abandoning the neo-patrimonialist paradigm: for a pluralist approach to the bureaucratic mode of...

3 Abandoning the Neo-Patrimonialist Paradigm · For a Pluralist Approach to the Bureaucratie Mode of Governance in Africa

] ean-Pierre 0 livier de Sardan

THE MODES OF GOVERNANCE

Given that the concept of governance is at the heart of this book, it makes sense to define at the start how 1 will use it in the discussion 1 intend to conduct on the concept of neo-patrimonialism.

Governance concepts tend to be highly normative: This has been frequently acknowledged by social scientists (see Koechlin, this volume; F6rster and Koechlin, 2011: 8-9; Engel and Olsen, 2005), due in particular to the current widespread dissemination of the "good governance" agenda from -theWorldBank towards donors and development.agencies. The concept has nevertheless its sources in social sciences, mostly comparative political science and new-institutional economics. lt emphasizes the variety of forms of coordination between actors (cf. Gaudin, 2002). Cartier-Bresson, taking his eue from Williamson, recalls that "governance is the rules of the game which goverff the different forms of transaction, and each system of governance has its system of incentives to ensure the rules are respected: competition for the market, contract enforcement for firms, and obedience to hierarchy in the public authorities" (Cartier-Bresson, 20101).

These three are indeed macro ideal-types, based each one on three macro official norms; of course they don't take in account the discrepancies between official norms and real practices. Sociology of organizations and economic sociology have provided ample evidences that markets are not only ruled by free competition; that firms are not only regulated by contracts; and that obedience to hier~rchy is far from being the only logic of behavior among civil servants. ln each sector, there is a gap between macro official norms and what "really happens in the field". So, such a very general use of the governance concept is missing the "gap issue", exactly the one that the neopatrimonialism paradigm is trying to tackle (but improperly, as we will see).

Up to this point, in order to be operational and empirically loaded, any redefinition of governance needs not only to be non normative but also: (a) to be less general and (b) to include real practices as well as official norms.

But most definitions of governance, even when they escape the normative bias and try to encompass real practices, still remain very general. For

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76 Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan

instance, governance is "the means of coordinating players and the integration of collective action" (Dubresson and Jaglin, 2002: 72); or: "Governance refers broadly to how the formal and informal rule are managed and enforced or how power and authority are exercised" (Boesen, 2007: 84); or again: "Governance is conceived as a set of interactions (conflict, negotiation, alliance, compromise, avoidance, etc.) resulting in more or less stabilized regulations, producing order and disorder (the point is subject to diverging interpretations between stakeholders) and defining a social field, the boundaries and participants of which are not predefined" (Blundo and Le Meur, 2009: 7). The same for Fë:irster and Koechlin: "Figurations of governance can be thought of as relatively stable social spaces where actors, based on their respective agencies, identify and address social problems through creative interaction" (2011: 31) or: "process of coordinated action between actors to resolve societal problems" (2011: 10). All these definitions refer to collective action, interactions which produce rules or solutions, or the exercise of power. All are relevant, but it seems difficult to typologize different African settings on the basis of such abstract definitions.

For me the most interesting attempts con:ie from political anthropology (but of course I'm partial!), precisely from Blundo and Le Meur and Fë:irster and Koechlin. They all want "to explore empirically the meanings behind the . concept of governance when it is relieved of its normative elements" (Blundo and Le Meur, 2009: 2). But how, and relying on which conceptualization? In my mind, they doser approach the solution with their practical uses of the concept than with their general definitions. Blundo and Le Meur present "the delivery of collective services as both an instantiation of everyday governance and a promising fieldwork approach for a renewed political anthropology" (Blundo and Le Meur, 2009: 4). For their part, Fèirster and Koechlin (2011; · as well as Koechlin, this volume, and Fë:irster, this volume) evoke the utilitarian aspect of governance which is "the provision of public and common goods". I propose to take this "utilitarian aspect" (which is quite more than utilitarian) and this "promising fieldwork approach" as the basis for a more operational definition of governance. Governance will be referred to as institutional arrangements organizing the delivery of public or collective services and goods, according ta specific norms (forma! and practical) and ta specific forms of authority. Each typical institutional arrangement, operating according to specific norms (formai and practical), and to specific form of authority, can then be considered to be a mode of governance.

