Clientelism and Political Recruitment in Democratic Transition: Evidence from Romania

The literature on legislative recruitment has existed largely independently of the literature on party clientelism in new democracies. The Romanian data on parliamentary representation can be used to show how the study of recruitment practices improves scholars' understanding of clientelistic exchanges between political parties and resource-rich constituencies. The findings point to considerable differences in recruitment patterns in new and established democracies, which can be traced to parties and interest groups' calculus of payoffs under different types of political regimes.