Is nepotism ever acceptable? Or is it always corruption? Believe it or not, opinions differ as to whether placing family and friends in key positions is corruption.
It’s important to treat this question seriously to develop successful anticorruption and development policies.
First, it is critical to understand that people make the best decisions they can to enhance their survival. The rationality of their actions is the result of their education and experience – and their ability to think clearly.
Second, survival is not a single condition of existence. A person may be just barely surviving, as is seen in some individuals that walk the streets and appear to be near death. Or a person can be surviving very well, as we can see with individuals that have wealth, affluence and education.
Unless a person has given up and is awaiting their death, their activities are directed toward continuing or strengthening their survival.
Where a community is faced with immediate threats to the survival of its members, people will take the actions they believe will result in strengthening their personal survival, the survival of their families, and the survival of their groups. But their actions will be aligned to support first those people and groups that they believe contribute to their own survival. Patrick, a Kenyan colleague commented upon this with his comment on my recent blog, Bad HR Practices Feed Corruption: “How do you suggest good HR policy in a continent like Africa. It is the norm to hire your family members or tribe members.”
Nepotism and more overt forms of corruption can be understood as ways that a person or group declares a lack of confidence in the government or institution to contribute to their personal survival. In some instances it is far worse than a lack of confidence. There is doubt or distrust.
Where lack of confidence or distrust in government exists, people see no harm to their personal or family survival if they weaken those institutions through corruption. If they can also provide jobs and resources to friends and family to support their survival, it appears to be a successful action for the part of their survival they most easily understand. What people don’t understand is that these acts actually prevent government from ever being able to support the survival of individuals and family.
The Remedy to Nepotism
How do you change a group of people from one pattern of behavior to something else? Change management theory tells us that people need two basic things before they are willing to change.
They must believe that their current situation should be changed.
They must believe that the change will benefit them and their families and groups.
Of course, where people don’t believe that government and its representatives are truly helping, people and groups will have no reason to believe that their current situation needs to change or that any change to support or strengthen government is to their benefit. Government is no longer operating with the consent of the governed. (See – Two Things Everyone Should Know About Democracy.)
The remedy? Governments must prove that they can and will provide services that improve people’s lives. Government must continually prove that it can be trusted and that it will not betray that trust. Naturally, this must be proved on a continuing basis.
1. Government takes the first step. Its employees must be continuously trained to establish and maintain a high level commitment to purpose and an increasing level of competency. These initial steps will begin to rebuild trust with the society that the government serves.
2. Additionally, communities need to be educated on how the health of governments and institutions directly relates to the survival of their families and communities. This is why a coordinated public campaign must be part of any successful anticorruption program.
The only way to truly eliminate nepotism-style corruption is to strengthen the purpose and competency of government while proving to people that government helps their families, friends, tribes and communities.
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Very, very, very nice article. This expose should be a prerequisite for all African institution, private or governmental, to know, learn or be aware of.
A good example, at the moment, is the problems faced by the prime minister of Kenya who has placed many of his family members in governmental posts. Well, he is probably not the only one in Africa. It is the same in large private institutions where “nepotism-style corruption” is rampant.
Pass the message, a small change is better than no change at all.
Cheers
Patrick
Patrick, it is always a pleasure to hear from you. Your understanding of the complex interactions of survival and corruption interests in East Africa give us all insights into what might work to help the good people of the region make progress.
from Howard WHITTON
There is something inherently corrupt with ‘Nepotism’ (as with the cognate terms patronage, cronyism, favoritism, etc) because its general definition has come to mean just this: “appointing a family member (Latin: nepos) or relative (friend, protege, etc) to a position whose functions they are not competent to perform, in preference to others who are competent to perform those functions.”
But (I suggest) that too-broad definition risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater: appointing a relative to a job is not, of itself, necessarily corrupt. Provided that the relative has been assessed as both genuinely competent/suitable for the position, and the most competent/suitable of the candidates available, through a transparent and competitive merit selection which adequately tests ‘the market’, any familial relationship should be irrelevant. The integrity of the selection process is of course crucial, as is genuine transparency, but these are process issues. Conflict of Interest issues (eg arising in supervision of a relative) also need to be separated out.
At issue is a broad assumption that the competent ought to be hired in preference to the not-so-competent, for any job in an organisation whose stakeholders (workers, stock-holders, clients, suppliers, the community, government, etc) have legitimate interests in its survival which are literally ‘at stake’. On this basis, Nepotism is arguably a breach of a fundamental ethical obligation owed by management. In the public sector it is usually also a breach of law.
‘The fix’ for Nepotism ( – if only it were this simple in practice!…) is to require the decision-maker in the case to show unequivocally that the merit selection process was not corrupted by other factors – such as improper influence, dishonesty, fraud, (etc.).
The question for the decision-maker is thus: “Can I demonstrate to the world at large that the selection outcome had integrity, and was fair?” The question for the world at large is slightly different: “Do we believe it?” – which is (or should be) a powerful incentive for an organisation to develop a solid reputation for integrity, by ensuring that its processes are fair (and not just in hiring, but also in firing, discipline, contracting, protecting (genuine) whistle-blowers, and remuneration, CSR, business ethics, legal compliance, and so forth.
from Nevena Radosevic
The worst thing about nepotism is that it discriminates against capable professionals and quality people in favor of oftentimes mediocre or even substandard ones.
