Peasants' Social Representation of Politicians in a Clientelist Rural Context

Abstract

In Latin America, political clientelism is one of the main obstacles to the process of sustaining truly democratic practices. Thus, this article proposes to study peasants from the Province of Formosa, Argentina's social representation of politicians, in hopes of shedding light on the relationship between said representations and clientelist practices, with the objective of making a contribution to the development of alternative means towards democratization in the area. The results of this case study show that, at the center of the peasants' social representation of politicians, there lies a tendency to place their expectations for receiving assistance within a context of a personalized and hierarchical relationship framework. Nevertheless, the majority of these farmers consider the assistance received to be insufficient and inadequate, stating that politicians actually look to satisfy their own interests and not those of the general public. In conclusion, the peasants' social representation of politicians favors clientelist practices, even though these small farmers do not identify, via their culture or their expectations, with these practices. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.