Patron-Client Relationships in Southern Italy

Abstract Political clientelism in Southern Italy has shown great persistence and capacity for conditioning the entire Italian political development. Accounting for these characteristics, clientelism is better understood as the product of the incomplete capitalistic rationalization of the Southern economy. Throughout the 19th century in Sicily, the feudo remained the basis of the economic and social structure, while in the continental South the feudal system disintegrated more quickly and widely. The resulting different models of social relationships within the Mezzogiorno , make it meaningful for our purposes to distinguish between two types of clientele, which may be termed clientela mafiosa and Neopolitan clientele. The second part of the article is concerned with the dynamics of the clientelistic system in post-1945 Southern Italy and more generally with the relationship between clientelism and political development. The transition from the clientelism of the notables to political party-directed patronage is studied both at the local level and in the context of the whole South. It is then argued that clientelism is a very poor tool for political development since it has two effects on the social structure and the political process: these effects will be called disorganic integration and exclusivism.