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Title: Unequal Friendship

Unequal Friendship

The Patron-Client Relationship in Historical Perspective

by Antoni Mączak (Author)
©2017 Monographs 446 Pages
History & Political Science
Open Access
Series: Polish Studies – Transdisciplinary Perspectives, Volume 20

Summary

This book analyzes the patron-client relationship over both space and time. It covers such areas of the globe as Europe, Africa and Latin America, and such periods in time as ancient Rome, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Poland, as well as twentieth-century America. It also analyzes clientelism in U.S. policy toward the Vietnam War and in Richard J. Daley’s mayoral rule over Chicago. In his comparative approach the author makes broad use of theories from such fields as history, sociology, anthropology and linguistics while considering the global scale of the patron-client relationship and the immense role that clientelism has played in world history.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • 1. On This Subject and its Fate
  • 2. An Author’s Debts
  • Chapter 1: The Clientele as the “Pornography of Politics”: Words and Their Meaning
  • 1. In Search of Words
  • a. Sir Walter and the Eroticism of the Clientele
  • 2. Formal/Informal
  • 3. Open Questions
  • 4. Christ and Aristotle
  • Chapter 2: Elements of Theory
  • 1. The Two Languages of Science
  • 2. Proposed Definitions
  • a. The Cavalcata in the Service of Church Reform
  • b. St. Paul and the Christian Community in Corinth
  • 3. Fidélités-Clientéles: Roland Mousnier and the Anglo-Saxons
  • a. King Henry and the Knight Errant
  • Chapter 3: Gestures of a Lop-Sided Friendship
  • 1. The Social Function of the Kiss
  • 2. Equality – Subordination – Subservience
  • 3. The Clientele in Graphics: Gérard de Lairesse
  • 4. The Clientele in Graphics: Jean-Pierre Norblin
  • a. The Polish Nobleman in the Eyes of a Woman from Gdańsk
  • 5. The Gesture on the Upper Nile, the Hudson, and the Vistula
  • Chapter 4: Antiquity: The Forgotten Clientele
  • 1. Two Legends
  • 2. The Era of the Republic: The Classic Clientele
  • a. Plutarch: Marius
  • 3. On the Monopoly over Clienteles
  • Chapter 5: The Modern State and its Variants
  • 1. The Royal Court: “The Sun and its Reflected Rays”
  • 2. The Astronomer as Courtier
  • 3. “Merrie Olde England” and its Court
  • 4. The Clientele Formalized: Scottish Bonds of Manrent
  • 5. Bloody Revenge (the Feud), or Elements of a Historical Parallel
  • 6. France: The Royal Court, the Aristocracy, and Officials
  • 7. Sweden as a Power: The Court and Nobility in Service to the State
  • a. A Polish Noblewoman in the Swedish Network
  • Chapter 6: The Old-Poland Clientele
  • 1. The Rzeczpospolita Samorządowa
  • 2. The Consequences of the Statutes (Privileges) of Nieszawa (1454)
  • 3. Clientelism and Oligarchy
  • 4. Liberty and the Raison d’état: “Anonym” on the Rzeczpospolita
  • 5. The Magnateria: Magnatial Rule over Space
  • 6. Political Clientelism Alla Polacca
  • a. To Like as Much as One’s Interests Command
  • 7. The Revival of Political Sarmatism
  • Chapter 7: The Mediterranean Lands
  • 1. South and North
  • a. Selling Vegetables in the South
  • 2. The Conflict over Mezzogiorno
  • 3. “Amoral Familism” and Limited Good
  • a. Scarcity and a Lord’s Grace
  • 4. Sicily
  • 5. The Mafioso and his Clientele: From the Feudo to Crime Syndicate
  • a. Don Calò and Don Genco: “Honey wouldn’t melt in their mouths”
  • 6. The Peripheries and Extremities of the Mediterranean Region
  • a. The Feud, or to be a Client from the Cradle
  • 7. “And thou shalt take no gift […]”
  • a. Corruption in the Building of Socialism on One Country
  • 8. The Patron, the Client, and the Division of Social Income
  • Chapter 8: The Clientele and Political Parties
  • a. “Besen-, Fakten – und Aktenrein”
  • 1. “Palimpsest of Friendship”: Victorian Patronage among Gentlemen
  • 2. Italy: From Unification through the Crisis in Christian Democracy
  • 3. The United States: The White House and its Surroundings
  • a. The Führer’s Gefolgsmann
  • b. “The Best and the Brightest”
  • 4. Chicago: Mayor Richard J. Daley and the “Democratic Political Machine”
  • a. The Reflections of Mr. Plunkitt
  • Chapter 9: The USSR: Lenin, Stalin and Collective Leadership
  • 1. The Legacy of Autocracy and Revolution
  • 2. From Cliques to Terror
  • 3. Clienteles in the Era of “Collective Leadership”
  • 4. “Anatomy of a Spectre”
  • a. Sweaters for the Arctic
  • Chapter 10: Africa, Kings, Dictators and Citizens-Subjects
  • 1. European Words in the African Bush
  • 2. African Cases of Feudalism/Clientelism
  • 3. Variations on Dependence: Cows and People
  • a. Proverbs from the Lakes
  • 4. Farmers and Forest People
  • 5. The Patron and Colonial Administration
  • 6. Decolonization and the Myth of Modernization
  • 7. Mobutu Sese Seko as Le Roi Soleil
  • Chapter 11: The Third World: Unity and Diversity
  • 1. Thailand and Quasi-Clientelism
  • a. Falcons and Camels
  • 2. Latin America: One or Many?
  • 3. Compadre-Compadrazgo
  • 4. Between the Hacienda and the Ballot Box
  • Chapter 12: The Clientele Today on a Global Scale
  • 1. Mchod-Yon: Patronage and the Sovereignty of Tibet
  • 2. Clientelism as the Highest Stage of Imperialism
  • 3. The Dictator as Rebellious Client
  • Chapter 13: Sketches of the Present Day: Clienteles after Communism
  • 1. Patrons and Clients in Poland after the PRL
  • 2. Russia: Market Variations and the Spluttering of Clients
  • Final Thoughts: On Reservations, and Values
  • 1. People and Animals
  • Bibliography

