Peasants, mediators and the state

Abstract

After presenting and examining the main current positions on patronage, the author, on the basis of data gathered from local historical documentation and from field work in two Minho villages, contends that clientelist mediation was one of the main structuring principles of social action, with particular emphasis on its heuristic value, and explains the predominantly passive, evasive and «conservative» behaviour of the residents, the «peasants». The dual, vertical and asymmetric relations of the mediators with their clients are analysed in terms of the phases of resistance - incorporation, maintenance, dilution or loss of local autonomy to state and municipal institutions and, consequently, of the changeable role of the patrons patrons or mediators in the framework of competitive and integrating dynamics.