Patronage in a Centralized, Socialist System: The Case of Poland

In: International political science review: the journal of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) = Revue internationale de science politique, Band 4, Heft 4, S. 495-518

Abstract

The patron-client relationships in a centralized, socialist system are neither pathological deviations nor remnants of post-capitalist heritage or feudal mentality. They are structural elements of the politico-economic system-a response from the lower units of the system to straitened channels of interest articulation and aggregation, severe scarcity, and super- centralization of the system. In extreme cases (such as Poland in the 1970s), they become something more than an addendum to the inefficient institutional system-they become a primary determinant of public policy itself. Analysis of various motivations that induce political and economic leaders to assume the role of patron leads to the conclusion that the concept of patron-client relationships is too narrow, in that it restricts the scope of the concept to the direct exchange of favors (a direct social exchange). If the focus of research is the operation of the political and economic system, the existence and the scope of informal transactions and parallel distributive process is of foremost importance, irrespective of the motives and rewards that clients and patrons get from these transactions.