"Clientelism" typically describes a form of political behavior most noticeable in patron-client relationships in small rural villages, in which reciprocity and the inequality of status produce an asymmetrical exchange relation. Clientelism leads to the patron's use of surveillance in the client's domain to pursue various self-interests. Surveillance includes the control of information and the supervision of the activities of some groups by others. The discussion focuses on clientelism in the relationships between the United States and the Dominican Republic and the United States and Rumania under Ceausescu. The author concludes that criminal justice issues, such as drug trafficking and transnational organized crime, form the context within which the United States develops clientelism with less powerful nations. The author advises that clientelism as a mechanism for suppressing crime only fuels organized crime, since repression by state security forces creates endless opportunities for extortion. Further, the current failures of the "war on drugs" in the context of clientelism suggests that the United States is less interested in the success of this "war" than in controlling the infrastructure of criminal justice in client states. Bolivia, for example, is apparently an ongoing experiment to test the patron's capacity for low-intensity warfare, to train its special forces, and to perfect high-technology surveillance devices in rough terrain. 21 references