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Patrons, Patronage, and Political Parties*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Alex Weingrod
Alex Weingrod
Affiliation:
Brandeis University
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Extract

What is meant by “patronage”? The term appears with increased frequency in anthropological analysis. Indeed, it has become a major concept in the study of peasant societies, somewhat analogous to the concept of the “big man” in certain kinds of chiefdoms, or “fission and fusion” in lineage-type societies. There is, however, considerable ambiguity in the meaning given to the term. Consider, as examples, the following three excerpts from recent anthropological studies:

Patronage is founded on the reciprocal relations between patrons and clients. By patron I mean a person who uses his influence to assist and protect some other person, who then becomes his “client”, and in return provides certain services for his patron… Patronage is thus the complex of relations between those who use their influence, social position or some other attribute to assist and protect others, and those whom they so help and protect.

Type
Patronage and Parties in Political Structure
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , July 1968 , pp. 377 - 400
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1968

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References

1 Boissevain, Jeremy, “Patronage in Sicily”, Man, Vol. 1, Number 1 (1966), p. 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Campbell, J., Honour, Family and Patronage (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964), p. 260.Google Scholar

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11 The analysis presented here follows along “structural lines”. Patronage has also been interpreted in terms of “values” and “value orientations”. For recent examples of patronage examined in terms of values, see Foster, G., “The Dyadic Contract in Tzintzuntzan, II: Patron-Client Relations”, American Anthropologist, Vol. 65 (1963), pp. 1280–1294CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Boissevain, J., op. cit.Google Scholar

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17 Several recent examples include: Apter, D., The Politics of Modernization (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1966Google Scholar); and Zolberg, A., Creating Political Order (Chicago, Rand, McNally, 1966)Google Scholar. See also Geertz, C., The Social History of an Indonesian Town(Cambridge, MIT Press, 1966).Google Scholar

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21 An interesting “dialogue” regarding political parties and political “integration” can be seen in the contrasting views of Zolberg and Apter. See Apter, D., Ghana in Transition (New York, Atheneum, 1963)Google Scholar; and Zolberg, A., op. cit.Google Scholar

22 From Fiori, Giuseppe, Vita di Antonio Gramsci (Bari, Editori Laterza, 1966), p. 13.Google Scholar

23 Lannou, M.Le, Patres et Paysans de la Sardaigne (Tours, Arrault, 1941), p. 13.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., p. 13.

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31 Ibid., p. 116.

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