Ethnic nepotism - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Ethnic nepotism describes a human tendency for in-group bias or in-group favouritism applied by nepotism

Nepotism

Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. The word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, nepotis , from which modern Romanian nepot and Italian nipote, "nephew" or "grandchild" are also descended....

for people with the same ethnicity.

The theory

Ethnic nepotism (also see nepotism

Nepotism

) is a concept in sociobiology

Sociobiology

Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology,...

to explain why people prefer other people of the (perceived) same ethnicity or race. Influenced by W.D. Hamilton's theory of kin selection

Kin selection

Kin selection refers to apparent strategies in evolution that favor the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Charles Darwin was the first to discuss the concept of group/kin selection...

, ethnic nepotism describes a human tendency for in-group bias or in-group favouritism applied on the ethnic level.

The term was coined by sociologist Pierre L. van den Berghe

Pierre L. van den Berghe

Pierre L. van den Berghe is professor emeritus of sociology and anthropology at the University of Washington, where he has worked since 1965. Born in the Congo to Belgian parents, and spending World War II in occupied Belgium, he was an early witness to ethnic conflict and racism, which eventually...

in response to Belgian oppression of Africans he witnessed as a Congolese-born Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an in the Belgian Congo

Belgian Congo

The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...

. The theory views ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own. The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with...

and racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

as nepotism toward extended kin and an extension of kin selection

Kin selection

. In other words, ethnic nepotism points toward a biological basis for the phenomenon of people preferring others of the same ethnicity or race; it explains the tendency of humans to favor members of their own racial group by postulating that all animals evolve toward being more altruistic toward kin in order to propagate more copies of their common genes.

"The myth of common descent", proposed by many social scientists as a prominent ethnic marker, is in his view often not a myth at all. "Ethnicity is defined by common descent and maintained by endogamy

Endogamy

Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group, rejecting others on such basis as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Greek Orthodox Christian endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another...

".

To guard one's genetic interests, Frank Salter

Frank Salter

Frank Kemp Salter is an Australian academic and researcher at the former Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology, Andechs, Germany, best known for his writings on ethnicity and ethnic interests....

notes altruism toward one's co-ethnics:

Hamilton's 1975 model of a genetic basis for tribal altruism shows that it is theoretically possible to defend ethnic genetic interests in an adaptive manner, even when the altruism entails self sacrifice. He argued mathematically that an act of altruism directed towards the tribe was adaptive if it protected the aggregate of distant relatives in the tribe. In sexually-reproducing species a population's genetic isolation leads to rising levels of interrelatedness of its members and thus makes greater altruism adaptive. Low levels of immigration between tribes allow growing relatedness of tribal members, which in turn permits selection of altruistic acts directed at tribal members, but only if these acts "actually aid in group fitness in some way...." Closely related individuals are less likely to free ride and more likely to invest in and thus strengthen the group as a whole, improving the fitness of its members.

Regarding how this translates into politics and why homogeneous societies are more altruistic, Frank Salter

Frank Salter

writes:

Relatively homogeneous societies invest more in public goods, indicating a higher level of public altruism. For example, the degree of ethnic homogeneity correlates with the government's share of gross domestic product as well as the average wealth of citizens. Case studies of the United States, Africa and South-East Asia find that multi-ethnic societies are less charitable and less able to cooperate to develop public infrastructure. Moscow beggars receive more gifts from fellow ethnics than from other ethnics. A recent multi-city study of municipal spending on public goods in the United States found that ethnically or racially diverse cities spend a smaller portion of their budgets and less per capita on public services than do the more homogenous cities.

J. Philippe Rushton

Jean Philippe Rushton is a Canadian psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario who is most widely known for his work on racial group differences, such as research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and the application of r/K selection theory to humans in his book Race,...

has complemented kin selection and ethnic nepotism by his genetic similarity theory which proposes that "genetically similar people tend to seek one another out and to provide mutually supportive environments such as marriage, friendship, and social groups. This may represent a biological factor underlying ethnocentrism and group selection". He has also argued that:

[B]ecause fellow ethnics carry copies of the same genes, ethnic consciousness is rooted in the biology of altruism and mutual reciprocity. Thus ethnic nationalism, xenophobia and genocide can become the ‘dark side’ of altruism. Moreover, shared genes can govern the degree to which an ideology is adopted. Some genes will replicate better in some cultures than in others. Religious, political and class conﬂicts become heated because they affect genetic ﬁtness. Karl Marx did not take his analysis far enough: ideology may be the servant of economic interest, but genes inﬂuence both. Since individuals have a greater concentration of genetic interest (inclusive ﬁtness) in their own ethnic group than they do in other ethnic groups, they can be expected to adopt ideas that promote their group over others. Political ethologist Frank Salter refers to ideologies as ‘ﬁtness portfolios’, and psychologist Kevin MacDonald has described co-ethnics as engaging in "group evolutionary strategies."

Ethnic nepotism might thus help to interpret phenomena like hooliganism

Hooliganism

Hooliganism refers to unruly, destructive, aggressive and bullying behaviour. Such behaviour is commonly associated with sports fans. The term can also apply to general rowdy behaviour and vandalism, often under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs....

, nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, and group fanaticism

Fanaticism

Fanaticism is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal, particularly for an extreme religious or political cause or in some cases sports, or with an obsessive enthusiasm for a pastime or hobby...

for a variety of causes.

In Rushton's interpretation it is not clear whether the proposed genetic likeness that supports ethnic nepotism is limited to external appearance, or it also includes other loci. If that is the case, it would be difficult to deduct how similar blood types or creatine

Creatine

Creatine is a nitrogenous organic acid that occurs naturally in vertebrates and helps to supply energy to all cells in the body, primarily muscle. This is achieved by increasing the formation of Adenosine triphosphate...

levels, or others, among the multitude of invisible phenotype traits, contribute to determine the bonding behavior towards people carrying the alleged similar alleles. Also, there is no clue offered as to which of these specific alleles are the most important for expression of ethnic nepotism. Hamiltonian kin selection (in itself very controversial) refers exclusively to defined sets of discrete behaviors that are innate, not learned and increase the reproductive fitness among very close kin, whereas ethnic nepotism would appear to depend heavily on social interactions and on social constructs.

According to research by Van der Dennen, "ethnocentrism-cum-xenophobia" seems universally present in preindustrial societies (and in many primate and social carnivore species).

Tatu Vanhanen

Tatu Vanhanen

Tatu Vanhanen is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Tampere in Tampere, Finland...

in his 1999 book Ethnic Conflicts Explained by Ethnic Nepotism empirically examined the relationships between the degree of ethnic homogeneity, the degree of ethnic conflicts, and the degree of democratization in the nations of the world. He found that more ethnically heterogeneous nations had more ethnic conflicts. The degree of democratization explained very little of the degree of ethnic conflicts except that very authoritarian states such as the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia could suppress ethnic conflicts. Ethnic conflicts were only slightly less common in more economically developed countries. They appeared within all racial groups, cultures, and geographical regions. In Vanhanen's view, people have a genetic tendency to easily learn ethnic attitudes and psychological mechanisms leading to prejudice, scapegoating, and discrimination.

The theory

See also

Further reading