INTRODUCTION: WHO COMPETES FOR WHOM?

So far, this book has argued that people in politically dominated communities tend to receive poor rewards for their political support. Previous chapters examined some of the distributional consequences of political domination in terms of the provision of infrastructure, public services, and government jobs. Although constituents in such communities might grumble in private, their public statements often tell a different story: that of enduring fidelity to their patron. Party flags and laudatory political posters abound, while boistrous rallies chant embarrassingly obsequious slogans about the virtues of their leaders. Some, for example, urge “loyalty to Shaykh Saad al-Hariri” in Lebanon, while others beseech Ali Abdallah Salih to “finish the task” by standing for president of Yemen yet again. Why, though, would people who receive poor services in the aggregate make such public declarations of support?

This chapter explores a different set of empirical implications about ethnic monopsonies: who competes for whom. In politically dominated communities, patrons do not need the active support of all – or even most – of their nominal clientele to win elections. Politicians in such communities enjoy the luxury to pick and choose which members receive rewards; clients, in turn, must find ways to get picked over their peers. Rather than patrons competing for votes, clients compete for patronage – a reversal of the dynamics we expect to see in elections. One commonly overlooked tool for people to attract patronage, however, is to engage in public sycophancy: to send costly signals to patrons about their levels of commitment.

To examine the dynamics of public sycophancy, I return to the survey data from Lebanon and Yemen. I complement these attitudinal data, however, with a novel behavioral measure: whether or not respondents publicly display images and iconography such as party flags or posters outside their homes. Consistent with my argument, members of the political dominated communities – Lebanese Sunnis and Yemeni Zaydis – are significantly more likely than their co-nationals to offer up “public displays of affection” for their leaders.

Moreover, the survey data indicate that they do so for instrumental reasons. In particular, the data reveal a systematic connection between public displays of political images and patronage-seeking behavior – a link that is absent among people in the competitive communities.