We like to call it patronage but the Americans more aptly call it the spoils system ('to the victors belong the spoils') since the time of Andrew Jackson. If ideology is the mental glue of a political party, then the spoils system is the concrete manifestation of party loyalty. You work your way up a party, in the hope that, if and when it wins, the leaders will reward you. Our history of unintended consequences means that among the consequences of so-called democratic reforms has been the elimination of the practical incentives for party loyalty and cohesion that goes beyond a clan.

https://opinion.inquirer.net/164184/the-spoiled-spoils-system

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