Another day, another theory of Trump analysis.
The word today: patrimonialism.
www.theatlantic.com
Since taking office, he has reduced his administration’s effectiveness by appointing to essential agencies people who lack the skills and temperaments to do their jobs. His mass firings have emptied the civil service of many of its most capable employees. He has defied laws that he could just as easily have followed (for instance, refusing to notify Congress 30 days before firing inspectors general). He has disregarded the plain language of statutes, court rulings, and the Constitution, setting up confrontations with the courts that he is likely to lose. Few of his orders have gone through a policy-development process that helps ensure they won’t fail or backfire—thus ensuring that many will.
In foreign affairs, he has antagonized Denmark, Canada, and Panama; renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”; and unveiled a Gaz-a-Lago plan. For good measure, he named himself chair of the Kennedy Center, as if he didn’t have enough to do.
Even those who expected the worst from his reelection (I among them) expected more rationality. Today, it is clear that what has happened since January 20 is not just a change of administration but a change of regime—a change, that is, in our system of government. But a change to what?
Graeme Wood: Germany’s anti-extremist firewall is collapsing
There is an answer, and it is not classic authoritarianism—nor is it autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy. Trump is installing what scholars call patrimonialism. Understanding patrimonialism is essential to defeating it. In particular, it has a fatal weakness that Democrats and Trump’s other opponents should make their primary and relentless line of attack.
Last year, two professors published a book that deserves wide attention. In The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future, Stephen E. Hanson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary, and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, a political scientist at UC Irvine, resurface a mostly forgotten term whose lineage dates back to Max Weber, the German sociologist best known for his seminal book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Weber wondered how the leaders of states derive legitimacy, the claim to rule rightfully. He thought it boiled down to two choices. One is rational legal bureaucracy (or “bureaucratic proceduralism”), a system in which legitimacy is bestowed by institutions following certain rules and norms. That is the American system we all took for granted until January 20. Presidents, federal officials, and military inductees swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a person.
The other source of legitimacy is more ancient, more common, and more intuitive—“the default form of rule in the premodern world,” Hanson and Kopstein write. “The state was little more than the extended ‘household’ of the ruler; it did not exist as a separate entity.” Weber called this system “patrimonialism” because rulers claimed to be the symbolic father of the people—the state’s personification and protector. Exactly that idea was implied in Trump’s own chilling declaration: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Patrimonialism’s antithesis is not democracy; it is bureaucracy, or, more precisely, bureaucratic proceduralism. Classic authoritarianism—the sort of system seen in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—is often heavily bureaucratized. When authoritarians take power, they consolidate their rule by creating structures such as secret police, propaganda agencies, special military units, and politburos. They legitimate their power with legal codes and constitutions. Orwell understood the bureaucratic aspect of classic authoritarianism; in 1984, Oceania’s ministries of Truth (propaganda), Peace (war), and Love (state security) are the regime’s most characteristic (and terrifying) features.
By contrast, patrimonialism is suspicious of bureaucracies; after all, to exactly whom are they loyal? They might acquire powers of their own, and their rules and processes might prove obstructive. People with expertise, experience, and distinguished résumés are likewise suspect because they bring independent standing and authority. So patrimonialism stocks the government with nonentities and hacks, or, when possible, it bypasses bureaucratic procedures altogether. When security officials at USAID tried to protect classified information from Elon Musk’s uncleared DOGE team, they were simply put on leave. Patrimonial governance’s aversion to formalism makes it capricious and even whimsical—such as when the leader announces, out of nowhere, the renaming of international bodies of water or the U.S. occupation of Gaza.
Also unlike classic authoritarianism, patrimonialism can coexist with democracy, at least for a while. As Hanson and Kopstein write, “A leader may be democratically elected but still seek to legitimate his or her rule patrimonially. Increasingly, elected leaders have sought to demolish bureaucratic administrative states (‘deep states,’ they sometimes call them) built up over decades in favor of rule by family and friends.” India’s Narendra Modi, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and Trump himself are examples of elected patrimonial leaders—and ones who have achieved substantial popular support and democratic legitimacy. Once in power, patrimonialists love to clothe themselves in the rhetoric of democracy, like Elon Musk justifying his team’s extralegal actions as making the “unelected fourth unconstitutional branch of government” be “responsive to the people.”
