The practice of giving jobs, contracts, or other benefits to friends and associates rather than choosing the most qualified people.
From crony plus the suffix -ism (denoting a practice or system), combining the noun with the suffix that creates abstract nouns for ideologies or systemic behaviors.
Cronyism has become a major word in political discourse, and it's particularly interesting because it's one of the few -ism words that describes a negative behavior pattern rather than a belief system or identity.
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