Antoni Mączak

Unequal Friendship

The Patron-Client Relationship in Historical Perspective

Translated by Alex Shannon

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About the author

Antoni Ma˛czak was full Professor of History at the University of Warsaw. He was Fellow of Collegium Invisibile, as well as Corresponding Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He lectured at many academic centers worldwide, including the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, University of Notre Dame and McGill University. He wrote about the economic history of Poland and on the comparative history of Poland and Europe.

About the book

This book analyzes the patron-client relationship over both space and time. It covers such areas of the globe as Europe, Africa and Latin America, and such periods in time as ancient Rome, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Poland, as well as twentieth-century America. It also analyzes clientelism in U.S. policy toward the Vietnam War and in Richard J. Daley’s mayoral rule over Chicago. In his comparative approach the author makes broad use of theories from such fields as history, sociology, anthropology and linguistics while considering the global scale of the patron-client relationship and the immense role that clientelism has played in world history.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. On This Subject and its Fate

2. An Author’s Debts

Chapter 1: The Clientele as the “Pornography of Politics”: Words and Their Meaning

1. In Search of Words

a. Sir Walter and the Eroticism of the Clientele

2. Formal/Informal

3. Open Questions

4. Christ and Aristotle

Chapter 2: Elements of Theory

1. The Two Languages of Science

2. Proposed Definitions

a. The Cavalcata in the Service of Church Reform

b. St. Paul and the Christian Community in Corinth

3. Fidélités-Clientéles: Roland Mousnier and the Anglo-Saxons

a. King Henry and the Knight Errant

Chapter 3: Gestures of a Lop-Sided Friendship

1. The Social Function of the Kiss

2. Equality – Subordination – Subservience

3. The Clientele in Graphics: Gérard de Lairesse

4. The Clientele in Graphics: Jean-Pierre Norblin

a. The Polish Nobleman in the Eyes of a Woman from Gdańsk

5. The Gesture on the Upper Nile, the Hudson, and the Vistula

Chapter 4: Antiquity: The Forgotten Clientele

1. Two Legends←5 | 6→

2. The Era of the Republic: The Classic Clientele

a. Plutarch: Marius

3. On the Monopoly over Clienteles

Chapter 5: The Modern State and its Variants

1. The Royal Court: “The Sun and its Reflected Rays”

2. The Astronomer as Courtier

3. “Merrie Olde England” and its Court

4. The Clientele Formalized: Scottish Bonds of Manrent

5. Bloody Revenge (the Feud), or Elements of a Historical Parallel

6. France: The Royal Court, the Aristocracy, and Officials

7. Sweden as a Power: The Court and Nobility in Service to the State

a. A Polish Noblewoman in the Swedish Network

Chapter 6: The Old-Poland Clientele

1. The Rzeczpospolita Samorządowa

2. The Consequences of the Statutes (Privileges) of Nieszawa (1454)

3. Clientelism and Oligarchy

4. Liberty and the Raison d’état: “Anonym” on the Rzeczpospolita

5. The Magnateria: Magnatial Rule over Space

6. Political Clientelism Alla Polacca

a. To Like as Much as One’s Interests Command

7. The Revival of Political Sarmatism

Chapter 7: The Mediterranean Lands

1. South and North

a. Selling Vegetables in the South

2. The Conflict over Mezzogiorno

3. “Amoral Familism” and Limited Good

a. Scarcity and a Lord’s Grace

4. Sicily←6 | 7→

5. The Mafioso and his Clientele: From the Feudo to Crime Syndicate

a. Don Calò and Don Genco: “Honey wouldn’t melt in their mouths”

