Implantation locale et relations clientélaires. Le cas du Parti des travailleurs à Brasilia

Abstract

This article suggests to revisit a clientelist problematics in Brazil by an empirical study of militants of the Worker’s Party (PT) in the region of Brasilia, the Federal District. Based on the principle that the petista model was developed unequally in Brazilian territory’s, this article shows some illustrative elements to demonstrate how a ‛partisan form’ with a modern societary project develops concretely in a local level – in the case of the peripheries of Brasilia. This study of case illustrates the more general questionings. The PT was born as a modernizing project party, breaking off with the traditional politics. Yet we will show that the development of this ’partisan form’ in the local level did not escape from the clientelist phenomena. This paradoxical dimension of petismo with clientelist exchange allows to illustrate the complexity of this problematic in actual Brazil and to think at the same time about the pertinence of an analyzes in terms of clientelism in this empirical context.

Keywords

• clientelism
• party politics
• Workers’ party