Albuquerque_Werner_political Patronage in Santa Catarina Brazil

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Political Patronage in Santa Catarina, Brazil Author(s): Cleidi Albuquerque and Dennis Werner Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1985), pp. 117-120Published by: on behalf of The University of Chicago Press Wenner-Gren Foundation for

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SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS

Political Patronage in Santa Catarina, Brazil'

by CLEIDI ALBUQUERQUE and DENNIS WERNER Rua Gel. Bittencourt, 47 (apto. 64), Florianopolis, Santa Catarina 88.000, Brazil. 10 VII 84

Patron-client relations in Latin America have received a good deal of attention in anthropology (e.g., Harris 1956, Wagley 1963, Wolf 1966, Gross 1973, Forman 1975, Leal 1975, Lom- nitz 1982, Cintra 1974). Often comparisons are made of these ties among diverse classes, regions, or social sectors. Some researchers (e.g., Lomnitz 1982) argue that the ties are much the same in vastly different situations. Probably part of the reluctance to consider variations in patronage systems lies in the difficulty of verifying differences, which may be quantitative rather than qualitative. That is, patron-client ties may be relatively more or less important for given social ends rather than simply "present" or "absent." In this study we attempt to illustrate how some of the questions about variations in patronage systems can be given a quantitative form that will permit more reliable comparisons. We are interested primarily in the role of political patrons in Brazil.

The important role political bosses play in the social life of poor, especially rural, Brazilians has been noted by an- thropologists for some time (Harris 1956, Wagley 1963, Gross 1973, Forman 1975, Leal 1975). Traditionally, such patrons have dispensed government and other favors in return for votes during elections. It is virtually impossible for a poor person to survive without these bosses. Harris (1956:192-94) and Wagley (1963:288) emphasize the role of political patrons in bestowing government jobs and promotions upon supporters, and Gross (1975) underlines the importance of political patrons in providing capital, credit, information, and other outside services.

At least in part, the presence of political patrons in Brazil may be related to a party structure that evolved in conjunction with poor communication systems and relatively self-sufficient socioeconomic structures (such as latifundia) that did not en- courage interregional articulation. Although political parties are required by Brazilian election laws to formulate broad political programs, these programs have not generally been divulged to the public. At the local level, personal loyalties rather than party platforms typically determine elections. In this highly personalized election system, political bosses play a crucial role, for it is they alone who can guarantee the votes necessary to carry an election. The votes promised by those who have received help from the political bosses are important enough for such bosses to buy political loyalty in return for such rewards as government jobs or other services.

While conceding that these bosses are common throughout Brazil, most researchers (e.g., Wagley 1963, Leal 1975) emphasize their greater importance in Brazil's poorer Northeast. Forman (1975) distinguishes between "patron-dependency" relationships, in which dependents have no choice over their bosses, and "patron-client" relationships, in which some choice is possible. According to Forman, because of their ties to the land and the limited economy, poor Brazilian Northeasterners have traditionally had fewer opportunities to "select" their patrons. This has given the political bosses autocratic control over their dependents. In the more developed areas of Brazil, such as the South, people are more independent and patrons

must compete for clients, who thus have greater liberty to opt for different intermediaries between themselves and the outside world. Kottak (1983) extends this argument to discussions of Northeastern communities located near urban centers. Be- cause of greater economic opportunities, individuals in such communities may also enjoy the liberty to "choose" their political patrons. Various researchers have pointed to these pre- sumed regional differences as indicative of possible changes occurring in Brazilian society as the country becomes more industrialized. Most hope to see the political bosses, and the nepotism and corruption they imply, disappear as soon as possible. Yet, despite the interest in regional comparisons there has been little research on the role of these political figures in Brazil's more developed areas.

This study uses quantitative data to examine the nature of political bosses in a fishing village of Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil. It concentrates primarily on the role played by cabos eleitorais ("campaign managers") in the social lives of the village's residents. By examining the reasons people turn to these political patrons we hope to better our understanding of why such patrons remain popular even in more developed areas. From this knowledge we hope to gain a clearer idea of what is needed to replace these traditional political bosses with viable alternatives.

