Nepotism in Public Administration

The achievements of the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s that were embedded into law and culture fostered an ethos of both egalitarianism and competition between and among various political and social subconstituencies in the United States. According to the editors of a critical anthology of essays on the shifting cultural landscape of America in the 1990s in general, "It is one of the great paradoxes of our culture that we believe passionately in the fundamental equality of all, yet strive as hard as we can to separate ourselves from our fellow citizens."

Many of the de jure changes in minority access to opportunities in employment, education, and contracting were initiated at the federal level, where accountability of the disbursement of public funds interpenetrated issues of the constitut

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tly do less harm to the city's balance sheet than a novice contractor whose award was based on equal-opportunity access but whose execution of contract mandates was incompetent. Which, then, is the greater abuse of public trust: a nepotism contract awarded to a seasoned pothole expert or an equal-opportunity contract awarded to an inadequately trained road contractor? Clearly, as a matter of responsible use of public funds, the award should go to the more competent competitor. In other words, nepotism, which has the effect of excluding structures of contract procurement that entail affirmative action and equal opportunity, is a responsible policy for governments to undertake, far more responsible than working with unproven, unknown contractual entities. But such an analysis, while not entirely misleading, is incomplete for two reasons. In the first place, advocates for government-mandated public-sector contract and employment competition point out that nothing about affirmative-action or minority set-aside procurement structures entitles the unqualified employees or contractors to public subsidy. Smith et al., quote Harriet Michel, president of the National Minority Supplier Development Council in New York, to the effect that it i
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Approximate Word count = 2717
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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