Party Patronage

The paper focuses on the conceptualization of party patronage. The analysis of the usage of the term party patronage reveals several challenges: scholars from different fields use different definitions of party patronage, in addition same phenomena can be described by different concepts making it difficult to compare data from different surveys or analysis. Furthermore the term itself must be revised continuously as it can become out dated due to changing aspects of party patronage in modern world. To clarify the usage of term party patronage it is important to define contiguous phenomenon such as clientelism, politicization, state capture, pork barrel and corruption. Hence this paper suggests slightly modified conceptualization used by Kopecky et al.: party patronage as power of political parties to make personnel decisions in the public sector for Lithuanian social sciences. Party patronage is defined by three dimensions: who makes the decision, what are the decisions and where those decisions are made? In case of party patronage political parties acts as collective patrons and they make decisions of the personnel matter (hiring, promoting and transferring of public servants) in public sector. This conceptualization enables to show differences between party patronage and contiguous phenomenon. In short clientelism should be understood as an electoral resource of the political party, while party patronage should be understood as an organizational and governmental resource. Concept of politicization is closely connected to party patronage, however politicization is more suitable for public administrative studies as it is directed to the separation of bureaucrats and politicians while party patronage in political science puts attention on the political power of parties to make personal decisions. State capture is defined as systematic influence of business to government in order to obtain favorable legal and regulatory decisions. Pork barrel politics means direction of funding and legislation towards certain constituency or geographical region. Corruption should be understood as abuse of authority and power for personal gain. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.15.3.16617

The paper aimes at exploring the relationships that exist between party structure, party system, patronage and the appointments of the political elites. It is focused on the extent to which political parties can control the allocation of jobs as well as find out which are the institutions over whom the political parties can exercise power; the extent to which historical legacies influence patronage patterns; the extent to which party patronage is exercised in a ‘majoritarian’ as opposed to a more ‘consensual’ manner across the spectrum of political parties; and the relationship that exist between the structure of the party, the appointment of political elites and patronage. The conclusion is that the party in public office and its allies in the coalition cabinet control the post of ministers and vice-ministers. While this last ones control the posts of their subordinates, it is hard to understand whether they select the employees from the party pool or from their personal networks. The other finding is that the structure of the party creates strong links between patronage and appointment, these last ones done with the scope of having control over government resources and distribution of resources. On the other hand the research didn’t prove any link between historical legacies and patronage and party system and patronage. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n3p307

Party patronage and party and campaign finance have had a substantial impact on the evolving relationship between Romanian parties and the state. Given that patronage can create clientelistic networks that promote corruption, it is important to understand how patronage is used by parties to control state resources which can be explored through the civil service appointment process, use of local government patronage, the state control of the media and the influence of external monitoring on civil service reform. Party campaign financing (PCF) is a critical example of the party–state relationship, which is often viewed as a means to limit the influence of economic interests and create a more level playing-field among parties. While parties use state resources for electoral gains and as a form of party income, patronage and PCF actually have a modest influence on election outcomes.

The main issue of this paper is party patronage in Lithuania. Firstly, the phenomenon of party patronage is shortly described focusing on main research questions. Afterwards methodology of semi-structured expert interviews is presented. Lastly this article shows the main findings of party patronage study in Lithuania: party patronage index is constructed, data regarding motivation or party patronage, candidates’ selection criteria, impact of ruling party change on practices of party patronage, party patronage as a part of political culture is presented and analysis of Lithuanian political parties most prone to usage of party patronage is given.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.16.1.18012

