Discussion Paper on
Development AssistanceNo. 14Comparison of African and AsianDevelopment Models:
For Mutual Understanding ofInternational Development Policies
Between Japan and the United Kingdom

Shigeru Ishikawa
Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University

March 2008

Comparison of African and Asian Development Models:
For Mutual Understanding of International Development Policies
Between Japan and the United Kingdom1

Shigeru Ishikawa
Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University

1

This paper is based on the author’s article “Comparison of African and East Asian Development Models” publishedin Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Vol.62, No.1 (September 2007). The author is grateful to Messrs. David
Booth, Takashi Kurosaki, Hiroshi Mizuta, Yumio Sakurai, Masaki Shiratori, Toru Yanagihara and two reviewers fortheir valuable comments given at various stages of research.

Table of Contents
I. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1
II. Conceptual Preparation - Going beyond Weber .................................................................. 5
1.

General Patterns of Patrimonialism ............................................................................ 5

2.

The Original Patrimonialism of China ........................................................................ 5

3.

Different Views on African Patrimonialism and Neopatrimonialism ........................... 6

4.

The “Neo” in Neopatrimonialism - Positives and Negatives......................................... 9III. Patrimonialism and Neopatrimonialism in Africa............................................................ 12
1.

Formation of Patrimonialism in West Africa – With its roots in the Atlantic
Slave Trade ............................................................................................................... 12

2.

Positive Roles of the “Neo” in Neopatrimonialism ..................................................... 15

3.

Revised International Aid Approach - From Pro-Poor Change to DOC..................... 17

4.

Still-Remaining Mechanism through Which Patrimonialism Hinders Development .. 19

5.

Two Models of Ghana - The Only West African Country Showing Signs of Success .. 21

IV. East Asian Patrimonialism and Neopatrimonialism, and Subsequent Systemic Transition 24
1.

China - Breakdown of the Foundations of Patrimonialism,
Development Dictatorship and Subsequent Developments ........................................ 24
The Turnover Cycle of Chinese Dynasties....................................................................... 24
Choices Made by the Republic of China - “Neo” Factors................................................ 25
Socioeconomic Foundations of Patrimonialism............................................................... 26
The Search for a Successor Regime and the Developmentalist Regime ........................... 28
The Significance of the Jiang Zemin-Zhu Rongji Regime ............................................... 29
The Chinese Model as a Development Model (Institutional)l .......................................... 30

2.

Patrimonialism and Democratic Reform in Thailand ................................................ 31
The Sakdine System and Chakri Reforms, Revolution for Constitutional Monarchy...... 31
The Sarit System and Thai-Style Democracy .................................................................. 32
Post-Sarit Developments ................................................................................................ 33
The Thai Model as a Development Model (Institutional) ................................................ 34

V. Concluding Remarks ......................................................................................................... 35
Initial Period in Research Planning.................................................................................... 36
Appendix 1:

When and how post-colonial independent states emerged in Africa. ............. 38

Appendix 2:

Application of the “basic framework (development model)”- The special development model of Ghana ................................................... 40

Appendix 3:

Growth of the middle class in Ghana, China and Thailand ........................... 43

Appendix 4:

Socioeconomic Structure of Chinese Patrimonialism
at the End of Qing Dynasty........................................................................... 45

Appendix 5:

Application of the basic framework (development model)” to China ............ 51

Appendix 6:

Patrimonialism in Thailand―Notes on the Sakdine System.......................... 56

References ............................................................................................................................. 59

I. Introduction
Over the past several years, while constructing a new basic methodological framework forinternational development polices (Ishikawa 2006), I have been working on the topic treated in thispaper as an application of that framework. The motivation for his research on this application is a
desire to contribute, as a Japanese scholar of development economics, to the resolution of thedevelopment problems of sub-Saharan Africa (hereafter “Africa”) which since the 1990s has been
seen by the international aid community to be the last frontier of international development aid.
The African development model of this paper’s title is the development hypothesis formulated forcountries of that region and found largely in the research of British analysts. The East Asiandevelopment model of this paper’s title is the hypothesis formulating the developmental experiencesof East Asian countries, including those which have graduated or are in the process of graduatingfrom low income status. This hypothesis is based on research by analysts of Japan which has played
an important role in trade and investment in the East Asia region. In this paper, I have limited myanalysis of the two models to the institutional aspects of development – leaving for now treatment ofgrowth mechanisms – so that the the scope of discussion is manageable in a single paper.
The Japanese are relative newcomers to development research and assistance focused on Africa.
With this in mind, we started the study of African development models by reviewing the existing
Western research, British research in particular. When I first embarked on this study, I was surprisedat the extent of Western interest and involvement in African studies. I was also struck by the fact that
Western researchers incorporated into their African development framework a component that canhandle the region’s premodern political systems, often using Max Weber’s concept of“patrimonialism.” In my own research in the past, I had included traditional economic and politicalinstitutions among those that constitue the given conditions of a development model. I, too, have
employed Weber’s concept of patrimonialism to convey the content of these institutions in empiricalstudies of China and several other East Asian countries (Ishikawa 1990). However, in the East Asian
countries, patrimonialism is now largely a thing of the past, what little remains do not hinderdevelopment. By contrast, in contemporary African studies I often encounter cases where major
development-hindering factors are unexplainable solely through economic concepts, but readily
understood when patrimonialism is an explanatory factor. Gradually, I have become convinced that
if development models for these two quite different regions can be constructed using a common
concept of patrimonialism, and if within the models the emergence, change and resolution processesof patrimonialism can be mapped, then effective comparisons and mutual understanding of Africa
and East Asia may be achieved.
Methodology and working hypotheses
With these thoughts as its background, this paper aims to explore ways to overcome patrimonialism1

as a development-hindering factor in Africa. To do this, we must first explain the methodology of theresearch and clarify a series of working hypotheses.
1. Research Methodology
The research methodology is provided by the basic framework of international development policies
constructed in Ishikawa (2006).
1. The fundamental structure of the basic framework has two parts: (1) an objective development
model for an aid recipient country constructed by neutral researchers; and (2) an external aid systemof a particular donor for a recipient country. The latter is comprised of a development model createdby the donor country applicable to the specific politics and economy of a recipient country as well as
the aid contents with specific modalities, volume and conditionalities, etc. It is a subjective model
partially informed by the aforementioned objective model.
2. Political system is one of the key components of the objective model of (1) above. One of its
configurations, especially in contemporary Africa, is patrimonialism, Max Weber’s archetypal
concept of control, and also neopatrimonialism, a more recently created related concept. In East
Asian countries these factors have largely been overcome, with only some residual remaining.
3. The comparison of African and East Asian development models in this study is conducted
through comparison of the basic framework from the British perspective and from the Japaneseperspective. This applies to the mutual understanding, as well.
2. Working hypotheses
Basic Hypothesis: The central issue is whether patrimonialism, as an impediment to development, isovercome in the way that the Japanese advocate, by actively incorporating modernization elements
supported by a growing middle class, or in the way that British analysts advocate, through early
realization of democracy by strengthening competition among political parties. The Japaneseargument constitutes the Basic Hypothesis of this paper. Analysis by the British think tank Overseas
Development Institute (ODI) is representative of the British perspective and will be treated as suchin the course of this discussion.
Sub-hypotheses: These will be described in two sections: one for Africa and one for East Asia. With
regard to Africa, the scope here is limited to West Africa with a special focus on Ghana. With regard
to East Asia, the focus is on China and Thailand.
Following are the Africa-related subhypotheses:
Subhypothesis (1): Patrimonialism emerges either through some natural historic process or throughan artificial one. Looking at the characteristics of the process by which most West African colonies
won their independence, it is evident that in that region patrimonialism emerged artificially. It2emerged in two stages: Stage One was marked by successful indigenous independent movements
which had their roots in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In Stage Two, governments of countries that
had become independent sought common ground with existing power centers to compensate for aweak domestic support base.
Subhypothesis (2) - Stage one laid groundwork for the emergence of the middle class. “Recaptives,”
intended slaves who were recaptured and returned to Africa by Royal Navy ships patrolling the Gulf
of Guinea, pursued hard work, established businesses, engaged in trade and educated their children.
This phenomenon in various parts of West Africa encouraged movement toward independence byindigenous people and spurred the creation of a professional middle class, as typified by our focus
country, Ghana.
Subhypothesis (3): While any Western institutions or customs adopted by African nations can becharacterized as neopatrimonialistic, it is also correct that patrimonialism can be overcome throughthe structural reforms (i.e., the transition to a market economy), political liberalization anddemocratization imposed as conditionalities for financial assistance by the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), World Bank and other major donors if the recipient country accepts the reforms with asense of ownership and implements them effectively.
Subhypothesis (4): Inherent in these hypotheses is the assumption that the poverty reduction strategy
underlying aid to African countries will continue to prevail. If this changes substantially, thepossibility for patrimonialism to be eliminated will grow. The 2004 shift in policy by the British
government from emphasizing pro-poor change to emphasizing drivers-of-change (DOC) in African
aid has led it to revise all its diagnoses and prescriptions for aid recipient countries. Until 2004 theprescription for Ghana was solely to ensure that the President had the political will to implement
poverty reduction. After 2004, the UK began to seek wider-ranging changes in politics and theeconomy; one of these was intensified competition among political parties.
Subhypothesis (5): Patrimonialism has not been overcome in Africa. Even in Ghana -- the mostadvanced country in this regard -- development-hindering effects are clearly at work in areas such as
public finance, the civil service and the private sector.
Following are the East Asia -- China and Thailand -- subhypotheses:
Subhypothesis (6): Agricultural reforms in China that contributed to the establishment of thePeople’s Republic also destroyed socioeconomic foundations and weakened the patrimonialism built
on them. The ensuring confusion led to a long period of searching about what kind of system would
follow. Initial attempts at democratization, such as efforts to separate the party from politics under
the Zhao Ziyang regime, were not accepted, but legitimacy was finally obtained under thedevelopment dictatorship authored by Deng Xiaoping. This format, however, created marked

3economic disparities within the country among individuals and regions. Thus, after the passing ofDeng, the era of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao began with aspirations for yifa zhiguo (governing thestate by law) and then hosie shehui (society with peace and harmony). Whether this will encourage
democracy depends on whether or not sustained growth will lead to further empowerment of the
middle class. Though weakened, Chinese patrimonialism retains a significant residuum in the publicfinance system and administration.
Subhypothesis (7): In Thailand, components of traditional patrimonialism (the Sakdine system) weredestroyed, piece by piece, by the Chakri reforms initiated by the King, himself -- the system’s ruler.
Subsequent developments have been similar to those in China, with one exception: The moral
authority of the ruler (the King) remains strong in Thailand and he continues to play the role ofarbiter in domestic politics.
The Plan of This Paper: The main discussion is divided into three sections.
Section II examines the concepts of Weberian patrimonialism and related neopatrimonialism whichis central to this paper’s methodology. Section III looks at patrimonialism and neopatrimonialism inWest Africa, i.e., Ghana, with analyses following the roadmap indicated by Subhypotheses (1)–(5).
Section IV examines how patrimonialism was largely overcome in East Asia, i.e., China andThailand which are considered successful examples. Subhypotheses (6) and (7) provide the outline
for this section. Section V provides concluding remarks, the essence of which are indicated by the
Basic Hypothesis.
The flow of analysis can be described as follows: The interim results are reached by comparing somedevelopment (institutional) models for overcoming patrimonialism. Two alternative Ghana models
are examined in Section III and the China and Thailand models are examined in Section IV. One of
the Ghana models is a middle class model derived from Subhypothesis (3), the other is ademocratization model derived from Subhypothesis (4). A comparison of these two is touched on in
the paper’s conclusion. Both the China model and the Thailand model are middle class models. Eachof the four is is derived in its respective chapter and the final chapter examines the relationships
among them.
However the analysis unfolds, at the end of this paper, the significance of the Basic Hypothesis andof the concluding remarks will be questioned from the perspective of mutual understanding ofinternational development policies.

4II. Conceptual Preparation - Going beyond Weber
Since the subject of this report – a comparison of African and East Asian development models
through the prism of patrimonialiam -- was inspired by the frequent reference of Weber’s concept by
American and European political scientists, conceptual preparations in this section begin by goingback to Weber’s original texts. However, even for a concept based on empirical research, no matter
how global its reach or how elaborate, the reality which is its subject and which serves as thefoundation for understanding is not static. For this reason, and because there is a vast region at which
Weber himself did not look closely; namely Africa, in the following paragraphs the author defines
several relevant concepts and introduces knowledge and information that has become available only
since Weber’s time2.
1. General Patterns of Patrimonialism
The general pattern of patrimonialism can be described in terms of relationships among three key
actors: ruler, administrative officers and subjects.
(1) The relationship between ruler and administrative officers is established by an offer ofgovernment posts and perquisites from the former and an offer of loyalty and administrative
services from the latter. In this context, administrative services refer not to supplying public
goods but to carrying out measures designed to maintain and strengthen the ruler’s personal rule.
(2) The relationship between ruler and subjects is not constrained by a social contract for theexchange of tax payments for provision of social services, but by the convention that requires
the ruler to guarantee to his subjects a minimum living standard level in exchange for their
payment of taxes with crops, money or labor.
(3) For such a patrimonial system to exist, its legitimacy must be recognized by the administrative
officers and by the subjects. By tradition, legitimacy is derived from trust in the sanctity of anorder that has existed since time immemorial. Once this trust has been weakened or lost,
patrimonialism faces a crisis of legitimacy.
2. The Original Patrimonialism of China
In contradistinction to the above-mentioned general pattern, patrimonialism in a specific country at a2

The author stresses in advance that to start from the concept of patrimonialism and think about development
models is tantamounts, in Weber’s social science methodology, to going along with an approach of economic
sociology that inquires about the archetype of rule among people and not an approach of religious sociology thatinquires about the people’s ethics toward occupations and jobs (Archetypes of rule includes “rational rule,”“traditional rule” and “charismatic rule,” and patrimonialism is a form of “traditional rule”). The understanding
and application of Weber in Japan has in the past leaned overwhelmingly toward a religious sociological approach.
This is reflected substantively in papers by 15 social scientists collected in a magazine called Shisou (Iwanami
Shoten 1968).