The study is based on fieldwork carried out by the main author in 1982 and 1983 in a fishing village (fictitiously named Tainhas) located some 25 km from the center of Florianopolis, the capital of Santa Catarina. Until 1970 Tainhas was accessi- ble only by boat or by paths not suitable for cars. Today, a paved road brings regular bus service into the community, although people still talk of distances in terms of the time needed to get to places by boat. A public school, offering classes up to the fourth-grade level, was established in Tainhas in 1969, and in 1977 it was expanded to include classes up to the eighth-grade level. Today it employs 30 persons. In 1977 the city government placed a medical doctor in a newly established community health center. Other institutions in Tainhas include the center of a fishermen's cooperative and a fishing research station.

Today Tainhas includes some 700 houses. With the development of tourism in Florianopolis during the summer months of November to March, Tainhas has become a popular summer resort. Some 40% of the houses in the community now belong to summer tourists. The remaining houses belong primarily to fishermen or ex-fishermen and their families and include ap- proximately 1,700 people. About half of the village's men still fish for a living (partly for large companies based in Santos and Itajai and partly on an individual basis). The other half work in commercial establishments for tourists, in the village's public institutions, or in the center of Florianopolis. Even these men sometimes combine their "city" jobs with fishing tasks such as mending nets. Over half of the men's wives do lacework to sell to tourists. Some single women work as maids. Many children help in collecting crabs, oysters, and clams and in packaging or selling fish.

The research identified nine cabos eleitorais (all male) in Tainhas. Six of them were born in the area, and eight now live there. Five hold regular jobs in Florianopolis, one is a local store owner, one is a fisherman, and two are retired. All attempt to gather votes for their political parties and are known for the favors they bestow on their supporters. One Tainhas cabo eleitoral, who was born elsewhere and is a corporal in the army, attached himself to the local church leadership, in which position he has promoted local festivals and taken the initiative of constructing a parish house. The wives of these cabos eleitorais aid their husbands in gaining political support. For example, one wife (also born outside the community) took on the task of organizing the local women to meet periodically in her home to do handicraft work.

How much do Tainhas residents depend on these political 1 ? 1985 by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Re-

search, all rights reserved 0011-3204/85/2601-0007$1.00.

Vol. 26 * No. 1 * February 1985 117


bosses? How does their use of political bosses compare with their use of other less politicized social ties? And what are the alternatives to political patronage? To answer these questions, more quantitative data were gathered on the use people make of political patrons and others to meet their needs.

PROCEDURES

To understand the nature of the ties between cabos eleitorais and the residents of Tainhas, this study uses data gathered by the main author in a study designed to examine the articulation of public institutions with their clients in Tainhas (Albuquer- que 1983). For this study, interviews were conducted with all of the public employees working in Tainhas and a random sample of Tainhas residents. The resident sample was derived by first obtaining from the municipal government a map of the area showing all of the houses. A random sample of houses was drawn, and all of the adults in these houses were interviewed. Summer tourist homes were excluded from the sample, leaving 15 households (36 adults) to be interviewed.

The interview consisted of informal chatting and the admin- istration of an interview schedule. Institutional employees were asked questions about their career histories and problems, their ties to and participation in the community, and their attitudes toward their institutions and clients. Residents were asked about their ties to, attitudes toward, and participation in the institutions and in public life generally. The ques- tionnaire included questions intended to "map" the use by residents of various kinds of informal and formal social ties- including their use of cabos eleitorais.

This mapping of social ties was done in two steps. First, informants were asked to give up to five names (of people from different households) in response to each of such questions as "Who visits you most?" "Whom do you seek for help if you need a job?" "Whom do you seek for help with official documents?" and "To whom can you turn if you need to borrow money?" The names obtained in answer to these questions were then entered on another sheet of the interview schedule where various characteristics of the people cited could be recorded. These characteristics included age, sex, income, occu- pation, kinship ties to the informant, and special roles such as "local institutional employee" or cabo eleitoral. Cabos eleitorais were identified as such by the informants, who recog- nized the role of these people in obtaining votes in exchange for such individual services as school matriculation, hospital beds, and jobs and such public services as buses, electricity, or road construction. Some of the cabos eleitorais had set up local

offices to handle their affairs. As mentioned above, nine cabos eleitorais were identified in this manner. (Copies of the ques- tionnaire and of data codings are available from the main author.)