SEER, 91, 4, OCTOBER 2013 934 Describing the devastating Georgian-Abkhazian war as ‘clashes that erupted in 1992–3’ (p. 218) is an insult to the thousands who perished therein, whilst the charge that ‘weak secessionist states like Abkhazia and South Ossetia will exacerbate immigration on its [EU’s] borders and strengthen drug and other criminal networks’ (p. 245) is wholly unsubstantiated. As for South Ossetia, Gamsakhurdia’s provocations began the blood-letting (1990–91), Saak’ashvili later resorting to armed intervention (2004). As for the 2008 August war, Jones dismisses the EU Commission’s report, which found no evidence of Russian military encroachment to justify Saak’ashvili’s order to attack, as ‘anodyne’ (p. 242), upbraids the EU for letting Saak’ashvili down (p. 254) and even defends his actions that fateful month (p. 242). ‘[I]nternational finance organizations’ are rightly castigated for superficially equating ‘Tbilisi with Georgia and post-communism with modernity’, while ‘Westerneconomicadvice’evidently‘contributedtothedestructionofGeorgia’s economic base’ (p. 111), and ‘misguided Western reforms’ are criticized for helping ‘create an overcentralized executive’ (p. 271). But, whereas I readily join Jones in berating Western governments for having ‘neglected Georgia’s conflicts’ (p. 245), I have a different ‘neglect’ in mind. For me, the West precipitately recognized Georgia in 1992 and thus gave Tbilisi carte blanche to act in (actually self-defeating) defence of Georgia’s territorial integrity, insouciantly failing to apply any restraints regarding interethnic relations. In a decision calculated to annoy language-specialists, Jones elected not to mark Georgian’s glottalic consonants (achievable by mere addition of the apostrophe). No normal bibliography is provided for readers to see at a glance the range of authors/works cited. No theoretical model is constructed to account for the Georgian experience, though the work is replete with mots justes from several socio-politologists and/or economists deemed applicable to relevant phenomena. SOAS, University of London George Hewitt Kopecký, Petr; Mair, Peter and Spirova, Maria (eds). Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies. Comparative Politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012. xvi + 415 pp. Figures. Tables. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. £60.00: $110.00. This book offers a rare example of research originating with work on new democracies that has been extended to established democratic systems. The book presents case studies of party patronage in fifteen European democracies — three from Central and Eastern Europe, twelve from Western Europe — but uses a conceptual and analytical framework developed by Kopecký, Spirova and their colleagues for the comparative study of new democracies in Europe, Latin America and Africa. REVIEWS 935 Party patronage, Kopecký, Spirova and Mair argue, takes broadly two forms: classical clientelism in which a party trades public office — or the resources stemming from it — with individuals or social groups in exchange for electoral support, and party use of patronage on a more limited scale as an organization-building resource to reward supporters and secure control over key state agencies. The editors accept that forms of classical clientelism — and, in particular, the mass patron-client networks historically characteristic of parties in less developed,ruralsocieties—areirreversiblydeclining. Historicaldevelopments such as the rise of programmatic class-based politics and mass organization, the decline of local, rural economies and the rise of more individualized, meritocratic societies with higher social mobility have cumulatively eliminated the social bases of traditional clientelism in almost all European societies. However Kopecký, Spirova and Mair suggest there are grounds to expect that party patronage in the second, narrower, organization-related sense will increase even in advanced European democracies: parties’ organizational presence in civil society has withered, leaving them with an ever smaller pool of well qualified, ideologically committed members to draw on, while a general decline in polarization between parties has made party ideology increasingly ineffective as means of securing loyalty. Moreover, they suggest, the displacement of traditional forms of government based on party direction of the state by more networked patterns of governance necessitates the development of party networks, which — as in many areas of professional activities — can be most easily co-ordinated by through patronage. It follows that, although often conflated with corruption by both academic and journalistic writers, partisan appointments can be entirely open and legal aspect of the democratic...

