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Clientelism and Patronage in Senegal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Robert Fatton Jr.
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Extract

Patron/client relationships have fascinated scholars and students of the Third World for more than a generation. These relationships have emerged as an important paradigm in the literature on development and underdevelopment, to the point that there has recendy been a boom of work in this area (Schmidt et al., 1977). Patron/client relationships are usually conceived of as symbols of a persistent “tradition” impinging on, and/or retarding the transition to “modernity.” They are also presented as evidence of the limited theoretical and explanatory usefulness of class analysis. I shall seek to demonstrate, however, that while patron/client relationships are a useful heuristic tool to understand the politics of underdeveloped societies, they are neither a substitute for class analysis, nor should they be construed as an independent paradigm of their own. They should be used as complementary and not as contradictory variables to class, as a close examination of clientelism and patronage in Senegal shows.

The pre-colonial African culture of the Muslim brotherhoods (Foltz, 1977) and the rather liberal electoral patterns established by French colonialism in the eighteenth century (Johnson, 1971) imparted to Senegal patron/client relationships which have permeated its politics since independence (Schumacher, 1975). These relationships, which many scholars have considered to be part of the transitional mode of behavior characteristic of modernizing societies (Foltz, 1977; Lemarchand, 1977; Barker, 1973), represent serious road blocks to Senegalese development (Foltz, 1977; Schumacher, 1975; Cottingham, 1970; O'Brien, 1975).

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Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 1986 , pp. 61 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1986

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