Patronage System Research Articles

Confronting Structural Inequities: The Limits of Participation when Developing a Community Health Intervention with Syrian Refugees and Host Communities in Lebanon.

Lebanon is one of the most unequal countries in the world, whose economy, social welfare and public health system struggle to meet the needs of the Lebanese and over one million Syrian refugees. Researchers applied Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methodology in collaboration with a non-governmental organization (NGO) in an underserved Beirut neighborhood from 2014 through 2016, aiming to address health inequities, build social cohesion among refugees and host populations, and empower community members to develop a community health intervention. We recruited a community advisory board (CAB), conducted six focus groups and sixteen individual interviews, and held several community meetings. In response to the study findings, NGO staff, researchers and community members agreed to work together on a trash collection initiative as a community health intervention. Ultimately, we found the CBPR toolkit to be insufficient to the empirical reality: a series of structural challenges due to entrenched local and national hierarchies, ineffective political processes, and inter- and intra-group conflict driven by competition over privatized social services. Together these resulted in a lack of trust in the collaborative process wherein study participants solicited researchers for aid in return for their involvement, mirroring the Lebanese patronage system. Ultimately, the most expedient path toward change was not through empowerment of oppressed community participants, but through the action of already powerful local individuals. In conclusion, structural inequalities limit the participatory and emancipatory possibilities of CBPR research. Power mapping exercises, which are often used in community organizing, offer an important opportunity to assess viability and lay the groundwork for CBPR projects. Academic and popular media in the Middle East often focus on religious, sectarian conflict; however, in our study conflict both between and among social groups was driven by competition over material resources more than cultural or religious differences.

Soul Liberty: The Evolution of Black Religious Politics in Postempancipation Virginia by Nicole Myers Turner

Reviewed by: Soul Liberty: The Evolution of Black Religious Politics in Postempancipation Virginia by Nicole Myers Turner Emily Suzanne Clark (bio) Soul Liberty: The Evolution of Black Religious Politics in Postempancipation Virginia. By Nicole Myers Turner. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. 232. Cloth, $90.00; paper, $29.95.) Nicole Myers Turner’s Soul Liberty is impressive scholarship that reveals how black churches mediated political engagement and enabled [End Page 137] community organizing. While the book’s subtitle reflects Turner’s focus on Virginia, her deep look at the dynamics between the religious and the political demonstrates larger trends and answers some long-standing questions about black religious history at the pivotal moment of postemancipation. Rather than “presuppose political power” of black churches (147), Turner narrates this period in fresh ways to emphasize how black churches built on their existing political acumen. This approach puts the focus on the process by which churches became “vehicles for participation and self-determination” (143). Turner reveals a fascinating negotiation between the religious and the political; black church structures and networks shaped black political participation. Her use of the term “soul liberty” reflects this dynamic, as black Christians saw the intersections of “religious freedom, righteousness, equity, and justice” (2). The first chapter sets up the reader to see how some elements of life changed and others did not with the end of the Civil War. Black religious life had long been a space of communal gathering and resistance to white supremacy, as churches were “powerful bases for independence” (30). One thread begun in chapter 1 and continued throughout the book is an understanding of how black social community building transitioned into black political community organizing. In this chapter and in chapter 2, which specifically examines the creation of independent black church conventions, Turner vividly shows readers how the religious was inherently political. The church networks created and sustained by the conventions fostered powerful connections to propel black political interests. Additionally, by demonstrating their autonomy and ability to work with white church communities, black religious organizations made powerful arguments for their self-determination in matters both religious and political. As Turner explains, “The formation of independent black Baptist associations shows how black people organized themselves, developed their identities, and articulated their place within the new American freedom” (34). This dynamic is further developed in chapter 3, where Turner attends to the ways in which “a minister-centered leadership framework” developed in process and collaboration with community engagement (76). Education becomes a significant part of this conversation in chapter 4 in ways that reflect black political savvy. “Debates within the African American community about inspired versus educated ministerial leadership,” Turner explains, “often came out of concerns about how black people were perceived” (86). Access to seminary education often required interaction with white churchmen, but black political power allowed black churches to guard their autonomy even in collaboration. [End Page 138] Chapter 5, entitled “Politics of Engagement,” is where Turner’s analysis is at its strongest, in part owing to the developing themes and trends she expertly unpacks in earlier chapters. Because readers have followed the ongoing negotiation between black church networks and larger political movements, it comes as no surprise that even when they were a county minority, black church networks empowered black communities beyond their numbers. These church networks also strengthened “a race consciousness and a sense of communal power” that shaped black engagement with the patronage process (117). In exchange for their political support, black church networks negotiated for political positions for church members and leaders through the patronage system. Not only does this interaction help explain black voting trends, but it also shows the forward-thinking ways in which black churches advocated for their communities and goals. It is in chapter 5 that Turner’s use of ArcGIS and maps persuasively supports her interpretation of the historical data. Politicians could access these long-standing church networks to their advantage or ignore them to their deficit. The Pennsylvania State University recently created the Center for Black Digital Research, co-led by Gabrielle Foreman, one of the founders of the Colored Conventions Project. The center reflects increasing interest in digital humanities and...

