Layered, not displaced: Sociocultural patronage and digital campaigning in West Sumatra’s local elections, 2015-2024

Why does sociocultural clientelism remain durable under digitalisation and institutional reform? The varieties-of-clientelism literature distinguishes relational from spot-market exchange. However, few longitudinal sub-national studies trace how patronage configurations adapt as campaigns go digital and electoral rules change. This article addresses that gap through a comparative case study of three district-head elections ( Pilkada ) in West Sumatra, Indonesia (Dharmasraya, Pasaman, and Solok), tracked across three electoral cycles (2015, 2020, and 2024). The empirical base comprises 28 in-depth interviews with candidates, brokers, customary leaders, election officials, and voters; disaggregated electoral returns; and Constitutional Court rulings. Three findings emerge. First, the simultaneous incumbent defeats in 2015 are most consistent with the strategic activation of customary brokerage networks (royal-dynastic, identity-based, and bureaucratic-customary) rather than by programmatic competition or vote buying. Second, digital tools (WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok) have become embedded in campaign repertoires without displacing the customary brokers who certify their credibility: a pattern of layering rather than substitution. Third, the Constitutional Court’s 2024 candidacy-threshold reform did not disrupt the underlying brokerage economy. The findings extend the Yildirim–Kitschelt relational clientelism typology to sub-national settings, provide evidence consistent with Hicken and Nathan’s (2020) claim that effective clientelism can operate without voter monitoring, and specify ascribed customary authority as the mechanism explaining broker resilience. These results speak to scholarship on informal institutions in democratic governance, the limits of digital modernisation in the Global South, and the interaction between culturally embedded authority and formal institutional reform.