Summer Reading: Corruption and American Politics II - Mark Warren's Essay

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Thu, 08/23/2012 - 02:56

Book Reviews

The second essay in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Corruption-American-Politics-Michael-Genovese/dp/…; target="”_blank”">Corruption and American Politics</a>, a collection edited by Michael
A. Genovese and Victoria A. Farrar-Meyers (Cambria, 2011), is by
Mark E. Warren, a professor at the University of British Columbia.
It asks the question, Is low trust in democratic institutions a
problem of corruption? 
 
Warren starts off by noting something that is too often
forgotten: the public's perception matters more in a democracy
than in any other form of government. He follows this with two
important sentences about the purpose of government ethics: "A
government viewed as corrupt cannot be trusted. And a government
that cannot be trusted will be crippled in its capacity to lead."

Lack of Trust 
Warren recognizes that one reason citizens do not put their trust in
a government that appears untrustworthy is that they don't want to
be suckered. It's not just that they're concerned with how their tax
dollars are spent. That goes without saying. There are always
legitimate concerns about the use of tax dollars, whether more
should go on children or seniors, on roads or public transit, etc.
And there's always incompetence. Distrust is a more emotional thing,
a feeling that one is being taken advantage of by conmen who are
secretly fleecing you and your neighbors. 
 
When individuals lack trust in their government, their tendency is
to oppose cooperation and collective action in general. People
become more risk averse, and this not only undermines economic
growth, and support of valuable government programs, but also places
more stress on individuals. Trust is a great reliever of stress. 
 
Warren feels, however, that the public's lack of trust does not make
sense based on the usual conception of corruption as the abuse of
public office for private gain (the conception Johnston uses in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/summer-reading-corruption-and-america…; target="”_blank”">this

book's first essay</a>). Warren feels that the public's lack of
trust is, however, reasonable if you define corruption as
duplicitous exclusion, "the secretive or deceptive exclusion of
those affected by decisions from influence over those decisions."
(See <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/institutional-corruption-conference-i…; target="”_blank”">my
blog post on Warren's theory of duplicitous exclusion</a>.) 
 
How We Trust 
Warren shares some useful perspectives on trust. For example, he
writes, "[W]hen I trust a professional, I do so because I am
convinced that his identity is so thoroughly formed by the ethics of
his office that an abuse of my trust would be inconceivable—as with
a member of the clergy or a physician. ... [W]hen I trust a
for-profit company, I infer that the company has an interest to
promote trust in its brand, without which it would not be able to
retain customers." 
 
But do we trust elected or even administrative officials in this
way? Do we feel that an abuse of our trust would be inconceivable
when they make promises they don't fulfill, when they keep public
information closed, when they are inaccessible to ordinary people,
and where the equivalent of brand reputation – the city or county's
reputation – sometimes appears not to be all that important to them? 
 
And yet there are accountability and other protective structures in
local government, including civil service rules that protect
administrators from political pressures; conflict of interest rules;
transparency rules; checks and balances; and auditors, inspectors
general, and ethics commissions and officers. Trust in these, which
cannot be taken for granted, better allows citizens to trust their
local governments. 
 
Trusteeship 
There is one issue where I think Warren got it wrong. He argues that
elected officials should be treated differently than administrative
officials with respect to their relationship to the public.
Administrative officials do, Warren believes, have a trustee
relationship with the public, but elected officials do not.
"Politics is defined by conflicting interests and values." Yes, but
the conflicts he is referring to are aspects of policy, not a matter
of wearing two hats or of misusing one's office to help oneself and
those with whom one has special relationships. 
 
Citizen Passivity 
What bothers Warren is not the existence of ethics laws based on
politicians' fiduciary responsibilities. What bothers him is the extent to which ethics laws
make citizens passive, when he believes they should actively
monitor their representatives and participate in government. He
believes that passivity "indirectly empower[s] the corruption of
democratic processes." 
 
It's true that if only special interests participate, they will
dominate every debate. But there are others who do participate and
effectively represent those who are scared away from, lack the
confidence or skills to participate in, or just don't consider it a
priority to participate in their local government. These others
include elected officials, candidates, good government and other
civic organizations, newspapers, bloggers, and other media, and
gadflies. 
 