With this social mapping technique it was possible to ana- lyze data two ways. First, we could examine the types of problems for which different kinds of people were cited. This would give us an idea of the functions of various social ties. Here we were interested primarily in the types of activities for which cabos eleitorais would be called upon. Second, we could compare the personal characteristics of informants with the characteristics of the people they cited. We wanted to know which kinds of people depended most on the cabos eleitorais.

Besides the more structured information obtained through use of these interview schedules, less formal data were col- lected about community affairs, especially about conflicts between public institutions and community residents. These data often required returning for second or third interviews with the same persons.

POLITICAL PATRONS AND SOCIAL LIFE

Table 1 summarizes data from Tainhas residents on the types of people cited for different kinds of problems. The number of citations of people of a given social category is recorded for each question. Some people were cited more than once (for different types of problems) and therefore appear several times under different headings. For example, a man may be a relative of the informant and also a neighbor or a store owner. He will thus appear in the row for each of these social categories. In addition, if this man is cited both for loans and for visits, he will appear in each of these columns. The table illustrates the contrasting functions served by different social categories. Rel- atives are cited most often for loans. They are cited somewhat less for visits. On the other hand, neighbors and friends are cited less for loans and more for visits. These associations can be explained fairly simply. Friends and neighbors live closer to each other and can visit more easily than relatives, but since they may come and go with time, they may be less willing to lend each other money. In contrast, relatives are for life, even though they may live farther away and may have less socially in common with the person to whom they are lending money. Thus, loans are much more secure. Store owners serve much the same functions as friends and neighbors. They are cited primarily for visits and secondarily for lending money. Cabos eleitorais are called upon for jobs and, less often, for political advice. This association is especially marked because, al-

TABLE 1

SOCIAL CATEGORIES AND PERSONAL PROBLEMS

REASON FOR CITATION

PERSON Advice on Election CITED Loans Visits Illness Jobs Advice Documents

Relative .3 1 .. 31 19 20 6 7 18 Neighbor .1 9 .. 19 38 13 5 3 5 Friend . 1 3 .. 13 37 4 5 3 2 Political

patron .0 0 0 6 4 2 Store owner .5 5 7 2 0 0 1 Tourist .1 3 0 4 1 1 Institutional

employee .0 0 0 2 2 0 2 No one .0 0 0 0 9 3 15

NOTE: Responses of 36 Tainhas residents. Figures refer to the numbers of persons cited by these residents in response to questions about whom they sought for the specific problems listed (e.g., "Whom do you seek if you need to borrow money?"). The characteristics of the cited persons listed in the first column were determined by asking residents about all of the persons they had mentioned in their earlier answers (e.g., "Is X a tourist?").

118 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY


though Tainhas residents depend heavily on kin, neighbors, and friends for most things, they depend much less on these people for jobs.

Dependence on political patrons for jobs has been much discussed in studies of Brazilian society. Harris (1956) and Wagley (1963) argue that in large part the interest of Brazilians in party politics may result from the direct relationship between party support and the acquisition of jobs and job promotions. Interviews with Tainhas institutional employees confirmed this close relationship. Many of these employees are from the area and have close contacts with the local political bosses. When asked how they had obtained their jobs, many hesitated before answering that they had been appointed because the directors felt that they (and their loyalty) "could be depended upon." Several attempted to justify their status by pointing out that they took specialized training courses to learn their jobs after their appointment. Institutional employees not born in Tainhas (and lacking ties to the local political bosses) were significantly less likely to have received their jobs through direct appointment (Albuquerque 1983) and more likely to have entered through civil service exams. The same holds true for acquisition of job security. All six of the Tainhas institutional employees with secure contracts and who were born outside the area had had to pass competitive exams, while all six of the Tainhas-born employees with such contracts had obtained them "informally."

