Neopatrimonialism in Africa and Beyond

Daniel Bach, Mamoudou Gazibo, Daniel Bach, Mamoudou Gazibo, Daniel C. Bach, Mamoudou Gazibo

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415687935
• eBook ISBN: 9781136506208
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Neopatrimonialism, a system whereby rulers use state resources for personal benefit and to secure the loyalty of clients in the general population, is central to any teaching or conceptualisation of contemporary African politics. This book is a theoretical and comparative study of neopatrimonialism in Africa and across world regions.

Although such practices are widespread in other parts of the world, the African neopatrimonial state has also become a global prototype of the anti-developmental state. This volume calls for a reappraisal of the genesis and interpretations of the concepts of patrimonialism and neopatrimonialism. Expert contributors consider recent debates in Africa through the study of democracy, clientelism, the 'big man' syndrome (Kenya), the rise of 'godfatherism' (Nigeria), 'warlordism' (Liberia) and the neopatrimonial state on a day to day basis (Niger). They discuss patrimonialism and neopatrimonialism from Latin America to Europe, Central Asia and Asia-Pacific, to weave a comparative analysis of the interplay between public policies and private interest.

Neopatrimonialism in Africa and Beyond is an important and timely volume that will be of interest to students and scholars of international politics, African studies, sociology and international development.

Part I

Concepts and their
relevance

1

Weber's patrimonial domination
and its interpretations

Hinnerk Bruhns

For roughly the last 30 years, the concepts of patrimonialism and neo-patrimonialism have been linked to the analysis of certain forms of state construction and governance in Africa, Latin America and Asia. As the following chapters emphasize, such analyses have sought to account for various facets of the obstacles encountered in the process of democratization and political development in general. This goes back to the early 1970s, when, calling into question theories of modernization, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt questioned the legitimacy of using the term ‘patrimonial’, a term derived from the analysis of traditional historic political systems, for analysing modern political systems. And he added that such a use might indeed be

very fruitful – but only insofar as the term ‘patrimonial’ is used to designate not a level of ‘development’ or differentiation of political regimes, but rather a specific way of coping with the major problem of political life which may cut across different levels of ‘development’ or structural complexity.

(Eisenstadt 1973: 59; also 12)

In the same text, Eisenstadt also suggested distinguishing between traditional patrimonial regimes and modern forms of patrimonialism, thereby introducing the terms ‘neo-patrimonialism’ and ‘post-patrimonial regimes’ (Eisenstadt 1973: 13 and 46). The distinction was designed primarily to discern between the patrimonial systems of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, on the one hand, and modern patrimonial systems on the other. Eisenstadt saw the ‘most important’ of the differences between patrimonial and neo-patrimonial regimes as being, first ‘the political problems which were faced respectively by such traditional and modern regimes, and, second, in close relation to these problems, the constellations of conditions which could ensure the continuity of any specific patrimonial regime’ (Eisenstadt 1973: 50). In neo-patrimonial regimes, the links between the centre and the periphery were more intense and under pressure. The consequences of this were the establishment of a broader and more united political framework, the integration of new groups and the emergence of new dimensions of collective identities. The expansive tendency of these regimes rendered them simultaneously more fragile and subject to crises.

S.N. Eisenstadt was reacting here to a development in the use of the concept of patrimonialism initially put forward by Guenther Roth (1968: 194–206). Roth had observed that in many new states, tradition had lost its force as a source of legitimacy without having been replaced by legal, rational modernity. As a consequence, forms of personal rule that did not correspond to any of the three Weberian ideal types of legitimacy (legal-rational, traditional or charismatic) essentially owed their maintenance to material incentives and rewards, notably clientelism and corruption. To take account of this development, G. Roth suggested grasping these forms of domination conceptually by distinguishing between traditional patrimonialism and de-traditionalized, personalized patrimonialism, later referred to as neo-patrimonialism.

