(64) Quoted from Richard Joseph, Democracy and
Prebendal Politics in Nigeria.
The modern African version of this
prebendal system operates in "varying systems of formal authority (including personalistic, military and electoral competitive), behind a 'camouflaging' facade of 'legal-rational,' constitutional, and bureaucratic rules." (33) Subsequently, Larry Diamond argues that corruption "is manifestly the primary mechanism of dominant-class formation ...
(32) Gyarfas Elemer, president of the Catholic State and Senator, also suggested the same: "You shouldn't accept our being subordinated to the Bucharest Archdiocese unless all Latin dioceses were accepted." Archdiocese and
Prebendal Records.
Orientalists of successive generations repeat such essentialist statements in different words time and again by using the historicist concepts of Oriental despotism, Asiatic mode of production,
prebendal patrimonialism, non-ascetic religion, etc.
In place of Lumumba who wanted African resources used to create jobs, prosperity and amenities for Africans, the Europeans and Americans installed Mobutu, the kind of manufactured African ruler who did not mind the pillage of the continent as long as he, his family and his tribe got enriched on the imperial leavings fed him as
prebendal aid and loans.
The house, called The
Prebendal, in Thame Park, Oxfordshire, was built by the theologian Robert Grosseteste in 1241.
(43) Maurice, Bishop of London (1086-1107) had replaced the communal provisioning of the priests of St Osith's shrine at Chich by a
prebendal system (Bethell 1970b, 301-302).
Si quieren sobrevivir, los partidos politicos deben dejar de ser circulos facciosos de manejo
prebendal del Estado y deben desarrollar practicas de deliberacion y concertacion con organizaciones sociales que contribuyan a largo plazo a crear un nuevo modelo de gobernabilidad que vaya mas alla del modelo centrado en acuerdos exclusivamente entre partidos politicos.
Such a
prebendal system continued to exist until the end of the Hellenistic period.
But the former Bee Gee loves to winter at The
Prebendal, the pounds 8million converted monastery in Thame, Oxon, he bought 18 years ago.
The character of military rule in Nigeria, perhaps as copious evidence of it being coterminous with the character of the State, metamorphosed from a
prebendal or neo-patrimonial system (from the early-1970s to the mid-1980s) into a rapacious authoritarian and personalist rulership system, between the end of the 1980s and 1999.
Out of this debate we can derive three broad political norms present in contemporary Africa: liberal, democratic; moral ethnic (or civic-republican, but I prefer Lonsdale's term); and
prebendal. Understanding contemporary African politics generally, and civil society in particular, requires understanding that these three broad types of norms exist simultaneously and at least at times conflict, with complex and uncertain long-term political effects.