The Political Marketplace – Alex de Waal

The political marketplace can be characterized as “a system of governance run on the basis of personal
transactions in which political services and allegiances are exchanged for material reward in a
competitive manner” this is in contrast to highly institutionalized systems observed in mature
democracies and centralized authoritarian regimes.

Key Concepts for political market analysis:

Political Budget: Refers to the funds possessed by a politician which can be dispensed on renting loyalty,
buying political services, vanity projects, or personal enrichment, without needing to account for them.
Differs from corruption in the sense that the funds are recycled through the patronage system and is
viewed by the political class as legitimate.
 Example: Allegedly, during USN formation, NA members were handing envelopes of money
around in Parliament.
Price of loyalty: Refers to prevailing price demanded for political allegiance, cooperation, or a particular
political service. Price changes according to market conditions. For the political ‘business manager’ their
principal task is to utilize their budget as efficiently as possible to secure enough political loyalties to
pursue their political goals/sustain power
 Example: US$ 10,000, allegedly, paid to members of the NA for adherence to USN
Political business plan and skill: Different political entrepreneurs have different networks, reputations,
politicking ability. Causes of conflict are often miscalculations in the ‘business plan’ of political
entrepreneurs.

Political market structure and regulation: Each political market is structured and regulated differently,
one can analyze the regulation of entry and exit, extent of regional integration, structure and frequency
of bargaining, and networks of information. Analysis of this allows for understandings of how the
marketplace responds to external stimuli.

Turbulence: All marketplaces experience some form of turbulence but maintains a recognizable
structure over longer periods of time

Hegemonic masculinity: Often in political marketplace systems, males dominate, women and youth are
valued as commodities

Moral populism vs. Public mutuality

Moral populism: The social and political role played by exclusivist and morally imbued identities and
values
Public mutuality: The discourse and exercise of public life based upon norms/rules exemplifying the
respect for persons
 Moral populism often emerges following a crisis of mutuality (conquest, civil war, economic
collapse, etc) in which governance breaks down. Following these crises, forms of mutuality are
reconfigured, individuals contest over norms, symbols, and practices.
 “Typically, we see moral populism and a political marketplace flourishing hand-in-hand. The two
feed off one another: political entrepreneurs call on moral populist scripts to mobilize support
 and exclude others, while moral populists utilize political business strategies to survive and
prosper.”
 To rebuild public mutuality (institutions, democratic norms, etc.) requires sensitivity to the
trauma faced during a crisis of mutuality, efforts to rebuild institutions can be coopted by the
logics of the political marketplace and moral populism.
Violence in the political marketplace
 Violence is not valued in and of itself in the political marketplace, it is a mechanism of
bargaining; enemies are adversaries of circumstance
 The massacres, SRV, etc. witnessed is symptom of the commodification of people who are not
members of the elite
The political marketplace and stability/state-building
 Political markets can be highly unstable, in poor-regulated markets, new entrants with funding
and weapons can destabilize existing equilibria, in a tightly-regulated market, the transition to
another ‘CEO’ can be highly destabilizing
 Rulers face crises when their political budgets are insufficient, this can be precipitated by
funding running low, or new bidders entering the market driving up ‘prices’
 Political marketplaces based on rents can turn into a high centralized, highly-regulated
political system Yet we have not observed this in the DRC, burning questions here…
 Peace agreements in political marketplace systems can only last if current market conditions
persist.
 If we observe a functioning institution in a political marketplace system, it is because political
market conditions, or the individuals in charge of said institutions protect that institution.
Following a shift in market conditions (the loss of the ‘benevolent’ head), the “bubble of
integrity” will pop
Interaction between corruption and the political marketplace
 Corruption can facilitate the penetration of political market norms into institutionalized systems
 Most sources of funds for the political marketplace are lawful (oil rents, mineral royalties),
exchanges/payments take place in the form of legal expenditure and recycling of illicit finance
into patronage payoffs
 Petty corruption assumes greed as the main purpose, the political marketplace approach entails
political entrepreneurs who pursue political aims (promoting the public good/ideological aims/
community defense), within a system that forces them to compete in a political market, or fail.
Their goal is power and their ‘profit’ is their political budget, which is (mostly) reinvested in their
political project, especially patronage payoffs.