Roles, trust and skills: A typology of patronage appointments
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Author | Conrado R. Ramos Larraburu,Francisco Panizza,B. Guy Peters |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12560 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Roles, trust and skills: A typology of patronage
appointments
Francisco Panizza
1
| B. Guy Peters
2
| Conrado R. Ramos Larraburu
3
1
Department of Government, London School
of Economics and Political Science,
London, UK
2
Department of Political Science, University of
Pittsburgh, USA
3
Instituto de Ciencia Política, Universidad de la
Republica Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay
Correspondence
Conrado R. Ramos Larraburu, Instituto de
Ciencia Política, Universidad de la Republica
Uruguay, Constituyente 1502, 11200
Montevideo, Uruguay.
Email: conrado.ramos@cienciassociales.edu.uy
This article contributes to the study of the politics of patronage
appointments by creating a typology of patronage roles based on
the nature of trust between patrons and appointees and on the
skills patrons seek in appointees. Our classification brings together
the dispersed literature on patronage roles and can be applied to
the study of modalities of patronage across and within countries.
We offer preliminary evidence from our study of the politics of
patronage appointments in Latin America suggesting that variations
in patronage roles can be related to variations in the institutionali-
zation of party systems and to the nature of the links between
political actors and voters. Finally, we explore whether the catego-
ries identified in our empirical study can be found in other settings.
We conclude that our typology can contribute to the study of the
impact of modalities of patronage on the quality of public adminis-
tration and on political governability.
1|INTRODUCTION
In virtually every country, office-holders use their power of patronage to make political appointments to public
administration. There is of course, significant variation in the number of people appointed through patronage—
ranging from a few hundred to thousands—and in whether these appointments are made legally or by ignoring or
bending civil service rules (Piattoni 2001). Moreover, variations in patronage are not just a matter of numbers or
about how far down in the administrative structure patronage extends. Key to the comparative studyof the politics
of patronage appointments is understanding the motivations of patrons when they make appointments, the roles
appointees play, the skills required to play these roles and what accounts for different modalities of patronage.
In addressing these issues, the literature on patronage uses a mélange of different categories and schemes
(or none at all, as patronage is often treated as synonymous with clientelism). This article contributes to the study of
the politics of patronage appointments by presenting a new typology of patronage roles. We argue that by creating a
typology of roles based on the nature of trust between patrons and appointees and on the skills patrons seek in
appointees, our classification: (i) brings together the dispersed literature on patronage appointments in developed
and developing countries; (ii) presents a coherent classification of the roles played by appointees, which can be
applied to the systematic study of patronage appointments across and within countries and regions; (iii) facilitates
Received: 7 April 2018 Revised: 4 September 2018 Accepted: 26 September 2018
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12560
Public Administration. 2019;97:147–161. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 147
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