Description

Whereby power nominally vested in one individual or organisation is in practice exercised by another, by virtue of their control of resources.

Motivation and Discussion

Control of resources is a fundamental source of power, and organisations tend to gather power to themselves over time.  The Paymaster pattern arises when the practical use of that power is out of synch with its formal institutional context. It describes circumstances where, according to the formal or nominal arrangement, the Paymaster organisation should defer to the Payee, but in practice the reverse, or more complicated horsetrading, occurs.

The Paymaster pattern in itself is neither good nor bad - that depends on the organisations in question - but it can be symptomatic of a lack of plurality, and shifts in the balance of powers that leave the Paymaster organisation unusually free of constraint.

Once power has transitioned completely to the Paymaster organisation, the Payee may be made a Figurehead.

Examples

English parliaments of the period leading up to the civil war and revolution of 1642-51 acted as Paymasters to the English monarch.  Through the control of taxes these parliaments exercised an authority contrary to the theoretically absolute rule of the king.  The revolution and civil war led to a period under Cromwell where Parliament was the sole sovereign authority, but after the Restoration of Charles II the Paymaster relationship between Parliament and crown was restored and to a degree formalised.  From the Restoration to the beginning of the 20th century practical power continued to leak slowly away from the monarch and towards Parliament, finally establishing the Figurehead monarchy of today.

The Federal Government of the United States of America was, as its name implies, established as a union of sovereign states, and the US constitution nominally places power not allocated to the federal government to states and individual citizens.  Over time, the Federal Government has increased its revenue both in absolute terms and relative to the revenue of the states.  It has then used this power to tie legislative outcomes in State Congresses to federal funding.  Raising the legal drinking age to 21 by tying it to federal highway funds is but one relatively recent example.  A similar trend can be seen in other political federations such as Australia, Canada, Germany and India.

Great power politics is often marked with struggles over resources.  When these struggles between nominal peers become drastically uneven Paymaster patterns arise.  One example is the approach of the 19th century Austrian Empire, which would tie nearby Balkan states into arms agreements, forcing natural antagonists to be allies, as any war between them would result in an immediate cessation of supply to Payee state.

Related Patterns

Figurehead, Federation

More Reading on Paymaster

• Paymaster
• Government Design Patterns
• Government Design Patterns - Paymaster