4 - Political Patronage: Underbelly of Everyday Politics

Summary

This chapter presents a historical and contemporary account of patronage politics as an important hegemony-building strategy of the ruling elites in Sri Lanka. It sheds light on how the birth of the political party system during British colonial rule was closely tied to the elites’ nurturing of the political patronage system in everyday and high politics that effectively combined the struggles for political power and domination at the centre and the material struggles of the lower classes in the peripheries.

THE ROOTS OF PATRONAGE POLITICS

The roots of contemporary manifestations of patronage politics in Sri Lanka can be traced back to the pre-colonial era (Swaris 1973). Pre-colonial patronage relations were transformed by colonial interference and administration, but strong elements of pre-colonial patronage survived through three long phases of European colonialisation (Portuguese, Dutch and British) and through the extraversion of economic exploitation, as well as the modernisation of state and society (Jayasundara-Smits 2010: 31). By the end of colonial rule, as in other former colonies, the trust of traditional authority structures in modern liberal political institutional structures implanted by the British was low. Uneven capitalist development in the country ensured that most Sri Lankans remained tied to the largely rural remains of the traditional agrarian society, where provision of needs was fashioned and negotiated through a web of well-established patronage relations that ran through the agrarian economy. The perpetuation of these relationships of patronage was not significantly altered during the years of British colonial rule, and even grew stronger after independence. The absence of a developed market economy and the lack of formal institutional mechanisms to mediate the affairs in the large agricultural sector are identified as factors that facilitated the strengthening effects of these networks in the post-colonial period, which was not unique to Sri Lanka (Archer 1990: 19; Boone 1994: 109).

According to one respondent, the contemporary dynamics of patronage politics rooted in patronage relations in the pre-colonial era is the result of people's experience with colonialism itself (R.1). As he opined further, although these institutions were embraced by the elite political leaders as pillars of the modern state and symbols of modernity, the rest of the society's ways of political communication, incorporation and participation were largely based on traditional and feudal means. These networks were instrumental in interest aggregation and satisfaction.