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Political Clientelism and the Reform of Social Services Implementation in Croatia

This paper seeks to explain differences in outcomes of social services reform implementation in Croatia during previous two decades. While in one segment of social services reform of implementation management was based on principles of effectiveness, efficiency and participation, in the other segment reform was used for development of partisan patronage networks. The paper focuses on four social services and relies on interviews with policy actors, official documents and statistical data to map and explain different reform outcomes. The paper identifies two factors that affect the capacity of political parties to use social policy reform as an instrument of patronage. Strong institutional setting, with well-established organization of service provision that requires significant resources and expertise, reduces the ability of political parties to integrate political patronage into implementation management. In the case of underdeveloped or non-existent institutional setting, involvement of actors advocating interests of service beneficiaries is constraining possibilities for party patronage.

Clientelism ; Croatia ; Social services ; Reform

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