Etymology

From client +‎ -itisCategory:English terms suffixed with -itis#CLIENTITIS.

Pronunciation

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  Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#CLIENTITIS

Noun

clientitis (uncountable)Category:English lemmas#CLIENTITISCategory:English nouns#CLIENTITISCategory:English uncountable nouns#CLIENTITISCategory:English uncountable nouns#CLIENTITISCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CLIENTITISCategory:Pages with entries#CLIENTITISCategory:Pages with 1 entry#CLIENTITIS

1. (diplomacyCategory:en:Diplomacy#CLIENTITIS, slangCategory:English slang#CLIENTITIS) The situation where an organization's resident in-country staff come to regard the officials and people of the host country as "clients", and thus lose touch with the norms and aims of their home country.

   Synonyms: clientism, localitis

   • 1990, Iain Guest, Behind the Disappearances: Argentina's Dirty War Against Human Rights and the United Nations‎, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN:

     Their relationship with the governments in their region is usually one of warmth and understanding, often described as “clientitis” or “clientism.”

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLIENTITIS

   • 2009, Vera Blinken, Donald M. Blinken, Vera and the Ambassador, State University of New York Press, →ISBN, page 58:

     We also learned two new words: “clientitis” and “ambassadoritis”. Clientitis is the disease of those enthralled by a host country that they promote its interests, rather than their own country's.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLIENTITIS

   • 2011, John Lenczowski, Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy: Reforming the Structure and Culture of U.S. Foreign Policy, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 108:

     In the case of diplomats, the State Department has had to wrestle with criticisms that regional specialists—say, those who concentrate on the Arab world and speak Arabic—will suffer from “clientitis”: the disease of “going native,” of developing such sympathy for the people and culture of a given region that one begins to represent its interest to America rather than vice versa.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CLIENTITIS

See also

• ambassadoritis
• go native