This definition has four assets. It focuses on a specific function of collective action, authority or regula

tion, which for a long time was associated with the State, and which today can be implemented by other types of institutions and players. It is well suited for the analysis of specific settings. Focusing on the mechanisms for delivery of goods and services permits clearly defined empirical analysis (how do we access drinking water? How do we obtain safety? How do we deal with famine?). 2

Abandoning the Neo-Patrimonialist Paradigm 77

It includes the discrepancy between official norms and practices ("the gap issue"), on the ground that these practices, more or less "deviant", are nevertheless regulated: here, the concept of practical norms (cf. infra) is relevant.

It includes also forms of authority. This allows to tackle management and organizational issues seriously without leaving out power issues, including features as conflicts, legitimacy or accountability.

Finally it takes in account the plurality of modes of governance. The players (or institutions) who deliver public or collective services and goods are more and more numerous, particularly in Africa. The modes of governance there have become very varied, which opens up the analysis even more. This permits comparative analyses (how do the state, the religious associations and the development institutions differ, oppose each other or collaborate in education or health?).

Thus several modes of governance coexist on a national scale. They also coexist above ail on a local scale, which is particularly pertinent for conduct- .. ing empirical analyses. In Niger we have distinguished eight local modes of governance and these are found in essence in other neighboring countries: the bureaucratie mode of governance (State services), the development projectbased mode of governance (development projects and aid interventions), the associational mode of governance (associations, cooperatives, farmers' groups, etc.), the municipal mode of governance (arising from recent decentralization, and the implementation of elected local governments), the chiefly mode of governance (exercised either by administrative-i.e., colonial-style-chiefs, or by "customary", "traditional" chiefs, or else by neo-traditional chiefs), the sponsorship-based mode of governance (involving sponsors and big men); the merchant mode of governance (private operators sometimes deliver public services) and the religious mode of governance (similar in some ways to the associational mode, but with its own specificity nonetheless) (cf. Olivier de Sardan, 2011).

BUREAUCRATIC GOVERNANCE AND THE GAP ISSUE

The mode of governance we will discuss here is the bureaucratie mode of governance, or the specific forms of delivery of public goods and services by agents of the State and related institutions3• This was actually what the concept of neo-patrimonialism was developed about. It appears in the form of a theoretical tool that aims to supply a solution to the "gap issue" at the heart of bureaucratie governance.

Let us specify how this gap issue presents itself. The wealth of litera~ure on the State and the public administrations and services in Africa has a common denominator in that it describes major gaps between the official no~s that govern these institutions and the actual behavior of public agents. 4 This gap is described· in all disciplines and theoretical approaches. It is true to

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say, of course, that al! organizations have gaps between prescribed conduct and actual conduct. This has long been demonstrated by organizational sociology. This is even more valid for the complex assembly of organizations that make up a State. However, the general feeling among researchers is that African States, modeled on European States, have greater gaps than the latter and that these gaps have specific forms. Put another way, the bureaucratie mode of governance in many African countries, which refers to a system of official norms largely identical to those in force in the North, most frequently fonctions in reality without respecting these norms.

The concept of neo-patrimonialism has been widely applied for thirty years to provide a theoretical explanation for such gaps.5 lt has been subject to various adjustments recently and has been the target of miscellaneous criticism. However, it remains the favorite of al! those who characterize African State governance solely by the fact that it diverges from formai norms and is based on informai regulations.6

1 propose here to summarize the uses of this concept, to explain its limits and to suggest that it should be abandoned in favor of a pluralist approach to the bureaucratie mode of governance in Africa.

FROM PATRIMONIALISM TO NEO-PATRIMONIALISM

The expression neo-patrimonialism, first used by Eisenstadt,7 has been very popular among researchers into Africa, particularly in political sciences. Médard (1982), and later Bratton and van de Walle (1997), have well described the "hybrid nature" of nec-patrimonial regimes in Africa, and have been frequently quoted for that. Nèo-patrimonialism of course clearly draws on the concept of patrimonialism as described by Max Weber, for whom different forms of patrimonialism, included in "traditional legitimacy" (as opposed to "charismatic legitimacy" and "legal-rational legitimacy")9, were evidence of the absence of a line between the State's and the Sovereign's material and human resources. In other words Weber's patrimonialism is the official sanctioning of the melding of public interests with rulers interests: There is officially no distinction between public property and the private property of authorities, and similarly, access to public office is officially inseparable from allegiance to the person wielding authority. 10

With patrimonialism, the official norm is a lack of distinction, at least in terms of the political authorities, between public and private goods (and, by extension, between public and private fonctions and public and private interests). The construction of the modern State in Europe11 corresponds to the abandonment of the patrimonial ways in which the pre-modern State fonctioned, to be replaced by legal-rational ways. "lt was left to the complete depersonalization of administrative management by bureaucracy and the rational systematization of law to realize the separation of the public and the private sphere folly and in principle" (Weber, 19._82: 67).12 lt is important


to remember here that Weber was principally interested in the fonctioning of State bureaucra.cies and the contrast between bureaucracies that fonction according to a "patrimonial" mode! (Ancient Egypt, China, Roman Empire) and bureaucracies that fonètion according to a "legal-rational" mode! (modern Europe). 13

