Democracy Unmoored by Samuel Issacharoff;

Author:Samuel Issacharoff;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

IV. Holding Corruption at Bay

Writing in the democratizing England of the late 19th century, William Gladstone noted that wise government ultimately depends heavily on “the good faith of those who work it.”71 The current period of democratic disrepair tests the institutional fortitude of elected governments in an era conspicuously lacking in such good faith. The question presented here is whether law may serve as a credible backstop in cases of democratic erosion along two principal dimensions that characterize the era. The first is the propensity of certain regimes to pull up the drawbridge behind them. They limit their electoral accountability or the ability of their political rivals to exercise power. The second is the temptation in executive-dominated governments toward the dispensation of discretionary favors, ultimately leading to outright enrichment of the head of state. I term both of these corruption. The first is the corruption of the process of electoral accountability. The second is the more classic corruption of the illicit quid pro quo in which payment of tribute becomes a necessary feature of life under a regime that commandeers state power.

As to the first “corrupt” efforts to unwind the democratic bargain, the tools of constitutional law have thus far been substantially effective in enough settings to confirm their importance. Emerging constitutional principles cordoning off the “basic structures” of democratic governance have prevented significant democratic erosion in a surprising number of countries. Unfortunately, the lesson of enabled constitutional courts has not been lost on populists bent on consolidating power. The example of Evo Morales in Bolivia shows how a captured constitutional court can use the same argument about enabling democracy to remove constitutional barriers to multiple elections of the same head of state, thereby eliminating the accompanying constriction of competitive accountability.

Corruption redirects the inquiry to actual conduct in office. Fiscal discipline requires long-term vision. By contrast, populism feeds on immediate gain and lives by the dictates of the next election cycle. While every president wants the head of the Federal Reserve to embrace short-term stimulus measures as an election approaches, populists break the bank. Trump—as a self-professed “king of debt” during his earlier life as a businessman—was already comfortable borrowing and unabashed about defaulting. This became his government’s credo.

When a stimulus was clearly needed to confront the pandemic’s impacts, Trump rushed to take credit, even hijacking the stimulus payout as a propaganda coup, forcing the IRS to print his name on checks mailed around the country.72 But the raid on the fisc began well before COVID-19. Trump and other elected Republicans eagerly capitalized on opportunities for deficit spending to advantage wealthy allies. Congressional Republicans and administration negotiators wove in provisions for specific industries and interest groups. Instead of policy, there were one-off payments (the “deals”) dispensed by the president as a new dole to the politically connected or to politically salient constituencies, such as farmers.

This is selective deficit spending for political credit and private profit, with little regard for the well-being of citizens beyond a select circle. Some of this is not new to the American political landscape nor limited to which party is in power.

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