La lógica práctica del dominio clientelista

On the bases of a series of analytical exams of three rounds of ethnographic field-work in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and with a micro-sociological approach of empirical analysis, this article sets out to reorient the study of clienteles' politics towards its every day nature, and recognize the relevant role played by the close links mediating agents keep with their closest and most reliable followers-Thus it aims to contribute to better understand and explain the practical features of clientelist domination. Against what's commonly asserted, this paper maintains clientelist politics takes place in daily life's routine (and not only in the context of campaigns and elections), and that the behaviour of the most loyal clients must not be understood nor explained as a product of rational action or normative conducts, but as resultant of clientelist habits, that is, a set of cognitive and affective political dispositions, produced by repeated interactions that take place within the inner circles of the followers of the mediating agents.