Introduction

The study of clientelism in the Netherlands is exclusively linked with the Republic of the Seven United Provinces. Although the social and political structure of the Republic radically differed from the absolutist monarchies in Europe and therefore did not know of royal patronage, its internal stability and wealth rested upon the continuous support of the urban oligarchies whose power was inextricably linked with their control of patronage networks at the local level. Complaints about the all-pervasive nepotism and corruption greatly contributed to the crisis of the Republic in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, the obscure system of negotiation and compromise was not inherently inefficient. To some extent, it even sustained the undisputed administrative continuity of the Republic. The highly particularistic tax system, for example, lacked the uniformity that would become the norm later in the nineteenth century, but it was adaptable to local circumstances and, in comparison with absolutist states, resulted in a relatively equitable tax burden (De Vries and Van der Woude 1995: 141). Local elites took care of primary education and poor relief, which took the sting out of social protest.

The Batavian–French period (1795–1813/15) marked an important transition in the formal and informal state structure. The unitary state which took shape in these years concentrated more power at the central level of government and was less dependent on painstaking compromises among urban oligarchies.