Patron-Client Relations in World Politics

This workshop aims at conceptualizing the phenomenon of patron-client relations (PCR) across multiple issue-areas and world regions and apply that concept to a diverse set of cases in order to test its explanatory power. PCRs are asymmetric, enduring relationships among a patron and a client, which are engaged in a mutually valued, yet dependency-inducing resource exchange. We invite scholars from multiple sub-disciplines within International Relations (IR) and beyond to join us in this intellectually stimulating, cross-disciplinary endeavour and explore the relevance of this concept for your research topics. Please note that ECPR provides various funding opportunities including but are not limited to registration fees, travel and accommodation (for in-person events). Details are available at https://ecpr.eu/Funding/Funding. The workshop is organized by Prof. Dr. Rafael Biermann, Chair of International Relations at Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, and Dr. Kamaran Palani from Salahaddin University-Erbil, together with a group of young scholars working on that topic. It builds on a workshop we organized in July last summer in Thessaloniki within the 9th European Workshops of International Studies by the European International Studies Association. It further builds on our advanced research on secessionist PCRs, which will culminate in a special issue on the topic in the journal Territory, Politics, and Governance. Research on patron-client relations (also called patronage or clientelism) is very popular in sociology, ethnology and anthropology since the 1960s. It spilled over into comparative politics (focusing on clientelistic structures within states) and was tentatively applied to the Cold War setting by a few authors of IR in the late 1980s who used the concept to analyse on superpower relations with ‘third world’ countries. The concept is now rediscovered across multiple sub-disciplines of IR, such as secessionism (see Russia’s patronage of post-Soviet de facto states), state-sponsored rebels (e.g. Iran’s patronage of Hezbollah), or great power patronage of medium or small states (e.g. USA and Israel, China and Myanmar). Obviously, we need to move beyond the Cold War and its state-centered concept. Only few publications have done that so far, without systematically conceptualizing the phenomenon and delineating it from neighbouring concepts. Comparative or theory-driven approaches are almost non-existing. We are especially interested in studying the variable actor constellations in PCRs, both state and non-state, including: - the motives for forming such relationships - the resource exchange among patrons and clients; - the balance of autonomy and dependence, and - the impact PCRs have In Thessaloniki, we reviewed the literatures applying PCRs to various sub-disciplines, discussed in-depth a first conceptualization of the phenomenon and applied it to multiple topics. We also reached a decision to pursue this joint endeavour further. However, we realized that it was too early to proceed with some kind of publication. We need to refine the PCR concept further (e.g., regarding the crucial feature of asymmetry) and engage scholars from more sub-disciplines and world regions, which either already loosely apply the PCR concept or could possibly do so.