Not without reason have congressional committees been called independent fiefdoms.

Somehow we must reach a happy compromise between the tyranny of autocratic chairmen and the chaos of a hundred independent fiefdoms.

Committees have power and have been called independent fiefdoms.

In May 1987 he hired Michael Francke to modernize the state's prisons, which an investigator had described as overcrowded and operated as "independent fiefdoms."

"A university has got to see itself as an interacting entity," Mr. Walker said, "not a bunch of independent fiefdoms."

Chinese settlers in neighbouring Sabah and Pontianak also established gambier and pepper plantations, although they existed as independent fiefdoms.

Having inherited a loose conglomeration of independent fiefdoms, Mr. Pinola united them under the First Interstate banner and began expanding.

What we have bought with this lavish expenditure is a mosaic of fiercely independent medical fiefdoms, each organized around a hospital.

These small, largely independent fiefdoms had local money and local leaders, and frequently squabbled.

This effectively turned IBM into several independent fiefdoms.