Patrimonialism

[toucana]

There is an interesting new article in The Atlantic (Feb 24 2025) by Jonathan Rauch entitled ‘One Word Describes Trump’.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/

The article cites a recent book called The Assault on the State: How the Attack on Modern Government Endangers our Future  - by two professors  - Stephen E. Hanson and Jeffrey S.Kopstein. This book in turn reaches back over a century to the work of a seminal German sociologist called Max Weber (1864-1920) who is probably best known for his book called The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

Max Weber was interested in how leaders of states derive their legitimacy, and he suggested that it came down to two choices:

i. Bureaucratic proceduralism - derived from the rules and norms bestowed by institutions

ii. Patrimonialism -  in which rulers claim to be the symbolic father of the people.

It is the second of these - patrimonialism - which provides the one word epitome of who Trump is, and how his approach to government functions

Quote

 

"In its governmental guise, patrimonialism is distinguished by running the state as if it were the leader’s personal property or family business.

..(Trump) is patrimonialism’s perfect organism. He recognizes no distinction between what is public and private, legal and illegal, formal and informal, national and personal. “He can’t tell the difference between his own personal interest and the national interest, if he even understands what the national interest is,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump’s first term, told The Bulwark."

 

Weber himself in the late 19th century thought that patrimonialism was an obsolete anachronism that was on its way to history’s scrap heap. Its personalized style of rule was too inexpert and capricious to manage the complex economies and military machines that, after Bismarck, became the hallmarks of modern statehood. Unfortunately, he was wrong.

One important point made in the article is that the antithesis of patrimonialism is not democracy, but bureaucracy, and bureaucratic formalism  - which explains why Trump is so determined to annihilate federal agencies. The other principal point is that patrimonialism suffers from two fundamental weaknesses:

i. Incompetence

ii. Corruption

Quote

"Patrimonialism is corrupt by definition, because its reason for being is to exploit the state for gain—political, personal, and financial. At every turn, it is at war with the rules and institutions that impede rigging, robbing, and gutting the state."

But corruption is also the Achilles heel of patrimonialism in the author’s opinion:

Quote

 ..because the public understands it and doesn’t like it. It is not an abstraction like “democracy” or “Constitution” or “rule of law.” It conveys that the government is being run for them, not for you.

 

 

 

Edited March 16 by toucana
corrected 'Kopstein, removed redundant 'of'