Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE January 2015 Which Jobs for Which Boys? Party Financing, Patronage and State Capacity in African Democracies Rachel Sigman Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Sigman, Rachel, "Which Jobs for Which Boys? Party Financing, Patronage and State Capacity in African Democracies" (2015). Dissertations - ALL. 325. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/325 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abstract Both Benin and Ghana are amongst Africa’s most celebrated examples of democratic success, but there is growing divergence in the capacity of their state institutions to act as effective agents of development. Why? This dissertation argues that modes of party financing are integral to understanding patterns of patronage-based recruitment to public office, and that these patronage practices have consequences for the broader developmental capacities of the state. The first part of the dissertation shows that leaders use political patronage not only as a means of “buying” votes,” but more fundamentally as a means of exerting control over the state’s resources. How leaders choose to access and control these resources depends on the size of the private sector and the strength of party organizations, both of which vary considerably across African countries. Where party organizations are strong and the private sector large, patronage is likely to be concentrated primarily at the elite level to facilitate the exchange of contracts for financial support to the party.