6. The Peripheries and Extremities of the Mediterranean Region

a. The Feud, or to be a Client from the Cradle

7. “And thou shalt take no gift […]”

a. Corruption in the Building of Socialism on One Country

8. The Patron, the Client, and the Division of Social Income

Chapter 8: The Clientele and Political Parties

a. “Besen-, Fakten – und Aktenrein”

1. “Palimpsest of Friendship”: Victorian Patronage among Gentlemen

2. Italy: From Unification through the Crisis in Christian Democracy

3. The United States: The White House and its Surroundings

a. The Führer’s Gefolgsmann

b. “The Best and the Brightest”

4. Chicago: Mayor Richard J. Daley and the “Democratic Political Machine”

a. The Reflections of Mr. Plunkitt

Chapter 9: The USSR: Lenin, Stalin and Collective Leadership

1. The Legacy of Autocracy and Revolution

2. From Cliques to Terror

3. Clienteles in the Era of “Collective Leadership”

4. “Anatomy of a Spectre”

a. Sweaters for the Arctic

Chapter 10: Africa, Kings, Dictators and Citizens-Subjects

1. European Words in the African Bush

2. African Cases of Feudalism/Clientelism

3. Variations on Dependence: Cows and People

a. Proverbs from the Lakes←7 | 8→

4. Farmers and Forest People

5. The Patron and Colonial Administration

6. Decolonization and the Myth of Modernization

7. Mobutu Sese Seko as Le Roi Soleil

Chapter 11: The Third World: Unity and Diversity

1. Thailand and Quasi-Clientelism

a. Falcons and Camels

2. Latin America: One or Many?

3. Compadre-Compadrazgo

4. Between the Hacienda and the Ballot Box

Chapter 12: The Clientele Today on a Global Scale

1. Mchod-Yon: Patronage and the Sovereignty of Tibet

2. Clientelism as the Highest Stage of Imperialism

3. The Dictator as Rebellious Client

Chapter 13: Sketches of the Present Day: Clienteles after Communism

1. Patrons and Clients in Poland after the PRL

2. Russia: Market Variations and the Spluttering of Clients

Final Thoughts: On Reservations, and Values

1. People and Animals

Bibliography←8 | 9→

Introduction

Patronage is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, and that is Power.

Benjamin Disraeli1

I am afraid certain things will go on in the world for ever, whether we profit by them or not. And if I grant that patronage is sometimes a public evil, you must allow that it is often a private benefit.

Maria Edgeworth2

The reader deserves a few words of explanation regarding the content and form of this book. It is a work based on certain assumptions: that issues of power are comparable in time and space; that it is worth addressing the past and present with a common set of questions; that – more often than we would like to admit – we are held captive by a certain accepted language and a certain terminology; and that it is our task as scholars to tear down barriers that divide the academic disciplines. In part for these reasons, I did not – for the Polish version of this text – translate some of the quotes taken from foreign-language (mainly Anglo-American, but also German and French) academic literature and other sources.3 I am aware that this choice might make reading my text more difficult and that it might encourage readers to skim over the foreign-language texts, but the fact is that, in this book, semantics play a large role as early as the first chapter; I will often analyze the meaning of words and will draw conclusions on the basis of terminology. In keeping foreign-language texts in their original, though I might open myself up to criticism that I have – perhaps unconsciously – catered to globalism, I can say with confidence that I do not feel guilty of snobbism.

I might also add that, when dealing with such a large subject, I feel a certain humility; I am aware that, given the subject’s complexity and its great number of←9 | 10→ culturally conditioned aspects, my conclusions in certain areas must remain little more than hypotheses. I am also aware that more than one chapter might become a specialist’s treasure trove, and for this reason I dare not write that these issues are too complex to leave to specialists.4

Details

Pages
446
Publication Year
2017
ISBN (ePUB)
9783631710203
ISBN (PDF)
9783653023688
ISBN (MOBI)
9783631710210
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631626689
DOI
10.3726/978-3-653-02368-8
Open Access
CC-BY-NC-ND
Language
English
Publication date
2017 (May)
Keywords
Antiquity: The Forgotten Clientele Political Parties The USSR: Collective Leadership Africa, Dictators Third World: Unity and Diversity The Clientele on Global Scale
Published
Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2017. 446 pp., 8 ill., 4 tables

Biographical notes

Antoni Mączak (Author)

Antoni Mączak was full Professor of History at the University of Warsaw. He was Fellow of Collegium Invisibile, as well as Corresponding Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He lectured at many academic centers worldwide, including the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, University of Notre Dame and McGill University. He wrote about the economic history of Poland and on the comparative history of Poland and Europe.

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Title: Unequal Friendship