Russian Self-Taught Poets of the 1820s: Pastoral, Patronage and the British Example

This article studies the emergence of the “self-taught poet” position in Russian literature of the 1820s and its dependence on the system of literary patronage. Literati had notable control over the careers of poets from unprivileged social classes and shaped their choices of literary form to fit these peasant poets to particular aesthetic expectations. It is shown how literary patrons (Pavel Svin’in and Boris Fedorov) tried to implement the successful English model of Robert Bloomfield and keep their protégés within the confines of pastoral poetry and the setting of rural labour. The case of the serf Fedor Slepushkin – the most prominent self-taught poet of 1820s – demonstrates a clear connection to the English pastoral tradition and the role of the Romantic “rural idyll” in his success among political elites. The article also shows that the aesthetic window for the pastoral model of the peasant poet was not open for long. The organic aesthetics that spread in the 1830s established folkloric foundations for national literature, and “peasant song” replaced “peasant pastoral”. This shift underlay the success of Aleksei Koltsov in the 1830–1840s, who was the first Russian poet to both occupy the position of self-taught poet and use folksong language in his poetry.

Дети «на стороне»: кормильческий промысел на территории Таврической губернии в конце XIX–начале XX века

Russian Empire in the second half of the XIX–early XX centuries gradually entered the era of modernization of political, economic and social institutions. The disintegration of the patriarchal family entailed a massive exodus of women to cities, which in turn turned out to be on the quantitative indicators of illegitimate births. Lack of funds for food, prompted mothers to leave the child to the mercy of fate. Statistical data is stating that the foundlings grew from year to year. By the end of the XIX century each issue of the periodical press, published in the territory of the Tauride province, contained several reports about foundlings. All children were sent to an orphanage. A wet nurse was assigned to the child, who was supposed to replace his mother. The direction of the research is to describe the patronage system in the Tauride province of the late XIX–early XX centuries

Utter Confusion on Every Side? Helena Northampton’s Supplicatory Letter to the Earl of Sussex

This essay examines the supplicatory letter the Swedishborn Helena, marchioness of Northampton, addressed to Thomas Radcliffe, third earl of Sussex, in 1576 or 1577, hoping he would help her regain access to Elizabeth I. The essay situates the letter within the early modern patronage system and the court environment, but foremost within the field of early modern letter-writing in general, and the supplicatory letter in particular. The essay shows how a number of rhetorical strategies, designed to inspire pity and benevolence mainly through ethos and pathos, are employed to create positions for both supplicant and addressee. In this way, the letter reaches the desired goal of regaining royal presence. By looking at the letter through the frames of early modern letter-writing and more general rhetorical practise, the essay points to a tension between the letter’s stated sentiment of “utter confusion” and its highly formalised expression, indicative of the letter’s rhetorical situation and especially of the constraints related to its sender’s social status. The letter is transcribed in an

An Uncommonly Difficult Business

In eighteenth-century London, publishing began to transition from a patronage system to a commercial business. An increase in literary reviews accompanied the shift. Publishing by subscription emerged as an evolving form of patronage where authors received monetary support from readers before publication. Women authors found subscription publishing welcoming as a means to avoid the commercial marketplace. Some authors used this publishing method in the name of seeking charitable support. Reviewers linked subscription publishing to female authors and acts of charity as reviewers attempted to circumvent the problem of potentially alienating their own readership, who could be subscribers. Through rhetorical analysis of 171 digitized bound volumes of 11 of London’s literary review periodicals, this paper argues that reviewers’ treatment of women authors and the associated use of subscription publications led to a disparaging perception of both by London’s growing reading public.