A conflict between the Tainhas school director and a doctor from the local health center illustrates the importance of political patrons, even after jobs have already been acquired and when there are other sources of political-social support. The conflict began when a student, after receiving punishment from a teacher, was taken to the local doctor for treatment of head contusions. The student's mother, furious at the treatment her child had received from the teacher, told the doctor she planned to make a formal complaint with the police. The doctor recommended, instead, that she register the case with the legal-medical institute, since this would be a more effective procedure. In addition to following this advice, the irate mother appeared with her child on a local television program. Her appearance was followed by an appearance by the school director, who disclaimed any untoward violence toward the child.

A week later the school cook, complaining of pains, went to the same doctor who had treated the disciplined child. She returned later complaining that her pains persisted and that the treatment she had received had been ineffective. Soon af- terwards rumors began to circulate that, furious at the local doctor's helping of the irate mother, the school director was now attempting to remove him on charges of "medical negli- gence" in the case of the cook. The director related her case to one of the cabos eleitorais. The doctor's maid decided to help her employer by amassing names of local residents to support the doctor in City Hall, and she also sought the help of a local leader. It was not long before another of Tainhas's political patrons summoned this local leader to City Hall to discuss the question with the school director and another political patron. The two political patrons disagreed about the doctor's re- moval, and the doctor continued in his post.

This conflict illustrates two important aspects of political patrons' roles in the social life of Tainhas. First, it shows how residents attempt to gain support from many different sources before turning to the political patrons. This may be part of the "negotiating" aspect of the patron-client tie (see Lomnitz 1982) in which individuals attempt to demonstrate their popular support to the cabos eleitorais. Second, it shows the very real power of the political patrons to decide employment issues.

ALTERNATIVES TO POLITICAL BOSSES

While political patrons are extremely important for job acquisition, they are not the only sources of employment in Tainhas.

Table 1 shows that many people turn for jobs to relatives, neighbors, and friends. The influx of tourists into the area has supplied yet another source of employment. Tourists, many of whom own summer houses in Tainhas, depend on residents for maid service and for care of their homes during the winter months. As middle- or upper-class citizens they also sometimes have connections with the city of Florianopolis and can recom- mend Tainhas residents for outside employment. Local residents appreciate the opportunities supplied by the tourists and often develop warm affective relationships with them, although many local fishermen complain that tourists are hurting the local fish catch. Many of these advantages and disadvan- tages to tourism have also been pointed out for other fishing villages in Brazil (Figueiredo 1981).

The presence of tourists increases the choices Tainhas residents have about who their patrons might be. In Forman's (1975) terms, this is an improvement, since it makes for less "patron-dependency." Even better than replacing patron- dependency with patron-clientship would be the lessening of both. A fair number of Tainhas residents remarked that they would seek employment directly by going to employment lo- cales rather than depend on other individuals. Who are the people who depend most on the cabos eleitorais or other patrons, and what are the implications?

Table 2 shows the correlations between the personal characteristics of informants and the number of persons of different categories they cited. In general, people cited those who were like themselves. Men were more likely to cite men, older people to cite older people, migrants to Tainhas to cite other migrants, and those with more relatives in Tainhas to cite those relatives. Interestingly, it was those with few relatives in Tainhas and migrants to the area who most cited store owners and institutional employees. Apparently, these people were cited primarily by those who had no one else to turn to for such problems as the need to borrow money (see table 1). It seems they are not so much "patrons" as resources of last resort. Although correlations were weak, there was some tendency for men more than women to cite tourists, probably because men were more likely to need the jobs or information the tourists could provide. For much the same reasons, men cited cabos eleitorais more than did women. Although the coefficient is weak, probably the most important correlation in table 2 is that between educational level and citation of political patrons. Apparently those with more education are more independent in their search for jobs or handling of official documents. That the better-educated depend less on political bosses suggests that greater attention to education might reduce the power wielded by the cabos eleitorais.

