Introduction

By 2024, almost one year into the Gazan War, much of the optimism generated by the Oslo Accords has been extinguished. The Palestinian Authority continues to pursue its mission of providing public services to the Palestinian territories under exceptionally difficult circumstances that do not remotely resemble anything found in a public administration textbook. Despite the persistent challenges that they face, Palestinians demonstrate remarkable levels of fortitude, and this extends to include continual efforts at self-improvement in the areas that are within their locus of control (Iqtait, 2021).

The performance of the PA is one area that continues to command the attention of reformers inside the West Bank and Gaza, not only because of the indigenous resources it controls, but also because it represents a key conduit for the disbursal of foreign aid from partner countries inside and outside the Arab world. The domestic economic challenges that Palestinians face mean that external assistance plays a disproportionate role in their economy (Wildeman and Tartir, A., 2021). This latter fact has recently accentuated the pressure that the PA faces to improve its performance, as external donors are keen to avoid some of the development aid failures witnessed in many other parts of the world (Easterly, 2006).

A full analysis of the reforms that merit the PA’s attention is well beyond the scope of this essay. Instead, I focus on one small but important part of the macro public administration problem that needs to be solved: nepotism within the Palestinian civil service. Ever since China established a formal civil service exam over one thousand years ago, humans have become aware of the benefits of an impersonal and merit-based bureaucracy. Nepotism can severely impair the performance of the public sector, not only by denying the public the services of the most qualified candidates, but also by discouraging investment in education and other forms of self-improvement. Though the majority of the PA’s problems are the result of its external challenges, scholars and ordinary Palestinians alike recognize the adverse consequences of nepotism on the PA’s performance, and believe that successful reforms would yield considerable benefits.

Many previous studies have examined how to improve governance within the Palestinian territories. This essay adds to them by incorporating the lessons learned from a nascent component of the public administration literature: the sub-literature on charter cities, which are greenfield settlements in emerging economies that seek to benefit from the comparative blank slate they have in regulation and legislation. This sub-literature is especially instructive for the PA because it is grounded in the experience of other members of the Global South, including the successful efforts by the Arab Emirate of Dubai.

1. Nepotism as an Impediment to Public Administration

1.1. Nepotism in Theory

The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of nepotism is: “favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship” (Merriam-Webster, 2024). The word “favoritism” implies selecting someone for a position over someone else who is ostensibly more competent because the former has a kinship tie to the person making the hiring decision.

Nepotism typically reflects the principal’s willingness to trade off competence with a desire to confer a favor upon one of their kinspeople as a manifestation of the biological tendency known as “kin selection” (Jones, 2000). Building on humans’ innate tendency to cooperate with their kin, economists explain nepotism by presenting it as a solution to a principal’s need to hire someone whom they need to be able to trust because they can monitor them only imperfectly (Coats, 2002).

For example, when an entrepreneur hires their daughter to work as an accountant in their nascent business, it could be because the entrepreneur is too busy to be able to oversee the accounts, and needs to make sure that whoever has access to the sensitive financial data will not leak the information or engage in embezzlement.

There are two primary drawbacks associated with nepotism. The first is that it scales poorly (Al-Ubaydli, 2021). At first, one can easily hire one’s offspring or siblings. However, as the organizational chart grows, and one starts going for first cousins, second cousins, and so on, intra-kin conflict emerges, especially as people start forming their own nuclear families with interests that may run counter to that of the clan.

The second is that the talent pool is shallow, potentially inducing a steep cost in terms of foregone competence. This is illustrated by the soccer legend Johan Cruyff recruiting his son, Jordi, when he was manager of the powerhouse club, FC Barcelona. The younger Cruyff’s 54 underwhelming appearances over two seasons contributed to the team’s poor overall performance and his father being dismissed (Sports Illustrated, 2014).

Moreover, when colleagues who were hired meritocratically observe nepotism in the organization, it demotivates them, causing them to allocate scarce resources away from investing in improving their abilities toward trying to marry into the clan, boot-licking, or other wasteful endeavors. The disenchantment and resentment that nepotism causes can also breed violent conflict, as occurred during the Caliphate of Uthman bin Affan, who was assassinated in part due to accusations of excessively favoring kin for high offices (Campbell, 2008). This tragic latter episode underscores the fact that Islam as a religion prohibits nepotism, especially in the domain of public administration (General Iftaa’ Department, 2024).

