Patronage and Democracy

Abstract

This paper tries to compose a review of the concept of patronage, especially for its associations with formal democracy, populism and public policy. It assumes to understand patronage as a particular form of basic social relations in which the authority and reciprocity are more important than formal equality of its members, which complements, even with apparent contradictions, the democratic system. From there it emerges a reconsideration of the idea of populism and its character of legal-political type for the public policy development, and the critical ideological perspectives surrounding the concept.