Since then, certain nuances and distinctions have been introduced in the use of the term neo-patrimonialism. One first example is the definition provided by Jean-François Médard who, in contrast to Eisenstadt, views the difference as lying within the internal functioning of the two regimes:

The neo-patrimonial conception of power is situated in the historic continuity of the traditional patrimonial conception, however it must not be confused with it, to the extent that it is not rooted in any traditional legitimacy. There exists a difference between ‘rationalized’ neo-patrimonial states, i.e. those regulated by a form of specific regulation based upon particularist redistribution, and purely predatory and kleptocratic states leading to the criminalization and privatization of the state. This pattern recalls ‘sultanism’ as described by Max Weber, and corresponds to the most extreme and exacerbated case of neo-patrimonialism, which destroys the state which feeds it. It is the ultimate state of neo-patrimonialism.

(Médard 1999a: 15)

Our second example is drawn from a more recent text in which the central problem with discussions on the concept of neo-patrimonialism between specialists on Africa is defined as follows:

All the attempts to define neopatrimonialism (or ‘modern patrimonialism’) deal with, and try to tackle, one and the same intricate problem: the relationship between patrimonial domination on the one hand and legal-rational bureaucratic domination on the other, i.e. a very hybrid phenomenon. [. . .] The term clearly is a post-Weberian invention and, as such, a creative mix of two Weberian types of domination: of a traditional subtype, patrimonial domination, and legal-rational bureaucratic domination.

(Erdmann and Engel 2007: 104)

The difference between patrimonialism and neo-patrimonialism is found by the authors of this text in the relationship between the private and public spheres. In patrimonialism, all (political and administrative) relations between the governing and the governed are private relations: ‘there is no distinction between the public and private realms.’ In neo-patrimonialism, the distinction between the public and private exists, at least formally, and is accepted. The ‘neo-patrimonial’ exercise of power is conducted ‘within the framework of, and with the claim to, legal-rational bureaucracy or “modern” stateness’ (Erdmann and Engel 2007: 105). These two authors consequently propose a definition of neo-patrimonialism which draws from the concepts of patrimonialism and legal-rational bureaucracy in Weber. They add that neo-patrimonialism is a ‘mixture of two, partly interwoven, types of domination that co-exist: namely, patrimonial and legal-rational bureaucratic domination. [. . .] Elements of patrimonial and legal-rational bureaucratic domination penetrate each other’ (105). These spheres are not isolated from each other. Quite to the contrary, they permeate each other: the patrimonial penetrates the legal-rational system and twists its logic, functions, and output, but does not take exclusive control over the legal-rational logic (105) The prefix ‘neo’ is not to be understood as a synonym of ‘modern’ (114).

Weber was interpreted somewhat differently by Blundo and Médard who with regard to the neo-patrimonial nature of African states, wrote:

This is a prolongation of the notion of traditional patrimonial domination developed by Max Weber and which is based upon the idea of the confusion of the public and private in the context of traditional legitimacy. The recourse to the prefix ‘neo’ serves to emphasize that we are no longer in a traditional context. We understand the neo-patrimonial state as a state that is structurally and formally differentiated from society, while, with regard to the way it functions, the public and private spheres informally tend to get mixed up. In a sense, the state is privatised for their benefit by those who hold a position of authority, first at the summit of the state, but also at all levels of the state pyramid. The political leader behaves like a patrimonial chieftain, i.e. like the true owner of his realm.

(Blundo and Médard 2002: 10–11)

These two conceptions are a reminder of debates of the 1970s on Weber's typology: [the prefix . . .] neo indicating a different type of regime characterized by a specific interpenetration of elements of traditional and legal-rational legitimacy, or is the prefix aiming at grasping the difference between traditional and modern contexts, and the impact of this difference on the nature of the patrimonial regime.

The constant reminders as to the Weberian origin of these terms invited us to observe that the concept of patrimonialism (or the more recent concept of neo-patrimonialism) has become part of the general vocabulary of the social sciences and proved its usefulness. The reference to Weber seems for the most part to serve only a legitimating function, or even a purely decorative one. It is true that studies that have recently been devoted to the concept of patrimonialism in Weberian sociology are rare,¹ and have hardly resonated among contemporary analysts of neo-patrimonial regimes. These are manifestly two completely distinct fields of research: the concept of patrimonialism has in a sense become autonomous with regard to the function Weber accorded it in his sociology.

