Moving Away from Patronage: A Feedback Approach

Patronage appointments in government are a continuing issue in many administrative systems. Especially for countries in Latin America and Africa patronage is considered a major impediment to developing more effective administrative systems. A great deal has been written describing patronage and discussing the causes for patronage, but much less research has addressed the dynamics of moving away from patronage to more merit-based systems. This paper reviews the patronage literature and then develops a dynamic feedback model for movement away from patronage. The model links the quality of the services provided by the government, the nature of the political party system, and levels of trust to patronage. The model uses several reinforcing and balancing feedback loops to demonstrate the possible dynamics of change in administrative appointments.