5specific time tends to have a special pattern with degrees of variation. Patrimonialism in China was
the governing system of successive dynasties prior to the establishment of the People’s Republic in
1949. Its special pattern was described in detail by Weber himself -- together with Europe underabsolute monarchies and ancient Egypt -- as a situation of mature patrimonialism,. His descriptions
and other sources reveal the following charactistics of, China’s patrimonialism:(1) The bureaucratic system required strong institutional foundations to implement large-scale civil
works for flood control, for military purposes and for transporting and storing large amounts ofcrops collected throughout the country as in-kind taxes. The system also needed institutional
mechanisms to prevent certain high ranking officials from monopolizing certain government
posts. The large-scale and elaborate civil service examination system (keju) functioned as one
such mechanism, although the examination tested only the academic abilities of bureaucrat
candidates.
(2) In terms of the number of bureaucrats per unit of area, the Chinese government was extensive
rather than intensive and its control reached only down to the county level. Vast rural areas wereleft to village-by-village self-governance by clans. Retired bureaucrats or candidates who had
passed the civil service examination but did not receive posts traditionally held sway in the
self-governance of their villages and tended to support an order dominated by landlords and richfarmers.
(3) Consistent with the general pattern of patrimonialism, the state’s finance was nothing but theincome and expenditure of the the Imperial Household, i.e., the ruler. Interestingly, as early as
the Tang Dynasty there was some evidence of the existence of “national finance” as distinct
from “Imperial Household finance” (Cui Jingbo and Wang Ziying, 1979). This would indicatethat even under patrimonial rule, infrastructure investment for flood control and other works
benefitting areas larger than self-governing villages might be considered public goods. The
rationale for this came from “heaven’s order,” the noblesse oblige of the ruler to protect his
subjects’ welfare. When he failed to do so, he would cease to be heaven’s child, the Emperor.
3. Different Views on African Patrimonialism and Neopatrimonialism
Sub-Saharan Africa is a region which Weber studied little. Influential scholar Le Vine insisted asfollows: Weber’s concept of patrimonialism offers nothing particularly useful for Africa. While it
may be useful for purposes of organizing research plans, it is not useful for analyses. And up to thispoint, many new studies have emerged and offered useful knowledge and information.
But the new studies that have emerged reveal great differences in understanding among researchersof the concepts and impacts on development of both patrimonialism and neopatrimonialism. Studies
aimed at proving that patrimonialism was the root cause of underdevelopment in Africa first6

appeared in a series of African development policy research projects by ODI, (Overseas
Development Institute 2000, Foster, Fozzard and Cornway 2002) 3 . Subsequently, various
suggestions for dealing with patrimonialism were made in the context of prescriptions fordevelopment and poverty reduction; the latest of these prescriptions is the drivers of change (DOC)
approach by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), to be discussed later. But
as early as the 1980s academic literature had already appeared which examined African
underdevelopment in conjunction with both patrimonialism and neopatrimonialism. We look at three
representative pieces of this literature:
M. Bratton and N. van de Walle (1997)
His [Weber’s] definition of patrimonialism may provide an accurate description of the politicalsystems of small, isolated communities with rudimentary economies, including African chiefdomsof the pre-colonial era, and the practices of patrimonialism may persist at the local level in a
number of different settings. But it does not adequately characterize any of the national politicalsystems existing in our times, even the smallest and poorest of which possess bureaucratic
institutions and written laws.
Yet, it is clear that some nations in the developing world, most notably in sub-Saharan Africa,
retain in modified form many of the characteristics of patrimonial rule. As a result, politicalscientists have found it useful to characterize as neopatrimonial those hybrid political systems inwhich the customs and patterns of patrimonialism co-exist with, and suffuse, rational-legal
institutions. (p. 62)
V. T. Le Vine (1980)(Summary) The traditional polity in Africa can be characterized, for a vast majority of countries
except those influenced by the Muslim-Arab sultanate (patriarchy), as diffuse patrimonialism.
This system has survived through the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras. Moreover, it
has adapted well to each country’s modern polity. Analytically, it is useful to divide it into two
categories: “traditional patrimonialism” which has survived with its identity and autonomy intact
as a subsystem; and what can be called “modern neopatrimonialism.” In the latter, patrimonialism
is an official or unofficial part of the modern, national order.
In many parts of Africa, traditional patrimonialism has different characteristics depending on thenature of the following factors: (i) the dominant social and religious culture, (ii) restrictions
imposed on politics by the traditional constitution, and (iii) the real and mythical circumstances ofthe formation of the society. With regard to neopatrimonialism, the roots of traditional polity in
African nations run very deep, and it is impossible to overcome it completely. However, what is3

For the content and significance of these two documents, see Ishikawa (2005b) p.30 and p.32.

7

novel about it is that, as opposed to tradition, personalism has become very important domestically,
especially due to the introduction of imported political structures, ideologies and behavior patterns.
As the diffuse patrimonialism in Africa was flexible, it linked with ease key elements of African
political culture to such modern posts as prime minister, president, chairman and general secretary.
J. F. Medard (1991)(Summary) Medard uses the term “clientelism” to refer to Weber’s typal concept of
patrimonialism. According to him, clientelism is found almost everywhere on the African
continent in the forms of patron-client relationships and political patronage. While these two areboth defined as an exchange relationship between parties whose relative powers are unequal, they
have different elements.
The patron-client relationship has an anthropological perspective. It is a personal relationship ofsubordination between a patron and a client -- two people who have different amounts ofresources -- maintained by mutual exchanges of benefits (excluding familial bonds). Political
patronage has a political science perspective. It refers to distribution by politicians of official posts
or special favors in exchange for electoral support.
Anthropologists have vigorously analyzed patron-client relationships in traditional African
societies. Analyses of such interlacustrine kingdoms as Rwanda and Brurundi are examples. They
are traditional, clientelist states in which all people -- from the king to farmers -- are integrated
vertically and hierarchically by patron-client relationships.
When legitimacy is lost, political patronage becomes a pillar of a developing country. Coercion by
itself is not enough. A clever leader will learn how to reconcile his own gain with theredistribution of the same resources, something necessary to obtain political support. Throughpatronage, a leader can bring potential opponents into his camp and control the mobilization of theruling class.
(Next, Medard explains neopatrimonialism by comparing it with the structure of the absolutemonarchy of France.) Even if Weber saw patrimonialism as a model of traditional rule, traditions
were probably not its most important aspect. He said himself that patrimonialism can be linked toa bureaucratic system, as occurred in bureaucratic empires and absolute monarchies of old. UnderLouis XIV the absolute monarchy had both a logic of patrimonialism and a logic of bureaucracy,
and the latter grew progressively to outpace the former. In the case of emerging nations, the logic
of bureaucracy was superimposed on top of the logic of patrimonialism, a process best expressedby the term neopatrimonialism. Neopatrimonialism is not an anachronistic recurrence of history
but a modern phenomenon that is related closely with modernization. Neopatrimonial societies
have been incorporated into the modern international system. This, more than anything else, is the8point that distinguishes those societies from patrimonial societies (Medard (1991)).
To summarize the foregoing, Bratton et al. believe that the original definition of patrimonialism ispointless and irrelevant, that only neopatrimonialism is meaningful. Le Vine describes a steady statein which a traditional kingdom or sheikdom maintains its inherent form and coexists with apost-colonial state that has the appearance of a modern nation-state. Medard considers important
only the actual socioeconomic trend wherein the traditional economy and polity gradually lose
legitimacy and are replaced by a competition for political support.
It is clear that there are marked differences in views, or rather, marked differences in thecharacteristics of the countries selected as research subjects with regard to patrimonialism. The more
important aspects of these differing views seem to relate to the effectiveness of neopatrimonialism inpromoting development, and by extension the concrete forms of policies these scholars want toconvey trough the prefix “neo.” Let us look more deeply into this point.
4. The “Neo” in Neopatrimonialism - Positives and Negatives
Emerging Country Pursuit of Modernization - Positive Views
Those who believe that neopatrimonialism has a positive impact on promoting development seem to
be in the minority. J. Medard is the leading scholar of this group. Relevant quotes are in the section
above. The most important aspect of his argument is that he sees the workings of bureaucracy underneopatrimonialism to be similar to those under authoritarianism.
Presidentialism, Clientelism, etc. - Negative Views
The majority view is that the “neo” part of neopatrimonialism is nothing but a cosmetic
modernization and that under neopatrimonialism actual institutions are no better than those under theoriginal patrimonialism. Representative of this view is the “three political institutions ofneopatrimonialism” argument by Bratton and van de Walle (1997) which is often referenced. This
argument maintains that after the the first generations of national leaders in Africa had past, in morethan 40 countries at least three political institutions had prevailed and became, albeit unofficially,markers of of African neopatrimonialism:
1. Presidentialism
Presidentialism refers to the systematic concentration of political power in the hands of one
individual who resists delegating any but the most trivial decision-making tasks. In Africa,
individual dictators emerged from the military or dominant political parties and consolidated theirpower by seeking total and personal control over official, political structures. Ironically, in
post-colonial Africa the number of ministries and the size of governments increased as the power ofpublic institutions relative to that of presidents weakened. It is not unusual to find a cabinet

9

overseeing 35 to 50 ministries while the ministers have almost no authority. Presedentialism is also
antibureaucratic. An emerging, large-scale state mechanism must be backed by a bureaucratic system
to become an authoritarian institution, but presidentialism does not permit that.
2. Clientelism
All those with power under neopatrimonial rule derive their authority from the provision of personal
benefits to clients. Within the government, personal benefits take the form of public posts, and insociety at large, they take the form of public resources distributed through licenses, contracts andprojects. In exchange for these material rewards and as a sign of their loyalty to the patron, theclients mobilize political support for and entrust all decisions to their superiors. This occurs at alllevels. At the highest level, the political aristocrats obtain, as rewards and perquisites, public
positions and control over monopolistic rents and the possibility to create their own clientelist
networks. Prompted by systemic clientelism, neopatrimonial rulers encourage the state to intervenein the economy. The fact that political authority derives from selective distributions to statebureaucrats gives added incentive to promote extensive regulation of economic activities. Throughthis regulation, the incumbent elite gain extensive control over monopolies and economic rents. In
short, public resources are turned into personal property so that benefit can be provided to those who
pledge allegiance to the president.
3. Political legitimization through the illegimate use of state resources
Neopatrimonial leaders scarcely distinguish between the public and private coffers, raiding the statetreasury at will to meet their own political needs. As a consequence; (1) neopatrimonialism can notrealize potential for development; (2) the constant redistribution of state resources for political
purposes leads to chronic financial crises and reduced prospects for sustainable economic growth;and (3) this gives rise to an economic mood characterized by uncertainties and risks, deterringinvestors from long-term investment in Africa. (This situation exists particularly in conjunction withclientelism. Bratton and van de Walle (2007) p 66.)
Political Liberalization, Democratization, Structural Reform and Transition to Market Economy
The author recognizes the diversity that can be subsumed in the “neo” of “neopatrimonialism.” Its
specific forms and types, and its impacts on development are as numerous as the variation in contact
between newly emerging countries and the new international environment. His view is that weshould emphasize the potential that some of these have to be critically important in promoting
development. Important factors include, for example, structural and market-oriented economic
reforms that international aid agencies press the recipient countries to implement with aid
conditionalities. They include demands for political liberalization and democratization. They also
include reforms and improvements in domestic institutions and organizations required as conditions

10

for joining international organizations such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.
Organizational, institutional and systemic reforms pose risks of failing or creating distortions. Whilethese risks must be assessed carefully, we emphasize that it is possible also to deal properly withthese demands and use them as a means to reform and overcome patrimonialism. Some countries(especially in East Asia) have captured these opportunities and achieved development.

11III. Patrimonialism and Neopatrimonialism in Africa
The different views among Western political scientists on patrimonialism in African countries
revealed in the previous section must somehow be reconciled with and replaced by a unified
understanding about the formation of patrimonialism and neopatrimonialism. It is essential, also, togain an understanding of the mechanism through which these systems critically hinder developmentin Africa. These are the objectives of this section.
To achieve these objectives, I first selected a region in Africa that, based on the context of historicaldevelopment and the availability of research material, seemed to be most suitable for this study. I
then traced the formation and development of patrimonialism and neopatrimonialism. The selected
region is the coastal area of the Gulf of Guinea (i.e. West Africa), which historically was deeply
scarred by the tide of trans-Atlantic slave trade undertaken by the great powers of the West. My
research has not yet reached the stage where it can include coverage of the coastal area of the Indian
Ocean. Nor is the history of colony formation in South Africa, the core of which was the Republic ofSouth Africa, dealt with here, despite the significance of its more sophisticated and material
civilization in comparison to that of other regions (Tadashi Okuma (1939)).
1. Formation of Patrimonialism in West Africa – With its roots in the Atlantic Slave Trade
When we turn our attention to West Africa thusly, the formation of patrimonialism can be explained
as having occurred in two stages. The first stage began with the beginning of the Atlantic slave tradein the 17th century and ended with the birth of post-colonial independent states led by nationalists.
In the second stage, the indigenous governments of these post-colonial states were forced to makecompromises with the traditional powers, whom they had opposed prior to independence, in order toaugment their support base.
Hard Work of Recaptives as the Central Pillar - The First Stage
The first stage was delineated by the following four elements which originated with the Atlantic
slave trade and interacted repeatedly with one another as they unfolded historically until ultimately
they converged:(1) Changes in the slave trade system of England, which played a central role in almost all stages of
the Atlantic slave trade, changes in the Africans involved and their nations, and changes in thepolicies towards the subsequent colonies and protectorates.
(2) Social strata and ideological formulation of the indigenous nationalists who came into being andgrew under the strong influence of the aforementioned changes.
(3) The growth of kinship groups formed by indigenous Africans to protect themselves from theslave trade and which subsequently gave support to the nationalist governments.

12(4) Unofficial governments, i.e. kingdoms and chiefdoms, which, under the post-colonial regimes,
coexisted with official governments while maintaining their traditional systems (Le Vine
(1980)).
Appendix 1 depicts and explains (2) and (3) of these four elements.
The most important development at the first stage was element (2), which began when Englandbanned the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807. The Royal Navy deployed gunboats to patrol thewaters off the coast of West Africa from which slave ships set sail. The human cargo in the ships
caught, called “recaptives,” were returned to what are today Sierra Leone and Liberia. These rescued
captives subsequently studied hard, worked hard, became successful as Creole traders and sent theirchildren to be educated in England. This same pattern was repeated at major West African ports
where Creole traders did business, and in this way educated societies were formed. From the
beginning of the 20th century through the early post-independence period, leaders often emerged outof these societies. These nationalist leaders tended to reject traditional African political systems andbehavior; instead they aspired to build nation states on the European model. They knew their goal
would be dificult to achieve, but they prepared in anticipation of the eventual withdrawal of thecolonial powers (Davidson (1992)).
Compromising with Existing Powers in Pursuit of a Support Base - The Second StageIn the second stage of patrimonialism formation, independent, indigenous nationalist governments
were compelled to transform themselves into patrimonial states in order to strengthen their support
base. A typical case of this process is described in the Ghanaian development model in Appendix 2.
Here, we will elaborate on three points.
1. Nkrumah’s Construction of Socialism
The first prime minister and later president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, carefully avoided any
compromise with the existing power structure. Instead, as was attempted in many African countries,
he tried to strengthen the fiscal base and create a client class through socialist policies which
included the creation of a vast state enterprise sector.
The epitome of Nkrumah’s socialist policies was the Second Five-Year Development Plan of 1959
(abandoned in 1961) and the Seven-Year Development Plan which began in 1961. With net
investments of 476 million Ghanain pounds, the objectives were accelerated growth, socialistic
reorganization, and reform of the colonial economic framework. Nkrumah’s “achievements” to 1965
are the following: (A) The entire country of Ghana became an administrative jungle. The numberof administrative ministries ballooned to 31 and 53 state-owned enterprises were created, scattered
all over the country. A dozen public-private joint venture companies and two dozen government
commissions were established covering a wide range of industries including mining, construction,

