FILSAFAT KORUPSI - Direktori File UPI

extremely high in the region. The second assumption is that the institutional framework
achieved as a result of the transition from authoritarian regimes in the 1980s was sufficiently
democratic to allow a constant process of further democratization. Following this assumption,
Congress and the judiciary would become increasingly more legitimate, and would gradually
reduce the discretionary authority of the executive. The third assumption was that economic
liberalization would complete the transitional process, increasing the legitimacy of political
institutions in the long run and reducing corruption. Economic reforms would reduce
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discretionary authority of the executive by means of privatizations, trade and financial
deregulations, and creation of independent agencies. To implement such reforms, concentration
of power in the hands of the president would be beneficial in the short run, once economic
reforms could be implemented promptly. In the long run, such use of autocratic mechanisms
would payoff, as a result of the increasing transparency, reduction of the discretionary power of
the executive, and, most importantly, economic development.
I will discuss these three assumptions in the each of the four following sections of this
paper. In section two I will clarify basic concepts and detail the hypothesis of this paper. In
section three I will discuss a few theories of corruption focusing on their ambivalent position
regarding executive supremacy. Some theories argue that corruption and executive supremacy
might be necessary evils to achieve economic development. Others would state that corruption
impairs development, or that the mere concentration of discretionary powers creates
opportunities for corruption. I will present an alternative approach, arguing that corruption is
correlated with economic inequality and that Latin American societies are trapped in a vicious
cycle of concentration of political and economic power that prevents the establishment of
responsive democracies. The fourth section will focus on theories of political and economic
transition in Latin America describing how those theories justified the development of a political
system based on executive supremacy. The political theory of transition was based on elites‘
pacts and advocated the implementation of a gradualist path to democratization. Regarding
economic theories of transition, I will focus on how they perceived the relation between
economic reforms and the consolidation of democracy in the region, and why they advocated the
use of executive supremacy to implement such reforms.
1
See Lawrence E. Harrison, U NDERDEVELOPMENT IS A STATE OF MIND :
THE LATIN A MERICAN CASE (MadisonBooks, 2000).Page 43
In the last section of the paper I will focus on one particular constitutional feature of
presidentialism in Latin America, which is the executive authority to legislate by means of
presidential decrees. This characteristic is particularly interesting because it is directly related to
the three assumptions that I outlined above, and this analysis will inform my conclusions and
proposed institutional reforms. First, broad executive decree authority is probably the most
significant aspect of ―executive supremacy‖ in Latin America. However, as I will point out in
more detail, it is also a characteristic of institutional weakness of the executive itself, the
legislative, and of the political parties in the region. Moreover, executive power to rule by
decree is an institutional mechanism which survived the transition from authoritarianism.
Finally, decrees were also widely used in the process of economic liberalization in the 1990s,
increasing the speed of reforms and limiting the participation of dissenting groups. Finally, the
fact that such reforms increased income inequality and poverty in many countries of the region
also impacted in the legitimacy of post-transition political institutions.
2. Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America
This is an interesting moment to get back to political reforms towards democratization in
Latin America. Interesting because such debate was unjustifiably overlooked in recent years,
under the assumption that transition from authoritarianism was completed, and priority was
given to economic reforms2). Also, the assumption was not only that transition from democracy
was complete, but also that, at this point in time, economic liberalization would already have
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