Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T04:57:07.380Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Patron-Client Concept and Macro-Politics: Prospects and Problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Robert R. Kaufman
Affiliation:
Douglass College, Rutgers University

Extract

In order to make sense of the endless complexities of social life, social scientists conceptualize the empirical world in terms of interlocking systems and subsystems of roles and behavior, holding some of these spheres constant so that others can be studied and understood. This is a necessary and desirable aspect of social scientific enterprise. It may well be, however, that too many aspects of human interaction are held constant by the conventional ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ distinctions that dominate the study of developing nations. Although we have a growing body of data about the attitudes, values, and behaviors of the individuals who comprise the mass publics of such nations, we have relatively little systematic information about how this micro-level analysis feeds into and affects the processes and actors that are visible at the national level of political life. Most countrycentered macro-studies, in turn, make few, if any, systematic references to variables extending beyond national boundaries into the international environment. Such criticism seems to call for a more extensive analysis across systems—analysis which not only takes into account the attributes of individuals and of national institutions, but which also links these units to one another and to a variety of other sub- and supra-national structures and processes as well.

Type
A Critique of Patronage Theory
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Rosenau, James N., ‘Toward the Study of National-International Linkages’, in Linkage Politics, Essays on the Convergence of National and International Systems, edited by Rosenau, James N. (New York: The Free Press, 1969), pp. 4463.Google ScholarRosenau, James N.‘Theorizing Across Systems: Linkage Politics Revisited,’ a paper prepared for delivery at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association,Chicago,1971.Google Scholar

2 For some general explications of the patron-client concept, see Powell, John Duncan, ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 64, No. 2 (06 1970), pp. 411–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarScott, James C., ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia’, American Political Science, Review, Vol. 65, No. 1 (03 1972), pp. 91114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarLemarchand, Rène, ‘Political Clientelism and Ethnicity in Tropical Africa: Competing Soli- darities in Nation-Building’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 65, No. 1 (03 1972), pp. 6891.CrossRefGoogle ScholarLande, Carl H., ‘Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia; Some observations on the Group Theory of Polities,’ a paper prepared for delivery at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association,Chicago1971.Google Scholar For some more specific applications to individual countries: Legg, Keith R., Politics in Modern Greece (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Ike, Nobutaka, Japanese Politics, Patron-Client Democracy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972)Google Scholar; Tarrow, Sidney G., Peasant Communism in Southern Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

3 There are, unfortunately, almost as many definitions of the patron-client relationship as there are writers on the subject. Most of the divergence on these definitions revolves around points ‘b’ and ‘c’ above. That is, whereas almost everyone agrees that the relationship should be defined as ‘asymmetrical’, there is substantial disagreement on the degree of voluntarism associated with the relationship and the degree to which customary or legal obligations enter into clientelistic transactions. My definition represents a synthesis of the definitions found in Powell, , ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’, p. 412Google Scholar; Scott, , ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change …’, pp. 93–5Google Scholar; and Lande, , ‘Networks and Groups …’, pp. 510.Google Scholar

4 For some literature which suggests this relationship, see: Morse, Richard M., ‘Latin American Cities: Aspects of Function and Structure’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. IV, No. 4 (07 1962), pp. 473–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stein, Stanley J. and Stein, Barbara H., The Colonial Heritage of Latin America, Essays on Economic Dependence in Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Cotler, Julio, ‘The Mechanics of Internal Domination and Social Change in Peru’, in Masses in Latin America, edited by Horowitz, Irving Louis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 235–89Google Scholar; Chalmers, ‘Developing on the Periphery: External Factors in Latin American Polities’.

5 Anderson, Charles W., Politics and Economic Change in Latin America (Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1967), pp. 8993.Google ScholarScott, Robert E., ‘Political Elites and Political Modernization’, in Elites in Latin America, edited by Lipset, Seymour and Solari, Aldo (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 127.Google Scholar

6 Powell, , ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’, p. 411.Google Scholar

7 Lemarchand, Rene, ‘Political Clientelism and Ethnicity…’ gives perhaps the greatest emphasis to the subjective elements of the patron-client relationship, see especially, p. 69.Google Scholar

8 This ‘objective’ aspect is emphasized most strongly perhaps by Powell, ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’.

