Nepotism is a special form of favouritism, in which an office holder (ruler) prefers his proper kinfolk and family members (wife, brothers and sisters, children, nephews, cousins, in-laws etc.). Many unrestricted presidents have tried to secure their (precarious) power position by nominating family members to key political, economic and military/security positions in the state apparatus.

Many suggestions therefore exist on how to categorise the different forms of corruption and how to define and categorise it into sub-phenomena. Researchers have defined corruption as a particular state-society relationship, and made the distinction between “political” corruption and “bureaucratic” corruption. Other broad analytical categories have also been suggested like between “functional” and “dysfunctional” corruption and corruption as a mechanism of either “upward extraction” or “downward redistribution”. Sometimes the aim has been to relate corruption to other important phenomena or processes. For example, recent political science classifications and definitions have tended to place corruption and the fight against it within the broader agenda of democratisation. Political or grand corruption takes place at the highest levels of political authority. It is when the politicians and political decision-makers (heads of state, ministers and top officials), who are entitled to formulate, establish and implement the laws in the name of the people, are themselves corrupt. With grand corruption we are dealing with highly placed individuals who exploit their positions to extract large bribes from national and transnational corporations, who appropriate significant pay- offs from contract scams, or who embezzle large sums of money from the public treasury into private (often overseas) bank accounts. Political corruption is furthermore when policy formulation and legislation are tailored to benefit politicians and legislators (Moody-Stuart 1997; Doig and Theobald 2000:3). Political corruption can thus be distinguished from bureaucratic corruption, which is corruption in the public administration, at the implementation end of politics. This “low level” or “street level” corruption is what citizens will experience daily, in their encounter with public administration and services like hospitals, schools, local licensing authorities, police, customs, taxing authorities and so on. The sums involved are rather modest (adjusted to local conditions), and therefore bureaucratic corruption is frequently referred to as routine or “petty”. Even so, the sums involved may be considerable in particular cases and in aggregated terms. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) classifies corruption into two types: spontaneous and institutionalized (or systemic). Spontaneous corruption is usually found in societies observing strong ethics and morals in public service. Institutionalized corruption, on the other hand, is found in societies where corrupt behaviors are perennially extensive or pervasive. In these societies, corruption has become a way of life, a goal, and an outlook towards public office.