'This book offers a succinct and insightful account of the workings of patronage and vote buying in Argentina. Professor Weitz-Shapiro shows that middle-class voters may break away from the perverse equilibrium of beliefs and strategies involved in clientelism, inducing politicians to supply higher quality social protection policies. She provides hope for the improvement of the quality of governance in new democracies. The book is a must-read for scholars of social policy and development around the world.' Alberto Diaz Cayeros, Stanford University, California

'Even in polities where clientelism is widespread, some politicians choose alternative electoral strategies. By highlighting its political costs as well as benefits, and providing experimental evidence that vote buying generates hostility among the middle classes, Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro illuminates how clientelism may be curbed. All students of developing democracies will want to read her book.' Thad Dunning, University of California, Berkeley

'This book takes on an important question in contemporary scholarship in comparative politics in a serious and sophisticated way. Professor Weitz-Shapiro provides a theory that jointly accounts for both the costs and benefits of clientelism in explaining choices by mayors to engage in, or forego, clientelist politics. This is a novel claim, and it certainly is backed by the most sophisticated effort at theory testing of such a model of which I am aware.' Marcus Kurtz, Ohio State University