POLS 3440 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Military Intelligence, Christine Keeler, John Profumo
3 Mar 2017
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Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. The word patron derives from the latin: "patronus" (patron), one who gives benefits to his clients. Political patronage is the use of state resources to reward individuals for their electoral support. As well, the term may refer to a type of corruption or favoritism in which a party in power rewards groups, families, ethnicities for their electoral support using illegal gifts or fraudulently awarded appointments or government contracts. The presence of a conflict of interest is independent of the occurrence of impropriety. Therefore, a conflict of interest can be discovered and voluntarily defused before any corruption occurs. These secondary interests are not treated as wrong in and of themselves, but become objectionable when they are believed to have greater weight than the primary interests.