Subversive Faith and Competition in Patronage: A Note on ΠΙΣΤΙΣ in Mark

Abstract In her influential monograph Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches, Theresa Morgan has convincingly shown how closely the early Christian discourse on ‘faith’ was bound up with similar notions in the broader Greco-Roman world, particularly in relation to the system of patronage, with both humans and deities fulfilling the role of (trustworthy and trusted) patrons. Thus, she has shifted attention from πίστις/fides as a primarily ‘theological’ notion to an interpretation along more ‘social’ lines and situated it in realm of human and divine/human relations. She also analyses this in relation to the Gospel of Mark, showing how Mark also fits this general picture. This note builds on Morgan’s work and will further develop one aspect of Mark’s use of the language (and concept) of patronage and πίστις. This is its subversive character, which is present to a lesser extent in Morgan's work; by calling for πίστις directed to him on the part of the people that he encounters, Jesus also draws these people away from other allegiances and ‘πίστις commitments’, that is, intersubjective relationships based on trust and leading to personal allegiance.

Literary Patronage in Spain 1500–1560

Literary Patronage in Spain 1500–1560

Neopatrimonialism: The Immense Power of Appointment of the Liberian Presidency

This study examines important factors of disenfranchisement of political subdivisions in Liberia, especially counties and districts due largely to the presidential power of appointment. The study analyzes survey, empirical, and constitutional amendment data gathered by Afrobarometer (Round 7 Survey), election statistics, and public officials’ appointment information. It then correlates associations between the number of county executives, presidential tenure, and referendum approvals to demonstrate a diminishment of democracy due to denying citizens’ right to vote for their local leaders. This has resulted from a gradual enhancement of the Liberian president’s power of appointment, which developed neopatrimonialism in Liberia and continues to foster a patronage system of governance that increases public corruption, a practice that has minimized state capacity, fostered state instability, and raised the potential for conflict.

Galileo Reading Qohelet: Seeing the World with “Curiosity’s Eye”

Abstract This essay examines Galileo’s reading of Ecclesiastes 3:11, which he cited in his letter to the Grand Duchess Christina in 1615 at the beginning of his trial for heresy. Why would Galileo have used this text in support of his intellectual inquiry? Three critical components of his intellectual environment are explored: 1) the development of scientific inquiry within the 17th c system of patronage; 2) the culture of curiosity that sustains his intellectual inquiry; and 3) the telescope and the transformation of human imagination.

Jaringan Komunikasi Sosial Komunitas Tempe Tenggilis dalam Rangka Bertahan Hidup di Surabaya

This paper studies a unique phenomenon that in the middle of economic pressure, a lack of resource access, and high-level life competition, urban migrants can survive in a city by optimizing traditional communication networks in Tempe industry. This field-research study uses a phenomenological approach through participative observation and in-depth interviews. It indicates the patronage pattern, in the form of business patronage system conducted by tempe maker community, gives a chance for migrants to be able to survive in the city. Interaction patterns between soybean suppliers and tempe makers can save them from the crisis. The moral value of “sabaya pati, sabaya mukti” becomes a core message for the clients in conducting verbal and nonverbal communication networks with their patron. This is a sustainable life guarantee so that tempe makers in 3 Tenggilis clusters remain survive in Surabaya with their limits.

