This introductory paper argues that, for most of the period since 1914, paternalism has been the most enduring influence over labour management in large-scale agriculture in Africa and South-East Asia. On the other hand, paternalism appears in a number of variants, with considerable differences in terms of protagonists, degrees of comprehensiveness, emphases and relations to alternative approaches to labour management. After a brief preliminary section, the paper falls into three sections. The first argues for a specific definition of paternalism, against an account of the term's intellectual history. The second provides a sketch of paternalism's lines of development in African and South-East Asian agriculture. The third introduces the other papers in this collection by identifying their contributions to three central questions that arise from these discussions: how paternalism has been contested and by whom, whether paternalism will persist and if so in what form, and the implications of paternalism for citizenship.