In light of the above, in his 2011 treatise on the optimal design of political systems, Francis Fukuyama presented several ideal principles, including the presence of an impersonal, merit-based bureaucracy (Fukuyama, 2011), thereby affirming the negative effect of nepotism on public administration and political stability in general.

1.2. Nepotism in the Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is a semi-autonomous governing body established in 1994 following the Oslo Accords. It was created to administer parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas that had been under Israeli occupation since 1967 (Khan, 2009). The PA is responsible for various governmental functions, including security, education, and health services. Crucially, from the perspective of foreign partners seeking to aid Palestinians living in the West Bank, the PA is considered to be the legitimate representative, and therefore resources and projects are funneled through the PA.

The PA works under extremely challenging circumstances, many of which are beyond the PA’s control. These include the fact that its jurisdiction is fragmented, with significant areas of the West Bank under direct Israeli military and administrative control, leading to restrictions on movement and economic activity (Robinson, 2007). Israel also controls key aspects of the Palestinian economy, with periodic withholding of tax revenues and interruptions to the flow of goods and people (Zagha and Zomlot, 2004). These problems are exacerbated by the violent and aggressive behavior of Israeli settlers in contravention of international law (Gazit, 2015). The PA’s ability to seek redress globally is undermined by its political isolation, as Palestine has yet to be recognized as a sovereign nation state (Maguire and Thompson, 2017). This short exposition omits many other difficulties that the PA and Palestinians face on a daily basis.

Despite these external challenges, the PA also deals with internal problems, too. One of these is nepotism, with all of its associated ill effects, a view held by Palestinian scholars inside and outside Palestine, Israeli scholars, and extra-regional scholars (عبدالقادر، 2017; Amundsen and Ezbidi, 2002; Brynen, 1995; Dana, 2020; Khalid, 2022; Michael and Guzansky, 2016; Saleh, 2008; Tartir, 2015). Moreover, despite the PA’s counter-corruption efforts, most notably under former Prime Minister Salman Fayyad, the problem persists: “in March 2010 the statistics of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) showed that 92% believed there to be widespread nepotism and favoritism in the public sector,” (Tartir, 2015: p488).

Notably, as evidenced by the manifesto put forward by Fayyad, nepotism runs counter to the official aspirations of the PA, and to the collective desires of the Palestinian people. This can in turn be attributed to a mixture of Islam’s prohibition of nepotism and the existence of a large body of secular research in the field of public administration confirming the negative impact of nepotism on government performance (Fukuyama, 2011).

At the time of writing, the ongoing Gazan War has revealed an additional cost associated with nepotism: perceptions of corruption in the PA are now a significant barrier to the provision of development aid from Palestine’s international partners (Times of India, 2024). While prospective donors have been complaining about corruption for many years, on this occasion, some donors seem to be taking a tougher stance at a time when - as a result of the widespread war-related destruction - the need for support is arguably at a zenith. This affirms the importance of exploring reforms that can help the PA overcome the problem of nepotism. Notably, the broader problem of corruption is no less important, but - as mentioned in the introduction - it lies beyond the scope of this short essay.

2. The Charter Cities Approach to Public Administration

2.1. Conceptual Overview

The aforementioned references relating to nepotism in the PA are but a small component of a large scholarly literature on corruption in the PA. This body of academic work, together with numerous more practically-oriented contributions from the likes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, has provided Palestinian stakeholders with a well-developed list of policy recommendations that seek to elevate the quality of public administration in the West Bank and Gaza.

This essay does not seek to regurgitate the aforementioned literature. Instead, it will focus on the innovations stemming from a new approach to public administration known as the “charter cities approach”. The idea dates back to a 2009 TED Talk by economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer, who proposed that high-income countries typically regarded as well-governed should administer new cities with new rules in low-income, less well-governed countries, acting as a guarantor to ensure that the new cities were governed effectively. The former British colony of Hong Kong serves as an exemplar. Romer, who went on to become chief economist at the World Bank, attempted this idea in Madagascar and Honduras, but political problems caused these projects to fail. Since then, in 2017, an independent think tank known as the Charter Cities Institute (CCI) was established with the goal of developing Romer’s ideas, while also addressing one of the key weaknesses, which was the insistence on a foreign government acting as a guarantor, since this was incompatible with modern notions of political sovereignty.

