Patron–client relations can be found, as we have seen, in a great variety of societies at diverse levels of development or modernisation. Hence, beyond the features shared by all these types of relations and beyond the differences between full clientelistic networks and addendum-like patron–client relations, a great diversity also develops in their concrete organisation in the different settings.

To give but a few preliminary illustrations derived from the preceding analysis, the patron–client relations which develop mostly in agricultural estates are structured around the access to land and other basic means of livelihood of the peasants, herdsmen and labourers. Such relations also exist between debtors and creditors, who carry them, at least partially, beyond the economic sphere. These links also emerge between, on the one hand, peasants and, on the other, merchants, businessmen and professionals, who have control over access to avenues of commerce and specialised knowledge about national institutions and their procedural requirements. They may also arise in urban settings around politicians proffering help to marginal sectors of the population – such as rural–urban migrants – in settling down, by legalising squatter dwellings, or in dealing with the authorities, in securing a job or in filling in technical forms to gain access to certain public goods or to obtain a loan.