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.