The CCI communicates its ideas via policy papers and long-form reports. In principle, its ideas are supposed to apply to greenfield investments in the Global South, such as an emerging economy founding a new city on an unused plot of land where there is large scope for writing a new set of rules by which the city will abide. This is based on the realization that trying to mutate existing systems is a much more difficult task due to the entrenched interests that often block reforms. Accordingly, the territory administered by the PA does not seem like an ideal candidate for an application of CCI recommendations. Nevertheless, there are three reasons why they merit consideration.

The first is the simple acknowledgement that existing efforts - be they grounded in pre-CCI best practices or otherwise - are yet to bear fruit in a manner consistent with the Palestinian people’s aspirations, and so it is worth trying something new on that basis alone. To the best of my knowledge, there are no previous attempts at discussing or applying CCI’s research in the context of the challenges faced by the PA.

Beyond this, by international standards, the PA is a young institution, and so it is theoretically more malleable than long-standing counterparts such as the Chinese or British governments. Moreover, given the small size of the Palestinian economy, and the large potential willingness of external donors to contribute resources, there is greater scope than normal to use development aid as a lever for overcoming entrenched interests that might typically impede the adoption of progressive reforms.

The CCI’s work has culminated in the production of a Governance Handbook that functions as an A-to-Z of its main ideas (Charter Cities Institute, 2021). While this near-300 page document features many ideas, the first chapter is allocated to the issue of public administration, and the first section therein is allocated to the selection and management of city officials. This constitutes a tacit indication of how important these issues are to the sound functioning of a sovereign territory. We next turn to the recommendations that relate to countering nepotism.

2.2. Policy Recommendations for Combating Nepotism

The CCI’s handbook specifies the importance of selecting and appointing officials in an impersonal and meritocratic manner. It builds on the large, interdisciplinary literature that Fukuyama (2011) synthesized by giving specific recommendations, often drawn from the successful experiences of other countries in the Global South.

The first is institutionalizing the creation of a long-list of potential candidates for official positions based on “public job listings and referrals from trusted, high-skilled sources” (Charter Cities Institute, 2021: p8). The CCI draws upon the example of the Bank of Ghana, the African state’s most prestigious meritocratic public agency, which systematically seeks the recommendations of economics professors from the country’s premier higher education institution, the University of Ghana. A key advantage of this approach is that it identifies and recruits talent before it is exposed to the culture that permeates public agencies and that might otherwise distort the recruitment process. Following the example set by Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, the candidates recommended by local universities should be augmented by the best candidates returning from elite foreign universities. The resulting combined list should be combined with an impersonal selection process based on the CVs received from the job listing. Critically, no candidates should be added after this initial long-list is fashioned as such entrants typically reflect the influence of patronage and connections rather than merit.

The long-list is transformed into a short-list by using a rigorous interview process. The first stage is an interview with officials working in human resources (HR). Successful candidates then proceed to a second stage interview with senior managers at the relevant agency, usually involving a task-based evaluation. For example, in the case of the Bank of Ghana, applicants are required to defend their university thesis in front of senior management. A useful safeguard against nepotism is providing each manager present with a veto for every candidate, helping whittle the candidates down to a proficient short list. The final interview stage is conducted in front of the agency’s board, where the board’s members can question at will while also retaining a hiring veto.

As the CCI’s handbook explains, this process helps combat nepotism for several reasons, chief among them the fact that it revolves around the thesis presentation stage, as this signals to the recruits that it is the quality of their work that got them through the door. Moreover, the multi-level process with an abundance of hiring vetoes makes hiring the best candidate the most rational - and hence most salient - option, as it makes patronage-linked logrolling a much more arduous process. Finally, by mimicking the boot camp that new military recruits go through, the protracted nature of the hiring process helps establish a sense of professional solidarity.

Notably, the CCI recommends that this formal hiring process be complemented by a supplementary process whereby civil servants who display extraordinary competence can be poached. In this regard, temporary rotation-based training programs for mid-career civil servants, such as Bahrain’s Prime Minister’s Fellowship program, offer an opportunity to assess potential candidates (Prime Minister’s Office, 2024). This is especially useful as a low-cost way of appraising potential candidates for positions that are difficult to assess in an interview or short-task setting.

The CCI goes on to argue that a crucial supporting success factor in such meritocratic hiring practices is making the process of hiring (notwithstanding the evaluation phase) and firing fast and low cost. Usually, in public administration settings, extra safeguards that limit the ability to dismiss employees are erected to limit the likelihood of an incoming elected politician purging the civil service and replacing the departing employees with their political clients. Being forced to continue employing underperforming workers is considered the cost of such protections. However, when the right hiring system is put in place, along with an independent arbitration system to adjudicate labor disputes, a political candidate looking to practice clientelism will quickly realize that hiring and retaining competent functionaries is the preferable course of action.

