Informal urbanisation and clientelism: Measuring the global relationship

This paper uses newly released data on political behaviour and urban growth to identify, for the first time, a statistical correlation between clientelism (the informal provision of benefits, including urban land and services, to the poor in contingent exchange for political support) and informal urban growth, across a globally representative sample of 200 cities. The paper finds that, consistent with theoretical expectations, cities in more clientelistic countries are more likely to experience urban growth in the form of informal settlements that appear to have been planned in advance of settlement (‘informal subdivisions’), but are not necessarily more likely to experience unplanned, ad-hoc informal growth. The main model for informal subdivisions finds that if a country were less clientelistic by one point on a 0–10 scale in 1990, the proportion of residential growth in the form of informal subdivisions between 1990 and 2015 in its cities would decrease by 16% of its previous value, a magnitude equivalent to that of an increase in 1990 GDP per capita of US$2700, based on purchasing power parity (PPP). These results support the notion that informality is not simply associated with poverty but also with politics. They indicate that particular political dynamics may have a spatial ‘signature’ on the urban landscape; that, conversely, certain urban spatial forms may generate certain kinds of politics; or both. The paper provides an example of how newly available data may be used to advance our understanding of the relationship between politics, urban space and informality. 本文使用最新发布的关于政治行为和城市增长的数据，首次在200个具有全球代表性的城市样本中，确定客户主义（clientelism，非正规地向穷人提供福利，包括城市土地和服务，以换取不确定的政治支持）和非正规城市增长之间的统计相关性。本文发现，与理论预期相一致，更多客户主义的国家的城市更有可能经历非正规住区形式的城市增长（而这些住区似乎是预先规划的，“非正规分区”），但不一定更有可能经历无计划的、临时的非正规增长。主要的非正规分区模型发现，一个国家在1990年的客户主义每下降一分（以0-10为量表），那么1990年至2015年间，其城市中非正规分区形式的居住增长的下降幅度将相当于其前值16%，这相当于1990年基于购买力平价的人均国内生产总值的2,700美元增长。这些结果证明非正规不仅与贫困有关、而且与政治有关的观点。它们表明，特定的政治动态可能在城市景观中产生空间“印记”；相反，某些城市空间形式可能产生某些类型的政治；或者两者兼而有之。本文提供了一个例证，说明如何利用新获得的数据来增进我们对政治、城市空间和非正规性之间关系的理解。