|
|
|
|
CIAO DATE: 04/05/07
Pocketbook Politics: Corruption in the West
by Diana Rodriguez
In the United Kingdom, members of parliament earn up to 95 percent of their income from second, third, and fourth jobs and outside interests. In France, the head of state initiated parliamentary proceedings to reaffirm his immunity against prosecution for crimes committed during and prior to his term of office. In Germany, politicians and lobbyists colluded to earn millions of dollars for themselves and their parties in kickbacks by building a garbage incinerator that was massively oversized for the city it was to serve.1 In the United States, the president's father received sizeable fees from a company earning millions of dollars in defense contracts as his son took the country to war.
These countries are not the poor or non-democratic nations that languish at the bottom of surveys on corruption. They are all ranked among the top twenty "cleanest countries" in the Corruption Perceptions Index that Transparency International (TI) conducts annually.2 Nor do they hold a monopoly on corrupt practices in Western, established democracies; similar examples exist in most, if not all, of the countries that consistently rank among the world's least corrupt nations. As Robert Klitgaard's typology of low corruption countries implies, these are countries where structures of government are robust and accountable.3 Corruption in such states is, therefore, a high-risk, lowreturn activity; "whistle-blowing" is commonplace and offenders typically face harsh punishments.
Any political system must mediate between private wealth and public power, and given the power, resources, status, and authority that governments wield, it is difficult to imagine a system designed so perfectly that incentives and opportunities for corruption did not exist. A close look at any country will reveal incidences of corruption on some scale. As such, it is important to distinguish between those incidents that are inconsequential and those that have real significance for economic and social well-being and for the health of democracy.
This essay looks at the political weaknesses that afflict countries everywhere but focuses on such deficiencies in the context of Western and highly consolidated democracies. It addresses the potential for corruption in the financing of political parties and election campaigns; conflicts of interest that might allow the private sector to purchase influence and thereby distort the public interest; and how legislators can misuse legal systems to shelter corrupt political leaders from justice. Even the world's most advanced democracies suffer from some of the most egregious examples of political corruption.
Diana Rodriguez is Program Manager for the Corruption in Politics program at Transparency International.