Now, the key difference between neo-patrimonialism and patrimonialism is that in the nec-patrimonial mode! official norms are of a legal-rational type, i.e., based upon a clear distinction between public and private property, while in practice this distinction is blurred (Clapham, 1982; Médard, 1991; Bratton and van de Walle, 1996). We will now deal in detail with these gaps that we mentioned above, and the concept of neo-patrimonialism is a way of explaining them.

Neo-patrimonialism covers, among other things, multiple forms of clientelism, in other words personal bonds of dependence based on mutual "services" (although they are deeply unequal) and forms of redistribution between patrons and clients.14 There are abundant typologies and definitions of clientelism or patronage (terms that overlap to a great extent) and many go beyond the sphere of the State. 15 Applied to contemporary African States and integrated in the more general concept of neo-patrimonialism, clientelism conjures up images of, in particular, widespread civil service recruitment practices aimed at granting favors based on family ties, and income derived from corrupt means, which stand in sharp contrast to official recruitment n:orms based on competitive exams, qualifications or merit. lt implies the use of widespread favoritism as opposed to the impartial handling of files.

This neo-patrimonialist perspective has been very successfol among social scientist as well as outside the academic world stricto sensu (joumalists, intellectuals, politicians).16 lt became somehow a paradigm for African States "real" governance, as opposed to the formal institutions of an "imported State" .17

lts success is ambiguous. lt is linked to several incontestable assets which we will examine first. However, it is also linked to a misleading simplification of African reality, to which we will subsequently retum.

Severa! Assets of the Concept of Neo-patrimonialism

Firstly, neo-patrimonialism makes it possible to group related clusters of facts, the existence of which is incontestable, in a single category. Who could reasonably deny phenomena that everyone faces every day, whether as a user of public services, a civil servant or a reader of the press? This is the evidence that explains much of the success of this term. lt evokes a certain system of management of public affairs, of delivery of public services and of interaction between agents of the State and citizens (in other words a certain govemance) involving, as everyone knows, informality, moneymaking, misappropriation, corruption, connections and networks. The practices


it evokes exist. Therefore, the concept can be assigned a certain descriptive value.

Its merit lies, therefore, in postulatingthat these practices by public agents, which are "deviant" in relation to public norms, practices which could also be called "non compliant" 18, are both generalized and non random. On one hand, these practices are not marginalized as in the case of criminal activity, nor do they constitute pathological behavior; the vast majority of officials who do not comply to official norms are normal people. On the other hand, these practices are not associated with anomie, chaos or randomness; instead, they are informally regulated. State officials cannot do whatever they choose and the situation is far from that prévailing in the Kingdom of Ubu. There is no general anarchy.

The term neo-patrimonialism offers another advantage-it combines, in the same definition, official norms with practices that diverge from these norms. It should be stressed that, for the researcher and actors alike, official norms are subsumed in the definition of the situation. They cannot be dispensed with under the pretext that the level of adherence to them is scant, nor is it possible to focus on practices while acting as though official norms did not exist. On the other sicle, practices are far from obeying always the official norms. The discrepancy between the two is significant. Let us take, by way of example, this slogan which has been used to sum up the attitude of political patrons when they wield power: "For my friends, anything; for my enemies, the law!" This slogan is an effective articulation of the proficiency of the double standards practiced by the political elite, in mastering both the law (official norms) and their obligation-based relationships (clientelism).

But this dialectic between official norms and non-observant practices is actually denied by the "hard" version of neo-patrimonialism. Only the "soft" version takes it properly into account.

