Patronage Network Analysis

Patronage network analysis is a relational pipeline for representing patron-client politics as a directed network and measuring its structure with the tools of social network analysis. Building on James C. Scott's 1972 account of patron-client politics in Southeast Asia and Eisenstadt and Roniger's 1984 comparative study of clientelism and trust, the approach treats the vertical, asymmetric bond between a powerful patron and a dependent client — typically mediated by brokers — as the elementary tie. By coding who is connected to whom, in which direction, and with what resource content, the analyst can compute centrality, brokerage, and structural-hole measures to reveal the pyramidal architecture through which protection and resources flow down and loyalty and support flow up.