| Chapter 1: | Democracy without Politics? Hidden Costs of Corruption and Reform in America |
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races out of 435 are genuinely competitive—that is, settled by less than a two percent margin. In many years, a quarter of House incumbents or more face only token opposition—or none at all.7
While the 2006 off-year results changed party control in both houses, and the 2008 general election produced more turnover than usual, both long-term patterns of campaign contributions and the “reforms” we have enacted brutally favor incumbents over challengers.8 In the economic arena matters are more complex, but it still is difficult to resist the impression that lavishly funded lobbying, lax regulatory and congressional oversight, wild-and-wooly merger activities, and the ability of corporate interests to prevent or inhibit policy change do little to aid the overall openness and competitiveness of the economy. That most of these examples do not involve egregious bribery but rather follow quite legal pathways, may say less about our collective state of ethics than about the privileges of wealth in American society—and may suggest that our generally positive corruption-index scores hide a much less encouraging reality.
If such propositions hold any validity they raise at least two broader concerns. One has to do with the role of the United States (self-appointed in large part) as a would-be champion and exemplar of “good governance” around the world. If our own house is in disorder—and if our politics and civil society lack vitality9—should we be so confident that the remedies we propose will make other societies better? And if politics and the economy are becoming less adaptive and more inflexible, while our leadership in both spheres increasingly becomes a class for itself as well as a class in itself, perhaps the full cost of corruption and ineffective reform is only beginning to become apparent.
Basic Concepts: Corruption and Scandal
Because corruption touches upon numerous values, interests, and sentiments its definition has long been in dispute. Indeed, contention over who gets to decide the limits that apply to wealth and power is central to sustained corruption control and in many places is a fact of day-to-day