13

transportation, public works, manufacturing, agriculture, commerce and other services. (B) The
financial performance of the state-owned enterprises was poor, and overall they required constantfinancial support. Those with monopolies and/or import protection managed to be profitable. (C) The
state-owned enterprises were inferior to private companies in terms of labor productivity, unit costs
and domestic resource costs for saving foreign capital. (D) The poor performance was caused bysloppy project preparation and corruption. The only exceptions to this were projects managed by theVolta River Authority (VRA). This was due to the fact that VRA was building the power
infrastructure regarded by the government to be the foundation for industrialization and the WorldBank and other major donors were focusing their assistance and investments here.
Despite these problems, it must be acknowledged that Nkrumah’s imposition of socialism had
positive aspects: (A) Employment increased. The total number of employed at the end of 1958 was
292,000 with the private and public sectors each accounting for half. By the end of 1965, it had
increased to 396,000, 70% in the public sector. Generaly this increase in employment has been
sttributed to the socialist framework. (B) The number of educated men and women with specializedskills increased substantially after 1957. (C) Although infrastructure construction brought little
economic return, the projects themselves remained physical assets. (D) Beginning in this period,
international assistance increased.
Nkrumah’s successors inherited these positive aspects as the physical legacy of socialism. As a result,
the weight of the state-owned sector in the Ghanaian economy has not decreased to this day (Killick2004). As of 2003, the central government had 36 ministries overseeing 250 agencies. In 2001, 41
non-financial and 9 financial public corporations remained. Between 1999 and 2001, the expenditureof the entire public sector amounted to more than a half of GDP and its aggregate deficit reached
17% of GDP.
2. The Two Major Parties and Existing Powers
Details of compromises with existing powers made under post-Nkrumah presidents are unknown.
However, in the era since the 1980s of two major political parties -- NPP (New Patriotic Party) andNDC (National Democratic Congress) -- these compromises have taken shape within the frameworkof a two-party system and patrimonialism has functioned with legitimacy. NPP inherited the
traditions of Kofi Busia, Ghana’s second prime minister, and its support base has consisted ofEuropeanized petite bourgeois, the Asanterre, and many allied chiefs. By contrast, NDC has populist
inclinations and is reputed to represent the have-nots of Ghanaian society. As can be seen in
Appendix 2, populism and help to the down-trodden are qualities espoused by many traditional
kingdoms and chiefdoms. In addition to these characteristics, according to D. Rimmer (1989), sincethe 1950s all of Ghana’s administrations and political parties have had ties with certain ethnic groups.
There have been no armed conflicts among ethnic groups, however. After the ban on political parties14

was lifted in 1969, candidates running for the five political parties which then emerged werepredominantly lawyers, businessmen, teachers and wealthy farmers.
3. The Birth of Kleptocracy
Administrations in power between Nkrumah and the elected administrations of Jerry Rawlings(NDC) and John Kufuor (NPP) were either established by military coups or were unstable regimesthat existed only for relatively short periods. (Nkrumah was overthrown by coup in 1966, Rawlings
was elected in 1992 and succeeded through election by Kufuor in 2001.) Of these, the administrationof Ignatius Acheampong (1972-79), which was established by a military coup led by middle-ranking
officers, was unusual in that it was a patrimonial administration that lost legitimacy. Especially in thelatter half of its tenure, bribery, embezzlement and theft became commonplace. Profiting from themisuse of laws and official authority (“kalabule” in the local language) spread from the highest
ranking officials down through all levels of government. In 1976, an organized political opposition
movement appeared in which professional groups of lawyers, doctors, college professors,
accountants and engineers took part. They stopped providing services en masse and a brain drain of
trained people began. Between 1975 and 1985, 14,000 qualified teachers including 3,000 who werecollege graduates left their teaching positions in Ghana.
2. Positive Roles of the “Neo” in Neopatrimonialism
The Case of Ghana: Stabilization and Structural Adjustment, the 1992 Constitution
In continuation of the previous section, this section takes up the case of Ghana, where in the 1980san opportunity to move beyond patromonialism was provided by the World Bank and the IMF. The
two organizations played a prominent and positive role by supporting the Economic Recovery
Program (ERP: 1983-86) and by offering a Structural Adjustment Loan (SAL: 1987-1993). The ERP
was effective in ending economic collapse and high inflation caused by the Acheampong
administration. The SAL enabled reconstruction of deteriorated infrastructure, liberalization ofmarkets for inputs and outputs of agricultural products, as well as the abolition of price controls forgeneral goods and caps on interest rates. In conjunction with the introduction of a market-oriented
economic order, the SAL effectively put the economy on a growth path. Over the decade following
the introduction of the ERP, Ghana’s GDP grew at an annual average rate of 5% and its GDP per
capita at 2%. Unfortunately fiscal balance was lost and the positive effects of the ERP and SAL
diminished after 1992 when each incumbent in subsequent presidential and parliamentary elections
curried favor with voters by increasing wages.
A second factor helping Ghana to reduce patrimonialism, in addition to support from the Bretton
Wood organizations, was the constitutional and electoral reform of 1990. The Rawlings
administration banned all political parties after its successful coup d’état in December 1981. The

15

1992 Constitution guaranteeing the right to form political parties caused a reversal of that decisionand made possible the 1992 presidential election. Behind the Constitution’s enactment wasincreasing pressure both from within and from outside the country. Domestically, there were
demands from the pro-reform coalition of professionals, students, labor unions and former membersof parliament. Internationally, there was a trend of political liberalization sweeping through all of
Africa as donors intensified their governance-related demands in the form of aid conditionalities.
The 1992 Constitution has been criticized for giving too many powers to the president and formaking inter-party competition and parliamentary supervision difficult (Killick (2005)). Nonetheless,it was significant because it prohibited the president from seeking more than two terms (Website of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Furthermore, the new Constitution re-inforced national identify bybanning the formation of political parties based on ethnic, religious, regional or occupational
divisions. The presidential term limit was instrumental in ushering in the two-party era, discussed
above. The stipulation on the national character of political party membership was designed to
discourage domestic conflict. (This section owes much to Tsikata (2001).)
Region-Wide Political Liberalization and Democratization
Structural adjustments and market-oriented economic reforms led by the World Bank are among theregion-wide positive “neo” factors found in Ghana. The World Bank has provided Structural
Adjustment Loans (SALs) to developing countries since 1980. It is no easy task to quantify theirachievements, but the overwhelming majority of conditionalities placed on adjustment loans (85% of
the total loan amount and 82% of loans made to sub-Saharan Africa) demanded supply-side policychanges (1990 Report on Adjustment Lending). Unlike spending cuts, this required liberalization andmarketization in every sector and every functional category (Ishikawa (1994), Ishikawa (2006)).
The movement toward political liberalization and democratization progressed in fairly similar steps
throughout the region through the intermediary of governance aid with conditionalities from theWorld Bank and other major donors (Bratton and van de Walle, (1997)). According to van de Walle’s(2001) summary of 47 countries as of 1989, progress occurred in the following stages:(1) During the pre-reform years between 1988 and 1992, 28 countries experienced public protests
against the failures of patrimonial political systems, suggesting that patrimonialism faced
legitimacy crises.
(2) The governments of 40 countries responded by adopting measures for political liberalization.
This lasted up to February 1992.
(3) Then, in the same 40 countries, democratic elections of various forms were held. Gradually,presidential and parliamentary elections under a multiparty system became the leading goal of
the reforms.

16

At the beginning of democratic reforms in 1989, the distribution of political systems in 45 countries
was as follows:(1) Plebiscitary One-Party System

16 countries

Elections in name only; in reality one-party
autocracies(2) Military Oligarchies

5 countries(3) Competitive One-Party System

13 countries

One-party

autocracies

butmultiplepresidential candidates(4) Multiparty System

5 countries

Free elections under multiparty systems met
the minimum requirement for democracy. But
they were incomplete, and leaders of politicalparties retained patrimonial customs.

(5) Settler oligarchies

2 countries

South Africa, Namibia

According to the distribution recorded in 1994, the number of countries which conducted multiparty
elections and met the minimum requirement for democracy had increased to 16. At this time, Ghana
was categorized as “a flawed transition,” defined as follows: The incumbent leader yields to pressure
from the opposition and allows a competitive election, but he monopolizes electoral resources due tohis advantage as the incumbent, interferes in the voting and ultimately wins the election. In 1998, thenumber of countries conducting multiparty elections had further increased to 40 and today
multiparty systems with more or less orderly elections have become the norm in Africa.
However, the existence of presidential and parliamentary elections under a multiparty system does
not mean that patrimonialism itself has been reformed or overcome. An evaluation of patrimonialismthat continues to function despite these new election systems is especially harsh in Bratton and vande Walle (1997). They find that even if a multiparty system is introduced, this means only that thecandidates fight each other ever more fiercely to get more votes by promising voters future material
gain.
The implication of this is that the underlying patrimonialism is unshakable. Even when there are
multiple parties, the party that loses an election loses everything; nothing is guaranteed to it as an
opposition party. Under these circumstances, it is almost impossible to overcome what is a de facto
one-party dictatorship. Some smay argue that a one-party dictatorship is fine as long as development
is achieved, but political scientists emphasize that this was only possible in East Asia, not in Africa.
Ghana in the 1990s and after became an exception.
3. Revised International Aid Approach - From Pro-Poor Change to DOC
The overall operational framework of DFID, which is in charge of the international development
policies of the UK, is provided by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, while the17

MDGs specify goals to be achieved, they do not specify how to implement the changes necessary toreach them. This is true, also, with respect to the particular situation of each aid recipient country.
Since 1997, DFID has devoted considerable intellectual resources to analysis of the best methods forpromoting achievement of goals. Initially, DFID focused much of its attention on pro-poor change.
According to a subsequent definition, this is a mixed strategy consisting of sustainable economic
growth, empowerment, access to markets, services and assets, security, and environmental
sustainability. Before 2004, when DIFD shifted to emphasize drivers of change (DOC), the existenceor absence of pro-poor change was thought to depend on whether the chief of state had the political
will to implement poverty reduction measures (Warrener (2004), Ishikawa (2003)).
In time, DFID realized that its pro-poor change approach was not adequate for succesful
implementation of its international development policies and came to believe that it would have to
identify all the changes that are actually occurring in aid recipient countries as well as their causes.
In 2003, DFID distributed a survey to its country offices that covered six items: (1) basic country
analysis, (2) medium-term dynamics of change, (3) role of external forces, (4) link between change
and poverty reduction, (5) operational implications, and (6) DFID’s organizational incentives.
The DOC approach was adopted by DFID in 2004 on the basis of the survey responses as preparedby its country offices with the support of British and local universities, think tanks and consultants.
Warrener reports that DOC seems to be organized quite differently for each country. In this paper, we
will take a look at the DOC for Ghana (Killick (2004); Booth, Crook, Gyimah-Boadi, Killick andLuckkam (2005)).
1. With regard to the medium-term prospect of Ghana’s future, there are three possible alternative
scenarios. (1) Continuation of the moderate progress of the last two decades, meaning 2% per capita
GDP growh. This can be accommodated within existing institutions and capabilities, but there would
be no breakthrough into Asian-style economic and social progress. (2) Regression to negative growthand political decay, as in the Acheampong-Akuffo period. Democracy will break down and theeconomy will decline. (3) ‘Break the mould,’ - opening the way to achieve 4.5% per capita GDP
growth (2000-2015). The DOC shows specifically how to get there.
2. Among the economic drivers of change, the most important are increased international trade andcompetition, greater competition and efficiency among financial institutions, new foreign direct
investment, and more investment by Ghanaian entrepreneurs.
3. Among the political drivers of change, the following four items are the most important:(1) intensified competition between political parties.
(2) the free flow of information accompanied by an increasingly critical mass media and informed
public opinion.
18

(3) an increased role of the diaspora of Ghanaian emigrants in national political as well as economiclife.
(4) vigorous growth of a civil society that combines strong social roots and a healthy mix ofdifferent forms of interest representation.
4. Among the Ghanaian drivers of change, ODI regards Item 3(1) -- intensified competition
between political parties -- as critically important. According to its commentary, in the 1960s and1970s the competition for access to state power was, for each political party, an all-or-nothing gamewhere the winner would monopolize all state resources as spoils and the losers would have nothing.
However, the 1992 Constitution brought some limitations to the wide-ranging privileges afforded tothe incumbent president. As a result, competition among political parties has become more balanced,
and change of government has become a real possibility. At the same time, the regional privileges ofthe political parties have decreased.
5. How does ODI’s emphasis on democracy relate to its views of development? In the papers
referenced above, the ODI analysts accept that the evidence for a systematic linkage leading fromdemocratization to improved economic performance is weak or nonexistent, and that many of themost successful non-African developmental states have been nondemocratic. (These non-African
states are none other than East Asian countries.) ODI states that its argument is based on the belief
that in Ghana, state policy autonomy and effectiveness are unlikely to increase without the spur of
democratic political competition, and that in certain limited respects competition for votes has
already resulted in improvements to the policy process.
4. Still-Remaining Mechanism through Which Patrimonialism Hinders Development
If patrimonialism survives in West Africa despite the positive influence of the “neo” factors, howstrongly does it impede move towards development? Some of the best research so far on this subject
was conducted by Tony Killick of ODI, an economist who has a long history of studying African
economies and especially the Ghanaian economy (T. Killick 2004, 2005). The description of
economic institutions of the Ghanaian development model in Appendix 2 owes much to Killick’s
knowledge and insight.
The most significant impediment is that under patrimonialism public finance becomes a means forthe president to manage his private assets so that clients will not leave him, and its function tofinance public polices for development disappears.
Killick (2004) attempted to demonstrate this based on three characteristics of state finances. First, tomake the exercise of patronage easier, the entire budget and its constituents are not disclosed tooutsiders and budgetary decisions are made behind closed doors. Second, there are significant
differences between the formal budget and actual expenditures, rendering the entire process of19

budget preparation a mere formality. Third, the most important among budgetary line items are
personnel expenses, which are strongly related to clientelism. As concrete evidence, Killick provided
the following details:(1) Much of the vital information for monitoring budgets and controlling expenditures does notexist in forms that are useful to policy makers; even when the information exists, it is extremely
difficult to access. There are huge amounts of funds leakage between the central allocation ofbudgets and the points of service delivery. The World Bank’s pilot tracking survey of FY 2000
expenditures by the Ministries of Education and Health shows that for the Ministry of Education,
only 51% of the allocated budget for non-salary expenses was actually delivered to the primaryschools surveyed; for salary expenses the ratio was 65%. For junior high schools, the numbers
were 48% and 75%, respectively. For the Ministry of Health, the figures were even worse.
(2) There are huge deviations between budget estimates and eventual actual expenditures. Based on
available data, the mean deviation, in percentages of budget estimates, was ±42% for the
Ministry of Education (2000-03) and ±68% for the Ministry of Health (2001-03). For 16
ministries, data show that the mean deviation between 2001 and 2003 was ±27%.
(3) Looking at the eventual actual expenditures, one finds consistent underestimation of wages andsalaries and consistent overestimation of all other items. (in percentages of budget estimates)
Wages and

Administration

Servicessalaries
Ministryof

Capitalformation

＋45

－26

－39

－56

＋76

－48

－67

－80

Education (2000-03)
Ministry of Health(2001-03)

The bias in this table speaks volumes of the dysfunctional and anti-development character of thebudgetary system.
The next issue is the loss of civil service functions. Ghana’s civil service, once reputed to be one of
the best in sub-Saharan Africa, is now in utter decline, sharply reducing the government’s ability to
implement reforms and new programs. Among the decline’s causes are, as the government’s PRS
report points out, unacceptably low wages and dismal working conditions, failure of incentive
structures and inadequate human resource management. As a result, capable civil servants have left
the country or gone into the private sector. Paradoxically, overall there are too many government
employees. Personnel reduction was implemented in the 1980s as part of World Bank-led reforms,
but the trend was reversed and the problem of chronic overstaffing reemerged after Rawlings was20

elected. This is largely a problem at the lower levels of the skills hierarchy, however, and isgeographically limited to Accra. Understaffing is reported at the higher skill levels and in the outerregions.
This problem is not unique to the civil service sector. In a patrimonial society, it is very difficult forcompetent people to start successful private companies on their own and entrepreneurship is difficult
to nurture. Even if it emerges, the entrepreneur will align with one of the two major political parties(NPP or NDC) that can produce a president, become its client and receive its protection. In this kindof environment, new power might emerge in the form of marked growth of the middle class including lawyers and other professionals, teachers, journalists and wealthy farmers -- but a structure
centered on entrepreneurs and businesspersons has never emerged. This is evident in Appendix 3(1).
It has been said that in post-colonial Ghana, the underlying social classes remained the same even as
the ruling party changed4. Other mechanisms through which patrimonialism hinders development,
deserving special mention are increased severity of financial crises after the patrimonial ruler gains
control over the central bank’s power to print money, and worsening poverty as a result of strangledindustrialization, which in turn is a result of all these problems. Especially in northern Ghana, thedisintegration of communities is both the cause and the effect of worsening poverty.
5. Two Models of Ghana - The Only West African Country Showing Signs of Success
From the previous examinations in this section, we can derive two alternative Ghanaian Models.
They share the common objective of finding a way to overcome the original patrimonialism. One ofthem tries to utilize the positive aspects -- both economic and political -- of neopatrimonialism as
explored in III-2., while the other tries to utilize the DOC approach which we have seen in III-3. Let
us begin by looking at these two models.
Incorporating the positive aspects of “neo” patrimonialism
1. The history of the genesis of patrimonialism in Ghana is largely the same as in other West
African independent states along the Gulf of Guinea. It began in 1620 and, as we have seen,
unfolded in two stages. In the first stage, the native recaptives from the Atlantic slave trade (which
was banned by England and other Western countries in the early 19th century) worked hard, became
4

Ghana’s political landscape is currently dominated by rivalry between the two major parties, Busia’s conservative
NPP and the populist NDC. The relationship between Busia and the first President Nkrumah (who was in officefrom 1950 until 1966) is an interesting research topic. Nkrumah was originally a senior member of the Ghana
Congress Party (forerunner of today’s New Patriotic Party (NPP)), a political group of westernized petit
bourgeoisie, but he broke away and became the leader of the Conventional People’s Party (CPP). The CPP
belonged to the same group as the NPP, loosely speaking, but within that group, it represented folksier people withless education and lower social status. Also, Nkrumah himself continued to oppose the traditional politics by chiefs.
Busia (1969-72) was the leader of the Patriotic Party (forerunner of today’s NPP), mainstream of the westernizedpetit bourgeoisie, and he changed to have the traditional royal families, especially the Asantehene and many otherchiefs as the support base.