Another success factor cited by the CCI is affording line managers some degree of autonomy, and avoiding the suffocating systems of public administration that exist to limit corruption. Again, the key is marrying autonomy with hiring reforms, as, in the Global South, allowing elite civil servants to use their discretion to further the public interest has been demonstrated to improve outcomes compared to highly rigid systems.

2.3. Differences to Standard Counter-Nepotism Reforms

The last point above illustrates how the CCI’s recommendations deviate from the generic list that is usually cited by scholars and policy practitioners alike seeking to assist the PA improve its performance. More generally, the CCI’s toolkit is tailored to the needs of the Global South, rather than copy-pasting the recommendations emerging from the Western-focused public administration literature. While the PA faces a highly idiosyncratic range of challenges, it is more likely to benefit from the success stories seen in the Arab world, for example, than it is from those in Scandinavia or East Asia.

In this regard, the PA would do well to establish systematic exchange programs with the Arab Emirate of Dubai in the public administration domain. By any metric, Dubai has developed an effective civil service (Khalid and Sarker, 2019), and is an exemplar that is frequently cited in the CCI’s own handbook. From the PA’s perspective, they share a common language and religion, many customs, and have comparable size, making the systems used in Dubai much more transferrable. In fact, many of the counter-nepotism best practices cited above have already been adopted in the Emirate, such as the ease of firing under-performing civil servants, and granting entrepreneurial line managers a significant amount of autonomy and then recognizing them when they deploy it effectively (WAM, 2024).

At present, one of the West Bank’s premier knowledge institutions, Birzeit University, boasts a wide range of international partnerships, but most are in the adjacent countries of Jordan and Lebanon (Birzeit University, 2024), while the only partnership in the UAE is with an institution that does not specialize in public administration. A potentially fruitful collaboration would be with the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government (MBRSG). For example, establishing a large-scale scholarship program for Palestinians who excel in high school can allow the PA’s civil service to exploit the MBRSG’s independence in evaluating prospective hires. Moreover, joint research programs on public administration between the two universities can inform future refinements of the hiring processes that are tailored to the unique circumstances of the PA.

Conclusion

The Palestinian people in general - and the PA in particular - are forced to operate in a uniquely difficult environment for a wide variety of reasons that are beyond their control. There is no question that these circumstances are the primary cause of any deficiencies exhibited by the PA. In fact, the perseverance exhibited by Palestinians on a daily basis is remarkable, and serves as an example for people all over the world on how to refuse to give up when facing virtually impossible odds. However, the overwhelming nature of external problems that the PA faces does not absolve it of the responsibility to strive to improve its own performance, a principle that the PA itself acknowledges, as evidenced by its continuing efforts to implement reforms.

In 2024, any intrinsic pressure toward self-improvement is reinforced by growing extrinsic pressure from prospective donors that cannot be dismissed. This essay has focused on one small but significant piece of the puzzle: tackling the issue of nepotism in the PA by applying the lessons learned from the nascent literature on charter cities, tailored to the needs of the Global South. The proposals I presented build upon the generic ideas usually put forward by scholars and policy practitioners that are typically informed by a Western-based literature on public administration.

An important element of the suggestions presented is the need to benefit from the experience of Dubai. In fact, the Arab Emirate has a government bureaucracy that is so effective that practically every country in the world stands to gain from studying the underpinnings of its success, including in the domain of impersonal and meritocratic hiring. That Palestine shares a religion, language, and many customs with Dubai only makes the compatibility more compelling.

References

حسين عبد القادر, 2017. Administrative Reform In The Palestinian Authority's Institutions and its Relationship to Good Governance. مجلة جامعة الاستقلال للأبحاث.‎ 2(2).

Abdalhadi, A., 2013. Politics of tribe and kinship: Political parties and informal institutions in Palestine. Analysis No. 173, May.

Al-Ubaydli, O., 2021. The End of Corporate Janissaries in the Gulf. The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, (41).

Amundsen, I. and Ezbidi, B., 2002. Clientelist politics. State formation and corruption in Palestine 1994-2000. Chr. Michelsen Institute.

Birzeit University, 2024. International Partners. [online] Available at: https://www.birzeit.edu/en/international-partners [Accessed 5 August 2024].

