Coda: American Patrimonialism

Patrimonialism, until fairly recently, seemed an archaic social form, largely replaced by bureaucratic rationalism. That confident view of modernity, in the histories that Max Weber and his followers wrote, deserves to be challenged as patrimonial regimes reappear in states and firms throughout the world. This article is my attempt to mount that challenge. I first revisit Weber’s conception of patrimonialism and discuss how gendered and elitist studies of early modern Europe require a reevaluation of patrimonialism’s dynamics and resilience. I then present an overview of evidence for the return of patrimonialism and of ideological justifications for its legitimacy, focusing on the United States. Since Weber and his successors all see patrimonialism and bureaucracy as incompatible, it is necessary to develop a theory of how the dynamics of elite conflict within bureaucratic, capitalist societies can generate patrimonialism. I do so in the penultimate section of this article, and I then explore the implications of that theory for predicting the future course of patrimonialism in the twenty-first century.