Day: October 18, 2016
Rot at the top
Two Bulgarian researchers, Ruslan Stefanov and Martin Vladimirov, yesterday presented Shadow Power: Assessment of Corruption and Hidden Economy in Southeast Europe here at SAIS. Their powerpoints are here and here. Corruption is now in many ways the most important challenge in the Balkans today, as it hinders economic growth, exacerbates inter-ethnic relations, heightens political tensions, slows the pace of reforms needed to qualify for NATO and EU membership, reduces state legitimacy, and threatens instability. Corruption is second only to unemployment as a concern the public’s estimation. What the Southeast European Leadership for Development and Integrity (SELDI) has managed to do is to measure corruption pressure and practices (not just perceptions, as the Transparency International index does) as well as elucidate “state capture,” in particular in the energy sector.
The results are not edifying: corruption pressure (share of citizens reporting demands for bribes from public officials) has not improved overall since 2014 in the region and has worsened in Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while declining in Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Serbia (notably the countries in which the European Union has arguably been most active on corruption issues). More than half of the population in these Southeast European countries believes it will have to bribe someone to get things done. In all but Montenegro, more than half the population believes corruption cannot be substantially reduced. Irregular, “hidden,” employment is one of the consequences. Another is use of the non-liberalized energy sector to extract rents for state officials.
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, and to a lesser extent Albania and Kosovo, stand out as countries in which corruption levels are worsening. Tolerance of corruption in those four countries is also highest, and they are among the countries in which 50% or more of the population believes corruption cannot be substantially reduced. The public thinks the most corrupt officials in the region are political party and coalition leaders, members of parliament, ministers, and local political leaders. In short, what we’ve got here is deep-seated, endemic corruption, with the rot worst at the top.
What is to be done?
The report recommends “effective prosecution of corrupt high level politicians and senior civil servants,” EU Commission engagement with civil society, and independent monitoring mechanisms. That is certainly logical, but I challenged whether this was adequate after the presentation at SAIS, noting that the successful prosecution of my wartime friend and former prime minister Ivo Sanader in Croatia seems to have had the opposite impact: the “Sanader effect” has made top politicians more cautious about reforms. Ruslan wisely underlined that the prosecutions could not be one-off but rather should be sustained, as they are in the US. I can’t fault the idea of stronger EU engagement with civil society, which Ruslan and Martin thought had been much weaker than in Romania and Bulgaria, where improvements are evident.
I am however still skeptical about anticorruption bodies. The kind of civil society monitoring SELDI has done is important, but most official anticorruption agencies are ineffectual, because corruption is not an aberration of the system but rather the system itself. The opposite of corruption in these countries is not anticorruption. It is good governance. I see more promise in improving transparency and accountability, in particular in political parties. Most of them in the countries of greatest concern are run as fiefdoms of the party bosses, with little possibility of changing the guard and lots of opportunity to reward loyalists with corrupt rents. Srdjan Blagovcanin and Boris Divjak have made this point for Bosnia and Herzegovina. It seems to me likely to be valid in other countries as well.
But that point should not detract from the courageous and perspicacious work Ruslan and Martin have done. They have greatly enhanced the tools available to measure corruption and corruption pressure and offered some important suggestion of what to do about it. That these accomplishments are coming from inside the Balkans, not outside, represents real progress. Bravi!
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This election’s only fraud
Yup, it’s Donald Trump. He is currently busy fraudulently trying to convince everyone that election fraud is common. Here’s what knowledgeable people have to say about that:
He says the mainstream media refuses to give him his due, despite the heavy coverage that has given him billions in free publicity. He declares he’ll build a wall and the Mexicans will pay for it. Anyone with a brain in his head knows that isn’t going to happen. He claims to be philanthropic but gives relatively little money to charity. He promises to help the little guy, but his tax plan favors the ultrarich. His “university” defrauded its students. Let’s not even mention his promise to document wife Melania’s observance of the restrictions on her tourist visa or his pledge to release his taxes once the IRS is finished. No sign of that in her interview with CNN yesterday.
The only people who believe any of Trump’s claims at this point are his passionate supporters, disproportionately those who are white, male, and working class. They are unconcerned with his frauds, because he gives them something they figure is worth more. He has found ways to express their unhappiness with their loss of status. There is good reason for that complaint: their incomes haven’t risen in 40 years. But what makes Trump especially appealing to people with legitimate grievances is that he gives voice to the illegitimate ones: his racism and misogyny make it worth overlooking all the fraudulent claims.
What difference does all this make to international affairs?
The world is an echo chamber. We are hearing in Vladimir Putin, Nicholas Orban, Nicholas Sarkozy and other ethnic chauvinists sympathetic vibrations. Trump is not the originator of many of the ideas they share, but he gives them courage and conviction that they might otherwise have lacked. I was told yesterday that even opposition politicians in Montenegro are imitating Trump’s fraudulent claims that the elections there Sunday were rigged. What better way is there to explain a resounding loss?
The trouble is that it besmirches American democracy and weakens its appeal internationally. It is easy enough to point out that 24 American states have governors and both houses of the legislature in Republican hands. Since national elections in the US are organized at the state level, that pretty much rules out any rigging against Trump. Only 7 states are fully in Democratic control, including several where the election outcome is not in doubt. How, pray tell, would Hillary Clinton rig elections in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina?
Trumpites may respond that the real issue is the media, which favors Clinton. That is definitely true for the newspapers. Last time I heard, only one newspaper in the entire country had endorsed Trump. Even stalwart Republican papers are opting for Clinton. But radio and television, arguably much more important, are far more evenly divided, if not on balance favorable to Trump. Until recently, they bent over backwards to try to avoid calling him out for his many blatant lies. And his broadcast coverage has been far greater than Clinton’s.
What is Trump trying to achieve with his claims that the election is rigged? In addition to excusing what is looking likely to be a clamorous defeat, he is rallying his constituency for two things: to agitate at polling places November 8 against presumed non-citizens or repeat voters and to sustain the Trumpites’ interest in supporting him when he establishes his own supposedly “truth-telling” TV channel in the aftermath of the rigged election.
I doubt he’ll be successful at either enterprise. Trumpites who try to interfere with voting in the West Philadelphia district I canvassed in 10 days ago will find a community not only determined to vote for Clinton but one zealous in the defense of its rights. Even Oprah, who has really deep pockets, has had difficulty making ends meet with her own TV channel. Trump isn’t going to find it easy after this electoral loss to raise money. I’ll be amazed if anyone but his friends will still willing to give him a dime.
So be forewarned, penny-ante nationalists, racists, and misogynist: your American hero is a fraud who is going down to defeat in three weeks, whatever ugly rabbit he pulls from a hat during tomorrow’s final presidential debate. Clinton is now campaigning in solidly Republican states, having succeeded in tilting all the more competitive ones in her direction.
I admit it is sad and concerning that almost 40% of Americans will still cast a vote for Trump. But his defeat should still take some wind out of the sails of Putin and his ilk. It will also reassure America’s allies and give pause to those hoping for it to wreck its economy with protectionism and tax cuts for the rich. Liberal democratic values, on the ropes in recent years, are headed for a modest comeback.
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