CORRUPTION

Political Will - or Political Won’t
would-be leaders and seek to draw limits around their powers—it will be a lot more messy and
acrimonious. To a surprising extent, civic values and the institutions in more fortunate societies work
to check abuses of wealth and power, are not the causes of that sort of reform, but rather are among
its outcomes. Attempting to transplant them whole into societies where they cannot tap into sustained
social energy will be futile.
That process is one I have termed “deep democratization”—not merely the institution of democratic
forms and processes, which in fact tends to exchange some forms of corruption for others, but rather,
a much broader and deeper process of encouraging and enabling citizens to become their own
effective advocates. In the extremely useful formulation of Acemoglu and Robinson, it is the challenge
of making regimes less extractive and more inclusive. It is a process that need not—in fact, cannot—
await sweeping systemic transformations, nor does liberal democracy bring it to an end. Even in
unpromising circumstances, deep democratization can begin with bringing more voices into the public
arena and creating safe, valued space for political and economic participation. That sort of change
cannot be orchestrated or controlled from above; in many instances, it would make life considerably
more uneasy for many of the self-proclaimed champions of reform at the London Summit. Moreover, it
places significant burdens and, at times, risks upon ordinary citizens. But it can—and, I believe, even
in some surprising places, will supplant political won’t with a healthy dose of broad-based, sustained,
and visible political will.
Michael Johnston is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Political
Science Emeritus at Colgate University, Hamilton, New York USA. His
most recent book is Corruption, Contention, and Reform: The Power of Deep
Democratization (Cambridge, 2014).
International Affairs Forum
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