Political Parties as Promoters of Clientelism in Ecuador: A Conceptual Approach from Institutional Capture and Territorial Co-Responsibility Alternatives

Abstract

Political clientelism in Ecuador constitutes an informal social structure that has permeated the formal institutions of the State, conditioning political representation and the distribution of public resources. This documentary-descriptive article with a conceptual approach analyzes how political parties are not victims of the clientelist system but its main promoters and structural reproducers, generating institutional capture that disproportionately benefits local elites, territorial operators, contractors, and regional economic groups. Findings show that clientelism, territorialized in Decentralized Autonomous Governments (GADs), fragments the territory and hinders the democratic resolution of shared problems. As a structural alternative, the article proposes a triple reconfiguration: moving from the “client-man” to the “responsible-man”; replacing vertical clientelist networks with horizontal collaborative networks; and shifting from particularized public policies to collaborative governance. It concludes that horizontal cooperation among local governments is not only an administrative efficiency mechanism but also a social engineering alternative to dismantle clientelist networks and strengthen substantive democracy.