The article discusses the permanence of clientelistic practices and their tensions with the participatory approach adopted within the framework of the Brazilian public policy of rural territorial development. It examines, in particular, the case of local implementation of the National Program of Territorial Development. The results come from the study of the functioning of the Territorial Collegiate and the projects implemented in the Águas Emendadas Territory in the Midwest of Brazil. It uses a socio-anthropological approach of patronage and political participation through the analysis of the social configuration and the relations of instrumentalisation in both the participatory spaces and the projects of this territory. The results show the existence of a not only social but also an affective dimension of clientele practice that can be analyzed as an asymmetrical reciprocity relationship based on the principle of anthropological reciprocity or as a process of unequal political exchange, considering a political science approach.