2017 Reports

America's Familial Tribalism

Sabic-El-Rayess, Amra; Seeman, Alexandra M.

With President Trump in power, the United States may have entered a new era of familial tribalism, a style of governing that could best be depicted as a sudden disruption to the traditional democratic governance and merited mobility the United States has historically promoted both at home and abroad. With this form of familial tribalism, a new level of power has been given to the members of the First Family, resulting in the United States increasingly mirroring the modus operandi of many developing countries that it had formerly criticized for their own lack of ethics, transparency, and competence amongst the governing elites. Ironically, the U.S. can now learn about the impact of familial tribalism on society and particularly on higher education from those very countries it has tried to reform in the past.