Reassessing Cambodia's Patronage System(s) and the End of Competitive Authoritarianism: Electoral Clientelism in the Shadow of Coercion

The dominant literature on Cambodian politics over the past two decades suggested that a mixture of elite and mass clientelism had enabled the hegemonic Cambodian People's Party (CPP) to rule via competitive but authoritarian elections, while lessening its previous reliance on repression and violence. Such explanations did not predict the upswing in contestation in the country in 2013 and thereafter. Neither do they account for the crackdown that followed. Following literature that draws attention to the tensions in building and maintaining political coalitions under authoritarianism, and demonstrating the difficulties in maintaining competitive authoritarianism over time, this article draws attention to structural, institutional, and distributional impediments to the CPP leadership in building and maintaining effective reciprocal relations with electoral clients while simultaneously balancing the interests of the military and other elites at the core of the regime. To make its argument, the article compares weaknesses in the CPP's electoral clientelism with the effectiveness of patronage within the security forces, seen through the lens of Cambodia's experience of land dispossession. It shows that an extractive and exclusive political economy privileged the interests of regime insiders over potential mass electoral clients precisely during the same period the CPP was supposed to be securing its hold on power via mass electoral clientelism. This further explains why the regime fell back on repression over reform in response to the upswing in contestation manifest from 2013, and why, despite the failings of its mass patronage project, repression has nevertheless been successful as a strategy for regime survival during a period of heightened popular contestation.

Earned Income and American Museums


 
 
 The basis of the American approach to culture eschews any collective state intervention. Cultural institutions, such as museums, originated as the beneficiaries of private donors. Such philanthropy benefits from a tax code that provides financial incentives for contributions to private organizations. For institutions, funds raised from ancillary activities, such as gift shops, also enjoy significant tax exemptions. Yet, despite these publicly financed tax deductions, cultural visions are privately conceived, and reflect the agendas of the donors. This attitude represents the basic principle of the American patronage system: one that is facilitated by a tax policy, not a cultural policy.
 
 

The core executive and small states: Is coordination the primary challenge?

AbstractThis article interrogates three key arguments derived from the functional approach to studying the core executive: (1) that coordination is the primary problem that confronts executive decision‐makers; (2) that improved coordination will lead to better governance; and (3) that linkage problems dissipate as policy systems consolidate. Drawing on the experience of hitherto understudied small states, including 112 interviews with political elites, we show how the effects of country size create governance challenges in the form of leader dominance, patronage systems and capacity constraints. Our findings support the call to broaden the focus of functional analysis beyond its traditional emphasis on coordination. For scholars of small states we synthesize existing empirical findings and provide a theoretical justification for future work using an adaptation of the core executive approach.

Street-hawking in a Foreign Land: Social Dynamics of Migrant Petty Traders’ Livelihoods in Nigeria

This article investigates how migrant petty trading populations confront social systems/perceptions of their host localities and the effects on the sustainability of their trading activities. I examine clusters of long-term migrant petty traders (LTMs) and very recent migrant petty traders (VRMs) (i.e. from Lake Chad region: Chad, Cameroon and Niger) found in Nigerian peri-urban areas. Adopting Kaufman’s symbolic-analytic model, I argue that a mix of socio-economic factors – peri-urban residents’ negative perception of migrant petty traders, divergence in symbolic attachments, and a low patronage system – affect the growth of the migrant petty trade sector in specific localities.

Echte schrijvers zijn niet te koop

Abstract A grand narrative of Dutch literary authors’ opportunities to economically profit from their writing is yet to be written. The general assumption, however, is that these opportunities developed teleologically from a dominant system of patronage during medieval and early modern times, in which financial gains were marginal and in which author’s independence of their supporters was constrained, to a system in which the commercial book market was dominant and where authors could be more self-supporting and thus more independent of supporters. This article argues that there is no such teleology. On the contrary: on the basis of an exploration of both practice and discourse of literary authors’ profits from the Middle Ages to the present, we conclude that in every period, it was possible for authors to profit from their writing through either patronage, market or governmental support, and often through a combination of these sources. Moreover, in every period varying types of independence of literary authors was valued highly. Our analysis of the discourse on profits shows that the continuous tendency to disguise financial advancement could be related to the importance of authorial independence throughout the ages.