21

traders who crisscrossed the coastal countries, and eventually spearheaded the nationalist movement
which won independence. In the post-independence second stage, they sought to compromise withthe traditional powers in various locations in order to augment their support base. The social
functions of patrimonialism can be understood as similar to its general pattern as described in (III-1).
2. Ghana implemented the Economic Recovery Program and received structural adjustment loans
from the IMF and the World Bank in the 1980s. In the 1990s, it accepted aid that had conditionalities
related to the adoption of the 1992 Constitution and other measures for political liberalization anddemocratization; and it fulfilled these conditionalities. Of the “neo” factors of neopatrimonialism,
these played the most positive roles, and thanks to them, Ghana became a stable state with a
two-party system and has enjoyed a moderately high rate of growth. As a model, the requirement is
to incorporate the most positive of the “neo” factors.
3. The impact of fulfilling this requirement will be doubled by further growth of the social middle
class, a result to be expected if the current moderate but stable growth is maintained, the existing
professional-centered middle class is expanded to include entrepreneurs, the private sector isstrengthened, and people are freed from a clientelism that depends on political parties.
4. The Ghanaian model is still basically constrained by patrimonialism, not yet free from its severe,development-hindering mechanisms. Deliverance from patrimonialism will depend on the growth ofthe middle class. The core of this model lies in III(2), therefore it can be called the SAL-basedmodel.
DOC-Based Ghanaian Model
This model shows the steps to Ghana’s democratization when all the DOC items shown above in 2
through 4 of III-3 are effectively realized. Its core lies in two factors: (1) a deepening of competition
among political parties in such a way that the possibility of alternation in power is maintained; and(2) an ability by political parties who come into power to provide clear, long-term, economic
benefits to the voting public. For factor (1) to be possible, political parties that win elections cannot
monopolize state resources as spoils. Factor (2) is a matter of collective action, the realization ofwhich has been difficult in Ghana even after the implementation of factor (1). For (2) to be possible,
accelerated economic growth is necessary; and for that, a shake-out is required of government
employees, and also to some extent the hitherto protected central personnel in the essential sectors of
the economy. The social impact of this would be immeasurable (Killick (2004), p.25).
To describe the DOC-based model in in terms comparable to the SAL-based model -- as aprogression that leads to realization, one would simply connect the two aforementioned core factors
to (1) of the SAL-based model. This would seem to indicate that its (3) need not be included because
the DOC-based model assumes that democratization can be realized without the support of (3).

22

Of these two models, the one that depends on the positive “neo” factors (the SAL-based model)
issues from the working hypotheses of this paper. The DOC-based model is supported by ODI whobases its support on the experience of Ghana, the essence of which is that state policy autonomy andeffectiveness are unlikely to increase without the spur of democratic political competition.
When ODI describes the Ghanaian experience and the DOC model, it often contrasts them with theEast Asian experience as one that differs markedly. Leaving aside whether such a comparison isappropriate, Killick states that “the most notable aspect of the comparison with Ghana’s experienceis the characteristic of the linkage between democracy and development. In East Asia, the more
fierce the competition among political parties, the larger the possibility that the policies lean towards
short-term interests and avoid facing difficult, structural problems. In contrast, if the ruling party’s
position is stable, and the prime minister and bureaucrats are protected from parliamentaryinterventions and pressures from the civil society, reforms have better chances. In other words, theEast Asian experience tells us that the most successful developing countries with regard todevelopment have been notably undemocratic” (Killick (2004)).

23

IV. East Asian Patrimonialism and Neopatrimonialism, and Subsequent Systemic Transition
This paper now turns to two middle income East Asian countries that overcame traditional
patrimonialism more than half a century ago for comparison with the African situation. It will
examine how patrimonialism was overcome in China and Thailand, the steps involved and what
system was the objective in their subsequent nation building.
1. China - Breakdown of the Foundations of Patrimonialism, Development Dictatorship andSubsequent Developments
One of the characteristics of Chinese patrimonialism is its continuous existence since ancient times
along the pattern described in Section II and flagged by Weber. Changes do emerge when we look at
Chinese patrimonialism from the perspective of oscillations or cycles. Chusei Suzuki’s (1974)
renowned research from this perspective, the Chinese Dynastic Revolution model, presents a cyclethat begins when the patrimonial ruler (the Emperor) cannot meet his divine obligation to safeguard
the peace and wellbeing of his subjects. The condition of his subjects becomes so desperate that theyrise up against him. This is the model for Chinese history until the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. The
subsequent period of the Republic of China was mostly a dark age marked by strife among militarycliques; at the same time, however, it was an age of searching when “neo” factors were proposed one
after another in order to escape patrimonialism. The Chinese Communist Party emerged as anextension of one of those factors, Sun Wen’s way of xunzheng (governance by one party). By thetime it had established the People’s Republic, patrimonialism was essentially overcome because its
socioeconomic foundations had been destroyed.
The Turnover Cycle of Chinese Dynasties
Suzuki’s Dynastic Revolution model encompasses dynasties from Han, Wei and Qin to Yuan, Mingand Qing., not including the peacetimes between revolutions. If these were to be added, we would
have a dynasty turnover cycle model. In fact, the times of peace were periods of recovery from thecollapse of the previous dynasty. During those periods, the exploitation of subjects by the
patrimonial government which would become the basis for the next revolution was on-going but not
yet strong enough to overcome the effects of improved living made possible by peace and stability.
In the early Qing Dynasty, for example, a period of peace and stability continued for more than adozen decades after the half century-long disorder at the end of Ming Dynasty was ended in 1638. A
notable fact of this period recorded in literature is that the population increased as a result ofadvances in agricultural technologies. Specifically, crops native to the American continents, such as
potatoes, corn and peanuts, were successfully transplanted to the vast hill country of South China.
The Chinese population increased from approximately 150 million in 1700 to 300 million in 1794,
and 430 million in 1856. In time, however, there were no more unused hills available, theMalthusian law of population kicked in, and farm income reversed course and decreased.

24Subsequently, the effects of government exploitation of the citizenry became overwhelming.
Suzuki’s Dynastic Revolution model begins here, when the subjects’ hardship approached a criticallevel.
Faced with a terrible situation, common people sought refuge in religious groups as a vehicle todoubt, reject and rebel against authorities. But the background is not simple. The level of people’s
political awareness was very low, and they were not organized. Religion can be a refuge, butessentially its purpose is to provide welfare for individuals in this world and bliss in the next, not tochallenge authorities. Nonetheless, it has social and political significance. The terrible destruction ofpeople’s livelihoods and living standards makes them long for a savior who will save the faithful andlead them to an ideal world. The religious groups in the Dynastic Revolution model met this need.
Under the slogan tiansia daluan (great disorder in the state), they challenged the existing powers,
especially dynasties which claimed divine representation, and rebel leaders announced themselves assaviors. Major insurgencies against the Qing Dynasty included the White Lotus Rebellion (bailianjiao) and the Taiping Rebellion (Rebellion of Great Peace), and smaller religious insurgencies shared
their characteristics. Insurgencies spread and displaced a vast number of people in many places. Boththe insurgency groups and government forces which tried to suppress them exhausted themselves
militarily and evntually order was restored by the bureaucracy.
Choices Made by the Republic of China - “Neo” Factors
The 40 to 50-year period of the Republic of China, from the end of the Qing Dynasty until theestablishment of the People’s Republic of China, is not easy to understand because of the chaos
created by conflicts, both civil and foreign. It is clear, however, that notable changes occurred withregard to patrimonialism. Research is still incomplete, but the author would note the following threepoints (Hiroaki Yokoyama (1997), Toru Kubo (1991), Rawski (1989)).
(1) The key concern of politicians and important bureaucrats during the era of the Republic which
followed the end of Qing Dynasty was nationalism and resistance through political andeconomic means to threats of colonialism as well as to actual invasions. When they turned toindustrial modernization (especially military related industries) as an economic means, they had
to rely on state-led creation of companies. They probably were also inclined to participate inpatrimonial bureaucratic capital. Induced by FDI within concession zones, government capital
was invested in industries, public works, banking and other financial enterprises. But they
probably also had a tendency to become clients of rival high-ranking officials (e.g. the Beiyang
and Zhejian conglomerates).
(2) Hiroaki Yokoyama (1997) states that soon after the establishment of the Republic of China ,three political system options were available: the way of Song Jiaoren (parliamentarydemocracy), the way of Sun Yat-sen (with the three development stages of governance by25

military, governance by one party and governance by constitution, in that order, but in reality in
China, governance by constitution was not chosen all at one time), and the way of Yuan Shikai(return to imperialism). The establishment of the Beijing government was characterized by theloss of Song Jiaoren’s idealism and the triumph of Yuan Shikai’s counterrevolution, sowing theseeds of military clique control over the Beijing government.
(3) When the Nationalist government was established by Chiang Kaishek in Nanjing, the regime’s
goal was to realize Sun Chungshan’s governance by one party (a transitional regime during theperiod when one-party dictatorship is necessary). The Nationalist government’s financial base inrural areas was initially weak, and it requested fiscal assistance from the Zhejian conglomerate
first, and then from the Beiyang conglomerate. However, as domestic political and militaryunification progressed, and until the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War, remarkable institution
building took place up in terms of currency, foreign exchange, finance, banking, economy andcommerce; all in an effort to build a modern nation state (Ishikawa (2004)). Especially notable
was a government agency which started as the Defense Design Committee in 1931 and was
expanded into the National Resource Committee in 1936. It had many young staff who hadstudied abroad to design and implement the construction of heavy industries. Their activities
went beyond the tradition of patrimonial bureaucrats (Wu Xiaolin 2002).
Socioeconomic Foundations of Patrimonialism
Another characteristic of patrimonialism in China is that it is relatively easy to identify thesocioeconomic structures which supported it. When we examine the socioeconomic structure of
China in the final stages of the Qing Dynasty or as the Republic of China, it becomes clear that
Chinese patrimonialism was supported by the interdependence of the following three components,
each of which has been verified by well-known published research:
Component (1): Overall structure of scholastic (exam-based) bureaucratic system - Chung-Li
Chang’s research on the Chinese Gentry and their income
Chung-Li Chang, 1990s president of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, wrote the following two
books when he was at the University of Washington: Chung-Li Chang (1955), The Chinese Gentry,
Studies on the Role in Nineteenth Century Chinese Society, University of Washington Press, and(1962), The Income of the Chinese Gentry, University of Washington Press. The patrimonial
bureaucracy of China consisted of incumbent bureaucrats in the central and local governments aswell as out-of-posts bureaucrats called local resident gentry. The incumbents along with the local
resident gentry, who outnumbered them by a factor of 50, constituted the total bureaucracy which
exerted strong influences on the mechanisms of public administration all over the country. One
became a bureaucrat either by passing a complicated and draconian system of examination called“keju” (Civil Service Examination) or by buying official posts, which latter accounted for one third26

of the total. Weber considered this bureaucratic system to be the most important characteristic of
patrimonialism in China.
Component (2): Control of agricultural villages as the economic foundation of Chinese
patrimonialism -- Yuji Muramatsu’s research on guzhan (landlord bursary rental) in Jiangsu Province
A guzhan was a business agency that collected tenant rents on behalf of a landlord, paid part of themto the government as land tax, and delivered the rest to the landlord after deducting commissions andexpenses. The local resident gentry were involved in the operation of the guzhan by virtue of theirbackground of connection with the authority of incumbent bureaucrats. This research was based on
the data of the yu-lin-ce (fish scale books), which were management reports of the guzhan, and sheds
light on the contributions of the gentry class to the landlord-centered order in rural China (Yuji
Muramatsu (1970)).
Component (3): Perpetuation of the bureaucratic system -- Chen Hansheng’s research on zutian in
Guangdong Province
Successful incumbent bureaucrats donated assets to their clans in their hometowns, and one of themain forms of this practice was the zutian, or clan rice field. In addition to defraying the costs
incurred by ancestral festivals, these donations mainly provided for the education of talented
children within the clan to enable them to take the civil service examination (Chen Hang-Seng(1936)).
Appendix 4 gives some detail of the insightful knowledge in each of these three papers. Looking at
highlights, we see firstly that patrimonialism in China was constituted by a tripod structure madepossible by interdependence among the three elements described above. On that structure rested astable governance and administrative system managed by a charismatic Emperor manipulating thecivilian bureaucrats, or, conversely, bureaucrats manipulating the Emperor. Secondly, we understandthat from the viewpoint of ordinary people, this governance and administrative system wasextremely unsatisfactory because it inflicted on them the tyranny of local bureaucrats headed by thezhisian (county governor). This dissatisfaction is reflected in nonfiction novels that appeared at theend of the Qing Dynasty, Guanchang Xian Xing Ji (Present Situation of Officialdom) and Lao Can
You Ji (The Travels of Laocan) (Li Baojia, 1901-06) and in the commentary by Shiraki Tachibana(Shiraki Tachibana 1936). This was traditional patrimonialism and although it underwent
neopatrimonial changes throughout the Minguo Era, the tripod structure foundation remained
unchanged until it was finally destroyed by the land reform/agricultural revolution implemented
between the end of the Sino-Japanese War and 1952 by the Chinese Communist Party, following thebirth of the People’s Republic and the civil war between the Communists and Nationalists 5 .
5The developments of land reform, or the agricultural village revolution, are analyzed in detail by Kyoko Tanaka