Of course, if someone’s relative IS the most qualified professional for the job, then that means they are being hired on their own merits, and generally in such cases their relation should not be taken against them. The purpose of fighting against nepotism is to avoid discriminaiton of any kind and promote fairness and equal opportunity. There are rare examples like that, but I think the negative aspects of nepotism prevail by far.
Fighting against nepotism is always difficult, but depending on where you may be on the globe, it sometimes turns into a battle against Hydra, a mythical creature that grows two heads in place of each one that’s cut off.
from Lars Elffors
I clearly follow Brian for a start, discussing human (social) behaviour in the terms of survival (in a broad sense), claiming nepotism to be a sign of lack of confidence, or even distrust. However, following that, the discussion too much focuses actions of the government, and actions towards raising the trust in government.
However, I believe the distrust goes deeper than that, in corrupt communities, deeply affecting inter-personal relations overall. It is a matter of the mood or the “climate” between individuals (and groups). The basic trust in a civilized society is in itself a protection to nepotism and other sorts of corruption.
I agree, main actions cannot primarilly be successfully directed towards deep societal attitudes between individuals, and could primarilly mainly take place (in a controlled way) in the relationship between individual members (and groups) of a community and its government. But this is not the same as reducing the problem to a strictly governance problem.
As it goes for the discussion (Howard, Nevena) on relatives, friends, etc, possessing the proper qualities, and being selected in a transparently competetive way, I agree in theory. However, there is the question of “Caesar’s wife”. Selection processes are never fully objective, there are always elements of subjectivity in them. And in order to build confidence and trust, I believe the tresholds for such relatives and friends must – unfortunately – be higher, as compared to other applicants. Basically one should try to avoid employing them as far as possible. This could of course mean that, at times, the most fit will not be selected.
However, the confidence is more important in most cases.
from Quan Dinh
One way to reduce nepotism is to have “clear and transparent procedures” for selection.
In many developing/transitional or post conflict countries, these HR procedures do not exist, are weak or are easily “corrupted.” The commitment for transparent and fair processes is only the first step in the right direction. Beside those procedures there must be some checks and balances – i.e. a strong civil society as “trust” is not enough to keep nepotism in check.
The combination of transparent procedures and a strong “civil society” would help.
from Brian Pinkowski
Howard, it does seem that the imposition of rules should be enough to correct the problem, but, as you observe, it is not. I suggest that where rules are not implemented/implementable, there is a conflict between the ideas of individuals and groups about the importance of the rules to the survival of individuals and the community in general. In other words, where people don’t believe the rules are more important to their survival than nepotism, they will act accordingly. As we know, more rules do not the answer the problem.
Sometimes (perhaps often) individuals and groups do not understand the impact of their actions on the survival of their groups. I would contend that government itself often fails to communicate the importance of its contribution to the survival of individuals and groups. Instead it merely communicates its importance/authority.
Comments from Nivena and Lars underscore the challenges of trying to find a process to create fairness while balancing the difficulties of individual and group survival behavior. Of course, that is the challenge and the conflict.
The clear and transparent procedures suggested by Quan Dinh go right to the heart of the issue. The fact that there is hesitance to instill and follow such procedures openly, in my view, points to the conflict in thinking that people and groups have about the harmony/linkage between their personal survival, survival of their friends and family, and the survival of institutions.
I believe that the solution has to contain a combination of education for the community and government employees about the connection between government action and their survival and prosperity, and efforts by the government to prove that it is working on behalf of the survival of individuals and groups.
I would love to hear of any good examples of government programs that have effective training programs that make this point as well as any examples of governments that make the effort to prove they are supporting the survival of individuals and groups. I am looking for such examples that manage to survive beyond an initial cynical response by communities.
I look forward to your replies.
Posted by Pierre-Michel Rosner
Brian, In fact your question “how to fight against…?” is similar to a broader one : How to build or to produce law and norms ?
I my opinion, there isn’t a sole answer :
* It’s possible to produce social standards and norms establishing legal procedures and laws. (i.e.: You have to do yhat on that way…!)
* But it’s also possible to produce laws as a recognition or an officialization of specific social standards and norms. (i.e.: This way that already exist appears as preferible and will be recognized as such by Law…)
Both approaches have their pros and cons, depending of the context.
You may have your own favorite method but I think it’s necessary to consider this is not necessarily the best or the sole for any goal and situation.
Regards.
Posted by Melania Coman
At some point, in my country, people were discussing automatically passing on to sons / daughters of lawyers / magistrates the quality (or profession) of their fathers / mothers (whoever happened to be a magistrate). It is a practice most common that dentists, for instance, leave their practice and their clientele to their sons / daughters (no matter if they are good or not in their profession).
In a sense, fighting against nepotism is a battle lost from the beginning, in some places of the world. The only practice I think would be successful is a people’s ban of those who have got their “bread” through a relation (mom, dad, grandpa, uncle, brother in law and so on), unless they have proven that they deserved it. That usually does the trick. If you stop talking, stop working with and stop pretty much all human interaction with a person, you will get unexpected results.
Anyway, that is too drastic, so this discussion is very nice and theoretical.
Melania
PS: Laws may be agreed upon, but not enforced… or enforced differently for different people… I guess Orwell was right when he said some animals were more equal than others.
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