Interesting. Patrimonialism. Sounds like the mafia way. I’ve always thought he wanted to be a mob boss and why not make the Oval Office headquarters? .We could be seen as living in an episode of the Sopranos. Still a strongman style, and it figures: “its main contemporary exponent—at least until January 20, 2025—has been Vladimir Putin”.
This does seem a good way to view the style that is Trump. And despite the last sentence in this excerpt, I still think Putin is
capo di tutti capi, the boss of bosses.
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A century ago, a German sociologist explained precisely how Donald Trump thinks about the world, Understanding this view is essential to defeating it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...t=jya-z5lTntURuSFdyDPB2QBDcchtg0YuxwdjcIUk0aQ
Even those who expected the worst from his reelection (I among them) expected more rationality. Today, it is clear that what has happened since January 20 is not just a change of administration but a
change of regime—a change, that is, in our system of government. But a change to what?
There is an answer, and it is not classic authoritarianism—nor is it autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy. Trump is installing what scholars call patrimonialism. Understanding patrimonialism is essential to defeating it. In particular, it has a fatal weakness that Democrats and Trump’s other opponents should make their primary and relentless line of attack.
Last year, two professors published a book that deserves wide attention. In
The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future, Stephen E. Hanson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary, and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, a political scientist at UC Irvine, resurface a mostly forgotten term whose lineage dates back to Max Weber, the German sociologist best known for his seminal book
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Weber wondered how the leaders of states derive legitimacy, the claim to rule rightfully. He thought it boiled down to two choices. One is rational legal bureaucracy (or “bureaucratic proceduralism”), a system in which legitimacy is bestowed by institutions following certain rules and norms. That is the American system we all took for granted until January 20. Presidents, federal officials, and military inductees swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a person.
The other source of legitimacy is more ancient, more common, and more intuitive—“the default form of rule in the premodern world,” Hanson and Kopstein write. “The state was little more than the extended ‘household’ of the ruler; it did not exist as a separate entity.” Weber called this system “patrimonialism” because rulers claimed to be the symbolic father of the people—the state’s personification and protector. Exactly that idea was implied in Trump’s own chilling
declaration: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Patrimonialism is less a form of government than a style of governing. It is not defined by institutions or rules; rather, it can infect all forms of government by replacing impersonal, formal lines of authority with personalized, informal ones. Based on individual loyalty and connections, and on rewarding friends and punishing enemies (real or perceived), it can be found not just in states but also among tribes, street gangs, and criminal organizations.
In its governmental guise, patrimonialism is distinguished by running the state as if it were the leader’s personal property or family business. It can be found in many countries, but its main contemporary exponent—at least until January 20, 2025—has been Vladimir Putin. In the first portion of his rule, he ran the Russian state as a personal racket. State bureaucracies and private companies continued to operate, but the real governing principle was
Stay on Vladimir Vladimirovich’s good side … or else.
Seeking to make the world safe for gangsterism, Putin used propaganda, subversion, and other forms of influence to spread the model abroad. Over time, the patrimonial model gained ground in states as diverse as Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and India. Gradually (as my colleague Anne Applebaum has
documented), those states coordinated in something like a syndicate of crime families—“working out problems,” write Hanson and Kopstein in their book, “divvying up the spoils, sometimes quarreling, but helping each other when needed. Putin in this scheme occupied the position of the
capo di tutti capi, the boss of bosses.”
Until now. Move over, President Putin.
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