27

Traditional patrimonialism in China, unlike that of Thailand to be discussed later, collapsed becauseof the destruction of its socioeconomic foundations, not because of changes in the components of
patrimonialism’s economic functions.
There was, however, another important characteristic of the collapse of Chinese patrimonialism: thefact that, when the People’s government was instituted, it took over from the Nationalist government,
which had been the last bastion of patrimonialism, all administrative, military and educational
agencies and state enterprises under its jurisdiction, and their personnel, in their entirety6. As a result,the patrimonial tendencies present in the personnel remained deeply imbeded within the departments
and enterprises under the supervision of the new government 7 . This hindered reform anddevelopment of state enterprises and state-run commercial banks. Appendix 5 shows detailed
analysis of this development.
The Search for a Successor Regime and the Developmentalist Regime
After the destruction of patrimonialism’s foundation, what kind of a system would be desirable?
After the establishment of the People’s Republic, Chinese society itself went through, the “planned
economy” period (1953-78), the “reform and open” period (1978-1997), the “governing the state bylaw” period of Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji (1997-2004), and has now entered the “peace andharmony” period of Hu Jintao. These period divisions and the historical outlook on which they arebased reflect an intense search by the People’s Republic for the optimal system in terms of general(1996). In terms of the relationship with the result of the civil war in Central and Southern China, which accounted
for more than half the areas where reform was completed, it is wrong to think that the civil war was not won
because the reform succeeded; rather, the reform progressed peacefully after the victory became apparent. However,the land reform created countless subsistence farms whose scale was less than adequate, and we cannot
immediately conclude that its economic impact was positive (Motonosuke Amano 1940). The clear contribution of
the land reform was the complete destruction of the landlord-centered order in agricultural villages which was the
economic and social foundation of patrimonialism.
6
The fact that the government of the People’s Republic, at its birth, adopted a policy of taking the entire staff fromthe Nationalist government is recorded in Ishikawa (1960). According to the description of Wu Xiaolin (2002), theNational Resource Committee -- the vanguard of industrial policy in the Nationalist government -- had 207
enterprises or business units, 220,000 economic supervisors or technicians, and 150,000 workers throughout thecountry. When the Nationalist government lost the civil war, the director-leel and other personnel voluntarily
switched over. Everyone was transferred to the People’s Republic, and contributed greatly to the economic
recovery and to the preparation and implementation of the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57).
7
Ishikawa (1997) notes that there were three residual tendencies the behavior patterns of the government and thestate-owned enterprise sector: department ownership system, unitism and forced contribution. Under the
department ownership system, individual line ministries claimed exclusive ownership of enterprises under theirjurisdiction. This prevented the incorporation of these enterprises based on ownership by shareholders. Unitism
refers to a tendency for individual enterprises, business units and departments to become self-contained
communities, including the management of the service departments serving their employees and workers. Forced
contribution refers to an an administrative upper unit’s arbitrary assignment of contributions to lower units.
According to Yasushi Onishi (2004), the People’s Republic of China budget law issued in 1974 stipulates that thebudget of each department consists of the budgets of units belonging to that department. He points out that inreality there was, in addition to legally collected charges, a slush fund into which parts of the forced contributons
were diverted without official state approval.

28

governance, but how do they relate to the problem from the perspective of patrimonialism?
We must remember that while patrimonialism itself was destroyed, the problems that patrimonialism
were meant to address, the challenges it faced at each stage of the cycle of dynastic history and thebreakthroughs it was forced make all remain. Specifically, these are the challenges of flood control
implementation, irrigation and other large-scale civil works, and of achieving high growth in order toovercome the Malthusian problems of population and employment. The system chosen by the
People’s government to addresss these problems and meet these challenges was a developmentalist
system.
Let us now define the term “developmentalism.” In the author’s view, developmentalism refers to
the promotion of development by the entire country legitimized by the support of the populace.
Development can be defined generally as improvement in a country’s productive capacity andinstitutions though the efforts of its own citizens. Developmentalism presupposes that the people
agree on the desirability of such efforts and cooperate willingly from their respective positions.
There are a number of papers on developmentalism and they are summarized well by Suehiro (1998).
The author’s definition, however, is close to Shiraishi (1994), who says that “developmentalism firstgained political authenticity as an ideology that legitimizes an authoritarian system by positioning
development as the goal of national policy.” The distinction between Shiraishi and the the author isthat the author’s definition requires only that the necessity for development be widely accepted by
the people, while Shiraishi emphasizes that there is also a necessity to strengthen the government.
The period that meets the author’s developmentalist definition was the reform and open period, thestated goal of which was to improve productive capacity. More precisely it was a period between theofficial acknowledgement of the supreme leader Deng Xiaoping’s so-called nansun jianghua (talks
in the trip to Southern China) at the 14th Congress of the Communist Party (October, 1992) and his
death in February, 1997. During the 1980s there had been discussion by General Secretaries Hu
Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang about abolishing the one-party dictatorship, but this was rejected just as
democratic movements were crushed by the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. In the backgroundof democratic movements was the metropolis-centric high growth which paralleled the progress ofdevelopment and the remarkable growth of students and the middle class.
The Significance of the Jiang Zemin-Zhu Rongji Regime
While high growth did not end under the Jiang-Zhu Regime which emerged after the passing ofDeng Xiaoping, the developmentalist system lost its legitimacy in the face of the severe economic
disparities it created, in particular between cities and agricultural villages, between coastal andinland regions, and between households within cities. The author does not believe, however, that the
Jiang-Zhu Regime tackled the issue of disparities directly. What it actually tackled was thelegalization of the state’s governance and administration systems. This appears to be similar to the29goal of legal rule defined by Weber as an archetype that succeeds traditional rule, including
patrimonialism. Following the decision of the 14th Congress, the 14-3 Plenary Session of the Central
Committee in 1994 set out comprehensive rules for the market-oriented reform of the Chinese
economy. The 15th Congress in September 1997, after the death of Deng, was a full-fledged Party
Congress under the Jiang-Zhu Regime and the decision to pursue “governing the state by law” and“construction of a socialist country governed by law by 2010” were its main outcomes. This decision
was subjected to deliberations by the National Congress (9-1) in March 1998, at which the decision
was taken to implement within the next three years the following reforms: (1) The central
government will abandon the planned economy and manage a market economy. The State Planning
Commission will be transferred to the State Development Planning Commission. (2) The
government will be separated from companies. Line ministries which in the past had had bothadministrative and business functions will now concentrate only on their administrative functions, tobe handled by the State Economic and Trade Commission, and halt their business functions. This
plan was implemented.
The 16th Party National Congress (November 2002) accepted the “treatise for three representatives,”
produced by General Secretary Jiang Zemin. It stressed the importance of representing the interestsof the mass of common people, most significantly by allowing owners of privately operated
businesses to join the Communist Party. Some political scientists believe that, with this decision, theChinese Communist Party became a national party instead of a party of one class. Regardless of thevalidity of that assessment, the importance that Jiang Zemin himself put on changing the one-party
dictatorship governance system has been confirmed (Mouri 2004).
We have yet to carefully examine the progress of the legal reform of the Jiang-Zhu Regime., It isclear, however, that the reform was was not sufficiently effective with regard to the widening
economic disparities. Hu Jintao’s goal of society with peace and harmony was submitted after the
16th Party Congress for the purpose of tackling this unresolved problem.
The Chinese Model as a Development Model (Institutional)l(1) Chinese patrimonialism has certain characteristics. There was a consistent pattern throughout thetraditional dynasties up until the era of Qing Dynasty. It followed a similar pattern of ebb andflow in each dynasty and gave rise to a cycle of dynastic turnover. Furthermore, it was charged
with fulfilling such tasks as large-scale, extensive civil works for flood control, irrigation andother purposes.
(2) This patrimonialism was eventually superseded when the socioeconomic foundations on which
it rested it were destroyed by land reform and rural revolution instigated by the army of theChinese Communist Party in the last stages of the civil war with the Nationalists. Thereremained, however, a need to maintain high growth for the continued construction and30

maintenance of national infrastructure which patromonialism had supported and for resolving
the population and employment crises that were part of the dynastic cycle. The search for a typeof regime to meet that need was undertaken by the People’s government as part of its larger
search for a suitable governance regime.A regime with goals of legalization and democratization
was not deemed suitable, instead a regime emerged that would pursue developmentalism -- theDeng Xiaoping regime – and assume the remaining tasks of patrimonialism. This regime rose to
the challenge and brought on high growth.
(3) The basis for the ensuing emergence of the Jiang Zemin-Zhu Rongji regime was a loss oflegitimacy by the Deng regime due to the widening economic gaps that accompanied highgrowth. The Jiang-Zhu faction took a giant step towards the realization of governing the state bylaw, which itself presupposed a market-oriented economic reform; but they were able to achieve
little in terms of reform towards democracy. Furthermore, the problem of disparity worsened,
and necessitated a new gap-closing policy, which came from the Hu Jintao administration.
(4) A reconsideration of political liberalization and democratization under the People’s government
is more likely to be realized by the normal expansion of the student cohort and the middle classwhich accompanies progresses in development than by any movement toward reform fromwithin the governing class.
2. Patrimonialism and Democratic Reform in Thailand
The Sakdine System and Chakri Reforms, Revolution for Constitutional Monarchy
Patrimonialism in Thailand is represented by the Sakdine system which began in the 14th Century
with the Ayudhya Dynasty and continued through to the Chakri (Bangkok) Dynasty of the 18th
century and beyond. Significant legal details of this system were revealed by a French legal counsel
for the Chakri Dynasty. The legitimacy of the King does not flow from the heavenly order ofConfucianism, but from good deeds performed in former Buddhism incarnations. This system wasmostly superseded by broad, modernistic social and administrative reforms (Chakri reforms)
initiated by King Rama V (1868-1910), the patrimonial ruler himself, who feared colonization
following the Bowring Treaty of 1865. The finishing touch politically was provided by therevolution for constitutional monarchy of 1932, a coup d’état by young military and civil officers
who constituted the People’s Party. Following their successful constitutional revolution, the young
officers attempted to create and manage state-owned enterprises in a patrimonial-bureaucraticmanner in order to establish an economic support base.
The details of the Sakdine system and Chakri reforms relevant to this report are described inAppendix 6. They show that the Sakdine system met the requirements of patrimonialism defined as
the relationships among three actors: the ruler, the administrative officers and the subjects. They

31

further show that Chakri reforms brought about a piece-by-piece breakdown of the components of
patrimonialism rather than a general breakdown of patrimonialism’s socioeconomic foundation.
With regard to Chakri reforms, it is notable that the conditions that enable development in HlaMyint’s Vent for Surplus Theory -- well-known as a development model from a productivity
perspective -- were formed at the same time and in parallel with the implementation of Chakri
policies, although we do not discuss this in the present paper.
The Sarit System and Thai-Style Democracy
Among the cadre of the People’s Party, the first to make a conspicuous figure was Field Marshal
Phibun Songkhram who held the position of Prime Minister for 10 years after the constitutional
revolution. However, it was Prime Minister Sarit (1958-63) who in the late 1950s introduced andestablished the unique Thai-Style Democracy into Thailand’s political system. Sarit banished Prime
Minister Phibun in September 1957 in a coup d’état by a rebel group within the military. This coupd’état thoroughly rejected the Western-style, parliamentary democracy which Prime Minister Phibun
had tried to introduce in Thailand. Akira Suehiro (1993) believes that the Sarit system createdbetween 1985 and 1963 was a decisive political factor in the formation of post-World War II Thai
society. Two aspects can be pointed out: First, the expulsion of the Phin-Phao group leaders who in
the 1950s created a large faction within the Army and the police force and who came to control
bureaucrat capitalist enterprises was essential, along with the banishment of Phibun, to theestablishment of the political foundation of the Sarit System. Next, Sarit defined and propagatedthree concepts as the core ideology to support the system.
(1) The three principles of nation, religion and King, formulated by King Rama IV (1910-25) as thephilosophical foundation of national unification, were adopted as the central philosophy of the
new system.
(2) The aim was to develop the nation based on a developmentalist regime. i.e., premised on
developmentalism as in Indonesia and the Philippines in the 1960s.
(3) “Politics by father and King,” or “Thai-style democracy” in words of the revolutionary group,
was contraposed against “Western-style democracy.” In Thai-style democracy, the leader
governs from above through virtue. He reigns as a benevolent father over the people who are to
be protected, an expression of Thailand’s unique governance principle.
As a first step in developmentalism (item 2) above), Sarit accepted recommendations from alarge-scale economic study commissioned by the World Bank in 1957-58 to draft recommendations
for Thailand’s basic economic development strategy. Medium-term economic development plans
were prepared and implemented to achieve development efficiently. The National Economic andDevelopment Board and national development banks were created to take charge of the process.

32

There was input from technocrats who had studied abroad, Direct investment by foreign companies
was encouraged; and this investments promoted import substituting industrialization by privatecompanies. Sarit also emphasized the enhancement of primary and higher education as an organicpart of economic development.
Post-Sarit Developments
Changes in political situations in post-Sarit Thailand are diverse, but few have been either
fundamental or rapid. We will discuss two points here as distinctive features related to the politicalsystem.
(1) Alternation of short-term regimes: A distinctive feature of other Southeast Asian countries(especially the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore) is that since independence, one
party has remained in power over long periods of time, unlike Thailand where successive
political parties have taken power alternately for short periods of time. Fujiwara (2001) suggests
a concept of “government party” to describe the long-term viability of administrations in mostSoutheast Asian countries. This is defined as “a political party that exclusively uses theresources of administrative structure in terms of organization, personnel and fiscal expenditures,and has become indistinguishable from the administrative structure.” This concept coexists withthe usual categories of political system: democracy, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. In
pointing out that the four aforementioned countries in Southeast Asia maintain the government
party regime, leaving the party government of Thailand as the sole exception, Fujiwara
acknowledges that this situatuation is not yet fully understood. The author offers his own
tentative explanation, that the adoption of the government party system and its characteristicallylong-term administrations are likely to pose unacceptable threats to Thailand’s prevailingpolitics by father and King. It must, therefore, be avoided in deference to the King.
(2) Growth of student cohorts, the urban middle class and pro-democracy movements: Advances in
economic development and education led to a rapid increase in the number of students. The
number of registered university students increased from 110,000 in October 1973 to 860,000 in
1988. At the same time, there was also a marked expansion of the middle class -- professionals,
middle managers, highly educated office workers, etc. -- from 350,000 in October 1973 to 1.92
million in 1988. These changes served as the backdrop for antiestablishment student
demonstrations in April through May 1992, mainly at Thammasat University, calling for theimmediate establishment of a permanent constitution, critizing the corruption of the military
regime, and demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation, and also for pro-democracy
demonstrations. Some emphasize that of the two movements, the student action expressed anantiestablishment sentiment that the latter did not. This does not serve, however, as a basis forpredicting the future.

33

The Thai Model as a Development Model (Institutional)
The foregoing can be summarized as a development (institutional) model as follows:(1) Patrimonialism in Thailand (the Sakdine system) was characterized by reforms taken at theinitiative of the ruler (the King) himself, known as Chakri reforms. Thai patrimonialism wasdismantled component by component, allowing the the ruler’s authority over national politics toretain its strength.
(2) The People’s Party, which took power in the revolution for constitutional monarchy in 1932, did
not have a fiscal foundation. It tried to establish one by creating state-owned enterprises.
However, the creation of these companies was based on the formation of personal factions by
powerful membesr of the party who engaged in infighting.
(3) General Sarit, who took over the post of the Prime Minister by a military coup in 1957, settled
this infighting and played a decisive role in establishing the pattern of politics and economics
prevalent in post-war Thailand. Prime Minister Sarit defined, propagated and legitimized
concepts such as (1) development of the nation and the state by developmentalism; and (2)politics by father and King (or “Thai-style democracy” in the words of the revolutionary group)in which the King is a benevolent father, protecting the people who are led by him.
(4) In post-Sarit Thailand, power has been assumed largely by a succession of short-lived
administrations because a long-term administration, such as those realized by the formation of agovernment party, is to be avoided as it infringes on the principles of politics by father andKing.
(5) In the course of developmentalism introduced by Sarit, there have been marked advancementsin economic development and education which have led to rapid increases in the number ofstudents and in the size of the middle class. These groups clashed with authorities in demanding
movement away from purges of successive military administrations and towards a democratic
political system. Often the King’s intervention was effective in easing the tension.
(6) The future of Thailand’s political system depends largely on the growth of the middle class inthe context of further economic development.

