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Patrimonialism is a form of governance in which all power flows directly from the ruler. There is no distinction between the public and private domains. These regimes are autocratic or oligarchic and exclude the lower, middle and upper classes from power. The leaders of these countries typically enjoy absolute personal power. Usually, the armies of these countries are loyal to the leader, not the state.

Various definitions

Max Weber

Julia Adams, states: "In Weber's Economy and Society, patrimonialism mainly refers to forms of government that are based on rulers' family-households. The ruler's authority is personal-familial, and the mechanics of the household are the model for political administration. The concept of patrimonialism captures a distinctive style of regulation and administration that contrasts with Weber's ideal-typical rational-legal bureaucracy". She states that Weber has used patrimonialism to describe, among other systems, "estatist and absolutist politics of early modern Europe". For Weber, patriarchy is at the centre of patrimonalism and is its model and origin.

Nathan Quimpo

Nathan Quimpo defines patrimonialism as "a type of rule in which the ruler does not distinguish between personal and public patrimony and treats matters and resources of state as his personal affair."

Richard Pipes

Richard Pipes, a historian and Professor Emeritus of Russian history at Harvard University defines patrimonial as "a regime where the rights of sovereignty and those of ownership blend to the point of being indistinguishable, and political power is exercised in the same manner as economic power."

J. I. Bakker

J. I. Bakker, a sociologist at the University of Guelph, states:

The key focus in the model is the extent to which legitimate authority is based primarily on personal power exercised by the ruler, either directly or indirectly. The ruler may act alone or as a member of a powerful elite group or oligarchy. The ruler is not viewed as a tyrant. The structure of the Roman Catholic Church today is still patrimonial. Direct rule involves the ruler and a few key members of the ruler's household or staff maintaining personal control over every aspect of governance. If rule is indirect, there may be an intellectual or moral elite of priests or office holders as well as a military. The priestly group may invoke deity for the leader. The king, sultan, maharaja or other ruler is able to make independent decisions on an ad hoc basis, with little if any checks and balances. No individual or group is powerful enough to oppose the ruler consistently without, in turn, becoming the new patrimonial ruler. The ruler is recognized as the chief landholder and, in the extreme case, all of the land and its people are his domain. The legal authority of the ruler is largely unchallenged; there is no recognized body of case law or formal law, but there may be notions of etiquette and honor.

Francis Fukuyama

In his The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama states on the matter:

Natural human sociability is built around two principles, kin selection and reciprocal altruism. The principle of kin selection or inclusive fitness states that human beings will act altruistically toward genetic relatives (or individuals believed to be genetic relatives) in rough proportion to their shared genes. The principle of reciprocal altruism says that human beings will tend to develop relationships of mutual benefit or mutual harm as they interact with other individuals over time. Reciprocal altruism, unlike kin selection, does not depend on genetic relatedness; it does, however, depend on repeated, direct personal interaction and the trust relationships generated out of such interactions. These forms of social cooperation are the default ways human beings interact in the absence of incentives to adhere to other, more impersonal institutions. When impersonal institutions decay, these are the forms of cooperation that always reemerge because they are natural to human beings. What I have labeled patrimonialism is political recruitment based on either of these two principles. Thus, when bureaucratic offices were filled with the kinsmen of rulers at the end of the Han Dynasty in China, when the Janissaries wanted their sons to enter the corps, or when offices were sold as heritable property in ancien regime France, a natural patrimonial principle was simply reasserting itself.

Examples

Richard Pipes cited the Egyptian Ptolemies and the Attalids of Pergamon as early patrimonial monarchies, both successor states to Alexander the Great's empire.

Pipes argues that the Russia between the twelfth and seventeenth century, and with certain modifications until 1917, was a patrimonial system.

Jean Bodin described seigneurial monarchies in the Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576–1586), where the monarch owns all the land. He claimed that Turkey and Muscovy were the only European examples.

Indonesia, before and during the Suharto administration, is often cited as being patrimonial in its political-economy.

See also

• Crony capitalism
• Neo-patrimonialism
• Tsarist autocracy
• Pater familias

References

1. Adams, Julia (2005). "The Rule of the Father: Patriarchy and Patrimonialism in Early Modern Europe" (PDF). Max Weber's Economy and society: a critical companion. Charles Camic, Philip S. Gorski, David M. Trubek. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4716-4. OCLC 54952945.
2. Quimpo, Nathan Gilbert (January–March 2007). "Trapo Parties and Corruption". KASAMA. 21 (1): 2 – via Solidarity Philippines Australia Network.
3. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, page 22
4. Bakker, Johannes Iemke (2007). "Patrimonialism". In Bevir, Mark (ed.). Encyclopedia of Governance. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc. pp. 669–670. doi:10.4135/9781412952613. ISBN 9781412905794. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
5. Fukuyama, Francis (2011). The Origins of Political Order. p. 439.
6. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, page 23
7. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, page 24
8. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, page 65
9. Schwarz, Adam. 2004. A Nation in Waiting. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
10. Bakker, J. I. (Hans). 1988. Patrimonialism, Involution, and the Agrarian Question in Java: A Weberian Analysis of Class Relations and Servile Labour. State and Society. London, UK: Unwin Hyman.

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