10 - Final Remarks

Summary

This chapter offers the final remarks. First, it recapitulates that slums and vulnerable neighborhoods’ spatial segregation compels their residents to seek out brokers who can facilitate their access to state resources. Machine parties excel in recruiting brokers to connect with voters in pockets of poverty, with the Peronist Party (PJ) in Argentina, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico, and the Indian National Congress (INC) in India traditionally viewed as classic examples. However, this book challenges the conventional perception of these parties by demonstrating that segregated vulnerability imposes conditions on any party seeking electoral competitiveness in these areas. Specifically, it details how challengers to the PJ, PRI, and INC developed their networks and ultimately disrupted the long-standing dominance of these machine parties. This chapter reviews how the book challenges the notion that some parties are inherently more machine-based than others. Second, the chapter recalls that it is misleading to assume that the disappearance of brokers would necessarily benefit the poor. The root of clientelism and its associated issues lies not in the existence of brokers but in the segregated vulnerability and isolation of these territories – in essence, poverty shapes politics. This perspective reframes the role of brokers as a response to structural conditions rather than a cause of political dysfunction.