The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (199 page)

 
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‘Rule by the father’. A doctrine especially associated with
Filmer
: political authority was divine authority, descended from Adam through the kings of Israel to modern kings. Thus it justified the
divine right of kings
. The word is also used by feminists to decry the practice, whether principled or unthinking, of giving primacy to fathers, sons, and/or men over mothers, daughters, and/or women. Patriarchal practices of all sorts are widespread even in societies which claim to practice equal opportunities.

 
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Patriotism has always been defined as love of one's country or zeal in the defence of the interests of one's country. Patriotism as such does not necessitate a programme of action; it stimulates and informs nationalism, but is not always nationalistic. In the eighteenth century reference to it was often ironic, as when Dr Johnson defined a patriot as ‘a factious disturber of the government’. He also said that ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel’, referring particularly to the demagogue John Wilkes . Such ironic reservations about the virtue of patriotism are a frequent theme of much modern commentary, often prompting the bitter reflection by self-ascribed patriots that, ‘Patriotism has become a dirty word’.
LA 

 
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English ‘patron’ directly follows Latin
patronus
in the meaning ‘protector, defender’. In the medieval church it also acquired the meaning of ‘one who has the right to nominate a clergyman to occupy a parish’. These two senses are nicely blended in the concept of political patronage. In Victorian and Edwardian Britain, the civil service office of Patronage Secretary to the Treasury was charged with distributing favours to government supporters in return for votes. W. E. Gladstone was presented to the electors of Newark by the patron of the seat (the Duke of Newcastle) in 1832; they duly voted for him, as they were expected to. Gladstone in turn asked the Patronage Secretary for jobs for a constituent, to be turned down on the grounds that ‘we must look first at the claims of our political supporters and our patronage is … quite inadequate to meet the applications of members of the H of C in favor [
sic
] of their constituents’. Gladstone was one of those mainly responsible for reducing this patronage through reform of the
civil service
and the army. The patronage office still exists in the British Civil Service; its role is to check that political honours are not given to inappropriate people, as in the period from 1916 to 1922 when Lloyd George sold them. This function has not been proposed for (re)privatization since 1979.
In the United States, political patronage followed very similar lines, hence the Progressive concern with civil service reform. However, some federal posts both high and low (ambassadorships, postmasterships) are still openly the subject of patronage. See also
machine
.

 
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Class of people, of low social status, who depend mainly on agricultural labour for subsistence.
Peasants work the land, but even where they do not own the land they work they are distinguished from serfs by their freedom to move and to dispose of at least a part of any surplus output through the market. Still of great consequence in populous Asiatic societies such as India, they are a much diminished class in Europe. Their political role was problematic for the victorious Bolsheviks in Russia after 1917 since
Marx
had envisaged socialism growing out of the clash of bourgeoisie and proletariat in industrialized societies where the peasantry were of little account. After an initial attempt to present their regime as one legitimated by an alliance of workers and peasants, the Bolsheviks effectively destroyed the Russian peasantry or
kulaks
through collectivization of agriculture. For Chinese Communists, a generation later, the rural population was of such overwhelming importance that peasants had to be given greater ideological recognition in Maoism, but they were once again deprived of effective access to markets by collectivization of agriculture until 1978. In both the Soviet Union and China the fall in agricultural output following collectivization and its subsequent resurgence provided a cogent empirical critique of practical socialism. In Western Europe and North America, by contrast, the productivity of peasant and family farming has been far outpaced by larger-scale corporate agriculture, although peasant politics persisted (for instance, in the
Fourth Republic
).
CJ 

 
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