Clientitus

Clientitus is a term used to describe the tendency of resident in-country staff of an organization to regard the officials and people of the host country as "clients". This condition can be found in business or government. The term clientitus is somewhat similar to the phrases "gone native" or "going native".

A hypothetical example of clientitus would be an American Foreign Service Officer, serving overseas at a U.S. Embassy, who drifts into a mode of routinely and automatically defending the actions of the host country government. In such an example, the officer has come to view the officials and government workers of the host country government as the persons he is serving. Former USUN Ambassador John Bolton has used this term repeatedly to describe the mindset within the culture of the US State Department. [ The American Spectator online, from November 6 2007, review by Phillip Klein of John Bolton's book: Surrender Is Not An Option, http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12270]

An example from business would be a representative for a company living in another nation, representing that company to the host nation and other institutions in that country. A business representatvie suffering clientitus would defend the host country government and operating environment as if those were his employers. [ Citation|last=Baker| first=George| title=The Tortilla Curtain, or Why Home Office Communications Fail |example given of an American business represntiatvie residentin Mexico suffering clientitus | url=http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/politics/tortcurt.html]

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