Nonetheless, as patrimonialism snips the government’s procedural tendons, it weakens and eventually cripples the state. Over time, as it seeks to embed itself, many leaders attempt the transition to full-blown authoritarianism. “Electoral processes and constitutional norms cannot survive long when patrimonial legitimacy begins to dominate the political arena,” write Hanson and Kopstein.
Even if authoritarianism is averted, the damage that patrimonialism does to state capacity is severe. Governments’ best people leave or are driven out. Agencies’ missions are distorted and their practices corrupted. Procedures and norms are abandoned and forgotten. Civil servants, contractors, grantees, corporations, and the public are corrupted by the habit of currying favor.
To say, then, that Trump lacks the temperament or attention span to be a dictator offers little comfort. He is patrimonialism’s perfect organism. He recognizes no distinction between what is public and private, legal and illegal, formal and informal, national and personal. “He can’t tell the difference between his own personal interest and the national interest, if he even understands what the national interest is,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump’s first term, told The Bulwark. As one prominent Republican politician recently told me, understanding Trump is simple: “If you’re his friend, he’s your friend. If you’re not his friend, he’s not your friend.” This official chose to be Trump’s friend. Otherwise, he said, his job would be nearly impossible for the next four years.
Patrimonialism explains what might otherwise be puzzling. Every policy the president cares about is his personal property. Trump dropped the federal prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams because a pliant big-city mayor is a useful thing to have. He broke with 50 years of practice by treating the Justice Department as “his personal law firm.” He treats the enforcement of duly enacted statutes as optional—and, what’s more, claims the authority to indemnify lawbreakers. He halted proceedings against January 6 thugs and rioters because they are on his side. His agencies screen hires for loyalty to him rather than to the Constitution.
The word today: patrimonialism.
One Word Describes Trump
A century ago, a German sociologist explained precisely how the president thinks about the world.
Since taking office, he has reduced his administration’s effectiveness by appointing to essential agencies people who lack the skills and temperaments to do their jobs. His mass firings have emptied the civil service of many of its most capable employees. He has defied laws that he could just as easily have followed (for instance, refusing to notify Congress 30 days before firing inspectors general). He has disregarded the plain language of statutes, court rulings, and the Constitution, setting up confrontations with the courts that he is likely to lose. Few of his orders have gone through a policy-development process that helps ensure they won’t fail or backfire—thus ensuring that many will.
In foreign affairs, he has antagonized Denmark, Canada, and Panama; renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”; and unveiled a Gaz-a-Lago plan. For good measure, he named himself chair of the Kennedy Center, as if he didn’t have enough to do.
Even those who expected the worst from his reelection (I among them) expected more rationality. Today, it is clear that what has happened since January 20 is not just a change of administration but a change of regime—a change, that is, in our system of government. But a change to what?
Graeme Wood: Germany’s anti-extremist firewall is collapsing
There is an answer, and it is not classic authoritarianism—nor is it autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy. Trump is installing what scholars call patrimonialism. Understanding patrimonialism is essential to defeating it. In particular, it has a fatal weakness that Democrats and Trump’s other opponents should make their primary and relentless line of attack.
Last year, two professors published a book that deserves wide attention. In The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future, Stephen E. Hanson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary, and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, a political scientist at UC Irvine, resurface a mostly forgotten term whose lineage dates back to Max Weber, the German sociologist best known for his seminal book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Weber wondered how the leaders of states derive legitimacy, the claim to rule rightfully. He thought it boiled down to two choices. One is rational legal bureaucracy (or “bureaucratic proceduralism”), a system in which legitimacy is bestowed by institutions following certain rules and norms. That is the American system we all took for granted until January 20. Presidents, federal officials, and military inductees swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a person.