Two sub-paradigms

In fact, broadly put, there are two main versions of the neo-patrimonialism paradigm. For the "hard" one, which is the most common one, the official norms and regulations are only a "façade". Then, practices, from the top to the bottom of the State, are essentially driven by a patrimonialist logic. This has been once stated by Médard, but not developed by him 19 • More recently this version has been strongly advocated by Cha bal and Daloz (1998, and was quite successful. But it has been also criticized very much, and very strongly, for many reasons; not least because Chabal and Daloz did not only reduce power and authority in modern Africa to the hard neo-patrimonialism paradigm but also they have anchored it mostly in an ahistorical pre-colonial past which may appear as a set of stereotypes about African cultures and their underlying "moral matrix" .20 Democracy, elections, political mobilizations, dictatorships, wars or economic changes have not modified the


overwhelming patrimonialist pattern, because "the neopatrimonial system is deeply embedded in the African socio-cultural matrix ... the essence of neopatrimonialism is derived from the soé:io-cultural milieu which both elites and population share" (Chabal, 1992: 30-31). 21

Such a perspective does not take in account whole segments of reality, such as the growing importance of formal institutions (Erdmann, 2013: 59), the existence of "islands" or "pockets" of "effectiveness" (Crook, 2010; Leonard, 2010; Haut, 2013; Roll, 2014) or some "deep-seated attachment to bureaucratie rules and behaviors" (Nugent, 2010: 33). As Médard (2000b: 852) criticizes: "instead of using the notion of patrimonialism as an ideal-type which is confronted with reality to measure the distance between reality and the model, they used it as a catch-all explanation".22

Most of the critics of this hard version corne from those who support the soft version of the neo-patrimonialism paradigm. They insist on the mix of legal-rational logics and patrimonialist logics inherent to neopatrimonialism. This is the position of Erdmann and Engel (2007: 105): "The tendency is to minimise the legal-rational bureaucratie aspect and push the concept too far towards patrimonialism. This, we argue, is mistaken. The conceptualization of neopatrimonialism must account for both types of domination .... It is our contention that in a proper conceptualisation of neopatrimonialism equal treatment of both dimensions of neopatrimonialism has to be given right from the very start .... In other words, two role systems or logics exist next to each other, the patrimonial of the persona! relations, and the legal-rational of the bureaucracy" .23

This recognition of hybridity as the coexistence in the practices and in the motivations of actors of two different and entangled logics is obviously more satisfactory than the hard version.24 Instead of dichotomizing regimes (or continents) as either neo-patrimonialist or legal-rational, one (Africa) being the realm of neo-patrimonialism, the other (Europe) being the realm of a legal-rational system, the soft neo-patrimonialism paradigm admit that in Africa the legal-rational "logic" may compete with or complement the patrimonialist "logic" (in the same way that in Europe, as we know, patrimonialist strategies are far from being absent, but of course in different proportions). 25

Logics: First Step toward a Pluralist Approach

One may have noted that we have switched to the concept of" logic" instead those of "legitimacy" or "domination" associated by Weber to "patrimonialist" or "legal rational". We are not alone. Erdmann and Engel did it (cf. above), as well as Therkildsen (cf. below), and, before them, Bratton and van de Walle (1997: 63, 136) and Médard (1991), for instance (cf. also Cammack, 2007). But they all did it stealthily, while we doit deliberately. While legitimacy (a very popular concept among political scientist, but a


very vague one) involves ideas, values, social representations, arguments, discourses and even feelings, logics encompass strategies, actions, practices, routines. The first could be said to be located "in the heads", the other being located "in the deeds" 26. Another advantage of logic is to be potentially more plural than legitimacy: Legitimacy is generally described in political science as a single feature (present, absent or more or less present/absent), whereas the description of logics have no a priori limits.

Then, why shall we recognize only the presence of two logics (as it is the case in the soft version of neo-patrimonialism)? Aren't other logics underlying political performances or bureaucrats behaviors in Africa? On this we agree with Therkildsen more pluralist approach: patrimonialism "does not provide a convincing account of the factors influencing actual decision making and implementation processes in which politicians and bureaucrats are involved. The basic argument is that additional factors - outside the usually argued logic of neopatrimonialism - are required to understand the key features or public sector management in Africa" (Therkildsen, 2005: 36). What about for instance a logic of "appropriateness behavior" (cf. March and Simon, 1958), a logic of charity, a logic of career building, or logics relying on some factors enumerated by Therkildsen (2014: 124) "such as conviction (i.e. 'doing good for my country'); professionalism ('doing things right'); or involvement in decision making, among many others", sicle to sicle with a patrimonialist logic and a logic of respect of the legal-rational rules?

Bach (2011) stands between Erdmann and Engel's analysis and · Therkildsen's one. He develops another distinction between "regulated patrimonialism" and "predatory patrimonialism" (this has been suggested by Médard, 2000b: 854). For him, regulated patrimonialism is nothing but the recognition of patrimonialist practices among others, the legal-rational logic being still dominant. Predatory patrimonialism, on the other sicle, "is a patrimonialisation of the entire state" (Médard, 2000b: 280), and "refers to systems where persona! rule and resource contra! reach a paroxysmic level ,; (Médard, 2000b: 279). Predatory patrimonialism has become, wrongly, the dominant paradigm about African governance: "patrimonialism is the core feature of African politics" (cf. Bratton and van de Walle, 1997: 62-63).

