Political corruption is institutional

The Rod Blagojevich pay-for-play scandal highlights a structural failure in the design of government

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Steven Guess guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 17 December 2008 18.00 GMT

Political observers need not be cynical to believe that there is something gravely wrong with politics in America. Tapes of Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois, reveal the shocking indifference with which our sacred democratic institutions were bought and sold like a commodity, all in terms that would make Michael Corleone blush at its callousness.

The values of our constitution, which begins with the immortal phrase "We the people," now appears little more than a cold historical artefact of an age when idealism sprang forth from great ambition and hope, only to give way to the fiercely individualist and self-centred focus groups, consultants, push polls and lobbyists that treat our ideals and aspirations as political props. Americans must now come to their senses and begin to take back their institutions by treating government officials with the scepticism our democracy demands, and insist that legislators implement structural changes to the political process rather than merely putting in jail the criminal du jour.

There will be plenty of time to sprinkle stories of political inspiration and hope to a nation crestfallen after it accidentally walked into the political bedroom and saw how policy was made. For now, the nation's anger must be channelled into a mandate for good government fuelled by a perspective that sees this not as merely a personal human failure but as a structural problem demanding policy prescriptions.

While it may be tempting to view the governor's conduct as a unique fixture limited to Illinois politics, the product of a bad apple in an otherwise good barrel, Americans must take a moment to reflect on recent political scandals for context. The term "pay for play" may be making its rounds among the chattering class as though it were new, but what other word could have described the conduct of Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Ted Stevens and countless others who traded money for votes or influence in the past decade? Is it so different from the legislative quid-pro-quo that happens every day, the pork barrel earmarks or the favours to loyalists which are accepted as mere "hardball politics" even though it mocks the meritocracy we are all raised to believe exists?

It is not new in America to sell out the power of political office for personal gain. It is only characterised as brazen and arrogant here because it was caught on tape and is so unambiguous that the typical linguistic contortions politicians make to minimise guilt avoid responsibility cannot possibly work. Does anyone think that Abramoff had any more moral compunction about what he did than Blagojevich? As Americans ask the basic question "how did he think he could get away with it?" they must be sobered by the likely answer that until now Blagojevich had been doing it with virtual impunity and that he was not alone in thinking it could work.

Corruption like the kind seen in Illinois cannot be seen in isolation, as some sort of devious plot by one man, but as a structural failure in the design of government. To accomplish his goals, Blagojevich no doubt needed dozens of aides and the complicity of countless other levers of power to make his schemes work. If he were surrounded by honest people, the first moment he approached someone with a proposal that was in any way untoward, they would report it immediately. The corruption at issue here was not exceptional but normative and institutionalised. The fact that it occurred back-to-back with a corruption scandal involving his immediate predecessor suggests that cutting off the head of the beast will not eliminate the threat or deter the deviously ambitious. Asking Blagojevich to step down with the belief that he is some sort of an exception is naïve at best and dangerously irresponsible at worst.

Lawmakers seeking to resolve this crisis must get back to basics and a Madisonian conception of government, who famously opined that when structured correctly one could compel the "defect of better motives" in politicians. Madison did not presume that politicians deserve the benefit of the doubt and argued that institutional safeguards must prepare for the worst, even if society hopes for the best.

For Madison, a politician acts with self-interest, and it is only when that self-interest can be channelled into the will of the community that it becomes a positive force, pitting ambition against ambition. Good government becomes external to the personal virtue of the parts that make up government. Laws that limit the power of our leaders, restrain them in bureaucratic barriers and question their motives are not for the George Washingtons and Abraham Lincolns of our nation but for the Rob Blagojeviches and Richard Nixons of the world. But as our electoral history proves, society too often cannot tell the difference until after the fact and therefore must not rely solely on election day to control corruption but on foresight and vigilance.

There are many structural reforms that should be considered, which range from public financing to independent counsels to more robust ethics and transparency laws. But beyond any individual barrier to corruption, the American people must adopt an attitude that questions its government. The next time a president asks for executive privilege, warrantless wiretaps or no-bid Halliburton contracts, or pardons an unseemly character who is owed a political favour, Americans have the responsibility to demand answers.

The troubling ideology of deference to the political process, based on the superficial belief that elections correct mistakes, ignores the reality that too often interest groups control policy without persuading the public and somewhere in that transaction is a complicit and eager politician. Regardless of who goes to jail in Illinois, in Washington there are still nearly 70 lobbyists per member of Congress, and over $3bn spent in lobbying efforts.

There was never a golden age of American politics where the great virtue of public servants spared society from the hedonism and greed of the corrupt and the corruptible. President Ulysses Grant's personal secretary took part in the Whiskey Ring of 1875, which diverted public funds to distilleries only to be pardoned by the president for his wrongdoing. His secretary of war was found to have taken bribes to sell Native American trading posts. History students still learn of President Warren Harding's infamous Teapot Dome scandal, which saw naval oil reserves transferred to the secretary of the interior, who conspired with oil tycoons to profit from its sale. Our age is not unique, our candidates for public office no more immoral than those in the past. One cannot cast dispersions on modern culture, which is nothing more than the direct offspring of the past.

As Lord Acton once declared, in terms far more prophetic when fully expressed, that he could not accept the notion "that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power. ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." In times of great optimism, Lord Acton seems cynical. In times of corruption, it sounds like common sense and a necessary prophylactic to the excesses of power. Americans would be wise to see gross corruption as nothing personal, but as the by-product of a defect in the structure of government which allowed it to happen on such a scale in the first place. All crimes cannot be prevented where there are ingenious criminals, but to ransom the soul of democracy, as Blagojevich did, required a complete institutional failure.

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