Although conventional wisdom holds that control of patronage significantly increases an incumbent’s chance of staying in power, we actually know very little about the specific mechanisms that explain the relationship between patronage contracts and political competition. We know even less about what sustains these contracts. While the literature on clientelism has grown spectacularly in the past two decades, most of it has focused on vote buying – the exchange of goods or favors for electoral support – rather than on understanding the workings of patronage – the exchange of public sector jobs for political support.1