Political Clientelism and Social Exclusion

Abstract

The article relates to two much-discussed concepts in the field of social sciences: clientage relations and social exclusion. Using the city of Sofades in central Greece - where about 2000 Gypsies live - as their empirical research field, the authors attempt the analysis of the following: (1) whether the socially excluded Gypsies of the area form clientage relations, (2) whether their political clientage relations show any particular traits when related to other types of clientage relations and (3) whether political clientage relationships help socially excluded groups surmount their exclusion or not. Even though the dominant theories about clientage relations associate the evolution of those relations with the evolution of a particular society, the study of the clientage relations in Sofades shows that within a society there may coexist more than one type of clientage relationships - from the most traditional to the most modern.