Anthropology Of Patron-Client Relationships Research Paper

1. Terminology

The terms used originated in ancient Republican Rome, where relationships of patrocinium and clientelae proliferated during the Republic and into the Empire (later on, they were subsumed under what historians of late medieval times called bastard feudalism). These terms found their way into the vernaculars of Mediterranean and Latin American societies. Other terms are used for PCR elsewhere.

2. Background

Whereas in antiquity, PCR formed part of the normative framework of society and could hardly be thought as conflicting with legal institutions and the social ethos, in modern societies PCR are built around such a conflict. While in principle and by law the clients have access to power centers and the ability to convert resources autonomously, this potential is neutralized by the patrons’ control over scarce re- sources, be they land, water sources, employment, loans, schooling opportunities, medical services, public security, or infrastructure. PCR may be rooted in the search for protection, in bureaucrats’ providing preferential access to petitioners in return for future favors, in poor people sharing the social visibility of men or rank, while the latter use these links to consolidate their status. Union leaders, political activists, and government officials may use PCR to build a network of supporters, instrumental for gaining higher-level positions, office, and control of resources.

3. The Study Of PCR

Expanding in the 1960s, it led (by the late 1970s and 1980s) to general and comparative analyses. In the 1990s in-depth studies renewed interest in PCR in polities under transition to market economy and democracy, re-evaluating some of the premises of earlier approaches, especially regarding the connection between PCR and underdevelopment. The growth of interest has been connected with the spread of research from anthropology to the other social sciences. From early dyadic emphases, research has increasingly revealed a complex range of PCR analyzed in terms of networks, factions and coalitions.

The study of PCR contributed to analytical shifts, as it deals with phenomena for which neither the group corporate model nor formal institutional models provide a satisfactory guide. In parallel, research revealed the complexities of studying PCR, owing to their informal character and to their cross-institutional insertion that requires interdisciplinary knowledge, bridging anthropology and sociology, political science, and economics.

4. A Logic Of Social Exchange

Research has identified a specific logic of exchange and reciprocity beneath the wide gamut of PCR. Both the control of material and human resources and the character of trust play a crucial role in it. This logic has been defined in the literature as clientelism. A related term is patronage, used interchangeably at times and alluding to the support granted by the patron to his followers and proteges.

This logic implies:

Control of markets. Individuals and institutional actors are able to gather followings by dispensing selective access to valuable benefits and resources. They do so whether acting as patrons (in a strict sense), or through their influence as brokers with those who control the goods and services, or through a combination of both roles, in what has been called patron-brokerage.

Inequality and asymmetry structured though an idiom of reciprocity.

Particularism. A relationship shaped according to the particular traits of the partners rather than on the basis of entitlements or formal roles.

Favoritism. Many people are excluded from PCR or are related indirectly or intermittently. Where clientelism is highly valued, it generates ‘inflationary’ expectations, many of which are disappointed.

The simultaneous exchange of instrumental (e.g., economic and political) and ‘sociational’ or expressive resources and services (e.g., promises of loyalty). A package deal allowing for more than a restricted balanced or market exchange is built-in, identified as connected to generalized exchange. This determines expectations of entering more embracing attachments, often couched in terms of commitment, even though some PCR are very ambivalent in this respect.

PCR undermine group (i.e., class and strata) solidarity among both clients and patrons, especially among clients, and to exacerbate resentment and social antagonisms.

PCR are neither fully contractual nor legal. Most PCR are vulnerable to systemic pressures and are characterized by instability, perpetual contest and resource manipulation.

5. Exchange Strategies

The agent performing as client is not only expected to provide his patron with specific resources but must also accept the patron’s control over access to markets and public goods, and over his ability to convert resources fully. In parallel, the patron’s position is not as solid as it may seem, nor guaranteed. Never fully legitimized, it is vulnerable to attack by social forces committed to universalistic principles, by the competition of other patrons and brokers, potential and actual, and by social forces excluded from PCR. Owing to these constant threats, patrons are compelled to rely on their followers to solidify their position. The patron must also relinquish some short-term gains to project public claims and to bolster images of power and reputation. Sometimes this earns him her the right to determine the basic rules of the social relationships. In return the client is protected from social or material insecurity, and is provided with goods, services and social advancement. Certain types of trust (focalized rather than generalized) are associated with such dynamics.

Complementary exchange strategies are built, which signal what Vincent Lemieux defined as a ‘double transformation.’ That is, an abdication of autonomy on the client’s part and a relaxation of hierarchical controls on the patron’s part, through which the client’s lack of power becomes dominated power and the latter’s lack of domination becomes dominating authority. These exchange strategies are not only affected by immediate, mostly technical considerations of power and instrumentality, but often encompass mutual, relatively long-term, compromises based on commitments as the prerequisite for ongoing social relationships.