Anarchist/syndicalist and independent Marxist intersections in post-apartheid struggles, South Africa: the WSF/ZACF current in Gauteng, 1990s–2010s

ABSTRACTSouth Africa has a long-established independent left, outside the big traditions of nationalism and Marxism-Leninism. Post-apartheid its fortunes have varied considerably, as space opened up for movements to the left of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, but opportunities declined as the state increased its legitimacy, penetration of civil society, and systems of patronage. This paper looks at cooperation, competition and convergence on the independent left, with particular reference to independent Marxists (mainly the well-established Trotskyist tradition) and revolutionary anarchists and syndicalists (a movement that revived in the 1990s). These intersections have taken place in study groups, popular education, student struggles, and post-apartheid social movements and unions, and indicate the vitality and fragility of the independent left, and the ongoing importance of cooperation and overlaps, as well as of long-standing divisions over theory and strategy. Particular attention is paid to Keep Left, the Socialist Group, the Democratic Socialist Movement, and the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front.

Claudio Monteverdi and l’Orfeo, favola in musica: character construction and depiction of emotion

The construction of character on the early operatic stage by means of musical gestures is an arresting achievement of Italian master Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), a practice first evident in his signature opera L’Orfeo, Favola in Musica . In Monteverdi’s depiction of character, notably that of Orfeo and Apollo, his decisions to express emotion through voice type and musical/rhetorical devices appear at the surface to be connected primarily to contemporary aesthetic concepts and singing style conventions, representing the ideas of morality/character ( ethos ), reason ( logos ), and emotion ( pathos ) in much subtler ways than in his late opera L’incoronazione di Poppea . Monteverdi’s operatic style in Orfeo is indebted to several factors, namely cultural, personal, and social conditions ( e.g. , his exposure to musical activities in other Italian city-states, his involvement with cultural academies, and the constraints resulting from his Mantuan patronage). Lacking the freedom to write for the public theater as in his later operas, Orfeo can be seen as a result of three determining factors: cultural environment and the patronage system; aesthetics of singing/performance practice; and the influence of cultural academies, in particular the Accademia degli Invaghiti . By re-examining primary sources and re-evaluating several contemporary scholarly studies, this paper aims to further an understanding of Monteverdi’s aesthetic position as it affected his construction of operatic characters and their musical depiction, informed by the three factors above. Such an impact will be discerned using Orfeo’s Possente spirto and the duet between Apollo and Orfeo Saliam, cantando al Cielo (without excluding other excerpts of great importance in this opera) in which similar musical settings represent different dramatic situations.

Building a Safety Net: Explaining the Strength of Ex-Military Networks

The disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of ex-combatants has become an integral part of peacebuilding. Although the main purpose of such interventions is to dissolve the military structures of armed groups, there is growing evidence that ex-combatant networks often remain intact. We investigate why such structures continue to thrive. We argue that ex-military networks are stronger when ex-commanders have weak links to elite patronage systems. Ex-combatants who are unable to rely on their former superiors for economic assistance must instead build denser ties to each other to gain access to a social safety net. To assess our argument, we conduct a comparative social network analysis (SNA) of two ex-military networks in Liberia. This innovative approach helps us uncover previously overlooked, but central, dynamics related to ex-combatant groups. We thereby show that SNA provides a range of underutilized tools and exact definitions that can increase our understanding of ex-military networks.

The Phenomenon of Clientage and the Organisation of Diplomatic Activities in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century

Researchers of the sixteenth-century European diplomacy discuss diplomatic networks and daily life activities of ambassadors conditioned by the development of residential diplomacy. At the same time, historians of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth study diplomatic phenomena of a different kind since a resident mission system was not developed in Poland-Lithuania. The practice of temporary legations persisted and led to the development of distinctive features of envoys’ diplomatic activities during their missions. It also is possible to see different circumstances when looking into the question of the professionalization of Polish-Lithuanian diplomats and their personal qualities relevant to their diplomatic missions. The study of this problem reveals that, in the case of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a relatively strong patron-client relationship occurred as well as close links between the patronage system and organisation of diplomatic activities. Research into the practice of assigning envoys to diplomatic missions makes it possible to establish that almost all lower-rank envoys between the midand last decade of the sixteenth century were clients of the Radziwill family, dominating the political life of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at that time. One of the main tasks of the Radziwill clients nominated as diplomatic envoys was to supply information to their patrons. At the same time, we can also see an attempt to control diplomatic communications with foreign countries. This group of Radziwill clients, who performed various diplomatic missions, is the subject of the analysis presented in this article. I try to determine here the reasons for appointing particular clients as foreign envoys and see how their diplomatic functions influenced their future careers.