Patronage op het Mexicaanse platteland. Veranderingen in functies en structuur onder invloed van het moderniseringsproces

Samenvatting

The first phase of patronage is the contact of indigenous culture with western man. This occurred in Mexico with the arrival of the Spanish. Modernizing leadership typifies the second stage, where most developing nations now find themselves. Mexico since 1940, has been in the third stage: the transformation into a modern, industrial society. The concern here is with the phenomenon of patronage in the 2nd phase. Before this period, the Indian villages of Mexico did not have patron-client relationships. Gradually, the villages became dependent on the local hacienda and the hacendado who owned it. After the end of colonial rule, the local systems were incorporated into the national state, which meant diminishing influence for the hacendado. This void was often filled by military leaders, or caudillos, the chief of whom was the president of the country, Porfirio Diaz. The hacendado in many cases lost his power as intermediary between the peasants and the central government. While the military caudillo had the function of distributing the land, he frequently kept some of the functions of the patron, and reserved the best land for himself and his friends. The distribution of land may also have led to social differentiation within the village community, where certain of the farmers managed to obtain more land, and thus had a closer relationship with the caudillo. Due to the delay with which land distribution took place in some regions, the caudillos lost their power, and the land reforms were more directly supervised by the government, resulting in the final demise of the hacienda system. P. Tiersma