34

V. Concluding Remarks
This paper represents an empirical study for the purpose of mutual comparison and sharedunderstanding of African and East Asian development models (institutional), with British andJapanese international development approaches in the background. Geographically, we limited thescope of our study of Africa to West Africa, especially Ghana, and our study of East Asia to China
and Thailand. Our findings are as follows.
(1) We believe that the basic hypothesis has been proven valid. Our basic hypothesis asked which of
the following two ways leads more certainly to overcoming patrimonialism: -- (1) active
incorporation of the “neo” (modernization) factors and support for it by a growing middle class ;or (2) early realization of democracy by deepening balanced competition among political parties.
The answer supports (1), which is our (Japan’s) position rather than (2), which is ODI’s(Britain’s) position. The analysis was conducted by constructing two models for Ghana,reflecting the two positions, with results that support (1). The argument that supporting the
middle class is important is confirmed by the development models of China and Thailand. The
deepening of competition among political parties is only partially achieved even in Ghana, and it
is not yet achieved in the other countries.
(2) The basic framework of Ishikawa (2006) was useful for constructing the African development
model (institutional) based on British international development policies and the East Asiandevelopment model (institutional) based on Japanese international development policies, at leastin creating the donor’s foreign aid system which is one of the components. This component inturn consists of two main components: the donor’s development model (subjective model) andcontents of aid. In the African development model, the DOC model corresponds to thesubjective model, and in the East Asian model the correspondence is with the active
incorporation of “neo” factors with support from the middle class (I have once expressed theactive incorporation of the “neo” factors using the term “adaptation,” and ascribed thedevelopmental successes of leading East Asian developing countries at that time like South
Korea, Thailand and Indonesia to their skillful “adaptation” (Ishikawa (1991)).
(3) The term “developmentalism model,” or the “East Asian experience” which is said to haveprovided it the soil to grow (ODI (2002), also came often into this study. This model emerges
because society gives legitimacy to efforts for rapid development. It is characterized by the
emergence of developmental dictatorships and relative easiness to implement long-term andbasic innovation in structures and policies. ODI interprets this as a cultural characteristic of East
Asia, and therefore its transplantation to Africa is not possible. However, when we look at theexperience of China, we see that the adoption of the developmentalism model was limited to acertain period of the Deng Xiaoping era as a necessary contrivance to deal with the structural

35

characteristics of the Chinese economy (i.e., the necessity of large scale infrastructure
investments, population problems, etc.) that were still unresolved after the basic difference of
patrimonialism. One the other hand, the implementation of the developmentalism model in
Asian countries had the positive effect of creating new growth which stimulated advancement ineducation, increased the number of students, and brought quantitative and qualitative
improvement to the middle class. The overall consequence of this is, as our basic hypothesis
indicates, a realization of democracy in the East Asian way.
(4) Finally, we turn to the subtitle of this paper: mutual learning between the African development
model based on the British international development approach and the East Asian development
model with close ties to the Japanese international development approach. The presentation of
the argument of the African model -- democracy, balanced competition among political parties -and the argument of the East Asian model -- incorporation of positive “neo” factors supported by
the growth of the middle class -- were not meant to be mutually exclusive. We can find space forcompromise between the two, allowing both sides to learn something of value from the other,
accept the findings and enhance the flexibility of its policy system structure. For example, theAfrican model can incorporate “neo” factors through adaptation and support for the middle class,and the East Asian model can incorporate a deepening of balanced competition among policies.
For a similar attempt, see Ishikawa (2005a).

The author suggests that at the policy formulation phase it is preferable to reference the African andthe East Asian development models of this paper by replacing them respectively with the
DOC-based and the SAL-based Ghana models. This is becaue the African model is constructed byarranging various possibilities normatively, to be brought about by policies, while the East Asianmodel is constituted simply of a summing up of past relevant experiences.
Initial Period in Research Planning
Before concluding this paper, the author would touch on an issue that many readers may haveremarked. That is, in distinction from the many studies of contemporary African issues conducted by
Europeans, including the British, and Americans, that begin with the post-World War II period, thispaper begins by going back much further, to the period of the Atlantic slave trade or of its banning
by England (1806). The author uses a phrase “initial period in research planning” as a technical term.
If we use this term, the question that emerges from this distinction is this: Does a researcher havecomplete discretion to set the initial period in a particular research plan, or is that discretion
constrained by the characteristics of the plan? (Initial conditions are past conditions that existed at
the initial period.) The answer is that in the past this has depended on the individual inclination of36

the researcher or his/her cultural environment. There are cases, however, in which the selection of
the “initial period” will exert a significant difference on the results of the analysis. Two comments
are useful.
1. David Booth says that most of the British researchers of his generation feel guilt about pastcolonial policies (younger Britons are different). This does not affect their analyses, however,
because for analytical purposes they set the initial period to be after WWII, eliminating events
related to the slave trade. From here, the argument of Chabel et al. (1999) can be referenced: Thetime when we Westerners had to expiate our ancestors’ colonial crimes is long past. We must
conduct constructive, joint researches and contribute to a better understanding of Africa.
2. At the other extreme is France, which requires by law that initial period of research onunderdeveloped regions include all of the black slave trade in which France was involved. That law-- the Taubira Law of 2001 -- also requires that researchers accept that the black slave trade
constituted a crime against humanity, and that school and research programs in history andhumanities actively cover slavery and the slave trade. These provisions are strict: Any opinion that
attempts to discount the criminality of the slave trade -- even slightly -- can be prosecuted as a crime
under the Taubira Law. The stance of the French Parliament’s has not been consistent, though, andby a law enacted in December 2005 now also requires that school programs recognize the positiverole of France in the history of North Africa. The series of riots by young Arab immigrants to France
from North Africa, among other regions, has revealed clearly that the government’s policies towards
former colonies are not working. Excellent studies and news reports regarding these so-called
historic memory laws and the other involvement of laws in history are available (Yoichi Higuchi(2007), Asahi Shimbun (January 23, 2007)).

37

Appendix 1:

Influx from
Caribbeant i"Recaptives" sent backto Freetown (Sierra
Leone) and Monrovia(Liberia)

Slave trade(Atlantic)

Beginsin 1620

When and how post-colonial
independent states emerged in Africa.

UK prohibits slave
trade in 1807; Royal
Navy patrols theGulf of Guinea

Residents defend
themselves by forming
kinship groups

Formation of ethnic(tribal) groups;
concentrated in cities

Children sent tostudy in England
CreoleTraders2

Formation of educatedsociety in West Africa3

Leaders of the Nationalist
Movement4, 5

Small civil societies emerge
in major port cities of West
Africa through trade, etc.

Major port cities otherthan above: Lagos,
Abeokuta (Nigeria),
Accra, Cape Coast(Ghana), Bathursta(Gambia), etc.

Leaders win elections which
the colonial governments
were forced to approve6

Asking for support ofpost-colonial rulers formation of the clientele offollowers

Birth ofPost-colonial states

Notes:
1 The main text explains the history of the formation of patrimonialism in Africa with four lines of events all ofwhich are related to the Atlantic slave trade. This figure shows two of them ((2) and (3)). The ultimate convergence
took place somewhat after post-colonial indigenous governments were established. Except for those noted
otherwise, information for this figure was derived mainly from Michael Barratt Brown (1997) and Basil Davidson(1992).
2 The African population was estimated to be 54 million as of 1850. The number of those who had been abducted asslaves, mainly to America and the Caribbean, up to that time is estimated to be 23 million. According to an
estimate by the captain of the Royal Navy’s H.B.S. Bonnet (1849), 103,000 had been captured by the Navy andsent back (“recaptives) in the previous 26 years, and 1.795 million had ultimately landed on the American
continents.
3 Sierra Leone became a British crown colony in 1870 and a base for Navy warships that patrolled the waters off
West Africa. Before then, blacks who had fought the War of American Independence as British solders and had
lived in London (the black poor) immigrated to the Freetown area after 1787 (Paul Richard (1996)). However, after

38

the Freetown area was designated as the destination for the liberated recaptives, the population of the recaptives
came to dwarf that of the black poor. The recaptives hailed from various places in West Africa but they did notnecessarily want to return as they and hated the traditional political systems of their homeland. Recaptives from the
Yorba and Ibo nations in Nigeria were exceptions to this; they purposefully went home and tried to contribute tomodernization. Liberia was designated by the American Colonization Society as the destination of American slaves
liberated after the Civil War. Liberia is said already to have received 12,000 black returnees between 1822 and1861 (Morten Boas 2001). Liberia does not seem to have received a significant portion of the recaptives who weresent back by the Royal Navy, however.
4 The number of those recaptured by the Royal Navy reached 70,000 in Sierra Leone between 1806 and 1864. They
were called Creolers, and many of them were merchants called Creole traders who traded with the imperial
countries and various places in West Africa. Their descendants and associates constituted the educated society ofWest Africa. However, the Creole traders themselves disappeared by the end of the 19th century. There are various
theories as to why they disappeared, but the aforementioned Richard (1996) explains as follows: By the 1890s
England’s colonial rule had reached interior regions where the Mende and other peoples lived. There, a proposal by
the authorities to levy a house tax triggered protest which spread and became a rebellion in 1898. The anger was
directed at missionaries who were seen as agents of the colonial authorities and also at Creole traders. The reason
for anger toward the latter was social unrest in the communities where logging and rubber tapping activities had
increased. The Mende warrior attacks were so fierce that the British authorities had to mobilize. In the end, therebellion was repressed, and 96 people including the Mende tribal chiefs were executed.
5 Until the mid-19th century, there was no racial discrimination among the civil services of the British colonies, and it
is said that almost all senior government posts, including those of governors-general and chief justices, were
occupied by Africans and people from the Caribbean. However, as independence of the colonies loomed,
increasingly bureaucrats were sent from England. Training of Africans ceased in order to effect a smooth transitionof power. In the case of Sierra Leone, in 1892 more than half of senior officials were African, but in 1912 only oneout of six were.
6 In the case of Ghana, the Gold Coast and Ashanti were colonized by the British in 1850. After the 1920s, thecolonial policy was focused on using the authority of the Chiefdoms, and therefore on supporting andstrengthening their power. Emboldened by this support the Chieflies became arrogant and offended educated young
adults. After World War II, 60,000 veterans joined the civil societies. In February 1948, in the city of Accra, thegovernment fired on the veterans who were marching for veterans associations. Ensuing riots led to the arrests of
Nkrumah and Danquah, among others. The Commission of Enquiry for this incident recommended theestablishment of a committee to draft a new constitution. As a result the Coussey Committee was formed andsubmitted its report in 1949. It recommended the establishment of a semi-responsible government, the idea of
which stood against the insistence by Nkrumah and others for “self-government now.” Nkrumah called for ageneral strike in January 1950, and was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. Based on therecommendations of the Coussey Committee, elections for self-rule were held in three stages -- February 1951,
June 1954 and July 1956 -- Nkrumah prevailed in each one. The third election was considered to be an election for
independence. The foregoing is based on Rimmer (1989).

39

Appendix 2:
Application of the “basic framework(development model)” - The special development model of Ghana
1.

History of systems and institutions (data)

Political system(formal system)

・Patrimonialism that began when the leader of an independence movement
became official head of state.
Nkrumah (1957-66) -- industrialization by state enterprises and foodproduction by state farms

・Military coup d’etat (1966) National Liberation Council (NLC)
・Conservative Busia administration (69-72) (PP: later NPP) followed by amilitary coup d’etat
・Acheampong administration (72-78) emerges, patrimonial governance flourishes(NRC)
Corruption and kleptocracy by senior officials
・Transition to civilian rule; President Limann (79-81)
・Military coup d’état by Captain Rawlings (81-)

・Populist NDC regime which won the multiparty presidential election; General
Rawlings’ regime (1986-2000); Presidential powers strengthened in 1992,
re-election, move towards patrimonialism.
・Peaceful transition to the NPP government through a general election under theconstitution banning the third term: President Kufuor (2000-)
・Presidential powers strengthened in 1992, signs of patrimonialism
strengthening.
(informal system)

・Traditional kingdoms and chiefdoms which had existed before the colonial rule
were incorporated into the British colonial system of indirect rule. Even today,
they exercise de facto administrative authorities, controling junior chiefs,
deputy chiefs and residents, and managing conventional land ownership rights.
(Example: The “Asanterre” who rules the 2 million Akan people in Southern
Ghana)
Some areas in the northern regions only had decentralized kinship societies. In
these areas, the British appointed the chiefs in the colonial era.

40

・In many cases, these traditional political groups had ties with specificadministrations or parties. Today, about half of the political groups are alliedwith NPP, and the other half with NDC. For example, in the Kingdom of
Dagbon in northeastern Ghana, two clans that have the right to the throne(Abdu and Andani) took turns to assume the title of King. After the 1960s,
each clan allied with NPP and NDC, respectively. After the establishment of
the Kufuor administration in 2000, the clans came into conflict with one
another, and in April 2002, King Andani was brutally murdered. Since then,Ghana has been under a declared state of emergency.
Economic

・The national treasury has effectively turned into the President’s private cashbox

institutions

for maintaining his patron-client relationships instead of for managing funds to

Public financesupply public goods. With reference to the three important criteria of the Worldinstitutions

Bank’s Public Expenditure Management (PEM): (i) Fiscal Discipline: There are
no restrictions for balancing revenues and expenditures, and the budget is no
more than a ritual; (ii) Optimal Allocation of Expenditures: The item-by-itemstyle budget lacks coordination among ministries in terms of policies, planningand budget planning. Information on donor assistance is not reported to thegovernment; (iii) Incentive System for Budget Execution Agencies: Incentives
do not work because the real wages are repressed, and talented people leave thegovernment.

State enterprises

・Many inefficient enterprises were created as a residual effect of the Nkrumah
administration’s policy of industrialization through establishing state
enterprises. The aggregate deficit of the five largest noncommercial public
enterprises amounted to 9% of GDP (1999-2001).

Private sector

・The private sector grew substantially as an effect of export substitution from thetraditional export industries (cocoa, gold, logs), but major companies havebecome clients of the two dominant political parties.

Donor assistance・In 1983, the Rawlings administration accepted the World Bank’s economic
recovery plan designed to stabilize the economy, and in 1987 it accepted the
Bank and IMF’s structural adjustment plan.
・Today, Ghana is one of the most ODA-dependent countries in sub-SaharanAfrica. ODA accounted for 77.2% of gross capital formation in 1997 and 50.7%
in 2002. The Kufuor administration requested debt cancellation through the
Enhanced HIPC Initiative.

41

2

Development process at a given development stage of institutions (interaction among politicalchanges)
Growth performance

・For over a decade following independence, the economy grew well, due in partto past accumulations. But from 1975 to 1983, the effects of patrimonial publicfinance and global recession caused the growth rate per capita to turn negative.
From 1983 to 2001, the government stabilized the economy under pressure
from the IMF and the World Bank, and was able to maintain a 5% growth rate.
Still, GDP per capita has only recently recovered to the level of 1960 and
uncertainties t remain regarding the political and social system.

Public finance・Patrimonialism brought on a vicious cycle: An accumulation of domestic andexternal debts created a heavy interest payment burden, which in turn caused
high inflation. To break this cycle, the Kufuor administration took steps tobenefit from the Enhanced HIPC debt reduction initiative. With regard todomestic debt (which stood at 29% of GNP at the end of 2000), thegovernment’s aim is to reduce it by half in the near future so that interest
payments can be reduced and the crowding-out effect on credit to the private
sector can be removed.