Pitcher et al. (2009) draw a distinction between four distinct uses of the concept of neo-patrimonialism: (a) a certain type of logic at the heart of social relations (the meaning that 1 recommend); (b) a certain type of persona! power (roughly corresponding to the "regulated patrimonialism" of Bach); (c} a certain type of bureaucracy linked to underdevelopment; (d) a certain type of regime (the meaning given by Bratton and van de Walle, close to what Bach understands by predatory patrimonialism). The last three uses are variants of the neo-patrimonialist paradigm, i.e., attempts to resolve the "gap issue'.' by recourse to the neo-patrimonialist reference conceived as a generic characterization, in other words qualifying the bureaucratie mode of governance, for Africa in general or in certain of its national configurations. Such attempts seem tous to be destined for failure.


Departing from the N eo-patrimonialist Paradigm

Questioning the hegemony of neo-patrimonialism and refusing to grant it any monopoly (in its bard version) or even duopoly (in its soft version) means, ~f cours~, departing from the neo-patrimonialist paradigm but not ~ecessanly causmg the concept to disappear entirely, despite its reduction m sta_ture. lt is then no more than one logic among others. The descriptive fu~ct10n of the concept of neo-patrimonialism is preserved (there are certamly a group of practices at the heart of State bureaU:cracies that can easily be groupe~ under th_e term neo-patrimonialism or neo-patrimonialist logic), but all daims by th1s concept of excessive generalization and monocausal explanation are abandoned.27

. Thi~ i~ also the ~osition of Therkildsen: "On the one band the neopatnmo_malrsm parad1grri cannot be dismissed outright. Neopatrimonial relat10ns capture some of the political and administrative reality in Africa. On the other hand, the concept of neopatrimonialism as it stands is not par~ic~larly useful. And sometimes detrimental, in thinking critically and realrst1cally about politics and public management on the sub-continent. It does not contribute significantly to explaining the wide variations in public m~n~gement practices across African countries and between organizations ~ithm c?untnes. And it does not provide a convincing.account of the factors mfl:i~~cmg actual decision making and implementation processes in which pohticians and bureaucrats are involved. The basic argument is that addition~! factors-outside the usually argued logic of neopatrimonialism-are reqmred to understand the key features or public sector management in Africa" (Therkildsen, 2005: 36).28

. Another argument in favor of abandoning the neo-patrimonialist paradigm relat~s to the ideological content associated with it, more precisely the retrospective flavor it carries. More or less explicitly, patrimonialism (even preced~d by 'neo') refers to a former state of African societies that is alleged to persist and to be in opposition to the modernity of Western societies. ln f~ct, s~p~orters ~f bot~ the bard and soft versions essentially compare patnmomalrst practices with cultural or social relies and take it for granted that they h~ve their roo~s in the past.29 The neo-patrimonialist paradigm is therefore h1ghly contammated by what 1 have called traditionalist Africanist culturalism. 30

. And yer, the neo-patrimonialist logic has been introduced recently and is lmked to modern contexts in many cases. Colonial occupation was a decisive factor in the introduction of not only legal-rational practices but also patrimonial practices, in particular clientelist ones, across the multiple privileges granted to or appropriated by the inner circle of commanders and the support they granted to various intermediaries with whom they surrounded them~el~es.31 The ~;cele:ated.pr~motion of new elites after independence had similar effects. Besicles, the importance of development aid bas transformed African States into a special type of "rentier State",33 leading to a


series of behaviors of "patrimonialist" type, often similar to those created by oil revenue.

Other critics have been voiced against the neo-patrimonialist paradigm. The latter mix up too many different forms under one single la bel (cf. Erdmann and Engel, 2007: 20; Therkildsen, 2014: 115; Bach, 2011: 277; Pitcher et al., 2009: 131), and it turns in a "'catch-ail' notion" (Gazibo, 2011: 2). lt confuses the political sphere and the bureaucratie sphere (Erdmann, 2013: 65). It ignores the experience of sociology of organizations and management theory (Therkildsen, 2014: 122) and how actors continuouslyproduce local norms. And finally it implies that social actors are essentially driven by one (or two) single social logic external to themselves (inherited from culture), with no room for alternatives, for social contestations, for innovation or for conflicts, in other words for "agency" .34

However, if the neo-patrimonialist paradigm should be_ abandoned, how do we tackle the "gap issue" at the heart of the bureaucratie mode of governance?