The subject of interest in this paper is empirical research on party patronage within the City Committee of a political party in Novi Sad, Serbia. The research design was structured by complementing the classical correlational paradigm with the social network analysis (SNA) methodology. The research problem is focused on the question whether party patronage can be predicted retrospectively using sociodemographic variables and variables derived from SNA. If so, to what extent and with what degree of precision? This is the first research to present empirical data on party patronage amenable to inferential statistical analysis. Although focused on a specific country, this paper lays the groundwork for future comparative investigations by advancing new hypotheses that make substantial contributions to the existing literature on party patronage. Descriptive statistics reveal that approximately one in five party members is employed through patronage. A network variable was generated, and centrality measures were calculated based on the data concerning recruitment into the party. Independent variables that exhibited statistically relevant associations with the indicator of party patronage through bivariate analysis were subsequently incorporated into a binary logistic regression model. Within this model, statistically significant B coefficients were observed for the following predictors: the number of secure votes, out-degree, membership in the largest component, core/periphery categorization, age, and educational level. In contrast to the other predictors, membership in the largest component and age demonstrate a negative association with the criterion. The obtained results substantiate the thesis of the technocratization of party patronage. The compilation of a comprehensive registry of public sector employees, the re-evaluation of their qualifications, and an investigation into their employment trajectories emerge as crucial imperatives. Otherwise, Serbia is poised to remain entrenched on the economic periphery of Europe for an extended period.

This article aims at offering a framework for analysing party patronage and state politicisation based on game-theoretic reasoning. It is argued that in order to reveal the main causal mechanisms behind these phenomena, one can focus on the cooperation between political parties analysis based on the model of prisoner’s dilemma. The article identifies four sets of obstacles to party cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe: unstable and polarised party systems; “the rules of the game” legitimising party patronage; dense party networks and their building through patronage; and insufficient regulation and weak enforcement of the merit principle in state administrations. The influence of these causal mechanisms in the post-communist countries can be explored through historical process-tracing and other methods. Finally, the article proposes several country-specific hypotheses for the empirical study of party patronage and state politicisation in Lithuania

Party patronage is generally associated with social, economic and political underdevelopment, and is hence seen as largely irrelevant in the context of contemporary European politics. In this article, we argue to the contrary, proposing that patronage reappears on the stage of European politics as a critical organizational and governmental resource employed by political parties to enhance their standing as semi-state agencies of government. In order to illustrate our main contention, we first define party patronage, disentangling it from other notions of political particularism that are often used synonymously in the literature. Second, we provide a brief overview of the literature on the past and present of patronage practices in Europe, arguing that rather than declining, patronage is still likely to be a relevant feature of contemporary party politics in Europe. Finally, we analyse the role of party patronage in the light of recent developments in several European countries, identifying three distinct patterns of patronage practices in the region.

This Research Note presents a new dataset of party patronage in 22 countries from five regions. The data was collected using the same methodology to compare patterns of patronage within countries, across countries and across world regions that are usually studied separately. The Note addresses three research questions that are at the centre of debates on party patronage, which is understood as the power of political parties to make appointments to the public and semi‐public sector: the scope of patronage, the underlying motivations and the criteria on the basis of which appointees are selected. The exploration of the dataset shows that party patronage is, to a different degree, widespread across all regions. The data further shows differences between policy areas, types of institutions such as government ministries, agencies and state‐owned enterprises, and higher, middle and lower ranks of the bureaucracy. It is demonstrated that the political control of policy making and implementation is the most common motivation for making political appointments. However, in countries with a large scope of patronage, appointments serve the purpose of both political control and rewarding supporters in exchange for votes and services. Finally, the data shows that parties prefer to select appointees who are characterised by political and personal loyalty as well as professional competence.

Patronage is central to Polish party politics. The power of a governing party to appoint its supporters to positions in public and semi-public spheres will be examined in this paper. The two governments under investigation are: the center—left coalition government of the Democratic Left Alliance, the Labour Union, and the Polish Peasant Party formed in October 2001 and the center—right minority government of the Law and Justice party formed in October 2005. A significant extent of party patronage was expected in the case of the Democratic Left Alliance, which confirmed a dominant party thesis. However, in the case of Law and Justice, party patronage was expected to be hindered by party competition. This has not been the case, which challenges two arguments put forward by Grzymała-Busse that the dispersion of parliamentary power constrains party patronage and that in Poland the general pattern is that of decreasing rent-seeking.

