During the 2011 uprisings in the Arab world, protesters demanded the ouster of authoritarian forms of rule and an end to the influence of ruling families on politics, society, and the economy. These upheavals revealed that patrimonial power in its diverse forms is still a dynamic force in global politics, able to shape world events. This volume brings the study of patrimonialism back to center stage and presents the concept as a useful tool to analyze how nations, global developments, and international relations are influenced and transformed. Leading scholars show that patrimonial practices, present throughout history, are important features of global capitalist modernity. The authors analyze patrimonial politics in regions throughout the world, including in the United States, Tunisia, Chile, France, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Poland, and Russia.

This volume will appeal to students of politics and policy and to a multidisciplinary scholarly audience in political sociology, historical social science, history, and social theory.

"Patrimonial Alliances and Failures of State Penetration: An Historical Dynamic of Crime, Corruption, Gangs, and Mafias" - Randall Collins
"Plebiscitarian Patrimonialism in Putin's Russia: Legitimating Authoritarianism in a Postideological Era" - Stephen E. Hanson
Central and Local Patrimonialism: State-Building in Kin-Based Societies" - Mounira M. Charrad
"The Legacies of Patrimonial Patriarchalism: Political Legitimacy in Allende's Chile" - Gwynn Thomas
"Patrimonialism, Elite Networks, and Reform in Late-Eighteenth Century Poland" - Paul McLean
"Where the State Feared to Tread: Conscription and Local Patriarchalism in Modern France" - Dorit Geva
"African Patrimonialism in Historical Perspective: Assessing Decentralized and Privatized Tax Administration" - Edgar Kiser and Audrey Sacks
"Political Familism in Lebanon" - Suad Joseph
"The Triple Threat: Interlocking Patrimonialisms and State Formation in Qing China and Early Modern Europe" - Liping Wang and Julia Adams
"Patrimony and Collective Capacity: An Analytical Outline" - Ivan Ermakoff
"American Patrimonialism: The Return of the Repressed" - Richard Lachmann