Perhaps the most obvious way of reducing the power of political patrons is making job acquisition more open and competitive. On the face of it, this strategy sounds fairly rea- sonable, even though the conflict described above shows that competitive exams to obtain jobs do not guarantee that cabos eleitorais will have no influence on later job security. How- ever, there is another issue involved as well. Many presume that open competition is the most effective way of identifying the best person for a position, but data from Tainhas employees point to an often overlooked problem. Those institutional employees who had obtained their positions through open competition reported more difficulties with the people they were hired to serve than did those who had obtained their positions "informally" (r = .38, p < .05).

The basic problem here is that competitive exams usually favor outsiders with higher education and more middle-class backgrounds, while "informal" appointments often favor less- educated people of more modest local origins but with a greater affinity for the people to be served. Many local people, for example, resented having their children taught by "hippies" from other communities who did not properly discipline the children and who appeared in scanty clothes on the beach.

Vol. 26 * No. 1 * February 1985 119


TABLE 2

CORRELATIONS BETWEEN CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMANTS (N = 36) AND OF THOSE THEY CITE

INFORMANTS

CITED With Local PERSONS Wealthier More Educated Older Tainhas-born Male Relatives

Wealthier .............. .01 .12 -.14 -.41** .11 -.24 Older ................. -.14 -.62*** .66*** .04 .20 -.37** Tainhas-born ........... -.26 .02 .15 .62** -.01 .41** Male .................. -.02 - .24 .08 - .11 .46*** .03 Relative ............... -.26 -.14 .19 .44*** -.16 .39** Neighbor .............. -.37** -.35** .33** .01 .18 .07 Friend ................. .18 .44*** -.48*** .03 .12 .18 Store owners ........... .18 -.05 -.17 -.26 .07 -.31* Institutional

employee . ............ -.08 .09 .11 -.20 .07 -.31* Tourist ................ -.16 .10 -.01 .08 .25 -.12 Political patron ......... -.17 -.22 .11 .07 .25 .11

*p < .10. **p < .o5. *** p < .01.

They also complained that children wasted their time on such "irrelevant courses" as physical education and art, considered important by teachers from outside the community. In re- sponding to a complaint about the school lunch program, one public employee raised the ire of community residents by speaking disdainfully of the local diet of fish and manioc flour. This dilemma highlights what may be an inadvertent advan- tage to the political patronage system over a civil service system. If we are to find substitutes for political patronage, we will have to rethink the nature of open competitions so that they will favor those who can truly help the communities that public institutions are designed to serve.

Some international agencies (see International Conference on Primary Health Care 1978) have suggested favoring local participation in public institutions. This can be accomplished through various procedures which combine competitive exams with quota systems favoring local residents. The Tainhas study showed that institutional employees of local origin do, indeed, report fewer difficulties with their clients (r = .33, p < .05). A scale designed to measure participation of public employees in community life (Albuquerque 1983) also showed greater community participation on the part of locally born employees (r = .74, p < .001). However, local origins are not the only factor that promotes greater community integration of institutional employees. Greater job security also encourages more community participation (r = .73, p < .001). Partial correlations showed that job security predicts community participation independently of origins (partial r = .42) or resi- dence (partial r = .46). Evidently the feeling that one may spend his or her life in a community institution provides psy- chological or other incentives to take greater part in the activities of one's clients.

CONCLUSIONS

There are many variables that may affect the nature of political patronage systems. The factors mentioned here-greater ability to choose among alternative patrons, greater education, and the effectiveness of competitive job exams-are only a start in our attempts to distinguish the causes and conse- quences of these important social ties throughout Latin America and elsewhere. As long as people have the right (or obligation) to vote there will be pressure for political candi- dates to muster support in any way possible. As long as voters can acquire advantages in their relationships with political bosses, the political patronage system will endure. The power

of these bosses will not be curbed by moral exhortations. Vi- able alternatives will have to be made available.