This is one of the cases where the shifts in defining the terms invite to return to the origin of the concept of patrimonialism and also to the moment of its re-interpretation as neo-patrimonialism. The objective is then to provide these two terms with a precise meaning and true instrumental function in a situation in which the terms tend to be transformed into catch-all concepts (Theobald 1982).² However, such a return to the original meaning (or supposed original meaning) of the concept in Weber is not the easiest thing to establish and raises a problem of method. For it is not enough to draw an apparently unequivocal definition from the only text which is generally cited in modern publications on patrimonialism and neo-patrimonialism: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Economy and Society). For the use of the concept of patrimonialism is not uniform in this work, and the analysis of the evolution of this concept is complicated by the fact that in the five successive editions of this major work, and thus in all translations into foreign languages that presently exist, the order of the chapters does not reflect the chronological order in which this group of texts was written, as the order was arranged by Marianne Weber and Johannes Winckelmann following Max Weber's death. To find their orientations within these texts as well as in the parts of the work published posthumously, readers have access to a growing number of specialized studies. However, they are addressed more to specialists of Weber's work rather than to ‘outside’ users of his conceptual apparatus. The non-German reader moreover remains dependant upon translations which, given the numerous inaccuracies, or indeed errors, do not always facilitate the understanding of the texts.

A more in-depth study of the use of the concept of patrimonialism by Weber should also take other writings into account, particularly the author's major study on the political, social and economic system of China, Confucianism and Taoism. In this text, which has been rarely read by researchers interested in contemporary neo-patrimonial regimes, he very frequently used the concept of patrimonialism (Zingerle 1972; Schmidt-Glintzer 2001; Breuer 2006: 85; Bünger 1977 and Hermes 2003).

For all of these reasons, it does not seem pointless to rapidly review the introduction and use by Max Weber of the concept of patrimonialism in his systematic and historic sociological writings. This does not mean that we advocate ‘a return to the texts’ or seek to oppose some Weberian orthodoxy to modern interpreters. We simply wish to draw attention to a few points of information and method which may prove useful to the current debate.

The concepts of patrimonialism and patrimonial domination in Weber

Max Weber neither invented the concept of patrimonialism (Patrimonialismus), nor that of patrimonial domination (Patrimonialherrschaft). These terms are part of the political vocabulary of political reactionaries and conservatives in the German states of the nineteenth century. They are to be found in the political theory and German political texts throughout the nineteenth century, and Weber himself reminds us that ‘the concept itself, as is well known, has been most consistently developed by Haller in his Restauration der Staatswissenschaften’ (Weber 1972: 137 and 1968: 237). The use made by M. Weber of the term, patrimonialism and its derivatives, first reflects the idea of those political theorists and legal historians of the nineteenth century who had instituted a genetic relationship between patriarchalism and patrimonialism.³ In this sense, patrimonial domination is initially a decentralization of the community of the oikos (Weber 1972: 583 and 1968: 1010; cf. Breuer 2006: 83). It was the important work of the medievalist Georg von Below, Der Deutsche Staat des Mittelalters, published in 1914, that led M. Weber to introduce a clear distinction between patriarchalism and patrimonialism, i.e. between the level of the ‘household (oikos)’ and that of a political entity (Breuer 1991: 88).⁴ In his defence of the idea of a medieval German ‘state’, von Below opposed contemporary evolutionist theories, notably those developed by Karl Lamprecht, for whom Landesherrschaft, the form of political rule in the German territories, originated in the position of lord of the land, i.e. in patrimonial relationships governed by private law.

