Patronage

"Patron" redirects here. For other uses, see Patron (disambiguation) and Patronage (disambiguation).

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that princes, popes, and other wealthy and influential people have provided to artists such as musicians, painters, and sculptors. It can also refer to the right of bestowing offices or church benefices, the business given to a store by a regular customer, and the guardianship of saints. The word patron derives from the Latin patronus ('patron'), one who gives benefits to his clients (see patronage in ancient Rome).

In some countries the term is used to describe political patronage or patronal politics, which is the use of state resources to reward individuals for their electoral support.[1] Some patronage systems are legal, as in the Canadian tradition of the prime minister to appoint senators and the heads of a number of commissions and agencies; in many cases, these appointments go to people who have supported the political party of the prime minister. As well, the term may refer to a type of corruption or favoritism in which a party in power rewards groups, families, or ethnicities for their electoral support using illegal gifts or fraudulently awarded appointments or government contracts.[2] The opposite of this structure, where all individuals advance based on their personal traits and abilities, is meritocracy.

In many Latin American countries, patronage developed as a means of population control, concentrating economic and political power in a small minority which held privileges that the majority of the population did not.[3] In this system, the patrón holds authority and influence over a less powerful person, whom he protects by granting favors in exchange for loyalty and allegiance. With roots in feudalism, the system was designed to maintain an inexpensive, subservient labor force, which could be utilized to limit production costs and allow wealth and its privileges to be monopolized by a small elite.[4] Long after slavery, and other forms of bondage like the encomienda and repartimiento systems were abolished, patronage was used to maintain rigid class structures.[4][5] With the rise of a labor class, traditional patronage changed in the 20th century to allow some participation in power structures, but many systems still favor a small powerful elite, who distribute economic and political favors in exchange for benefits to the lower classes.[3]

  1. ^ Hale, Henry E. (2014). Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 9–10. ISBN 978-1-107-07351-7.
  2. ^ For a recent study of political patronage in the People's Republic of China, see Hillman, Ben. Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-state Resilience in Rural China Archived 2014-10-06 at the Wayback Machine Stanford University Press, 2014.
  3. ^ a b Huizer, Gerrit (November 1969). "The Role of Patronage in the Peasant Political Struggle in Latin America" (PDF). Sociologische Gids. 16 (6). Mepple, Belgium: J.A. Boom en Zoon: 411–419. ISSN 0038-0334. OCLC 1083129639. S2CID 58913901. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 February 2019. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
  4. ^ a b Hall, Anthony (July 1974). "Patron-Client Relations". The Journal of Peasant Studies. 1 (4). London: Taylor & Francis: 506–509. doi:10.1080/03066157408437908. ISSN 0306-6150. OCLC 4654622533.
  5. ^ Monteiro, John (2006). "6. Labor Systems". In Bulmer-Thomas, Victor; Coatsworth, John; Cortes-Conde, Roberto (eds.). The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America. Vol. 1: The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 185–234. ISBN 978-0-521-81289-4.