Practical N orms

We need different concepts that allow both: (a) a pluralist approach to bureaucratie governance without being restricted to monocausal explanations or even dichotomies and (b) an empirical approach to bureaucratie governance which avoids clichés, generalizations and excessive aggregations.35

Earlier, we used the concept of "social logic" in this perspective. lt meets condition (a) but not really condition (b). In fact, whatever its advantages, "logic" is still a very aggregated concept, which may have some "catch-ail" aspects (under some conditions it could be nevertheless useful). We need more empirically oriented concepts, grasping more acutely the discrepancies between official norms and real practices and the convergences of such and such set of practices, keeping to their yariety and declining pre-established categories.36 More precisely, we need exploratory concepts.37 Our contention is that "practical norm" is a good candidate. Public practices, when they are not following official norms, are nevertheless regulated. If they are regulated, then they are following norms other than the official ones. These practical norms are truly informai and implicit (they are more often than not different from ordinary explicit social norms), 38 because they are absent.· from the public discourse, absent from the official moral rhetoric and absent from teachings. They. are not necessarily expressed as such by social actors, more often than not automatic and routine, existing in a vein more implicit than explicit. One could say, to phrase Bourdieu's expression differently, that these practical norms are incorporated into a habitus.39 We define practical norms as informai regulations, tacit, or latent, underlying actors behaviors when they don't follow explicit norms, be the latter official or social ones. They help to understand why and how practices converge very

·,j' ·•''" .. ,,._.,


much when they don't comply with public norms. They may be (a) adaptative to official norms (practical operationalizations); (b) breaking them but· quasi-tolerated (provoking neither warning 'nor real punishment); (c) transgressive (for instance stigmatized as corruption); (d) palliative (they deviate from official norms to the letter, but they have the objective to rescue the "spirit" of public service delivery); (e) rebel (counter-norms).

Taking in account practical norms open the array of available norms, it leaves more marge of manoeuver (more agency) to actors, who are continuously "playing" between official norms, social norms and practical norms. Practical norms is not only an exploratory concept, it is also a concept "agency friendly". Against the "dictatorship of norms" that have been already denounced40

, practical norms assume a totally different perspective on norms: they are multiple (official, social, practical), often contradictory and should be taken as resources and constraints for actors' agency.

On the basis of an empirical investigation of practical norms in specific contexts41, one can develop generalized concepts. lt will, therefore, be possible to arrive at "professional cultures" (combining official professional norms and practical norms) or "social logics" (integrating a range of related practical norms).

Conclusion

Neo-patrimonialism is a term that is used in too sweeping, general and partial a manner for addressing rightly the "gap issue".

Firstly it is too sweeping in the sense that it enables us to avoid undertaking empirical analyses of the realities to which it refers. Despite the temptation and the apparent self-evidence the numerous divergences between norms and practices in the bureaucratie mode of governance cannot be too quickly subsumed into a hasty common heading. The forms and procedures must first be explored on the field and the nuances and variants identified.

Secondly it is used in too general a manner, inasmuch as it puts forward a general, abstract model, which in no way demonstrates that the range of relevant categories has been thoroughly explored. Too much works on African .States move directly to the characterization phase, bypassing typology building. Consequently, the characterization becomes a catch-phrase that dispenses with more subtle analysis.

Finally, the term is used in too partial a manner because it focusses on only one dimension of the gap, for example, the melding of the public and private, or redistribution to clients. However, the research strategy would surely be more productive if it started from the premise that the divergences between norms and practices have a host of dimensions and factors, rather than reducing them, a priori, to a single facet. lt is better to hypothesize that these divergences are multi-faceted rather than one-dimensional, and that the bureaucratie mode of governance recovers many logics instead than one or two.


Despite its former theoretical interest and the reality _of some of its referents, the concept of neo-patrimonialism does not supply a satisfactory response to the "gap issue". This is a frequent situation''În social science. Geddes (2003) estimates that the level of conceptual ambition in sociology and political science is very frequently too high and proposes breaking clown the "big questions" into more defined groups and more concrete processes. It is a strategy that has been advocated by various research trends for some time in some cases, and it is what I also recommend. To this end, it is well worth resorting, at the current stage of knowledge on the functioning of the bureaucratie mode of governance·in Africa, to exploratory concepts. Such exploratory are able to produce and organize contextualized, varied and unpublished empirical data that is required for fine comparison and conceptualization that is "rooted in the ground" 42 instead of being ingrained in stereotypes.

