Power and Strategies of Rule - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 60

Rule through relationships entails establishing order by building a series of bilateral ar-
rangements with weaker and secondary states. In each case, power relations are manifest
in specific ongoing bargains, exchanges, and instrumental agreements that are established
between the dominant state and elites in subordinate states. The resulting order takes the form
of a hub-and-spoke system in which a hierarchical array of states are connected to the lead
state in separate and distinct relationships, variously unequal, reciprocal, and dependent. The
order is not organized around agreed-upon multilateral rules but around a constellation of bi-
lateral relations that together form a system of client states and political dependencies. 6
In the broadest sense, this sort of strategy of rule involves building interstate patron-client
relationships. According to James Scott, the patron and the client form an “instrumental
friendship in which an individual of higher socioeconomic state (patron) uses his own influ-
ence and resources to provide protection and benefits, or both, for a person of lower status
(client) who, for his part, reciprocates by offering general support and assistance, including
personal services, to the patron.” 7 Various terms have been used to describe these sorts of
clientelistic relations—patronage, machine politics, brokerage systems. What they have in
common, as Gianfranco Poggi argues, is an exchange between unequal and hierarchically or-
ganized actors; a situation where the power wielders exchange the provision of “favor and
protection” and receive “allegiance and support” in return. 8 As manifest in international re-
lations, the leading state provides protections and benefits—such as economic aid, market
access, and military assistance—in exchange for cooperation and political support. 9
These bilateral relationships fall along a continuum defined in terms of the degree of dom-
ination as it is reflected in power inequalities, the relations of sovereignty, and terms of ex-
change. As such, these bilateral ties can range from colonial and neocolonial relationships to
more reciprocal and bargained partnerships. 10 Colonial rule is the most direct form of con-
trol by the leading state. Domination is nearly complete—a situation where sovereignty in
the subordinate state is effectively usurped by the dominant state and coercive enforcement
of rule lurks in the background. The governing elites in the subordinate polity are directly
under the political and administrative command of the dominant state. As a result, the terms
of exchange are essentially one-sided, and subordinate elites are in a highly dependent and
nonnegotiable relationship. Neocolonial relations entail a more indirect form of rule in which
local elites exercise authority within their own political system but remain directly tied to and
dependent on the dominant state. 11 Local elites are co-opted into playing a supporting role
within the larger hierarchical political-economic order and rewarded with economic benefits
and security protection. In both colonial and neocolonial relations, the coercive enforcement
of rule by the dominant state lurks in the background, circumscribing sovereignty and the
limits of political choice within the subordinate state. 12
A dominant state may also build bilateral relations with less weak and dependent states,
based on more explicit and reciprocal exchanges and bargains. The client state retains greater