The study of party patronage – as the power to appoint – rests on the sharp (legal and functional) division between elected and appointed elites. However, this distinction (between different types of positions) can obscure the growing overlaps and similarities (in meanings and mechanisms of the process) between partisan recruitment of elected and appointed elites in present-day democracies.
This paper puts forth several interrelated arguments. First, I argue that the analysis of party patronage as a process should investigate more thoroughly the characteristics of the strategic interaction between the party and the actual elites being recruited. Second, I propose a unitary analytical framework of party-related political elite recruitment, which accomodates at least three commonly used dichotomies: legislative versus executive; elected versus appointed; and local versus national elite recruitment. This framework allows for the identification of the overlaps (and differences) between electoral recruitment and patronage – as activities/processes of the same party and as elements of individual political careers. Finally, I argue that the implications of party patronage for the relationship between the party, the state, and the society, are better understood if electoral recruitment is explicitly included in the analysis rather than carved out a-priori. Throughout the paper, empirical illustrations from Romania, Hungary and the UK are used.