9 Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture, Political Altitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1963), pp. 30–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Used in this way, the concept of clientelism would seem closely linked to more general dimensions of political culture and in fact comes close to being simply a restatement of the Parsonian pattern variables.- For an analysis which implicitly uses the patron-client concept in this way see Lipset, Seymour M., ‘Values, Education, and Entrepreneurship’, in Elites in Latin America, edited by Lipset, and Solari, , pp. 361.Google Scholar

11 Scott, James C., ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change …’, p. 101.Google Scholar

12 For some attempts to spell out some of the variable dimensions of patron-client relationships, see: Scott, , ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change…’, pp. 97101;Google ScholarPowell, , ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’, p. 413Google Scholar; Lemarchand, Rene and Legg, Keith, ‘Political Clientelism and Development: Preliminary Analysis’, Comparative Politics, Vol. 4, No. 2 (01 1972), pp. 159–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 For this argument, see Lemarchand and Legg, ibid., pp. 149–79.

14 Ibid., pp. 160–1.

15 The distinction between feudalism and clientelism is central, for example, to Tarrow's analysis of the social system of Southern Italy. Tarrow, , Peasant Communism in Southern Italy, p. 69.Google Scholar Richard Morse, ‘Latin American Cities …’ and Stein and Stein, ‘The Colonial Heritage of Latin America’, also emphasize this difference in their analysis of political change in Latin America.

16 Bendix, Reinhard, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 285458.Google ScholarLasswell, Harold D. and Kaplan, Abraham, Power and Society, A Framework for Political Inquiry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), pp. 55173Google Scholar. Etzioni, Amitai, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations, On Power, Involvement, and Their Correlates (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961), pp. 367.Google Scholar

17 See Scott's discussion of patron-client clusters and pyramids, ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change …’, p. 96; Lemarchand and Legg, ‘Clientelism and Politics …’, p. 160; and Lemarchand, ‘Political Clientelism and Ethnicity …’, p. 76; also Silverman, Sydel F., ‘Patron- age and Community-Nation Relationships in Central Italy’, Ethnology, Vol. 4, No. 2 (04 1965), pp. 172–90;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWeingrod, Alex, ‘Patrons, Patronage, and Political Parties,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 10, No. 4 (07 1968), pp. 376400;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Wolf, Eric, ‘Aspects of Group Relations in a Complex Society: Mexico’, in Contemporary Cultures and Societies of Latin America, edited by Heath, Dwight and Adams, Richard (New York: Random House, 1965), pp. 85102.Google Scholar

11 Powell, , ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’, pp. 418–20.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 412.

20 Blau, , ‘Exchange and Power in Social Life’, pp. 133; 283–312.Google Scholar

21 Powell, , ‘Peasant Society and Clientelistic Polities’, pp. 413–15; Weingrod, ‘Patrons, Patronage, and Political Parties’ and Silverman, ‘Patronage and Community-Nation Rela- tionships in Central Italy’.Google Scholar

22 For attempts to relate the patron-client concept to these larger macro-levels, see: Legg, Politics in Modern Greece; Tarrow, Peasant Communism in Southern Italy; Powell, , ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’, pp. 415–23;Google Scholar Julio Cotler, ‘The Mechanics of Internal Domina- tion and Social Change in Peru’ Carl H. Lande, ‘Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia …’ Leeds, Anthony, ‘Brazilian Careers and Social Structure: A Case History and Model’, in Contemporary Cultures and Societies of Latin America, edited by Heath, Dwight and Adams, Richard (New York: Random House, 1965), pp. 379405;Google Scholar and Roth, Guenther, ‘Personal Rulership, Patrimonalism, and Empire Building in the New States’, World Politics, Vol. 20, No. 2 (01 1968), pp. 194207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Some of the ‘field variables’ discussed by Scott take us at least part of the way in identi- fying the ‘emergent’ properties of large-scale clientelist systems. In addition to the density variable mentioned above, the others are the degree of a single patron's control over local resources and over ties to the outside world, the degree of differentiation between the social composition of different patron-client clusters; and the degree of homogeneity within a given cluster. ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change …’, p. 101.

24 Weingrod, , ‘Patrons, Patronage and Political Parties’, p. 399.Google Scholar

25 See Powell's conception of a clientelist state, ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’, and Roth, ‘Personal Rulership, Patrimonialism, and Empire Building…’

26 Scott, , ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change …’, p. 97.Google Scholar

21 Lande, ‘Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia …’ Mayer, Adrian C., ‘The Significance of Quasi-Groups in the Study of Complex Societies’, in The Social Anthropology of Complex Societies, edited by Banton, Michael (New York, Washington: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), pp. 97123.Google Scholar

28 Scott, , ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change…’, p. 97.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 91.

