Government By Corruption

Minxin Pei Op-Ed January 22, 2009 Forbes

Summary

The most common cause of corruption is a combination of discretionary power and low accountability, both of which are imperative for the political survival of authoritarian regimes.

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Original Article

Corruption is universally viewed as a scourge. It stifles commerce, perverts governments and breeds social injustice. The most common cause of corruption is believed to be a combination of discretion and accountability. Governments with enormous discretionary power and low accountability are more corrupt than those with less discretion and more accountability. This observation has led us to seek institutional reforms that would grant governments less discretionary power, while making them more accountable to the people.

So far, so good. But in our quest to rid the world of corruption, we often forget one elemental truth--corruption may be a scourge for the ordinary people, but it is a vital governing tool for authoritarian regimes.

Of course, corruption exists in democracies as well, but such corruption, petty in both nature and sum, is fundamentally different from the massive looting by autocrats in dictatorships. That is why the least corrupt countries, with a few exceptions, all happen to be democracies, and the most corrupt countries are overwhelmingly autocracies. In Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index 2008, which covered 180 societies, 90% of the 60 least corrupt societies in the world are democracies. The remaining six non-democracies are small city-states (Singapore, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain). In contrast, about 60% of the 60 most corrupt countries are autocracies, including Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, Syria, Sudan and Burma. Nearly all the 30 most corrupt countries are dictatorships. (China is viewed as among the middle 60 "medium-corrupt" countries.)

That corruption is more prevalent in autocracies is no mere coincidence. While democracies derive their legitimacy and popular support through competitive elections and the rule of law, autocracies depend on the support of a small group of political and social elites, the military, the bureaucracy and the secret police. Because these elites and constituencies do not have any core values other than self-serving instincts, their loyalty and support are fickle and must be secured by constant bribes in the form of special privileges. They not only have ostensibly legal perks such as free world-class health care, lavish official residence, and expensive junkets, but also make huge illicit profits by rigging government contracts and looting public wealth in shady privatization deals.

The rest of this publication can be read here.

Source: http://carnegieendowment.org/2009/01/22/government-by-corruption/3zf5

In Fact

70%

of oil consumed in the United States

is for the transportation sector.

20%

of Chechnya’s pre-1994 population

has fled to different parts of the world.

58%

of oil consumed in China

was from foreign sources in 2012.

million cases pending

in India’s judicial system.

million people killed

in Cold War conflicts.

18%

of the U.S. economy

is consumed by healthcare.

$536

billion in goods and services

traded between the United States and China in 2012.

$100

billion in foreign investment and oil revenue

have been lost by Iran because of its nuclear program.

4700%

increase in China’s GDP per capita

between 1972 and today.

$11

billion have been spent

to complete the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran.

of Iran’s electricity needs

is all the Bushehr nuclear reactor provides.

new airports

are set to be built in China by 2015.

journalists

were imprisoned in Turkey as of August 2012 according to the OSCE.

67%

of the world's population

will reside in cities by 2050.

million Russian citizens

are considered “ethnic Muslims.”

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