NOTES

1. Translated from French. 2. As Tidjani Alou recalls (2011: 210), while the dominant perspective in respect

of governance relates to political elites, this approach makes it possible to take into account al! agents of the State, in particular the "street level bureaucrats" (Lipsky, 1980).

3. Elsewhere, I have developed various complementary analyses of the specific functioning of the bureaucratie mode of governance in African countries (Olivier de Sardan, 2009a, 200%, 2013a, 2013b, 2014).

4. Such a gap is also in line with Weber's meaning of "ideal-type", which always presumes a gap between an ideal-type and the historical concrete reality it refers to.

5. Other terms have been used as well, of course, often in complementary fashion: "AU sorts of words had to be invented to express the gap between actual practices and the ideal. Terms, such as quasi states, soft states, shadow states, weak states, non-state states, decay, corruption, weakness and relative capacity, al! implied that the way things really work are somehow exogenous to the normative mode! of what the state and its relations to society are, or should be" (Migdal and Schlichte, 2005: 11). One may add "limited statehood" (Risse, 2011) or "electoral autocracies" (Schedler, 2006) to this list.

6. Cf. van de Walle (2011: 123): "I will use the general term neopatrimonialism as an al! purpose label for this set of informa! institutions".

7. Cf. Eisenstadt (1973). Daniel Bach (2011: 275) indicates two precursors, Günther Roth and Aristide Zolberg.

8. Gazibo (2011) evokes a "quasi hegemonic acceptance when it cornes to analyzing African political systems".

9. Cf. Weber (1978); Bruhns (2011: 12) reminds us, however, that Weber's use of the concept of 'patrimonial' is far from being uniform.

10. This phrase, placed by Corneille in August's mouth, is a perfect illustration of this notion: "My favor brings you glory and power cornes from it. This favor alone elevates you and it alone sustains you. Adoration is directed at the favor rather than at you. Without it, you have no credit or rank" (in Cinna, acte V; translated from French).


11. Cf. Dreyfus, 2000. 12. Translated from German by Bierschenk, and cited in Bierschenk and Olivier de

Sardan (2014: 11), who analyse Weber's view of bureaucracy and its usefulness for studies relating to African States.

13. As we elaborated elsewhere: "Of particular interest to him were those factors which, in different historical contexts, might explain the obedience of these administrative bodies to the political authorities. (cf. Bruhns 2011)" (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan, 2014: 11).

14. E:dmar;m and Engel, .Iike Bratton and van de Walle (1997), "conceptualize chentehsm together wrth patronage as an integral part of neopatrimonialism" (Erdmann and Engel, 2007: 106), unlike Médard, who sometimes distinguishes between them (1982). The problem arises in fact from the following observation: clientelist phenomena are obviously an important feature of nec-patrimonial regimes; however, clientelism is also inherent in modern democracies (van de Walle, 2011). ·

15. Cf. among others Balandier (1969), Scott (1972), Eisenstadt and Roniger (1984), Eisenstadt and Lemarchand (1981), Médard (1976, 1981, 2000a), Clapham (1982), van de Walle (2011). It is definitely clear that electoral clienteli~m ~erits special discussion. However, factionalism is a specific form of constrtutron of groups around a patron (Bailey, 1969). Different specific figures have been described for the patron/client relationship in Africa, al! placed under the more general label of neo-patrimonialism: cf. among others the "big man" (Médard, 1992); the "political entrepreneur" (Compagnon 2011)· the "godfather" (Albin-Lackey, 2011). ' '

16. "Ne~patrimoni~lism has become the convenient, all-purpose and ubiquitous momker for Afrrcan governance" (Mkandawire, 2013: 1).

17. Daniel Bach (2011, 2013) analyses the contrast between uses of the concept of neo-patrimonialism, depending on whether it is about Africa or other continents (where its meanings are far more closely defined).

18. We borrow this term from the field of public health: Compliance means com-pliance by the patient with medical prescriptions.

19. Cf. for instance Médard (1982: 181). 20. The same with Schatzberg (2001). 21. This hard version is also more often than not a normative one, more or less

explicitly, patrimonialism being charged for many sins (cf. Bach, 2013). But of course the normative approach could be reversed, for instance with the quest of a "developmental patrimonialism" (cf. Kelsall, 2008, 2011). For Kelsall the hard paradigm is still working, the "African grain" is fundamentally characterized by patrimonialism, but the latter may sometimes be labeled as "positive" and "developmental". One may note that this position of Kelsall, strongly expressed in the African Power and Politics Programme (APPP), was not shared by many resea:chers of the same program (contrary to what Bach, 2013: 162, suggests). David Booth (Booth, 2012; Booth and Cammack, 2013) see~s more sensitive to the soft paradigm; while Blundo (2011) or myself (cf. mfra) preferred to get rid of the patrimonialist paradigm in favor of a pluralist (or multi-logic) perspective.