The other source of legitimacy is more ancient, more common, and more intuitive—“the default form of rule in the premodern world,” Hanson and Kopstein write. “The state was little more than the extended ‘household’ of the ruler; it did not exist as a separate entity.” Weber called this system “patrimonialism” because rulers claimed to be the symbolic father of the people—the state’s personification and protector. Exactly that idea was implied in Trump’s own chilling declaration: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Patrimonialism’s antithesis is not democracy; it is bureaucracy, or, more precisely, bureaucratic proceduralism. Classic authoritarianism—the sort of system seen in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—is often heavily bureaucratized. When authoritarians take power, they consolidate their rule by creating structures such as secret police, propaganda agencies, special military units, and politburos. They legitimate their power with legal codes and constitutions. Orwell understood the bureaucratic aspect of classic authoritarianism; in 1984, Oceania’s ministries of Truth (propaganda), Peace (war), and Love (state security) are the regime’s most characteristic (and terrifying) features.
By contrast, patrimonialism is suspicious of bureaucracies; after all, to exactly whom are they loyal? They might acquire powers of their own, and their rules and processes might prove obstructive. People with expertise, experience, and distinguished résumés are likewise suspect because they bring independent standing and authority. So patrimonialism stocks the government with nonentities and hacks, or, when possible, it bypasses bureaucratic procedures altogether. When security officials at USAID tried to protect classified information from Elon Musk’s uncleared DOGE team, they were simply put on leave. Patrimonial governance’s aversion to formalism makes it capricious and even whimsical—such as when the leader announces, out of nowhere, the renaming of international bodies of water or the U.S. occupation of Gaza.
Also unlike classic authoritarianism, patrimonialism can coexist with democracy, at least for a while. As Hanson and Kopstein write, “A leader may be democratically elected but still seek to legitimate his or her rule patrimonially. Increasingly, elected leaders have sought to demolish bureaucratic administrative states (‘deep states,’ they sometimes call them) built up over decades in favor of rule by family and friends.” India’s Narendra Modi, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and Trump himself are examples of elected patrimonial leaders—and ones who have achieved substantial popular support and democratic legitimacy. Once in power, patrimonialists love to clothe themselves in the rhetoric of democracy, like Elon Musk justifying his team’s extralegal actions as making the “unelected fourth unconstitutional branch of government” be “responsive to the people.”
Nonetheless, as patrimonialism snips the government’s procedural tendons, it weakens and eventually cripples the state. Over time, as it seeks to embed itself, many leaders attempt the transition to full-blown authoritarianism. “Electoral processes and constitutional norms cannot survive long when patrimonial legitimacy begins to dominate the political arena,” write Hanson and Kopstein.
Even if authoritarianism is averted, the damage that patrimonialism does to state capacity is severe. Governments’ best people leave or are driven out. Agencies’ missions are distorted and their practices corrupted. Procedures and norms are abandoned and forgotten. Civil servants, contractors, grantees, corporations, and the public are corrupted by the habit of currying favor.
To say, then, that Trump lacks the temperament or attention span to be a dictator offers little comfort. He is patrimonialism’s perfect organism. He recognizes no distinction between what is public and private, legal and illegal, formal and informal, national and personal. “He can’t tell the difference between his own personal interest and the national interest, if he even understands what the national interest is,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump’s first term, told The Bulwark. As one prominent Republican politician recently told me, understanding Trump is simple: “If you’re his friend, he’s your friend. If you’re not his friend, he’s not your friend.” This official chose to be Trump’s friend. Otherwise, he said, his job would be nearly impossible for the next four years.
Patrimonialism explains what might otherwise be puzzling. Every policy the president cares about is his personal property. Trump dropped the federal prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams because a pliant big-city mayor is a useful thing to have. He broke with 50 years of practice by treating the Justice Department as “his personal law firm.” He treats the enforcement of duly enacted statutes as optional—and, what’s more, claims the authority to indemnify lawbreakers. He halted proceedings against January 6 thugs and rioters because they are on his side. His agencies screen hires for loyalty to him rather than to the Constitution.