Brynen, R., 1995. The neopatrimonial dimension of Palestinian politics. Journal of Palestine Studies, 25(1), pp.23-36.

Campbell, R.A., 2008. Leadership succession in early Islam: Exploring the nature and role of historical precedents. The leadership quarterly, 19(4), pp.426-438.

Charter Cities Institute, 2021. Governance Handbook. [pdf] Available at: https://chartercitiesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/CCIGovernanceHandbook.pdf [Accessed 5 August 2024]

Coats, J.C., 2002. Applications of principal-agent models to government contracting and accountability decision making. International Journal of Public Administration, 25(4), pp.441-461.

Dana, T., 2020. Crony capitalism in the Palestinian Authority: a deal among friends. Third World Quarterly, 41(2), pp.247-263.

Easterly, W., 2006. The white man's burden: why the West's efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good. New York: Penguin Press.

Fukuyama, F., 2011. The origins of political order: From prehuman times to the French Revolution. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Gazit, N., 2015. State-sponsored vigilantism: Jewish settlers’ violence in the occupied Palestinian territories. Sociology, 49(3), pp.438-454.

General Iftaa’ Department, 2024. Favoritism and Nepotism. [online] Available at: https://aliftaa.jo/article-en/5770/Favoritism-and-Nepotism [Accessed 5 August 2024].

Iqtait, A., 2021. The Palestinian Authority political economy: The architecture of fiscal control. In Political economy of Palestine: Critical, interdisciplinary, and decolonial perspectives (pp. 249-270). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Jones, D., 2000. Group nepotism and human kinship. Current Anthropology, 41(5), pp.779-809.

Khalid, H., 2022. Transparency and accountability to reduce administrative corruption in non-governmental social welfare institutions in Palestinian society from the perspective of employees working in West Bank institutions. Journal of Positive School Psychology, pp.600-615.

Khalid, S. and Sarker, A.E., 2019. Public management innovations in the United Arab Emirates: rationales, trends and outcomes. Asian Education and Development Studies, 8(4), pp.405-415.

Khan, M., 2009. Palestinian State Formation since Oslo: The Challenges of Governance without Sovereignty. [pdf] Available at: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/9964/1/Palestinian_State_Formation_since_Oslo_Internet.pdf [Accessed 5 August 2024].

Maguire, A. and Thompson, K., 2017. Palestine, self-determination and international justice: looking back to the ICJ and looking forward to the ICC. Griffith Law Review, 26(4), pp.532-562.

Merriam-Webster, 2024. Nepotism. [online] Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nepotism [Accessed 5 August 2024].

Michael, K. and Guzansky, Y., 2016. The Palestinian Authority: A State Failure?. Strategic Assessment. Tel Aviv, 19(1), pp.87-102.

Prime Minister’s Office, 2024. Fellowship Program. [online] Available at: https://pmo.gov.bh/en/category/fellowship-program [Accessed 5 August 2024].

Robinson, G.E., 2007. The fragmentation of Palestine. Current History, 106(704), pp.421-426.

Saleh, B., 2008. The fragility of the Palestinian Authority: Economic causes. The Economics of Peace and Security Journal, 3(2).

Sports Illustrated, 2014. Daddy Issues. [online] Available at: https://vault.si.com/vault/2014/06/16/daddy-issues [Accessed 5 August 2024].

Tartir, A., 2015. Securitised development and Palestinian authoritarianism under Fayyadism. Conflict, security & development, 15(5), pp.479-502.

Times of India, 2024. UAE lining up with Israel, US on demanding Palestinian reform. [online] Available at: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/uae-lining-up-with-israel-us-on-demanding-palestinian-reform/articleshow/110228665.cms [Accessed 5 August 2024].

WAM, 2024. Mohammed bin Rashid honours winners in Dubai. [online] Available at: https://www.wam.ae/en/article/13u0p75-mohammed-bin-rashid-honours-winners-dubai [Accessed 5 August 2024].

Wildeman, J. and Tartir, A., 2021. Political Economy of Foreign Aid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: A Conceptual Framing. In Political Economy of Palestine: Critical, Interdisciplinary, and Decolonial Perspectives (pp. 223-247). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Zagha, A. and Zomlot, H., 2004. Israel and the Palestinian economy. with G. Giacaman and I. Amundsen, State formation in Palestine: Viability and governance during a social transformation. Abingdon, UK: Routledge Curzon, pp.120-140.