22. Translated from French. 23. They admit that Bratton and van de Walle formally acknowledged that point

but did not operationalize it. 24. An empirical demonstration of the coexistence of neo-patrimonialist practices

a_nd leg~l-ra~i?nal practices can be found in Willott (2014), in relation to Nigenan umvers1t1es.

25. ~rd~ann _(2013: 62/ ~as thus questioned ~he "threshold issue": "How many patnmomal defects m a legal bureaucratie system are necessary for it to be


called neopatrimonial?". For their part, Pitcher, Moran and Johnston have already underlined that there has been a confusion ("misreading Weber") between the typology made by Weber between different types of legitimacy and the modern attempt to classify political regimes: "there is for Weber no necessary connection between rational-legal legitimacy and democracy" (Pitcher et al., 2009: 140)

26. Cf. the distinction between "seeing the state" and ''doing the state" (Migdal and Schlichte, 2005: 14).

27. Mkandawire (2013) also proposes, from the point of view of an economist, breaking with what he calls the "Neopattimonialist School". But he proceeds to use this label to cover everyone who uses the term neo-patrimonialism in one way or another without taking into account the existence of major differences between the arguments. Talking about a "Neopatrimonialist School" results in excessively hardening the neo-patrimonialist paradigm and agglomerating the various uses made of it without making any distinctions. .

28. Cf. also Anders (2010: 4), or Nugent (2010: 42). 29. Pitcher et al. (2009: 142) argue rightly that "any such daim that patrimonial

legitimacy is 'traditional' across the continent must surely be qualified by specifying where and when". Most authors don't.

30. Cf. Olivier de Sardan (2010). Erdmann (2013: 64) has also noted that "there is a general tendency in neopatrimonialist or patrimonialist studies to view informai or non-rule-bound behaviour not as an institution but as something "ingrained" or culturally or traditionally embedded".

31. The nove! by Amadou Hampaté Ba, based on a true story, L'étrange destin de Wangrin (The Strange Destiny of Wangrin) shows this.

32. In this case, the novel by Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People, illustrates it perfectly.

33. On the subject of "rentier States" based on oil, cf. Beblawi and Luciani (1987), Yates (1996). For a comparison with development revenue (or "aid rent"), cf. Olivier de Sardan (2013b).

34. An interesting example of the shortcomings and contradictions of the neopatrimonialist paradigm is the paper by Kingsley (2013): On one sicle the author does not break with the characterization of a regime as patrimonialist, while, on the other sicle, he argues rightly that this concept needs more empirical grounding, and is "part of ordinary modes of sociability".

35. By proposing "negotiating statehood" as "a heuristic framework'', Hagmann and Péclard (2010) are trying, like me, to "grasp dynamic and complex dimensions of statehood" (Hagmann and Péclard, 2010: 544), while moving away from the "normative shortcomings of state failure literature" (Hagmann and Péclard, 2010: 542). The same is true of Forster and Koechlin who propose a "heuristic cross" (Forster and Koechlin, 2011: 10). But neither specifically address the "gap issue". However, we all converge when it cornes to the necessity of leaving room for the agency of the social actors at the heart of bureaucratie governance (as at the heart of other modes of governance).

36. This is also the position of Blundo, based on empirical research about posting and transfer strategies among forestry services in Sénégal and Niger: "Les facteurs qui orientent la politique des affectations sont multiples et remettent en question le recours paresseux à la notion, trop vague et imprécise, de logiques néopatrimoniales. Ils renvoient en revanche à un ensemble de 'normes pratiques' (Olivier de Sardan 2008) que cette analyse a tenté d'expliciter" (Blundo, 2011: 391).

37. On the distinction between analytical concepts and exploratory concepts, cf. Olivier de Sardan (2008).


38. Neoinstitutionalist authors wrongly label social and cultural norms as "informai norms". On practical norms, cf. de Herdt and Olivier de Sardan (forthcoming). .

39. I am still by no means convinced of Bourdieu's "domination-centered" use of this ~erm (Grig~on a?d P.ass.ero;i, 1989). ~ourdieu actually favors a unique, on:impresent l?g1c of mtenonzatton of dommant social norms and ignores the existence of d1fferent practical norms.

40. Cf. Elster (1995). 41. For example, cf. Olivier de Sardan (2001) or Vasseur (2009). 42. In the sense of "grounded theory" (cf. Glaser and Strauss, 1973).

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