Patronage: a template for empirical research

Patronage appointments, defined as the power of political actors to discretionally appoint trusted individuals to non-elective positions within the public sector, is a dimension of politics across political systems and regions of the world. This chapter sets up a broad framework for studying the nature, mechanisms, and dynamics of patronage appointments. To this purpose, it distinguishes patronage from clientelism, considers the factors for its persistence in both developed and developing economies, maps the patrons’ motivations for making patronage appointments and the roles appointees play within the public administration, presents a typology of patronage roles based on the nature of trust between patrons and appointees and the skills prioritized in the appointees, and explains its variations across countries and regions. Four factors merit special consideration in this regard: the characteristics of parties and party systems, types of political regimes, the strength of the civil service, and the structure of society.