Clientelism, like corruption, is a juicy topic; it is made so by the seemingly-inexorable conflict between protestations of public virtue on the one hand and particularistic exchanges on the other. The topic becomes even more interesting when one tries, as Simona Piattoni does in her book Il clientelismo: L’Italia in prospettiva comparata, to rehabilitate clientelism, and rid the concept of its moral overtones by engaging in rigorous comparative and empirical analysis.

Read the rest here. It came out a bit harsher than I meant.