Summer Reading: Corruption and American Politics - Michael Johnston's Essay

Corruption and American Politics, an essay collection edited by Michael A. Genovese and Victoria A. Farrar-Myers (Cambria, 2011), has some excellent essays, especially those that deal with institutional corruption. The only serious criticism I have of the book is its price: $30 in both paperback and e-book formats.

Michael A. Genovese's introduction focuses on what he calls "systemic corruption," a bad system rather than bad apples. "Such corruption," he writes, "runs deeper than mere individual transgression. Systemic corruption is embedded into the day-to-day operation of the system. ... It is easier and, in the short run, more gratifying to catch, punish, and condemn a Governor Blagojevich."

He notes that Michael Johnston, the author most quoted in the essays of this collection, feels that focusing on the personal instead of the systemic has led to a blind spot regarding corruption. This is not a theoretical blind spot, any more than officials' blind spots (which I discuss at length in my book Local Government Ethics Programs). Blind spots regarding corruption lead to "misguided reform efforts."

It is Michael Johnston's essay "Democracy without Politics: Hidden Costs of Corruption and Reform in America" that leads off the collection. He states his principal argument as follows:

[S]everal types of ambivalence — toward self-interest, relationships between public and private concerns, and toward politics itself — have produced both a number of blind spots with respect to politics, leadership, and the significance of corruption, and a naïve overreliance on rules and institutional remedies as means of reform.

Inclusion and Access
Johnston's concerns about corruption are focused on inclusion. When most people feel excluded from access to their leaders, and believe that officials have been bought off by special interests, a democracy has a significant corruption problem. Johnston's concerns focus less on conflicts of interest than on special interests, which are more relevant to lobbying and campaign finance.

The Ambiguity of "Corruption" and "Abuse"
Like many of the authors in this collection, Johnston is interested in the definition of corruption (on the other hand, I try to keep away from the word as much as possible, because people define it in so many different ways, most of them related to crimes). He defines corruption as "the abuse of public roles or resources for private benefit," a common definition that ignores the criminal aspect. What differentiates his approach is that he feels that "abuse," "public," "private," and even "benefit" are often "matters of contention and ambiguity."

For example, because there is disagreement over the boundary between "public" and "private" (e.g., in public-private partnerships, development agencies, and the privatization of local government services), these relatively recent institutions may not be sufficiently protected from corruption, and there may be insufficient oversight or countervailing forces, political or administrative. This is certainly true.

Sometimes the disagreement is over what is and is not "abuse." Often elected officials do not feel that their conduct constitutes abuse (and therefore leave it out of the ethics codes they pass), while the public does. This can allow damaging corruption to occur without there being any bad apples.

What is most important to Johnston is that these definition issues are never resolved. They are dealt with via politics and scandals, that is, through accusations and ethics and criminal proceedings. He feels this is fine. I disagree.

I don't think this is an effective way to deal with these issues, because what is presented as being about ethics is too often really about partisan and personal animosity, and the desire for victory at any cost. Even when officials are sincere about resolving ethics issues, they often do not understand them or have blind spots that prevent them from properly seeing and dealing with misconduct. And sometimes elected officials defend themselves by attacking or undermining government ethics programs, dealing a serious blow to the public's trust both in those who lead their community and in the ethics program that was supposed to provide accountability.

The Moral Health of a Community
Johnston notes that looking for bad apples has not always been seen as the best way to deal with corruption. Classical thinkers, he writes, saw corruption as reflecting the moral health of a community. It was a reflection of the relationships between leaders and followers. He sees J. Patrick Dobel, author of the book Public Integrity, as summing up this view in his argument that the "privatization of moral concerns and the accompanying breakdown of civic loyalty and virtue are the cardinal attributes of a corrupt state."

People tend to think along these lines, focused less on individuals than on "the basic soundness and credibility of politics and leaders." But at the same time the public and the news media gets caught up in scandals involving individuals. And, most important to Johnston, people are unwilling to commit their energies to government reform or active oversight. We instead depend on institutional arrangements such as checks and balances, nonpolitical administration, and campaign finance laws to check the excesses of politics, even when we feel they aren't really working.

Special Access Is Anti-Competitive
Johnston sees the political world in terms of markets, but not in the usual, simplistic view of companies in competition. He pictures the payments of companies seeking benefits from government for influence and access as a way of decreasing political competition by getting special consideration while competitors (other industries or companies in the same industry) get less or no consideration, unless of course they pay an equivalent price.

Similarly, elected officials who accept the most money from these companies, legally or illegally, are in a good position to beat their competitors – especially non-incumbents. Johnston believes that what is needed is not insulation from self-interest, but instead more politics and more accountability through more equal elections. Unfortunately, his solution is campaign finance-oriented, providing little guidance for local government ethics.

Turpitude and Power
Johnston includes a very interesting quote from Alexis de Tocqueville's classic book Democracy in America about how we view our political leaders:

[We fear] not so much the immorality of the great as the fact that immorality may lead to greatness. In a democracy, private citizens see a man of their own rank in life who rises from that obscure position in a few years to riches and power; the spectacle excites their surprise and envy, and they are led to inquire how a person who is yesterday their equal is today their ruler. To attribute his rise to his talents or his virtues is unpleasant, for it is tacitly to acknowledge that they are themselves less virtuous or less talented than he was. They are therefore led, and often rightly, to impute his success mainly to some of his vices; and an odious connection is thus formed between the ideas of turpitude and power, unworthiness and success, utility and dishonor.

Things haven't changed much in this respect since 1840. As Johnston writes, "people's connections to top figures in politics are fundamentally emotional ...." This is one reason why it is so important to have ethics issues handled rationally by a clearly independent body that does not appear to be protecting high-level officials and their colleagues and supporters. Otherwise, ethics issues are dealt with and seen in a primarily emotional manner, even if there is lots of talk about laws.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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