6 - Hijacked Programs

Summary

Chapter 6 focuses on macro-particularism – the hijacking of programmatic policies. It highlights the difficulty of drawing a clear line between programmatic and patronage politics. It explains three forms of macro-particularism: credit-claiming (when a politician claims their individual intervention was critical to delivering a benefit to an individual or group); facilitation (when the politician actually does intervene to ensure delivery); and morselization (when the politicians breaks a program into bite-sized chunks and allocates them according to political criteria). The chapter explains that the three case-study countries present different mixes of these forms. Hijacking under Malaysia’s party-dominated system lacks incentives to allow morselization and so hijacking mostly involves credit-claiming and facilitation of benefits provided by the dominant party. The deeply entrenched local machines of the Philippines represent a system founded on discretion, hence, more morselization. Indonesia is mixed: some politicians, notably regional executives, enjoy discretion in allocating resources; legislators are still trying to expand access to state resources for hijacking.