Core features of mobility regimes are obscured by models common in comparative research. Party patronage in China is apparent only in the timing of career events. Elites are chosen from among party members, but only some are eventually chosen. Those who join the party while young enter a career path that includes sponsorship for adult education and more likely promotion. While the party's preference for youth from “red” classes has yielded to one for prior education, party sponsorship endures. Because patronage blurs distinctions between politics and merit, it confounds interpretations of returns to individual attributes.

The chapter addresses party patronage in the United States. Potentially a broad topic, concerning when public officials, as patrons, use public resources in some way to support their party or reward its members or supporters, the chapter focuses on the practice of rewarding supporters with appointed public employment. The use of party patronage throughout American political history, reforms thereof such as civil service, and legal challenges thereto are addressed. The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment limits the use of patronage in public employment, except for positions that involve policymaking, though that exception has not been precisely defined. Also discussed is the impact of the Supreme Court’s decisions on political parties, and on appointments to other public offices, such as state judges.

The present thesis makes a twofold contribution to the existing literature. Firstly, it shows that clientelism complements cartelization, providing parties with stability in condition of weak mass mobilization. Secondly, it traces the specific mechanisms through which cartel parties channel public resources, within the institutional setting of the post-communist Europe. It provides an important extension to the cartel party literature in the context of new democracies. The main finding of this project is that cartel parties can survive and achieve stability through clientelistic distribution of benefits, both within, and outside their organisations. Furthermore, I find that cartelization generates a new model of clientelism, as public resources (e.g. procurement contracts) are also used to finance the party organisations, not only the clients. Through the in-depth case study of Romania, we can see that when political parties have little time to develop territorial networks and mobilization capacity, clientelism becomes an effective tool for establishing roots in society. The context of post-communist countries presents distinctive conditions for clientelistic linkages and the cartelization process. Multi-party systems in these countries have reappeared simultaneously with the institutions of the democratic state. Consequently, party-state interpenetration has been more profound, building upon previous legacies, as well as the permissive transitional circumstances. The present thesis analyses the following sequences of clientelistic exchanges: (1) internal party selection – patrons within the party organisations, (2) party patronage – political interference in public institutions, (3) politicization—political appointments in key positions of the Central Government (i.e. Senior Civil Servants), and finally (4) preferential resource allocation—public funding channelled through party networks. In addition to the chapters devoted to each of these clientelistic mechanisms, the thesis also contains a comparative chapter overseeing the challenges and opportunities for clientelism and cartelization in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

State exploitation by political parties is one of the key problems of new democracies. This article looks at party patronage as one of the ways through which political parties exploit the state. It focuses on two new African democracies – Ghana and South Africa – and using the data from an original expert survey explores party appointments across a wide range of state institutions. It also uses these data to illustrate some of the theoretical issues related to the existence of patronage practices. In particular, the article probes into a widespread claim that robust party competition constrains politicians and hence limits patronage politics. Contrary to those theoretical expectations, the article finds that patronage in new democracies is not necessarily higher in a less competitive party system. The article then considers factors other than party competition that might explain this unexpected empirical outcome; it also suggests a theoretical argument positing compatibility between high levels of patronage and robust political competition.

This chapter seeks to provide up-to-date empirical information on party patronage in Austria. The results of the empirical analysis indicate that patronage practices have undergone a significant transformation over the past fifteen or twenty years. Austria still belongs to the countries with high levels of patronage. However, the old system of mass patronage has given way to elite patronage, primarily targeting leadership positions, thus decreasing the depth of patronage. More importantly, Austria has witnessed a change in the logic of party patronage: while party political appointments used to be mostly reward-driven, the main goal of the current system is to gain control over institutions that are crucial for policy delivery. The chapter argues that the electoral and public pressure exerted by the anti-Proporz campaign of Haider’s Freedom Party played a key role in transforming the Austrian patronage system.