Comparisons of patron-client systems across regions, countries, or classes may be useful in helping us understand the reasons for variation in these systems and consequently aid us in suggesting possible avenues for change. However, in order to make such comparisons we will have to provide comparable data that can distinguish "more" from "less." At the moment it is very difficult to make such comparisons, since researchers collect data opportunistically. We hope that the present study will stimulate comparable quantitative research in different places. The social-mapping technique used here is easily adaptable to other situations and easily carried out. With better comparisons of patronage systems in different regions, classes, and social strata, we will be in a far better situation to draw secure conclusions about the benefits and drawbacks of these systems, and we will have a more secure basis for attempting to bring about change.

References Cited ALBUQUERQUE, C. 1983. Tecendo redes sociais: A articulacao de in-

stituic6es sociais numa localidade pesqueira de Santa Catarina. Un- published M.A. thesis, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Santa Catarina, Brazil.

CINTRA, A. D. 1974. A politica tradicional Brasileira: Uma inter- pretacdo das relacoes entre o centro e a periferia. Cadernos do De- partamento de Ciencia Politica, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais 1.

FIGUEIREDO, M. 1981. 0 papel socio-economico das mulheres chefes de familia numa comunidade pesqueira do litoral norte da Bahia. Caderno de Debate 6.

FORMAN, S. 1975. The Brazilian peasantry. New York: Columbia University Press.

GROSS, D. 1973. Factionalism and local-level politics in rural Brazil. Journal of Anthropological Research 29:123-44.

HARRIS, M. 1956. Town and country in Brazil. New York: Norton. International Conference on Primary Health Care. 1978. Geneva:

World Health Organization. KOTTAK, C. P. 1983. Assault on paradise: Social change in a Brazilian

village. New York: Random House. LEAL, V. N. 1975. Coronelismo, enxada e voto. Sao Paulo: Alfa e

Omega. LOMNITZ, L. 1982. Horizontal and vertical relations and the social

structure of urban Mexico. Latin American Research Review 17(2):51-72.

WAGLEY, C. 1963. An introduction to Brazil. New York: Columbia University Press.

WOLF, E. 1966. "Kinship, friendship, and patron-client relationships in complex societies," in Social anthropology of complex societies. Edited by M. Banton, DD. 1-22. London: Tavistock.

120 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY


Article Contentsp. 117p. 118p. 119p. 120

Issue Table of ContentsCurrent Anthropology, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1985) pp. 1-166Front Matter [pp. ]The "Dyuktai Culture" and New World Origins [and Comments and Reply] [pp. 1-20]Numerical Taxonomy: Old Techniques and New Assumptions [and Comments and Reply] [pp. 21-41]Institutions [pp. 41]Mode of Subsistence and Folk Biological Taxonomy [and Comments and Reply] [pp. 43-64]Serials [pp. 64]Wanted [pp. 64]Darwinian Selection, Symbolic Variation, and the Evolution of Culture [and Comments and Reply] [pp. 65-88]Our Readers Write [pp. 88]Development Literature and Writers from Underdeveloped Countries: The Case of Turkey [and Comments and Reply] [pp. 89-102]Archeological Implications of Traditional House Construction Among the Nchumuru of Northern Ghana [and Comments and Reply] [pp. 103-115]Prizes [pp. 115]Political Patronage in Santa Catarina, Brazil [pp. 117-120]The Effects of Television Viewing: A Cross-cultural Perspective [pp. 121-126]The Beginnings of Agriculture in West Africa: Botanical Evidence [pp. 127-129]Research ConclusionsHunting Ability and Reproductive Success Among Male Ache Foragers: Preliminary Results [pp. 131-133]Distribution of the Sweat Lodge in Alcohol Treatment Programs [pp. 134-135]

Calendar [pp. 135]Discussion and CriticismOn Hominoid Evolution [pp. 137-138]On Chimpanzee Diets [pp. 138]On the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition: Reply to Narr [pp. 138-139]On the Dangers of Serpents in the Mind [pp. 139-152]

Recent Publications [pp. 153-156]Research Grants [pp. 156-161]Editor's Report [pp. 163-166]Back Matter [pp. ]

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