6. The Context Of PCR

Unlike societies in which hereditary ascriptive principles predominate, full-fledged clientelism flourishes where markets are no longer controlled through primordial units and allow for an open flow of resources and opportunities for mobility. (This is what distinguishes clientelism from feudalism, as pointed out already by Max Weber in Economy and Society (1968, Vol. III, Chaps. 12–13) and later on by historians of Europe). This trend, however, goes hand in hand with a strong tendency toward unequal access to markets and sociopolitical spheres. As they affect distribution and redistribution, PCR remain subject to the dynamics of political economy. Marketing economies, accelerated urbanization and the expansion of the regulatory, extractive, or even sporadic mobilizing activities of central administrations affect PCR. Research has shown that the impact of world economic trends, fluctuations in the price of commodities, the complexity of international trade, banking, and aid—all these affect the pool of patronage resources available to states and other agencies, and influence patterns of control, distribution, and redistribution. Moreover, as these arrangements are not fully legitimized, they remain vulnerable to the challenge of countervailing social forces.

7. The Comparative Analysis Of PCR

Until the early 1980s, it was dominated by the contrast between traditional dyadic patronage and modern party-directed clientelism, a distinction that derived from the dominant paradigm of modernization. With a clear-cut developmental emphasis, this approach focused on differences in organizational complexity, deriving other aspects from it in a functionalist manner.

Since the 1980s, comparative analysis has paid attention also to other aspects. First, the way agents configure their role. Second, the styles shaping the relationship, following what Robert Paine called a ‘generative transactional model of patronage.’ Third, symbolic aspects such as images, discourse and trust, so important for the development of PCR. Fourth, the distinction between PCR as institutional addenda and clientelism as a major institutional strategy in certain societies and periods. Finally, PCR’s institutional viability in processes of democratization and liberalization.

8. Debates On Institutional Viability

Researchers differ in assessing the institutional viability and significance of PCR in late modernity. From one perspective, PCR neutralize the system of representation and entitlements, by placing ‘friends’ in strategic positions of power and control. Clienteles are depicted as inimical to the institutionalization of public accountability and contrary to a politics, open to generalization and participation, and to a discourse of rights. Other authors emphasize the pragmatics of social action, stressing that PCR are an important mechanism for obtaining transactional benefits, in resource allocation, and in providing local–regional– national mechanisms of articulation. While PCR run counter to universalistic standards, it is claimed they are sensitive to local sentiment, may solve existential problems, provide access for migrant populations, and serve political entrepreneurs. From this perspective, as long as clienteles maintain some balance of reciprocity, the participation in political and economic markets by the ‘capi-clientele’ (to borrow Mosca’s expression)—be he or she a broker, a patron or a patronbroker—constitutes a means for individuals in their entourage to influence public decisions. In this sense, some literature alludes to PCR as reconciling public and private authority and formal and informal rules of the game.

PCR are criticized, and opposed by social forces and coalitions wishing to curtail its presence alongside bureaucratic universalism and market rationality. In parallel, sectors benefiting from patronage may see it as a pragmatic avenue of controlled freedom, useful for advancing in competitive social, economic, and political domains. This duality reflects a major tension of modern democracies, which are built on citizenship and political equality but leave the economic domain open to inequalities.

This explains the paradoxical development of clientelistic networks under macro-economic adjustment and restructuring. Liberalization, reduction of state intervention in favor of market mechanisms, privatization of services, and curtailment of union power further fragments society and heightens the need for support networks. When available, clientelism remained important throughout institutional revamping in Poland, Russia, Hungary, Brazil, Argentina, and Turkey.

In centralized polities, PCR have been depicted as a ‘lubricant’ to bypass the inefficient and rigid official system, constituting highly trusted informal problem- solving networks that provide material gains and support in situations of low institutional trust. In representative democracies, clientelism can be effective in power competitions, encouraging and rewarding party activists, once power is achieved, for effectively implementing policies. Patronage may become a restricted but legitimate procedure related to high office incumbents’ right to appoint followers to positions of responsibility. In other respects, clientelism remains controversial and open to allegations of corruption, due to its informal particularistic use of public resources. Often, it is ignored as long as possible or is disguised as friendship, which is more acceptable in terms of the proclaimed ethos of modern equality.

Studies suggest that in post-industrial societies, patronage develops among professional and upper strata, rather than being restricted to the lower classes. Also, PCR are not confined to politics in the narrow sense, but proliferate as well in the arts, the academia, the church, the media, and even in business—whenever we deal with the power of appointment and the granting of access to benefits, goods, services, influence, and honors.

Changes in the perception of PCR are of systemic consequence if they result in the institutionalization of mechanisms through which citizens can press for entitlements without personal mediation. Such changes include: civil service reforms, non-partisan public systems, recognized charters of rights, controls over party fund raising, and non-partisan comptrollers as a prestigious and trustworthy branch of government. The functioning of these institutional mechanisms hinge on public support for a configuration of the public sphere structured around public accountability and formal responsiveness to turn more and more discrete issues into publicly negotiable and politically consequential.

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