does urban brokerage differ in patronage democracies and electoral authoritarian regimes? This article answers this question by providing in-depth comparison of Mexico City and Khartoum, two cities in which electoral competitiveness differs starkly. In both cities, brokers play fundamentally similar functions connecting residents and the state, and mobilizing similar abilities to deliver services for the urban poor. But there is one fundamental difference: brokered relationships between the state and poor people are competitive in Mexico City, whereas in Khartoum they are not. Due to the democratic opening that has unfolded in Mexico since the early 2000s, there are now multiple avenues through which brokers can access state resources. These multiple avenues, and the political competition over the resources they provide, produces multipolar brokerage: brokers can choose between different political patrons and play them off against each other. In electoral authoritarian Khartoum, by contrast, brokerage patterns are unipolar: all avenues lead to a single power source – the ruling party. In comparing urban politics in the two settings, the article concludes that democratization has strengthened brokers in Mexico City, providing them with greater bargaining power and the ability to threaten to take their clienteles to rival patrons.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Kees Koonings, Wil Pansters and Dirk Kruijt from Utrecht University for their support to this research project and Ward Berenschot and Edward Aspinall for their encouragement and invaluable comments to earlier drafts of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 See Auyero, Poor People’s Politics; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, Dynamics of Contention.
2 See Auyero, Poor People’s Politics; Berenschot, Riot Politics.
3 Kitchelt and Wilkinson, Patrons, Clients and Policies; Stokes et al., Voters, Brokers and Clientelism.
4 Wolf, Kinship, Friendship and Patron-Client Relations; Kitchelt and Wilkinson, Patrons, Clients and Policies; Stokes et al., Brokers, Voters and Clientelims.
5 Corstange, The Price of a Vote.
6 Holland and Palmer-Rubin, “Beyond the Machine.”
7 Berenschot, “Informal Democratization” and Corstange, The Price of a Vote.
8 Kitchelt and Wilkinson, Patrons, Clients and Policies; Bayat, “Studying Middle Eastern Societies.”
9 Tilly and Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 55.
10 Ledgard, “Huddled Masses.”
11 Davis, Planet of Slums, 24.
12 See Cornelius, Politics and the Migrant Poor; Lomnitz, Como Sobreviven Los Marginados.
13 Rosales Ortega, Contreras, and Valdivia, Diversidad Urbana.
14 Coordinación de la Planeación del Desarrollo Territorial del Gobierno del DF (COPLADE 2003), downloaded at www.sideso.df.gob.mx/index.php?id=35 in May 2008. Also see www.iztapalapa.df.gob.mx/pdf/SIBBSI/MARGINACION/map_iztp.pdf, most recently consulted in Februari 2013.
15 Arango Duran and Lara Medina, “Delegación Iztapalapa”; Rosales Ortega, Contreras, and Valdivia, Diversidad Urbana.
16 Rosales Ortega, Contreras, and Valdivia, Diversidad Urbana.
17 A survey conducted by a community organization in one of the areas under study highlighted insecurity as the main problem in the neighborhood, interview 75, community leader, Iztapalapa, 24 June 2008.
18 Arango Duran and Lara Medina, “Características Delictivas.”
19 Moctezuma, Desperaters.
20 Ward, Mexico Megaciudad.
21 Alvarez Velazques, La Sociedad Civil.
22 My fieldwork was confined to the regularized and squatter areas in Mayo; I was not given a permit for Mandela IDP-camp.
23 Abdalla, Poverty and Inequality; Al Zain, “The Political Potential.”
24 El Sammani, “Management Problems.”
25 Abdalla, Poverty and Inequality.
26 Pantuliano et al., City Limits.
27 Collins, A History.
28 Al Zain, “The Political Potential.”
29 Interview 34, Mayo, March 2010; Pantuliano et al., City Limits; Al Zain “The Political Potential.”
30 Ali, Repression.
31 There are around 50 NCP circles in the entire city, about one for each area of representation for the state parliament (interview 85, July 2011).
32 Interview 63 with Umma leader in Mayo, April 2011.
33 An Umma party member who was closely cooperating with the NCP was also a member of the local council. Interview 80, April 2011.
34 Interview 85, Mayo, July 2011.
35 Such as in India, Berenschot, Riot Politics.
36 Aspinall et al., “Vote-buying in Indonesia.”
37 Interview 114, Iztapalapa, 10 April 2008.
38 Interview 77, Iztapalapa, 22 May 2008.
39 Fieldnotes election observation, Mayo, April 2010.
40 Fieldnotes election observation, Mayo, April 2010.
41 Interview 63, Mayo, March 2011.
42 Interview 34, Mayo, March 2010.
43 Fieldnotes, visit to “El Hoyo” with Edgardo, Iztapalapa, 18 April 2008.
44 Interview 37, Iztapalapa, 20–21 June 2008.
45 Holland and Palmer-Rubin, “Beyond the Machine.”
46 Interview 38, Iztapalapa, 30 June 2008.
47 Organized crime is said to be a factor in Iztapalapa’s power landscape as well, but I have not encountered that directly.
48 Interview 62, Mayo, March 2011.
49 Interview 62, Mayo, March 2011.
50 Fieldnotes, popular committee elections, Mayo, April 2011.
51 Interview 82, Mayo, April 2011.
52 Interview 63, Mayo, April 2011.
53 De Geoffroy, “Fleeing War.”
54 Berenschot, “Informal Democratization”; Auerbach, “Clients and Communities.”
55 Interview 39, Iztapalapa, 11 June 2008.
56 Interview PRD relations.
57 Interview 39, Khartoum, December 2010.
58 Corstange, The Price of a Vote.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ingeborg Denissen
Ingeborg Denissen holds an MA in political science from Amsterdam University (2002) and a PhD in political sociology from Utrecht University (2014) in the Netherlands, titled “Negotiating Urban Citizenship: the Urban Poor, Brokers and the State in Mexico City and Khartoum”. She has been working as a diplomat for the Dutch Foreign Service since 2003 and has served at the Netherlands embassies in Sudan and on shorter assignments in Poland and Ethiopia. Currently she is the deputy head of the Political Section at the Netherlands Embassy in Washington DC. Dr. Denissen has taught in graduate courses on fieldwork in conflict areas and on urban and international security at various universities in the Netherlands and in the US. She is currently also an adjunct professorial lecturer at the American University in Washington DC, where she teaches on international negotiations.