Expectations and meaning: Politics between policy orientation and clientelism

According to Luhmann, social systems operate based on meaning as a medium for all communications. Each communicative event points to a surplus of potentialities, only some of which can be actualized by further communications. In this sense, meaning guarantees the indeterminacy and continuation of social systems. Semantic structures, i.e. expectations with varying degrees of abstraction, orient the selection of communications and reduce their contingency. The paper demonstrates the role of expectations for meaning determination with regard to political semantics. It contrasts the conventional systems-theoretical description of modern politics as based on party programs and policy choice with an alternative understanding, present in various political systems. This understanding conceives politics as based on clientelism, i.e. the promise of particularistic benefits in exchange for votes. Political clientelism was long regarded as a feature of developing countries only. However, research on political clientelism has demonstrated that it is not a traditional structure but a reaction to the introduction of democratic elections, and that even present-day European countries contain elements of it. The paper focuses on the way expectations about the role of politicians and expectations about public expectations in this regard form different understandings of politics in the political system and affect its operation.