Rethinking developmental patrimonialism: a party-institutional theory of rent discipline in Botswana

Why has Botswana, unlike most postcolonial states, achieved durable growth under conditions of patrimonial rule? Existing accounts of developmental patrimonialism have shown that patrimonial politics can support growth when rents are centralised and deployed with a long-term horizon. Yet these accounts remain less clear on how rent discipline is incentivised and sustained over time. In response, our article re-specifies developmental patrimonialism as a party-institutional mechanism of coalition management. Drawing on the Botswana case, we argue that the Botswana Democratic Party could secure dominant-party rule more effectively by incorporating pivotal coalition actors through development-compatible benefits rather than direct or undisciplined access to rents. Furthermore, this arrangement was made durable by central fiscal and planning institutions that shielded mineral revenues from factional appropriation. In this sense, evidence from Botswana advances developmental patrimonialism from a typology of rent management into a theory of the political conditions under which patrimonial distribution generates developmental coordination.