When it comes to ethics laws, what is more important, I think, than passivity is ignorance. Few
officials, candidates, civic leaders, journalists, bloggers, or
gadflies have more than a superficial understanding of government
ethics. That is the principal reason I wrote the book Local
Government Ethics Programs: to give these people access to
government ethics information. As long as you don't believe that
corruption is simply a matter of bad character, then information is
an absolutely essential element of any attempt to limit corruption,
no matter how you define it. 
 
Trustworthiness and Elections 
Warren discusses a study that is news to me. I hope it's not right.
It is a 1998 study by Marc Hetherington that "has shown that in
the U.S., judgments about trustworthiness of candidates have
displaced policy preferences as the most important factor for
voters' decisions in presidential elections." What bothers me about
this is (1) we can't really know a candidate's trustworthiness; we
have far too little information to go on; and (2) trustworthiness is
not an all-or-nothing thing; an official can lie about his love life
or military service and fulfil his campaign promises and deal
responsibly with his conflicts, or vice versa. The fact is that most
candidates at the presidential level are the center of a huge PR
campaign. Even at the local level, where there is almost no
information other than word of mouth, and also less PR, voters have
little to go on other than party affiliation and what one sees when
the candidate is handing out fliers at the local supermarket. 
 
On the other hand, gauging and discussing someone's trustworthiness
is a lot easier and more enjoyable than trying to understand and
discuss complex policy issues. 
 
The New Clientelism 
Warren notes that officials who earn our confidence for being
competent are often the very insiders whose motivations are
questionable and, therefore, do not earn our trust. This is why so
many politicians try to sell themselves as outsiders. And yet once
they've won an election, and they appoint people to head agencies
and sit on boards and commission, they often forget the problems
that come with being an insider and appoint people who appear to
have just the sort of conflicts that so often accompany expertise. 
 
Some candidates go beyond selling themselves as outsiders. They talk
about their distrust of government, even while running to lead it.
They focus on character (their own) and help increase distrust in
government by insisting they can be trusted to prevent the special
interests from using tax dollars for their own benefit. Warren calls
this the "new clientelism." Clientelism involves someone who not
only represents, but provides protection, to members of their ethnic
group or neighborhood. 
 
Warren feels that the new clientelism corrupts democracy, because it
depoliticizes public judgment by divorcing voting and other
expressions of support from positions on issues, and by undermining
public deliberation. It is also cynical with respect to collective
action. It effectively says that our political system is so damaged
that only an individual with a high character can protect people
from being taken advantage of. 
 
From a government ethics point of view, such candidates seriously
undermine the public's trust in government in order to be elected.
Some may very well believe what they say, but they rarely make any
effort to improve the system or to increase the public's trust, except in them. 
 
In addition, by personalizing trust, people (sometimes the officials
themselves) make private lives and conduct appear more relevant than
public conduct. Think of the Clinton and second Bush
administrations, and the huge gap between the presidents' private
and public conduct. 
 
Good and Bad Distrust 
What's most important about Warren's diagnosis is his recognition
that there are different kinds of distrust, and that some are better
than others. Democracy requires distrust, but the kind of distrust
that motivates citizens to monitor their officials. Distrust in
political institutions in general leads to disengagement and the
breaking of the relationship between citizen and representative. 
 
Warren also says something interesting and valuable about deceit.
"[W]here politicians cannot use violence and do not control property
or the means of production, deceit is the principle means of
coercion. ... deceit is the way in which talk-based politics—the
highest and best form of government—degenerates." 
 
Distrust at the Local Level 
I think that, at the local level, distrust is more complicated.
People often want to trust their community leaders so much that they
give them the benefit of the doubt even to the point of not wanting
to know what they've done. It's not easy to distrust one's local
government. I think that this is one reason so many people ignore
local politics and focus instead on national politics. There,
distrust is easier, and each citizen has less responsibility for
what occurs. Locally, a small group of citizens can make an enormous
difference. But it takes work, and the right sort of distrust. 
 
Robert Wechsler 
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics 
 
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