Ministers resignation sparks debate over nepotism in government

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yu Myung-hwan’s resignation last week after his daughter got a plum job with the ministry has sparked a debate over nepotism in government.

Several children of diplomats have reportedly obtained jobs at the ministry through family ties over the past decade.

The investigation into the “opaque” employment process of the foreign ministry is drawing fresh attention as in some countries, such as the United States, the practice of nepotism in government is accepted.

Professor John Delury of Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies noted that Americans have a fairly clear understanding of what nepotism is.

“In the United States, there are certain pure political appointments. It is basically understood and accepted that the president and other high-ranking members of the government will appoint people close to them, even including family members,” Delury told The Korea Times over the phone, Monday.

“So in that sense, it could be seen as less threatening in the American context because Americans are less worried than Koreans might be that families will take over the government.”

The political scientist noted the United States has more a rule of law tradition, whereas Korea has a long Confucian tradition.

Timothy Noah, the author of the book entitled “In Praise of Nepotism,” said in an NPR interview several years ago that a great many people in the Bush administration obtained their jobs through family ties.

“It would be fairly inconsistent for anyone in the Bush administration to attack anyone based on nepotism, considering that this is by any measure the most nepotistic administration in recent history since the Kennedy administration,” he said.

Noah singled out the names of several high-ranking officials who got plum positions based on family ties in the Bush administration.

Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, was appointed as a deputy assistant to the secretary of state in 2002 and her husband, Philip Perry, was serving as attorney for the White House budget office.

Elaine Chao, secretary of labor (2001-2009), is the wife of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate.

Unlike in Korea, none of them resigned over a family ties controversy in the Bush administration.

Asked what was the stark difference in people’s attitudes toward favoritism in government between the two countries, Professor Delury answered those above are isolated examples, not representative examples.

“No one likes nepotism in government, including Americans,” he said, adding that certain pure political appointments were accepted and understood in the United States, though.

Elaine Kim, professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, observed that criticism over nepotism in government in the United States has been growing lately.

“I guess over the years I have noticed that what U.S. voters hate is what is perceived as unfairness,” Kim said in an email interview with The Korea Times.

“Even though somehow people tolerate social unfairness very well — that is, that a tiny fraction of the population controls most of the wealth and property, people seem to enjoy believing that they earned it somehow and so it’s OK.”

After the controversy over the hiring of the foreign minister’s daughter was disclosed, hundreds of angry bloggers simultaneously posted on the message board of the foreign ministry’s website in protest, causing it to crash for hours.

Some of them were young unemployed college graduates and some were the parents of adult children attending college. They accused the foreign ministry of hiring the daughter of the minister based on family ties.

During a speech to Cabinet ministers and deputy ministers Sunday, President Lee Myung-bak, who recently set a new slogan of a “fair society” as a guiding light to his remaining presidency, hinted that he would accept Yu’s resignation.

Professor Kang Won-taek of Soongsil University in Seoul pointed his finger at the different rules of the games in the two societies as a source of the differences.

“Korea is based on meritocracy, and competition is widely considered as a number one rule of the game here. In a society where competition and education determine almost everything, it will be hard for other factors such as family ties to be tolerable, especially in the hiring process,” the political scientist said.

미국에서는 허용되는데 한국에서는 안되는 것은?

미국에서는 정부내 고위직에 정치인 가족이 임명되는 것에 관대한 반면, 한국에서는 거부감이 높다, 부시대통령 집권시절 체니 부통령의 딸이 국무부에서 근무하고 사위는 백악관에서 근무한 적이 있다. 이것이 비판의 대상이 되기는 하지만 한국처럼 해당 정치인이 책임을 지고 사퇴하지는 않았다.

전문가들은 한국이나 미국 모두에서 연고주의에 대한 시선이 곱지 않다는 것에는공통점이 있지만 미국내에서 어느정도 용인이 되는 반면 한국에서는 용인되지 않는 원인을 정치사회적 요인에서 찾는다

법의 지배 원리가 확고하게 자리잡은 미국사회에서는 제한된 범위내의 연고주의에는 한국에 비해 관대한 편이지만, 가족, 배경 같은 개인 능력 밖의 요인 보다는 능력을 중시하는 한국사회에서는 연고주의에 대해 미국 보다 엄격한 기준을 적용하기 때문이라고 분석한다.