The belief that governance can draw a clean line between family and politics is one of law’s most persistent illusions. Constitutions insist that power is institutional. Ethics regimes assume loyalty can be disclosed into neutrality. Anti-nepotism laws presume influence can be formalised and contained. Across systems, this logic fails because governance is relational before it is procedural. Family is not an intrusion into politics. It is one of its operating systems. The central question is when family power stabilises rule and when it becomes extractive.
The family business of governance and the governance of family business, By Odeh Friday
