ABSTRACT
This chapter profiles four political players interviewed by the author, with names changed to protect privacy: politician, bureaucrat, contractor, and party chair. These specific individuals are representative of the wider sample interviewed by the author. Politicians aspire to higher offices, but they face demands for private benefits and other challenges from their own party’s executives. Bureaucrats cope with politicians’ demands to extract kickbacks from public procurement, and they worry about how to finance their own retirements. Contractors face income uncertainty, but they concede that procurement is politicized and could be a path to lucrative gains. Party chairs reward their loyalists and wield significant influence over politicians’ careers.
