Nepotism in Public Administration: The Cost of Low Morale

Introduction

Nepotism is not new to government. John F. Kennedy gave the prominent position of U.S. Attorney General to his brother Robert despite the latter's youth and relative inexperience. The reason was obvious to all: they were brothers, and Kennedy wanted someone he could trust working alongside him. In many cases, nepotism in the public sector is related to issues of trust: the individual responsible for making appointments wants them to go to people he or she trusts, which often turns out to be those closest to his or her inner circle — friends and family members (Abrams, Cross, Lesser & Levin, 2003). However, doing so can create resentment and distrust among other workers. Indeed, in Kennedy's own administration and among the public there was a great deal of distrust between his inner circle and the outer circle.

The impact of this practice creates serious problems, as the situation with the Trump Administration has shown. President Trump placed his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner in positions of high-level security clearance, which troubled other members of the administration (Hopkins, 2018). This research is anchored in both current events and peer-reviewed scholarship, and argues that the primary price of nepotism in public administration is low morale among workers and stakeholders.

Research Narrative

The issue of nepotism in the public administration sector and how it leads to low morale among workers was researched by following the ongoing events of the Trump Administration and by using Google Scholar to search a variety of peer-reviewed scholarly journal databases. The keywords used were "nepotism," "public administration," "president," and "Trump." The results consistently showed that nepotism is linked to trust for those within the nepotistic circle, and to low morale for those outside it.

In most cases, nepotism is viewed as an abuse of power, a corrupt practice, and a situation in which favoritism is extended not necessarily to the individual most suited for a job but rather to the individual closest to the person in power (Greenhalgh, 2010). In the Trump Administration, nepotism manifested through the appointment of Jared Kushner as a senior advisor to his father-in-law in the White House. While Trump may have had reasons for doing so — including Kushner's well-known connections to foreign leaders such as Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu — the appointment did not sit well with other members of the administration. Within the year, many staffers had either resigned or been dismissed, and morale within the White House was routinely described as low, tense, and stressful (Samuels, 2018).

Ethical Context

As a result of high-profile instances of nepotism such as those seen during Kennedy's presidency, federal law was amended in 1978 to address this issue directly. According to the Federal Anti-Nepotism Statute (1978), "a public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official." Yet nepotism continues in the public sector today, often justified as a means of rewarding supporters and ensuring trust within tight-knit circles (Flavier, Chikireva & Ivanova, 2017).

On the other hand, Jaskiewicz, Uhlenbruck, Balkin, and Reay (2013) find both positive and negative dimensions to nepotism in administration. They "propose that reciprocal (vs. entitlement) nepotism is associated with three family conditions that indicate generalized (vs. restricted) social exchange relationships between family members," while showing that "generalized social exchanges are valuable to firms because they facilitate tacit knowledge management that can lead to competitive advantage" (p. 121). This suggests that not all forms of nepotism are equivalent in their ethical weight or practical consequences.

The specific ethical dilemma is that nepotism is a form of favoritism that can confer unfair privilege on members of one's family over others who might better deserve a post based on merit and experience. While nepotism does not always indicate a lack of ethics — the family member may, in fact, be the most qualified candidate — it tends to give others the impression that the system is rigged in favor of those connected to individuals in power.

In the present scenario, President Trump rewarded his son-in-law with a top-level post in the White House, and the effect was described as "terrible" in the words of a former White House aide whose tenure was short-lived partly due to his vocal objections to the prevailing workplace culture. The core problem is that granting high-level positions to family members projects an aura of incompetence and, in turn, causes morale to deteriorate.