The Wasta Technique

Wasta opens closed doors and secures the agreement through the surety of a trusted third party. Its limits: it requires time to build or find the right conduit, incurs a debt of reciprocity, and, poorly understood by a Westerner, it can be mistaken for favouritism or corruption.

Decisive in the Arab world and in cultures of intermediation. More broadly, a reminder that, in many contexts, it is the person who introduces you who makes the difference.

• Mobilise a trusted intermediary (the wasta) who shares a social tie with the counterparty in order to obtain a credible introduction and shorten the approach phase.
• Borrow the intermediary's legitimacy and relational capital to create a climate of trust from the outset, where a direct approach would remain suspect.
• Unlock bureaucratic or hierarchical doors that are otherwise inaccessible by knocking at the right level through the right relationship.
• Have one's reliability tacitly guaranteed by a third party whose reputation is on the line, which reassures the counterparty as to the seriousness of the offer.
• Adapt one's negotiation strategy to relational and collectivist cultures where the relationship precedes and conditions the transaction.

Sales · The foreign company that goes through the right intermediary in the Gulf: A European supplier has spent months trying to secure a meeting with a large family group in a Gulf country; its emails go unanswered. On the advice of a local partner, it gets itself introduced by a respected businessman connected through family and professional ties to the target director. The introduction brings no new technical argument, but it transfers trust: the director now receives the supplier as "a friend of a friend" worthy of consideration, the first meeting takes place within days, and the discussion opens on terms rather than on principle. This scenario, representative of the practices described in the literature on wasta, illustrates how the intermediary creates the access and credibility that merit alone failed to obtain.

Diplomatic · Tribal mediation to defuse a conflict: In its historical and positive form (wasta as intermediation), a notable respected by two feuding families or tribes steps in as mediator to restore peace. His perceived neutrality and moral authority allow the parties to make concessions without losing face, each responding to the regard due to the mediator rather than to the adversary. This representative case, consistent with the description by Cunningham and Sarayrah, shows the conciliatory, socially valued side of wasta, distinct from its modern use as personal favour.

• Confusing wasta with corruption: using an intermediary for illicit influence-peddling exposes you to legal risks (anti-bribery laws such as the FCPA and Sapin II) and ruins your reputation, whereas legitimate wasta is a matter of relational introduction.
• Choosing a poorly positioned intermediary: a wasta with no real tie to, or standing with, the counterparty opens no doors and can undermine the whole approach.
• Neglecting reciprocity: forgetting that the intermediary is staking his reputation and expects a social return (mojamala) or a later favour, which creates an ill-anticipated relational debt.
• Rushing to the transaction: in these relational cultures, skipping the relationship-building stage after the introduction is perceived as a lack of respect.
• Imposing the logic of wasta on a cultural context where it does not apply, or turning it into a condescending cliché, instead of understanding the local codes of trust and intermediation.

This is the most delicate notion in this corpus, and one must be precise rather than embarrassed. Wasta covers a continuum running from the irreproachable to the criminally reprehensible, with no boundary visible from the inside. At one end, being introduced by someone who answers for you is a recommendation, a universal and perfectly legitimate practice: trust is passed on, in Europe too. At the other, obtaining a decision through the paid intercession of an influential person is influence-peddling, which French law punishes, including when committed abroad, and which the Sapin II Act requires companies to actively prevent. "This is how things are done here" has never protected anyone before a court. A second limit is too often left unspoken out of misplaced respect: wasta is sharply criticised within the very societies that practise it, precisely because it allocates opportunities according to relationships rather than merit, and excludes those who have no network. Presenting it as mere local colour is to ignore that debate. Being introduced by someone who answers for you is a recommendation; buying the intercession of a decision-maker is a crime.

• Robert B. Cunningham & Yasin K. Sarayrah (1993) Wasta: The Hidden Force in Middle Eastern Society Praeger, Westport (CT)
• Robert D. Putnam (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Simon & Schuster, New York
• Roger Fisher & William Ury (1981) Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In Houghton Mifflin, Boston