Prior to the second decade of the twentieth century, when Weber worked both on those publications which were to become Economy and Society and his studies on The Economic Ethics of the World Religions, the term patrimonialism did not appear very frequently in his writings. For instance, the notion of patrimonial jurisdiction (Patrimonialgerichtsbarkeit) is to be found in his writing on Prussia, or the Latin term, patrimonium appears in his studies on Roman agrarian history. In the third version of Agrarverhältnisse im Altertum (1909), Weber uses the concept of the patrimonial right of rule (patrimoniales Herrschaftsrecht), for instance and observes that ‘the despot (in contrast to the bureaucratic king) has a political interest (as Napoleon I still showed) in ensuring that no right of patrimonial domination founded on the possession of land be constituted without an explicit agreement coming from himself.’ (Weber 2006: 367; Weber 1976: 74) In that part of the work that can now be consulted in digital form,⁵ we find 68 occurrences of the adjective patrimonial, 107 occurrences of Patrimonialismus, 18 of patrimoniale Herrschaft or Patrimonialherrschaft. Patrimonialstaat appears 20 times, and Patrimonialbeamtentum (patrimonial officialdom) four times, without counting other compound nouns that include Patrimonial.

In Economy and Society, references to patrimonialism should be classified according to the dates on which they were written. We may distinguish two sets, which we shall refer to as A and B. This classification, it should be emphasized, does not correspond to the order of the chapters in the editions which have been studied for more than 80 years. The texts on ‘Sociology of domination’ (Soziologie der Herrschaft) were written prior to the First World War and are to be found in the second part of Economy and Society.⁶ The first part of the work, Soziologische Kategorienlehre, on the other hand, dates back to 1919–1920. Translated into English as ‘Conceptual Exposition’, the first part consists of three chapters: (1) Basic concepts of sociology (translated into English as ‘Basic Sociological Terms’), (2) Sociological Categories of Economic Action, and (3) Types of domination (translated into English as ‘The Types of Legitimate Domination’). In his overall plan of the work, Weber had placed these texts, which have a systematic character and were written later, in front of those written before the war, which are more characteristic of historic sociology. We now have a more complete presentation of the various versions and stages of writing of the Herrschaftssoziologie thanks to a recent publication by Edith Hanke (2001). There, she distinguishes eight stages of writing. However, I shall content myself with indicating the major differences between the two major chronological strata of the manuscripts of Economy and Society. We can observe a development and change in the use and the scope of the concept of patrimonialism (Breuer 2006: 83). In the oldest version of the text, (A), the concepts of patriarchalism and patrimonialism are used in such a way as to suggest clearly a genetic relationship between the two phenomena they designate. In the later version, (B), on the other hand, Weber no longer writes of a patriarchal version of patrimonialism, instead making a clear distinction between (i) primary patriarchalism, the structural principle related to the household (Hausverband or oikos) and (ii) patrimonialism as a form of political rule.

The differences in conceptualisation combine with queries which differ between the two versions of the sociology of domination to be found in Economy and Society. In the oldest part of the text (Soziologie der Herrschaft), the guiding question is how does domination function? In the most recent part (Typen der Herrschaft), the question is: how is domination legitimized? (Hanke 2001: 33). These questions provide structure, even if Weber does not distinguish them with absolute clarity in his efforts at categorizing and constructing typologies.

We grant that this is not very important for the ordinary user of the concept of patrimonialism. However, these questions should be important when looking at the history of the concept. This is why we are going to sketch the thrust of Weber's argument, starting by identifying various pertinent themes and following the chronological order in which the texts were written. Thus, we shall successively allude to the line contributions presented in the sociology of domination (gathered together in Economy and society, second part), before presenting the types of domination to be found in the sociological categories (Economy and society, first part).

The sociology of domination

Weber's Herrschaftssoziologie, (translated as ‘Sociology of domination or sociology of authority’), was essentially written between 1911 and 1914. In current editions, it includes eight major sections, ranging from a chapter on the structural forms of domination to bureaucracy, patriarchal and patrimonial domination, charismatic domination, political and hierocratic domination, ‘non-legitimate domination (ty...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• Part I Concepts and their relevance
• Part II New orientations and debates in Africa
• Part III Regional transcriptions and interpretations
• Conclusion: neopatrimonial and developmental – the emerging states’ syndrome
• References
• Index