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Power Structure and Patronage in a Community of the Dominican Republic*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Malcolm T. Walker
Malcolm T. Walker*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois
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Extract

In this paper it is intended to present the “political ethnography” of Villalta, a community in the Dominican Republic, from the period before the rise of Trujillo until May 1968, when municipal elections were held throughout the country. The principal concern is to show how the power structure and system of patronage which developed in Villalta during the Trujillo years has responded to the political fortunes of the country since the death of Trujillo.

Much of the discussion will deal with a small group of men who are the principal dispensers of political patronage and who, over the years, have represented the community to the outside. At lower levels, those who acquiesce to the judgment of these men frequently do so in accordance with patron-client ties. Because of both political and economic change within and outside the community, the basis on which this acquiescence has rested, has undergone change and the position of the power-holders has been rendered more tenuous.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , Winter 1970 , pp. 485 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1970

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Footnotes

*

The research upon which this article is based was funded by the Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University, the Research Institute for the Study of Man, New York, and the Institute of Latin American Studies in Education, Teachers’ College, Columbia University. Field work was carried out in the Dominican Republic between June 1967 and August 1968.

References

1 Friedrich, Paul, “The Legitimacy of a Cacique,” in Swartz, Marc J., ed., Local-Level Politics (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1968), p. 243.Google Scholar

2 Foster, George M., “The Dyadic Contract in Tzintzuntzan, II: Patron-Client Relationships,” American Anthropologist 65 (1963): 1281 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Foster distinguishes two basic types of dyadic contract, namely, “colleague” contracts, which serve to tie persons of approximately equal socioeconomic status, and “patron-client” contracts, which are formed between persons of differing status who exchange different kinds of goods and services.

3 Jr.Whitten, Norman E., Class, Kinship, and Power in an Ecuadorian Town (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1965), p. 140 Google Scholar.

4 Six Dominican tareas equal one U.S. acre.

5 G. M. Foster, “The Dyadic Contract.”

6 Wolf's discussion on “instrumental” friendship (as opposed to what he calls “expressive” or “emotional” friendship where actors are not motivated primarily by material gain) well applies to the situation in Villalta. Such friendships may begin with “generalized reciprocity,” but in the course of time, favors commonly swing out of balance at which point the relationship may either break down or become converted to patron-client ties. Wolf, Eric R., “Kinship, Friendship, and Patron-Client Relations in Complex Societies,” in Banton, Michael, ed., The Social Anthropology of Complex Societies (London: Tavistock Publications Ltd., 1966), pp. 1–22 Google Scholar.

7 Jr.Whitten, Norman E., Class, Kinship and Power, p. 139 Google Scholar. See also, Jr.Whitten, Norman E. “Strategies of Adaptive Mobility in the Colombian-Ecuadorian Littoral,” American Anthropologist 71 (1969): 228–242 Google Scholar. Whitten describes a socioeconomic mobility sequence for the lower-class people of the Colombian and Ecuadorian coastal lowlands that also largely applies to Villalta. Through the adoption of social strategies which in part involve the calculated restructuring of kin and ritual kin ties, individuals and a segment of the personal kindred move from the status of peasantry, to lower-class proletariat, to local entrepreneurial middle class, at which level the stem kindred functions as a corporate unit.

8 Deschamps, Enrique, La República Dominicana, directorio y guía general (Barcelona, Calle Universidad 7: Vda. de J. Cunill, 1907), p. 313 Google Scholar.

9 Freilich, Morris, “Serial Polygyny, Negro Peasants, and Model Analyses,” American Anthropologist 63 (1961): 961 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Wolf, Eric R., “Aspects of Group Relations in a Complex Society: Mexico,” American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 1065 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Such associations included a park beautiflcation association, a progress association, agricultural associations, associations concerned with adult education, and a businessmen's club. There was also the Club Trujillo—a social club made up of leading citizens, mainly concerned with organizing public functions on those occasions when Trujillo or other important visitors arrived in the community.

12 Bailey, F. G., “Decisions by Consensus in Councils and Committees With Special Reference to Village and Local Government in India,” in Banton, M., ed., Political Systems and the Distribution of Power (London: Tavistock Publications, 1965), pp. 1–20 Google Scholar.