Exports, export

・Growth in the 1980s was driven by exports, but traditional items (cocoa beans,gold, logs) still accounted for 80% of the total. Production of cocoa beans

industries

decreased from a peak of 400,000 tons in 1975 to 160,000 tons due to failureof the Market Board’s state purchase-producer price policy. (In 1984-85, theprice was reduced to 30% of the export price). Cocoa production has recovered
somewhat since then, but a significant increase is unlikely because of thedisappearance of virgin forests in the southern rain forest areas and because ofcompetition with food production. Promotion of nontraditional exportindustries reliant on foreign direct investments and small to medium
enterprises is urgently needed.
Poverty reduction

・The poverty rate, as defined by the government, was reduced gradually from
50% in 1992 to 39.5% in 1999 (44.8% by international standards). However,there are significant regional disparities and poverty in rural villages in thesavannas of the Northern Regions is severe. Significant shortages of basic
foods throughout the year or during parts of the year are prevalent and thesurvival strategy has shifted to migrant labor. This, however, has weakened
local communities,causing the traditional system of mutual aid to break down.

42

Appendix 3:

Growth of the middle class in Ghana, China and Thailand(1) Distribution of members of the Ghanaian parliament by former occupation
Occupation

1993-96

1997-2000

2001-04

Teachers and lecturers

44

32

26

Professionals

21

40.5

49*

Public servants

18

20

13

Entrepreneurs/Business

11

5

6

Farmers5

2.5

6

Miscellaneous

1

Total

100

100

100

persons

Note*: Of 49%, 16% were lawyers.
Source: Robin Luckham, “The Middle Classes and their Role in National Development,” CDD/ODI Policy Brief No.
3, Nov. 2005

(2) Distribution of 10 social classes in China (by Lu Xueyun)
1978

1999

State and social management class

0.98

2.1

Managers

0.23

1.5

Private entrepreneurs

0

0.6

Technocrats

3.48

5.1

Administrative workers

1.29

4.8

Individual proprietors

0.03

4.2

Commercial service workers

2.15

12.6

Industrial workers

19.83

22.6

Farmers

67.41

44

Unemployed, out of work, partially unemployed

4.6

3.1

Source: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Sociology “Research Report on Social Classes of Modern
China” 2002 (Ed. Lu Xueyun)(Based on the quote on p. 141 of Kazuko Mouri, Shinban Gendai Chugoku Seiji (Politics of Modern-Day China New
Edition), Nagoya University Press, 2004.)43

(3) Distribution of Thai cabinet members by former occupation (1932-88)
CabinetPeriod ofPeriod ofTransition period*

Period ofPeriod of civilian(sequential order)

military

democratization*

1976-79(39-40)

coordination

government*

government*

1975-75(35-38)

politics*

1988(48)

Occupation

1932-75(1-34)

category

NumberRatio

1979-87(41-47)
Number

(%)
1.

Military

Ratio

NumberRatio (%)

Number(%)

Ratio

Number

(%)

Ratio
(%)

&
342

42.0

15

12.5

13

25.5

67

25.1

5

11.1

Army

207

25.4

8

6.7

8

15.7

35

13.1

3

6.7

Navy

76

9.3

3

2.5

3

5.9

13

4.9

0

0.0

Air Force

35

4.3

3

2.5

2

3.9

17

6.4

1

2.2

Police

24

2.9

1

0.8

0

0.0

2

0.7

1

2.2

2. Bureaucrats

365

44.8

9

7.5

29

56.9

59

22.1

1

2.2

3. Businesspersons

25

3.1

50

41.7

6

11.8

97

36.3

27

60.0

4. Other civilians

83

10.2

46

38.3

3

5.9

44

16.5

12

26.7

Total

815

100.0

120

100.0

51

100.0

100.0

100.0

45

100.0

bureaucrats (1+2)

707

86.7

24

20.0

42

82.4

126

47.2

6

13.3

Civilians (2+3+4)

473

58.0

105

87.5

38

74.5

200

74.9

40

88.9

policeMilitary andSource: Rangsan Thanaphonphan, Krabuwan Kan Nayobai Setthakit nai Prathet Thai [Economic Policy
Decision-Making Process in Thailand], 1989, pp. 68-69, 170. (Based on the quote on p. 19 of Akira Suehiro andShigeki Higashi eds., Tai no keizai seisaku - seido soshiki, akuta (Economic Policies of Thailand - Institutions andActors), Institute of Developing Economies, 1999.)

44

Appendix 4:

Socioeconomic Structure of Chinese Patrimonialism
at the End of Qing Dynasty

1. Chung－Li Chang’s research on the Chinese Gentry and their income(1) In the 1880s, the total number of bureaucrats or “gentry” as defined here was estimated to beabout 1.5 million, including 23,000 incumbent bureaucrats, of which 2,600 were in the imperial
household and central government, as well as local resident bureaucrats (the local resident
gentry). The percentage of family members of all bureaucrats in the estimated total population of
380 million was 1.9%.
(2) In order to become an incumbent bureaucrat, one had to pass the regular civil service
examination (Keju) and obtain the degree of Jinshi or Juren, or the credential of Shengyuan, andthen be certified as a Gongsheng. There was also an irregular way of becoming a Jiansheng,by buying an official post.
(3) Shengyuan means “student of the government,” and the degree could be obtained after taking
several stages of examinations including one for Tongsheng. When one became a Shengyuan, he
could then become one of the local gentry. Examinations for Juren and Jinshi were difficult,requiring recitation and application of the Four Books and Five Classics of Confucianism. It
normally took many years to pass them.
(4) The regular income of incumbent bureaucrats was quite small, but extra income through bribery
could be as much as 20 times greater.
(5) The estimated total income of the gentry was 670 million tael, accounting for 24% of theestimated GNP. By comparison, the government revenue of 160 million tael was 5.7% of GNP.
(The equivalent percentages estimated in 1933 by Liu Tachung and Wu Baosan were both 3%.)45

GNP and income of the Gentry by industry in China in the 1880s
1,000 tael, %Industrial sector(1) GNP

Agriculture(2) Gentry income

1,672,456(3) Weight of Gentry
income, (2)/(1) %220,000(33)13Mining47,800**

Manufacturing

125,800**

Construction

30,000**Transportation

30,000

*

*

Trade

220,000

113,600(17)38Finance

74,645Residential housing

164,000

30,000(4)18Government service

164,000

121,000(18)74241,313

190,625(28)79675,225(100)24Professional
gentryservices,

services,andother services
International transactions

11,258
Total
2,781,272*: Negligible

2. Yuji Muramatsu’s research on Guzhan in Jiangsu Province(1) Guzhan was a landlord management organization commonly seen in the Jian Nan region. Under
this arrangement, one of the gentry with some kind of a bureaucratic background would becommissioned by other landlords to manage their lands. He would manage them together withhis own lands and leased areas, collecting tenant rents on a commission basis and paying thetaxes. It was a large-scale business, sometimes covering several thousand mou of agricultural
land.
(2) Muramatsu studied the management of many guzhans and underlying institutions throughextensive research, including private documents (mainly tenant ledgers or fish scale books). He
studied in particular the interlocking relationship between landlords and the state authority, andthe forced payments of tenant rents by invoking official authority on the basis of thisrelationship; i.e., unpaid rents could result in arrest, detention and even death.
(3) One of Muramatsu’s findings related to institutions which determined the relationships among46

the government, landlords and tenants in agricultural villages in the Tongzhi, Guanghsu andearly Minguo eras (up to the 1910s). He found that while they were unchanged, there werechanges in the distribution among them of agricultural expenditures appearing on the balance of
payments of the Guzhans. Time series data between 1893 and 1928 obtained for a typical
Guzhan is summarized in the table below. Although Muramatsu withheld judgment, hesuggested that the changes in numbers may have foreshadowed the historic changes in thelandlord system and its relationship with the state authority that occurred towards the mid-20th
century.
Distribution of Guzhan tenant rent gross income
A typical organization under the management of yu-chin-zhan of the Wu clan(% by tael or yuan)

Zhan

Guzhan’s gross income
Tenant rents (shi)Tax payments

Currency equivalent

expenses,administrative
expenses

Net income oflandlordorganization

1893(Guanghsu
19)

44.38

100

29.3

12.4

58.3

1912
(Minguo 1)

37.83

100

26.2

7.5

66.3

49.53

100

12.0

7.5

80.5

43.03

100

22.3

19.6

58.0

41.91

100

30.0

12.4

57.6

1923
(Minguo
12)
1928(Minguo17)
Annualaverage

Note: The currency unit was changed in the first year of the Minguo Era from a bronze-based coin to a silver
yuan-based one.

3.

Chen Hansheng’s research on clan-owned rice fields in China’s Guangdong Province(1) This paper by a well-known prewar Chinese economist is an important piece of literature thatallows us to glimpse the political, social and economic roles played by clan-owned rice fields inGuangdong Province where they held the largest share of agricultural land.
(2) With regard to clan-owned rice fields, which was a main focus of the of the research, directsurveys were conducted for 17 of the province’s 63 counties. Research for the remaining 46
countries was based on communication with 294 villages. The results indicate that, of the total47

area of all agricultural lands in the province (reportedly 42 million mou but 52.35 million mou
according to the official statistics in 2002; 16 mou equals one hectare), 35% (1,470 mou) was
under collective clans ownership. Table (1) shows the share of clan-owned rice fields by countyin parts of the Dongjiang Basin and Zhujiang Delta where the shares are relatively large. Fanyu
County (in the lower Zhujiang Delta), where the most extensive surveys were conducted in 10
villages, has approximately 50%. The clan-owned rice fields have various common names suchas ji tian, zhan tian, taigon tian, and changchan tian. As the names suggest, income from thesefields was used for ancestral worship as well as social and charity work for clan members. A
local magazine in Meixian County suggests that one of their main purposes was educational, toprovide benefits to clan families who sent their child to an academy and travel expenses forstudents who went to the capital for Jinshi examinations.
(3) Other than clan-owned rice fields, there were collectively owned lands in Guangdong Province
with such names as xue tian, miao tian and hui tian. Purposes of the xue tian included
worshipping Confucius, supporting poor students, and maintaining public schools. The miao
tian was owned by temples. The hui tian was used to pay for merchants’ social activities, and its
income was often also used for educational purposes. The roles of these collectively owned
lands were less important than those of clan-owned rice fields, and the area was said to besmall ,especially in the cases of xue tian and miao tian.
(4) In addition to these collectively owned lands, there were lands owned by individual landlords
who were inferior both economically and politically. In terms of family units, these represented
2.8% of the total in 10 villages in Fanyu County. In terms of land area, they represented 21.8%
in two of the 10. These lands were leased to tenants. Table (2) shows by class the numbers offarming households and cultivated areas of all cultivated lands, including these and lands owned
by farmers. The classes of rich farmer, medium farmer and poor farmer were categorized on thebasis of livelihood.” The medium farmer is defined as one that can maintain an average familyon the income from the cultivated land; the poor farmer is one that has difficulty maintaining an
average family; and the rich farmer is one that maintains a higher living standard than themedium-size farmer and who can hire one or more full-time agricultural laborers or moreseasonal laborers than can the the medium-size farmer. What becomes clear on looking at thetwo tables constituting Table (2) is that, in any class category based on livelihood, dependency
on leased lands accounted for more than half of the cultivated land; there were even farmers
without land and pure tenant farmers. In general, the area of cultivated land per household was
extremely small.
(5) Below is a summary of Chen Hansheng’s descriptions with regard to the management ofclan-owned rice fields which likely had an impact on the social and political relationships in48

agricultural villages in Guangdong Province.
A. In Guangdong Province, normally one village was occupied by a clan that shared the samefamily name. In general, four or more out of five farmers in Guangdong Province lived within
the same clan.
B. A clan had a chief, leaders and councilmen who were chosen from among the elders, but thosewith the real powers were the clan manager (the chamberlain) and the chief finance officer.
Within the clan, these were said to be rich and useful as well as educated and wise. In fact, they
were often the ones who had passed the civil service examination in their youth or graduatedfrom certain provincial schools and many of them were retired bureaucrats. Ancestral worship
was performed by all members. The main responsibilities of those with power related to finance,such as managing income from the clan’s assets (especially tenant rents and loan interests) and
expenditures (tax payments, temple expenses, subsidies for members’ education). They not only
handled taxes on lands owned by the clan, but also collected land taxes from individual in thevillage on behalf of the provincial government. In addition, administrators arbitrated clan
conflicts. Furthermore, positions of community chief, village chief and their subordinate officers,
established under the self-rule system for agricultural villages, were largely occupied by people
recommended by powerful members of a powerful clan
C. Cases of misconduct by those with power are also described in detail. When paying land taxes
on clan-owned rice fields, those with power sometimes underpaid on the land that they
personally owned. When clan-owned rice fields are leased, clan members had priority, but inreality, driven by land starvation, bidding was rife with corruption. There were cases where local
wealthy merchants and powerful gentlemen leased thousands, and sometimes tens of thousandsof mou of land, only to sublease it to earn tenant rent income.

Table (1):

Share of clan-owned land in total cultivated area
17 counties in Eastern Guangdong ProvinceCountyShare

Chaoan

30

Wuhua

30

Pingyuan

40

Heping20

Heyuan30

Huilai40

Jiaoling

40

49

Table (2):

Baoan

30

Boluo

40

Zijin

40

Haifeng

40

Longchuan

25,

Meixian

40

Xinning

25

Fanyu

50

Huiyang

50

Dongwan20

10 village survey in Fanyu County, 1988

1. Number of households by class and breakdown
Farmer Class

Noumber ofLandowning

Tenant(Landless

Average number ofFarmerFarmerFarmerFarmer)mou of cultivatedland per household

Households
Rich Farmer

107

57

50

(19)

25.5

Medium Farmer

193

75

118

(52)

11.7

Poor Farmer

540

117

423

(326)

5.7

Agricultural

83

83

Laborer
Total

923

249

591

(480)

9.6

Leased, other%

2. Number of mou of cultivated land owned and leased by farmers by class
Farmer Class

Cultivated Land

Owned Land

number of mou

number of mou

Rich Farmer

2,733.0

1,115.5

40.8

1,617.5

59.2

Medium Farmer

2,267.0

673.0

29.7

1,594.3

70.3

Poor Farmer

3,055.7

525.0

17.2

2,530.7

82.8

Total

8,056.0

2,313.5

28.7

5,742.5

71.3

50

%

number of mouAppendix 5:

Application of the basic framework (development model)”to China

1. Development stages and transitions
Political

・Except for rural areas in remote regions, and regions inside and outside of thesystemimperial district, the entire country is ruled by the Emperor with the help of the(to the Qing

distinctive exam-based bureaucratic system. In rural areas, the basic unit is the

Dynasty)clan village. Local resident bureaucrats (the gentry) integrate with thelandlord-centered order to assert their influence. They pay or otherwise provide
land taxes and compulsory labor to the central government to support its
finances.

After

the

Taiping

Rebellion,

government-supervisedandgovernment-operated, and government-supervised and commercially-operated
modern companies emerged.

(The era of・Chinese style patrimonialism system prevailed in the Qing Dynasty era. The Nationalist

Nationalist

government, however, tried to abolish unequal treaties and regain its sovereignty. It

government)

attempted to adopt the institutions of a modern state by establishing a fiscal system, tariff
policies, currency reform and a central bank. It abolished the Keju system and encouraged
the growth of a technocratic bureaucracy; the National Resource Committee, engaged in
the construction of heavy industries, was typical. Nonetheles, it is said that the leaders of
the Nationalist Party exercised patrimonial control over state enterprises, in effect, asystem of bureaucratic capitalism.