30 Legg, Politics in Modern Greece; Tarrow, Peasant Communism in Southern Italy; Scott, James C., ‘Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 63, No. 4 (12 1969), pp. 1142–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Lande, ‘Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia…’ Roth, ‘Personal Rulership, Patrimonalism, and Empire Building …’

32 See the contrasting interpretations of Johnson, John J., Political Change in Latin America, The Emergence of the Middle Sectors (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1958)Google Scholar and Obstacles to Change in Latin America, edited by Veliz, Claudio (London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1965), esp. Claudio Veliz, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–9.Google Scholar

33 Contrast Powell's interpretation of the Venezuelan, A.D., ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’, with that of Martz, John D., Accion Democratica: Evolution of a Modern Political Party in Venezuela (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

34 For critiques of the conventional wisdom that Latin American societies are becoming more ‘modern’ and ‘universalistic’ see: Veliz, Claudio, ed., The Politics of Conformity in Latin America (London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1967)Google Scholar, esp. Adams, Richard, ‘Political Power and Social Structure’, pp. 1543;Google Scholar and Stavenhagen, Rodolfo, ‘Seven Fallacies about Latin America’, in Latin America, Reform or Revolution? (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968), edited by Petras, James and Zeitlin, Maurice, pp. 1332.Google Scholar

35 Lande, ‘Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia …’

36 Scott, ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change …’, p. 97, is particularly ambiguous on this point. Lande, ‘Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia…. ’ is, in his appendix, much more precise in specifying the association as an hypothesis. Ambiguity does, however, enter into his treatment of the concept in the substantive portion of his article.

37 Scott, , ‘Patron-Client Politics and Political Change …’, p. 106.Google Scholar

38 For Brazil, see: Lopes, Juarez R. B., ‘Some Basic Developments in Brazilian Politics and Society’, in New Perspectives of Brazil (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1966), edited by Baklanoff, Eric N., pp. 5978.Google Scholar For Chile, see: Petras, James, Politics and Social Forces in Chilean Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969);Google Scholar and Sunkel, Osvaldo ‘Change and Frustration in Chile’, in Obstacles to Change in Latin America (London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1965), edited by Veliz, Claudio, pp. 116–45.Google Scholar

39 Roth, ‘Personal Rulership, Patrimonialism, and Empire Building in the New States’.

40 Blau, , Exchange and Power in Social Life, pp. 208–9.Google Scholar

41 Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967).Google Scholar

42 Bailey, F. G., Politics and Social Change, Orissa in 1959 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963), p. 154.Google Scholar

43 See the discussion by Wolf, Eric R., ‘Kinship, Friendship, and Patron-Client Relations in Complex Societies’, in The Social Anthropology of Complex Societies, edited by Michael Banton (New York, Washington: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), p. 16.Google Scholar

44 For a more extended discussion of these possibilities, see the longer version of this paper, presented at the convention of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 1972.

45 Powell, , ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’, p. 433.Google Scholar

46 Olson, The Logic of Collective Action, is especially relevant in this respect.

47 In this section of the article, I shall rely heavily on James C. Scott's, ‘Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change’, and it should be noted that in this particular article there is no explicit link drawn between clientelism and machines. Scott's description of machines, how- ever, closely parallels Powell’s explicit use of the patron-client concept to analyze the organiza- tion of the Mexican P.R.I., the Venezuelan A.D., and the Italian Christian Democratic party in ‘Peasant Society and Clientelist Polities’. Machines and patron-client relationships are also closely associated by Bailey, Politics and Social Change, Orissa in 1959; Tarrow, Peasant Communism in Southern Italy; and Weingrod, ‘Patrons, Patronage, and Political Parties’, When placed in the general context of this literature, as well as in the context of the other article by Scott himself, it seems legitimate to use the terms ‘political machine’ and ‘clientelist party’ interchangeably.

48 Propositions a-d are drawn from Scott, , ‘Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change’, pp. 1154–6. The remaining propositions are found scattered throughout the literature.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., p. 1155.

50 Ibid., pp. 1156–8.

51 See Payne, , Patterns of Conflict in Columbia, pp. 159–82.Google Scholar

52 For a quite useful critical discussion of the various forms of functional analysis, see Flanagan, William and Fogelman, Edwin, ‘Functional Analysis’, in Contemporary Political Analysis, edited by Charlesworth, James C. (New York: The Free Press; London: Collier- MacMillan Limited, 1967), pp. 7286.Google Scholar

53 Wolf, Eric R. and Hansen, E. C., ‘Caudillo Politics: A Structural Analysis’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 9, No. 2 (01 1967), pp. 168–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Lande, ‘Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia …’