Nadia Canales – Patricia Guerrero – Víctor Palomera.

Clientelism in Chile
Chile is a country with one of the most solid and consolidated democracies in Latin
America. The recent legal reforms that allow the election of regional authorities or the
election of conventional constituents, little by little lead Chile to move from a
representative to a participatory democracy. Every day the democratic demands for both
voters and candidates to provide a transparent process in freedom of conscience and choice
grow, therefore, when there are problems in Chile in voting purchases, not only the system
is weakened, but also its constitutional legitimacy. Clientelism can be defined as the
purchase of votes that manifests itself through a permanent exchange of goods (material
and symbolic), from which benefits are obtained that underpin the solidarity of the
relationship (Bourdieu, 2020).
Whoever controls greater resources distributes goods and grants services to subjects with
fewer resources and status, in exchange for loyalty and political support. In Chile, it
gradually became a fundamental tool to mobilize resources from the center to the periphery,
as it consolidates the political system (Valenzuela, 1977), since the late sixties, the
functioning of client relations is based on the predominance of intermediaries or political
brokers and today we find it in public officials who exercise previous political favors.
Clientelism is rooted in certain groups of society that are inserted in this certain electoral
paradigm of cost-benefit, it is therefore, a challenge for the new generations to incorporate
elements such as ethics and transparency in political-administrative functions at the time of
holding public office. Argentina in 1994 established forms of civil participation that aimed
to make processes transparent and end clientelism, democratizing spaces with a social
policy focused on the poor sectors although the effort was not enough, however, this opens
a path to erase a paradigm almost impossible to eliminate (Vommaro, 2018). This solution
is a long-term measure that seek to change the basis of bad practices and the indiscriminate
use of influences and resources for a few diehard voters, only the freedom of conscience of
an informed voter will be the electoral preference.

In order to support the above solution, it is important to professionalize the public

administration, to obtain officials trained to deal with clients with the unmost respect, in
this way we are committed to customer service without preferences or arrangements in the
process. This also requires intrinsic changes to the system, whether it be tougher penalties
for corruption or a more effective system of corruption as well as for the transparency of
the whole procedure for the election of candidates.
Clientelism is a service that surrounds us and is present in every area of our life, from
going shopping at the warehouse, present in the hospital or the municipality, those are
clear examples that we as human beings are closely linked to communication and it is in
the professional sector as public administrators where we are most affected by this service,
because we serve people with respect, guiding them and trying to give solutions to their
problems is our duty as professionals. That is where the problem is mainly focused,
because as already said, paying attention to the customer is a whole process that requires
people trained in the field, since it needs to act with transparency, respect and ethics, and
in a system like the current one it is somewhat difficult to achieve this professionalism if the
positions they are occupied by unstrained people who came to power for a political favor.

REFERENCES
Vommaro, G. (2008). “Fighting Clientelism”. Experts in monitoring social policies to
combat poverty. Argentine Congress of Social Anthropology. Faculty of Humanities
and Social Sciences – National University of Misiones, Posadas.
Bourdieu, P. (2005). “From the king's house to the reason of State. A model of the genesis
of the bureaucratic field", The mystery of the ministry. Pierre Bourdieu and democratic
politics, Barcelona, Gedisa.
Valenzuela, A. (1977), Political brokers in Chile: Local Government in a Centralized
Polity. Duke University Press.