Crisi del clientelismo di partito e piccole rappresentanze territoriali

Abstract

Due to the crisis in the traditional party model, political compositions have drastically reduced their organizational structures and their social rooting on a local level. This representative void was filled, mostly in the areas in which poverty and social problems are particularly stark, by political offerings in the form of technical services, small favours, guidance and support for administrative practices. These were a variety of political exchanges compared to traditional party clientelism, amounting to the grouping consensus of small systems, that are more unstable and more precisely defined on a local level. Emblematic examples of these new networks of exchanges are that of Caf (a tax assistance centre) and public services. The article offers an interpretation of historical changes of clientelism and interprets these new forms of groupings of consensus as an outcome of the crisis of cronyism of the twentieth century. The empirical case of the city of Naples, provides a reading of the mechanisms and relationships within these new trajectories of political voting.