Corruption and American Politics By Michael A. Genovese and Vict ...

Contrast the view of the framers, who saw humans as flawed, and believed that if man was imperfect, perhaps self-interest could be aligned with institutional design to serve as a protection against corruption (see chapter 5), with the view of the American Progressive movement (roughly 1890s–1920), which stressed a reliance on ethics reform (e.g., civil service reform) and bureaucratic procedures to combat corruption. The Progressives seem most concerned with Acute Corruption, the framers with both Acute and Systemic Corruption.

The Progressives seemed to believe that politics was a dirty business, and tried to depoliticize it. The framers had a more sanguine view of politics. They tended to see bargaining, compromise, and reciprocity as inherent in any political system, and while it could lead to corruption, politics itself was not the problem, human nature was. And James Madison knew, as he so ably reminded us in Federalist #51, that no political system could alter human nature. Therefore, checks and balances and a separation of power were necessary to combat corruption.

With this book, we hope to reinvigorate the study of political corruption, as well as raise the academic profile of the study of democracy, leadership, and corruption. If corruption is so ubiquitous, it is better to gain a clearer understanding of its causes and consequences so that we might be better able to combat it.

This collection of essays on political corruption comprises the best and most up-to-date thinking by some of the finest political minds in the nation. Michael Johnston suggests that we often mistake the personal for the systemic when we focus on individual transgressions. If it is merely a matter of ridding the system of a few bad apples, then the impeachment and removal of a Governor Blagojevich solves our corruption problem. Or does it? Johnston argues that by focusing on the personal instead of the systemic, we have developed a “blind spot” regarding corruption, resulting in most of our misguided reform efforts missing the real target, and making political corruption in the United States a more serious problem than we acknowledge.

Mark Warren explores the connection between perception of corruption and the decline of trust in government. Warren demonstrates that