https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2022/09/25/the-trudeau-dynasty-a-political-reset-in-the-making-n1632016
Political dynasties are inherently problematic and ambiguous. When politics becomes a family business, enabling bloodline clans and generational households to occupy the seat of power, we have what will often amount to the very antithesis of responsible political function. Indeed, countries like Indonesia have passed laws prohibiting relatives from immediately succeeding each other in public office.
As Siddhartha George argues in a paper on the descendant effects of political dynasties, employing “regression discontinuity design” (RDD), if political capital is heritable, that is, deriving from a prominent name or a powerful network, “dynastic politics may render elections less effective at selecting good leaders and disciplining them in office.” One of the factors involved in the likelihood of negative effects is, in his term, “moral hazard.” Descendants face moral hazard, he explains, “because they inherit voters loyal to their family predecessor (typically a father), dampening incentives to exert effort and perform well in office”—the common problem of the epigone.
This is especially true in the economic realm. Dynastic politics tend to issue in a “reversal of fortune,” that is, “a standard deviation decrease in wealth percentile rank.” Inherited political capital, George concludes, “allows descendants to persist in power even when they underperform,” as well as weakens “the ability of elections to select talented leaders.”
Dynastic families are a predictable feature of despotic regimes, such as the Kims in North Korea. They can be prominent in secular patristic regimes, such as the Peróns in Argentina or the Abes in Japan. Dynastic families readily assume office in democratic countries through name recognition and the accumulation of powerful resources, consisting of politically acquired wealth, long-haul expertise and extensive influence. One thinks of the Pitt family in Britain, the Adams and Roosevelt families in the U.S., and the Papandreous in Greece, each having produced two national leaders. One notes three generations of Nehru/Ghandi relations in India and the Bush family in the U.S. that enjoyed three terms in the White House, with indifferent results. The Clintons, for their part, almost achieved a regime by marriage.
