1) [patronage] is a technical
term for an incentive system denoting an exchange relationship in which a
patron (an individual, group, country or institution) forms a two-way
relationship with a client through the provision of resources (money,
employment, protection, knowledge, etc.) has become heavily imbued with
negative normative baggage. Within historical political studies, patronage
has generally been interpreted as an electoral resource that is used by
politicians and political parties solely for particularistic short-term
electoral reasons, to reward political loyalty, buy votes, etc. As a
result, the distribution of senior appointments to various forms of
Arm’s-Length Bodies (ALBs) has, through this lens, traditionally
been associated with ‘the colonisation of the state’ by governments and
political parties to create a governing cadre of family and friends, to
reward loyal party activists and to buyoff potential opponents. It is exactly
this particularistic view of ‘patronage as corruption’ that explains the
concept’s link to related terms such as clientelism, pork-barrels, rentseeking,
nepotism, sleaze, brokerage, cronyism, corruption and various other
bureaupathologies.
2) This ‘revisionist’ strand of
analysis accepts that the use of patronage as a partisan electoral
resource, rather than as a collective good, remains relevant to the
historical analysis of patronage and to the analysis of patronage in
under-developed and developing parts of the world in the twenty-first
century. However, it also draws upon a developmental literature that
focuses attention on the impact of social, economic and political changes which
have combined to constrain and affect how politicians and political
parties utilise their patronage capacity in many developed parts of the world.
The political context has, these scholars argue, changed in many countries
due to a range of factors (the disintegration of traditional class
networks, greater geographic mobility, the development of mass party
organisations, the need to steer and co-ordinate an increasingly
fragmented state bureaucracy, social expectations surrounding
transparency and meritocracy, etc.) that have undermined traditional
patron–client relationships and increasingly encourage politicians and
parties to view patronage not as a simple (shortterm, particularistic,
partisan) electoral resource but as a (long-term, universal, collective)
organisational resource.
3) This article charts the
rapid evolution of two forms of patronage-regulation (one forged around an
independent regulatory framework and the second around
legislative scrutiny) that have both served to limit the discretion and
reach of British ministers (despite the existence of a highly majoritarian
constitutional configuration).
4) The article tracks the
changing the nature of the House of Commons vis-a-vis ministerial appointments.
A focus on the rapid establishment of a ‘ladder of parliamentary
oversight’ in this sphere therefore provides a particularly
significant element of this article, as well as one that underlines the
micro-political insights of the research. This includes basic
questions concerning the various stages or gradations of the appointment
process, debates concerning the difference between ‘voice’ and ‘choice’ and the
relationship between different regulatory models.
5) If the creation of the Civil
Service Commission in 1855 and a number of other measures were intended to
end the practise of ‘old corruption’, then it was soon to be replaced by a
new pool of lucrative patronage appointments within the state but beyond
the civil service to which ministers could make appointments
without constraint.16 The ‘new corruption’ of the twentieth century
therefore focused not on the civil service but on agencies, boards and
commissions.
6) Despite the existence of
an obvious time-lag, the election of a Labour government generally led to
the appointment of trade unionists on the boards of public bodies and a
Conservative government with business representatives and by the mid-1970s
ministers enjoyed almost untrammelled control over around 10,000 public
appointments.
7) In 1995, the Office of the
Commissioner for Public Appointments was established. This was a critical
development in at least three ways. First, although ministers still
wielded significant patronage powers, their discretion in making
appointments and their role in the process were significantly limited by
the creation of OCPA. With an emphasis on merit and transparency,
the government’s ability to appoint ‘cronies’ in order to repay political
debts was almost completely reduced. It therefore shifted the nature of
the appointment system from a very ‘pure’ system in terms of ministerial
discretion to one of ‘constrained selectivity'. Second, the creation of
OCPA provided the beginning of a process of regulatory creep in which the
jurisdiction of the regulator was subsequently increased and the
regulatory demands strengthened.
My sentence:
There is a view
that appointments to positions can be made by the party which has won the
majority in a functioning democracy, leading to a perpetuation of it's own
interests. This stems from the rather stark categorization of patronage as
being 'evil'. The article argues that this may not always be the case, as the
politics of patronage are not so simple. While patronage systems may be
bad for underdeveloped and developing polities, a combination of social,
economic and cultural factors means that the patronage system is used as an
organisational tool in developed countries. An effective system of checks
develops due to the factors mentioned above. There is an effort to track the
macro-level changes that have been happening since the beginning of the patronage
system, and trying to show it using individual interviews and examinations into
the 'shrinking reach and permeation' of ministerial appointments.
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