A Typology of Corruption for Campaign 2016 and Beyond

[Proserpina]

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/a-typology-of-corruption-for-campaign-2016-and-beyond.html

Even though it’s early days in Campaign 2016, we’ve seen several episodes that could be colorably framed as corruption eruptions — the Clintons, naturally, Chris Christie, naturally, Scott Walker, naturally, Jeb Bush, naturally — but the press coverage has a common failing: The reporters treat each “scandal” in isolation, as a story about a candidate, rather than a story about a system. I’d argue that what we need is a “Corruption Leaderboard,” with the mortal sins up top, and the venial episodes lower down, and which would enable voters to compare and rank the candidates synoptically. This post will not devise that leaderboard, but I hope to make my own small contribution to move its design forward: A typology of corruption, which will make forms of corruption as practiced by individual candidates commensurable. But what do we mean by corruption?

Corruption today is generally framed in terms of a quid pro quo (or, in journalese, a “smoking gun”). For example, you are stopped for speeding, hand the cop a twenty, and the cop tears up the ticket and lets you off with a warning. (I understand that in Malaysia, one begins such a transaction with the phrase: “How can we settle the matter?”) That’s a quid pro quo, hence (so it’s said) corruption. But if you play golf with the chief of police, write the recommendation that gets their kid into private school, throw a lot of business to the real estate firm run by their spouse, and then — mirabile dictu — win the no-bid contract for the police department’s new Stingray unit, that’s not corruption, because there’s no quid pro quo. But that’s ridiculous, and Zephyr Teachout explains in Politico just how ridiculous it is:

In McCutcheon v. FEC, the landmark case that threw out aggregate limits on campaign spending last week, Chief Justice John Roberts made clear that for the majority of this current Supreme Court, corruption means quid pro quo corruption. In other words, if it’s not punishable by a bribery statute, it’s not corruption.

This is a reasonable mistake to make at a dinner party. But it’s a disastrous mistake to make for democracy, when the stakes are so high. Essentially, Roberts used a criminal law term—of recent vintage and unclear meaning—to describe a constitutional-level concept. It is as if he used a modern New York statute describing what “speech” means to determine the scope of the First Amendment.

To hear Roberts—or his fellow justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy—tell it, corruption isn’t corruption if there isn’t a quid pro quo.

But that’s not how the Framers understood corruption. (Teachout’s book, Corruption in America, is said to be excellent, but I don’t own a copy, and so I’m going to rely on her earlier article in the Cornell Law Review, “The Anti-Corruption Principle,” which is available online [PDF] SEE LINK.) Here’s Teachout’s definition, which subsumes quid pro quo but is more subtle and complex, hence more true to life:

While 1787 delegates disagreed on when corruption might occur, they brought a general shared understanding of what political corruption meant. To the delegates, political corruption referred to self-serving use of public power for private ends, including, without limitation, bribery, public decisions to serve private wealth made because of dependent relationships, public decisions to serve executive power made because of dependent relationships, and use by public officials of their positions of power to become wealthy. Two features of the definitional framework of corruption at the time deserve special attention, because they are not frequently articulated by all modern academics or judges. The first feature is that corruption was defined in terms of an attitude toward public service, not in relation to a set of criminal laws. The second feature is that citizenship was understood to be a public office. The delegates believed that non-elected citizens wielding or attempting to influence public power can be corrupt and that elite corruption is a serious threat to a polity.

Since “dependent relationships” seem to be key to Teachout’s analysis, I’m going to propose a typology that’s based on social relationships, as follows:

1) Fealty

2) Outsourcing

3) Personal Networking

Now let’s look at Campaign 2016 using this typology...

It's a long and thoughtful read, with lots of supporting links. Grab a beverage and immerse yourself!