(The era of the・The civil war between the Nationalists and Communists before the establishment of thePeople’sPeople’s Republic of China featured a strategy of urban siege networks based on the

Republic ofexpansion of liberalized zones. This strategy, together with land reform, destroyed

China)

patrimonialism because the power shift destroyed completely the old order of the rural
areas which had served as patrimonialism’s incubation base

However, the policy of the government of the People’s Republic was to takeover from the Nationalist government the entire personnel of all administrative,
military and educational agencies and all state enterprises and state projects. In
the case of the National Resource Committee, everyone, including the Director,
voluntarily converted to the new government.

51

The department ownership system of state enterprises under the jurisdictions ofline ministries of the People’s Republic, the localism of local governments, andthe behavior pattern of units are considered to be residua of patrimonialism.

・By a decision made at the 2002 Communist Party Congress and confirmed by the 2004
National Congress through a constitutional amendment, the People’s Republic transformed
itself from a nation of one-party-one class rule to rule by a national party, known as thethree representations principle. By this time, China had completed a market-oriented
economic reform, and in 2001 joined the WTO.

・ There was a rough division into three periods: the reconstruction period (with the

Economic
institutions in

implementation of new democracy reforms), the planned period, and the reform and open
period. Different institutional changes took place in each of these periods.

general(The era of thePeople’sRepublic)・The planned period was politically a one-party dictatorship that was administratively
multilayered as follows:(1) a pure planned sector covered by the comprehensive goods balance table method andintegrated state finance.
(2) a controlled sector covered only byintegrated state finance.
(3) a self-support sector covered only by the people’s commune system. The finances oftownships and villages were autonomous and outside the framework of state finances.
There was forced purchase of food and cotton.
・ With regard to the reform and open period” (1978-present), there was first thedeconstruction of people’s communes and the creation of special economic zones Abolitionof planning occurred, not as a big bang, but gradually: The decision to make market
economy the goal was taken in 1984; and after study its scenario was finally clarified in
1993. There was some residua of patrimonialism, but good performance in development
was achieved: i.e., stability and growth, poverty reduction, industrialization.
・In the planned period there was a consolidation of revenues and expenditures, as most of the

Fiscalfinances of state-owned enterprises and local governments were integrated into the financesof the central government. In the reform and open period, they were rapidly decentralized.
The method was to shift investment in enterprises to state-owned commercial banks (bo yaidai, 1984) and shift profit rendering to taxes (li gai shui, 1983, 1984) The, main approach
for local taxation was the implementation and enhancement by the central government of52

the fiscal contract system (fon du chi fan, 1980, 1985, 1988). Rapid decentralization was anecessary step for market-oriented economic reform in the long run, but in the short run, it
generated the residua of patrimonialism.
・Re-consolidation of local government revenues was realized by the separate tax system of
1995. Eventually, this put financial pressures on the finances of townships and villages atthe local government level (provinces, counties) and created what is called the three
agricultural problems.

Financial・During the planned period, a soviet-style monobank system was implemented. This directly
linked the activities of the state People’s Bank of China to planning and public finance.
・During the reform and open period, there was dual layerization, the separation of the central
bank from state-owned commercial banks in 1983-84. In addition, specialization was
implemented for four major banks including the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China.
However, this did not provide for independence of currency and financial policy making, inthe first case, or implementation of financial intermediation, in the second. Especially, theresidua of patrimonialism worked on lending operations of state-owned commercial banks
and caused them to hold massive amounts of bad loans.

・State-owned industrial enterprises evolved in stages: At the beginning of the planned periodState(1957) they accounted for 80% of total industrial output and were placed under the directenterprises

control of the government (gong chang zhi). When the reform and open period began, theywent through a period of expansion and enhancement of management autonomy while still
under the gong chang zhi (1978).They then moved towards incorporation, seeking theseparation of state ownership from management authority (1993 Company Law). The
subsequent changes were complex. One was the liquidation or privatization of small
companies with poor financial performance (fang) and the reform and reorganization oflarge companies with good performance as state-owned companies (zhua) (1997). Anotherchange was the retention of ownership of assets of the remaining state-owned companies
by the newly established, State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration
Commissions at the state and local level (2002). However, it is unclear whether theseincremental shifts will actually achieve the official transitional goal because many of theaforementioned residua of patrimonialism still function as persistent resistance factors
against state-owned enterprise reform. It must be remembered that state-owned enterprises
were responsible for the promotion of technological innovations and industrial policy in53

China throughout the planned period and the reform and open period, and that they
contributed to the employment of excess labor. (The institutional factors that made thispossible have not been studied extensively.) It seems that, since the 1990s, state-owned
enterprises have gone through a shakeout due to various reforms and have became fewer
and more efficient. According to data from 2001 of all state-owned enterprises (whose
share in total industrial output shrank to 18.1%), those incuring losses accounted for 51.2%.
On average, the sales/profit ratio was 6.3%, the net profit ratio was 3.7%, and thedebt/equity ratio was 158% (213% for the entire industrial sector). These numbers suggest
that, despite the good performance of TFP (total factor productivity), their financial
performance is still weak..

・In the 1980s, in conjunction with the program to develop township and village companies
there was progress in the industrialization of agricultural villages based on former people’scommunes (she-dui companie) and involving the handicraft industry and small-scale

Agriculture,merchants in the same local area. This was a positive response by the self-support sector oftownship andthe planned period to breakthroughs in agricultural technology and production as a result ofvillagetheir liberation from the constraints of the commune system. It increased demand as a resultcompanies,of the improved economic conditions of farming households and the support they received

privatefrom their local communities. The groundwork for the breakthroughs in agriculturalcompanies

technology was laid during the time of the communes by projects for flood control,
irrigation and cultivation of high-yielding varieties. Demand for the products of townshipand village companies was particularly strong in the 1980s when niches existed due toinsufficient supply from state-owned enterprise with the result that the total output of
township and village industrial companies soon surpassed that of state-owned enterprises.
After the niches disappeared and market competition intensified, township and village
companies entered an adjustment period followed disintegration at both extremes. Thosecompanies that survived took various forms of business enterprise: joint-stock company,
joint-stock limited company and corporate group. They were privatized or turned into
group companies. As of 2001, their industrial output was substantially larger than that ofstate-owned enterprises. These companies under the administrative jurisdiction of townshipand village governments have also been restricted by the residua of patrimonialism, butthey created an effective model that supported the market-oriented industrialization ofChina’s transitional economy.

・China never received structural adjustment loans or poverty reduction strategy loans withconditionalities from the World Bank or IMF. China joined those organizations in 1980, but54both the Bank and the IMF determined that China’s development was a special case withDonor
assistanceunique initial conditions and they refrained from intervening except for necessary advice onmacroeconomic and structural issues. Notable bilateral assistance included the first andsecond loans from the Export-Import Bank and the first and second Yen Loans from Japanfor coal and oil development, as well as project assistance for the construction oftransportation routes and auxiliary facilities to move the coal and oil to port for export..
Those projects were conceived and designed on the initiative of China., itself.
・During the planned period, the growth rate showed an average level (NDMP) of 6.2%
between 1956 and 1966 and 4.9% between 1966 and 1976 despite the cataclysms caused by
the policies of Mao Zedong such as the great leap forward and the cultural revolution.

Growthperformance(The era of thePeople’sRepublic)

During the reform and open period, to the present time, the economic growth rate reachedas high as about 9% of GDP and in 2000 China joined the ranks of lower middle income
developing countries. The mode of economic change evolved from one of cataclysm causedby artificial policy interventions to a stop-and-go mode where an increase in aggregate
demand due to an overheated economy was suppressed by administrative means and then,after 1991, to a market economy mode where it is possible to achieve a soft landing throughmonetary and fiscal policies.

・ The decisive factor during the reform and open period was that the approach ofdecentralizing policy over all economic areas in the first 15 years (fanguan rangli)
produced agricultural breakthroughs Æ improved economic conditions of farmers Æ

Development
mechanism

increased industrialization of agricultural villages Æ created the modern, private sector.
Linked to this was the success of the foreign capital import policy which initially took theform of special economic zones. This led to increased production and export by FDI
throughout the period. Contrary to expectations, the delegation of authority to state-owned
enterprise at that time facilitated the erosion of state-owned assets by insiders.
・The symbol of the decentralization policy was the introduction of separate tax systems. The
result of the parallel improvement in economic management was reflected in the
aforementioned growth performance, but risk factors remain. One is related to the effects of
the residua of patrimonialism. In the process of fiscal decentralization, the burden was
passed down to lower levels in the descending order of provinces, city/county, and finallytownship commissariat/village, which ultimate brought the burden down to the common
farmer. This was a new phenomenon in agricultural production and it caused the three
agricultural problem situation. The new phenomenon was that increases in food production
after the 1980s rose dramatically due to demand saturation, necessitating the adoption of
producer protection policies.

55Appendix 6:

Patrimonialism in Thailand―Notes on the Sakdine System

The Sakdine system up to the 1932 Constitutional Revolution:
The Sakdine system is a system of governance legally established in Thailand in 1455 during the
Ayudhya dynasty (1376-1767). It lasted until the 1932 Constitutional Revolution under the Chakri(Rattanakosin) Dynasty of the eighth King of Bangkok (1782-present). The system has been studied byRobert Lingat, a Frenchman who served as a legal advisor to the Thai government between 1924 and1940, and Chatthip Nartsupha, Professor of Economics at Chulalongkorn University, among others.
Their research was introduced in Japan by Koichi Nonaka and Akira Suehiro, who were researchers at
the Institute of Developing Economies. (Chatthip Nartsupha, edited and translated by Nonaka andSuehiro, Thai Sonraku Keizaishi (Economic History of Thai Villages), Imura Bunka Jigyousha, 1987.)
In the Sakdine system, the King was an absolute monarch and the sole owner of all the land in the
country. There was a bureaucratic class of administrative officers and ostensibly land was distributed
among them in accordance with their official ranks. “Sakdine,” according to Lingat, was the term given
to the size of this distributed land. The common people lived in self-sufficient communities but were
obligated to pay taxes and provide compulsory labor in return for occupying the land. There were nolords. This system has the general characteristics of patrimonialism described in this report and the term
“patrimonial” often appears in the literature referred to below. The following is a summary of the
Sakdine system based on the book edited and translated by Nonaka and Suehiro.
(1) The King and the realm: In the early Ayudhya era, there were three major principles to the landsystem. (1) The King was the sole owner of the land. This was a significant prerogative because there
was a custom by which use of land could be divided and exchanged among the people. This custom
later disappeared, however, becaming nothing more than a basis for tax collection and compulsory
labor. (2) People were prohibited from buying and selling land. In Bangkok’s Chakri (Rattanakosin)
Dynasty this ban remained for unused wasteland but ceased to be enforced with regard to farmland.
(3) People’s rights to land were weak. When a person occupied the land only, without cultivating it,
the rights would be lost. Subsequently, ownership and occupancy were separated.
(2) Finances of the royal household: Beginning in the Ayudhya era, the most important source of reveue
for the royal treasury was the land tax. The land tax on rice paddies plowed by cows and rain-fed
paddy fields continued until the Bangkok era. Initially collected against rice yields, this tax later was
levied according to the area of owned or cultivated land. In addition, labor was commandeered to
produce rice for contribution to the state. The term of labor was 6 months per year during the
Ayudhya era, shortened to 4 months in the Bangkok era, and subsequently to 3 months.
(3) Civilian and military officials were accorded paddy fields of a certain size based on their rank, title
and government post. Whether they actually received the land is unclear. Lingat, among others,

56argues that this may have been simply a means for recognizing official rank
(4) The communities in which the subjects lived had strong internal bonds and were by nature at odds
with the state, a conflict clearly manifested in the system of commandeered labor. Village self-rule
was managed by elders’ councils which arbitrated to resolve conflicts. Although there were slaves inThai society, they were debt or war slaves, few in numbes and treated as members of the family.
Chakri Reforms of King Rama V
King Rama V (King Chulalongkorn; 1868-1910) of the Chakri Dynasty is reported to have been an
intelligent monarch, comparable to Japan’s Emperor Meiji. He implemented a series of modernizing
reforms with the intent of avoiding colonization, as happened to neighboring countries, as a result of the
Bowring Treaty which he signed in 1865 under pressure from England. In fact, he is said to have modeled
his reforms on the British colonial administrations of Burma and Malay. Chayan and Ukrist (1987) list
what they regard to be the four major reforms: (1) To cement his power within the country, he annexed
northern, northeastern and southern Thailand which until then had been semi-independent, tributary states.
(2) He modernized the bureaucracy by completely revamping the existing four central government
ministries (kroms) . The most important functions -- maintenance of territorial integrity, national defense,
diplomacy, finance, transportation, education and training, and the judiciary -- were reorganized into
newly created ministries. The Interior Ministry was the first to be reorganized, and it served as midwife to
the others. These new ministries extended their jurisdiction throughout the country and replaced rulingaristocrats with salaried bureaucrats. Rama V’s reforms created a strong bureaucratic state ruled over by
King and royal family. The bueaucratic machinery, with the Interior Ministry at its core, effectively drewin surpluses (taxes, forest leases, mining royalties) from the rural provinces. (3) There was also education
reform; however, this was elite education for the purpose of grooming the children of the royal family, thenobilility and high-ranking officials to become bureaucrats. Expensive tuitions were required to keep out
the children of commoners. (4) The forth major reform was implementation of conscription (1888
Military Law, revised in 1905).
In terms of substance, Lingat and Chatthip give importance to King Rama V’s reforms that liberalized
factors of production and product markets, including the issuance of land title certificates with maps inconnection with land transaction libralization, the adoption of the Torrens Title System, the emancipationof slaves (which began in 1874), and the adoption of money payments for taxes and in place ofcommandeered labor (1901 Commandeered Labor Payment Law, etc.). Indeed, shortly after theconclusion of the Bowring Treaty, uncultivated land in the Chao Phraya Delta began to be worked to meetgrowing demand from British trading companies for exportable rice. A network of canals was excavatedin the Delta with capital provided by the royal rousehold and royal families. The canals were essential for
distributing water evenly throughout the area for farming and for transporting people, materials andharvested rice. A massive movement of farmers, including freed slaves, took place. From that time, the57

population of the Delta, the cultivation acreage, and the value of rice exports grew continually at anannual rate of 3% until World War I. Behind all of these changes was the institutional modernization of
the Chakri Reforms.
1932 Constitutional (Monarchy) Revolution
King Rama V’s modernization policies left behind the challenges of political reform. During the reign ofKing Rama VIII after the death of Rama V a group of young Army and Navy officers and civilian
officials organized a coup d’état. The group called itself the People’s Party, a common people’s group. It
declared the following: (1) The Council of War and, the Privy Council will be dissolved and control of themilitary will be transferred from the absolute monarch to a commander-in-chief. (2) The government will
have full powers to govern the country without prior approval from the King. (3) The People’s Party willassume administrative authority (until 1946). Ministerial and departmental bureaucrats will be replacedby members of the People’s Party. Even members of the royal family who held important government
positions were removed or went into exile.
The foregoing is an account of the emergence and passage of patrimonialism in Thailand with respect to
the Sakdine system. However, patrimonialism itself continued, but in a different form. The People’s Party
took over the government, but it was unable to raise sufficient funds to support itself or to maintain thestate finances. It was forced to resort to the creation of state enterprises, leading to the creation of too
many state enterprises and the formation of governmental cliques. It may be that a long-term solution for
patrimonialism is not possible without the formation of the industries and social classes appropriate for amodern political system. In the 1930s, these did not exist.

58

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