Compare methods

	Patronage Network Analysis	Distributive Politics Analysis
Field	Political Economy	Political Economy
Family	Process / pipeline	Regression model
Year of origin	1972	1986
Originator	James C. Scott; S. N. Eisenstadt & Luis Roniger	Gary Cox & Mathew McCubbins (core); Avinash Dixit & John Londregan (swing)
Type	Network-analytic pipeline for clientelist structures	Regression analysis of electorally motivated spending allocation
Seminal source	Scott, J. C. (1972). Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia. American Political Science Review, 66(1), 91-113.	Cox, G. W., & McCubbins, M. D. (1986). Electoral Politics as a Redistributive Game. The Journal of Politics, 48(2), 370-389.
Aliases	Patron-Client Network Analysis, Patronage Pyramid Analysis, Brokerage Network Analysis, Clientelist Network Mapping	Electoral Targeting Analysis, Swing versus Core Voter Analysis, Pork Barrel Politics Analysis, Tactical Redistribution Analysis
Related	3	3
Summary	Patronage network analysis is a relational pipeline for representing patron-client politics as a directed network and measuring its structure with the tools of social network analysis. Building on James C. Scott's 1972 account of patron-client politics in Southeast Asia and Eisenstadt and Roniger's 1984 comparative study of clientelism and trust, the approach treats the vertical, asymmetric bond between a powerful patron and a dependent client — typically mediated by brokers — as the elementary tie. By coding who is connected to whom, in which direction, and with what resource content, the analyst can compute centrality, brokerage, and structural-hole measures to reveal the pyramidal architecture through which protection and resources flow down and loyalty and support flow up.	Distributive politics analysis studies how governments allocate divisible public spending — grants, transfers, projects, and pork — across districts and groups to maximize electoral support. Two competing theories anchor the field. The swing-voter logic, formalized by Avinash Dixit and John Londregan in 1996 (building on Lindbeck and Weibull), holds that parties target marginal districts where votes are most responsive to spending. The core-voter logic, associated with Gary Cox and Mathew McCubbins's 1986 redistributive-game model, holds that parties instead reward loyal supporters whose preferences and reliability they know best. The empirical method is a regression of observed transfers on electoral characteristics — district marginality and partisan alignment — to test which targeting strategy the data reveal.