Electoral Corruption Shapes Political Participation
Electoral Corruption Shapes Political Participation
Electoral Corruption shapes political
participation. This seeks to understand why voters participate in corrupt
elections. Elections provide excellent
windows into the word of Corruption in the Philippines. In the heat of the
electoral campaign, insiders in the sheltered world of political maneuvering
use their knowledge of crooked deals as instruments against their political
opponents.
Perhaps,
because corruption has received an extensive attention in the communities, and
perhaps, due to the fact that it has been over-flogged in the academic circles,
corruption has received varied definitions. Corruption has broadly been defined
as a perversion or a change from good to bad. Specifically, corruption or
“corrupt” behavior “involves the violation of established rules for personal
gain and profit” (Sen 1999, p.275). Corruption is “efforts to secure wealth or
power through illegal means – private gain at public expense; or a misuse of
public power for private benefit (Lipset & Lenz, 2000, p.112-114).
The
fundamental idea is that electoral corruption, in addition to directly
affecting votes, can strongly influence patterns of political participation.
This fact can weight heavily in candidates’ decisions about pursuing electoral
corruption. In some settings, electoral corruption is likely to lead to a
backlash, so candidates might avoid the temptation to pursue votes corruptly.
But in other settings, particularly under conditions that often prevail in
developing countries, electoral corruption can have the opposite effect, that
is, to inhibit political participation, with potential electoral gains for the
perpetrator.This simple idea goes a long way toward explaining observed patterns:
When electoral corruption can influence participation,there exist conditions
under which candidates may purposefully make their corrupt electoral
activitiespublic, and/or pursue electoral corruption beyond the point where it
is necessary for victory.
The rents created by political
interference invite private parties to compete for preferential treatment,
which is at the disposal of the politicians and bureaucrats. Therefore, the
donations received by the politicians to finance election campaigns may result
in corruption once they are elected to office by providing preferential
treatment to the private party who expended such resources.
Electoral corruption includes
purchase of votes with money, promises of office or special favors, coercion,
intimidation, and interference with freedom of election. Votes are bought,
people are killed or maimed in the name of election, losers’ end up as the
winners in elections, and votes turn up in areas where votes were not cast.
Corruption in office involves sales of legislative votes, administrative, or
judicial decision, or governmental appointment. Disguised payment in the form
of gifts, legal fees, employment, favors to relatives, social influence, or any
relationship that sacrifices the public interest and welfare, with or without
the implied payment of money, is usually considered corrupt. In order to
further expound on my topic,
I will the apply the following
theories in my study: 1) Rational Choice Theory, 2) Public Choice Theory, which
The
public choice theory tries to explain a politician’s motivations that depend
upon on whether
rent-seeking is“primarily”a consequence of electoral necessity, constituent preferences,
personal financial gain and personal non-financial gain, and 3)
Neo-Marxism Theory or radical underdevelopment theory.
II. Thesis
This study is significant because
corruption in the Philippines is a political phenomenon. De Dios and Ferrer
(2001) identified Corruption in the Philippines as the presumed relationship
between the polity and politician and politician and bureaucrat. The premise is
the Philippine corruption is a political phenomenon that is pervasive and
essential part of the political system and an accepted political reality, not a
bureaucratic phenomenon
In examining the nature of the
political corruption , one also must look at electoral corruption. The will of
the voters can be manipulated in many ways. In traditional systems in poor
rural societies, resources are released by gatekeepers in exchange for votes.
In these societies, the voters have no choice. Their vote is a commodity that
they trade for their food, heating, or land. In more modern societies, voters
can exercise an autonomous will, and the choice rests with them.
What
is also shocking is the level of acceptance by the people, whether candidates
or the electorate, of corrupt practices during elections. Vote-buying and other
forms of corruption during elections is public knowledge and a widely known
phenomenon in which candidates are expected to give and voters are expected to
receive money. The level of silence and tolerance of this corrupt practice
though is shocking. The candidates even bribe voters in public. Some citizens
consider it a good gesture rather than an act of bribery and that these
candidates are worthy of their votes. There is a mentality that has developed
in which voters question why they cannot cast their ballot for candidates who
distribute money when they even vote for those who do not give them money at
all.
Now a days, Electoral Corruption is
predominant in every political process. Political Participations are not
inhibit but its shaped because the voters get something from voting. For example,
in the case of vote buying. Vote-buying is not always bad, because its gives
opportunities to people to earn some money. I define Vote Buying as Buying a
vote is trading something of value—usually cash—for someone’s choice on
election day.
Vote Buying is similar to Vote
Trading, a common practice in legislative bodies. For example, “I’ll vote
for your Reproductive Health Bill to be
passed, I you both my Anti-Terrow Law”. Buying a vote also sounds a lot like
the sort of conditional promises that politicians make: “I’ll cut your taxes if
you vote for me.” Electoral Corruption, by any means can influence the
behaviour of all political actors such as the candidates, especially the voters.
Khan
(2001) explains that political corruption in developing countries is an
unavoidable phenomenon for maintaining stability in a politically unstable
environment. Patron client exchanges are used to destroy interest groups that
threaten the political status quo. The resources of the political incumbents
which enable to them to give money to the interest groups are funded by
economic corruption.
Rose-Ackerman (1997) comments that
in some systems corrupt politicians coexist with democratic forms even though
citizens are aware of their practices. Corrupt payoffs are used, in part, to
fund political parties and election campaigns. In a democracy people may seek
political office, not to fulfill an obligation for public service, but to
extract as many rents for themselves and their supporters as possible.
III. Review of theories of corruption and their
applicability to the Philippines
The
theories concerning corruption can be categorized into four tendencies. First,
Participation is explained by the Rational Choice Theory, which holds people
behave in whichever way best serves their own self-interest. A rational choice
is, thus, the result of a calculation about the costs and benefits involved in
the options presented in any given decision-making situation. Models.
The basic idea of rational choice
theory is that patterns of behavior in societies reflect the choices made by
individuals as they try to maximize their benefits and minimize their costs. In
other words, people make decisions about how they should act by comparing the
costs and benefits of different courses of action. As a result, patterns of
behavior will develop within the society that result from those choices.
Voters grab the opportunities that
are presented to them by the candidates to earn some money, either by vote
buying, Over the last decades rational choice theory has also become
increasingly employed in social sciences other than economics, such as
sociology and political science. It has had far-reaching impacts on the study
of political science, especially in fields like the study of interest groups,
elections, behavior in legislatures, coalitions, and bureaucracy.
Second, according to
Neo-Marxism Theory, it
is argued that due to the subservient, neo-colonial peripheral and exploited
position of the Third World, and the role of the local political elite as
puppets of multinational corporations and Western governments, authoritarianism
and political underdevelopment, including corruption, will only persist(Blomström
and Hettne 1984).Imperialist-capitalist
penetration and forced underdevelopment was put up as the substance of
dependent economies, ofwhich authoritarianism and other political predicaments,
including corruption, were
the logical consequencesThe solution suggested was a radical break with the capitalist
world, or at least national protection in the form
of“self-generating”or“endogenous”growth and import substitution
industrialisation policies.
Hutchinson (1997) stated that
something resembling this Neo-Marxism Theory was applied in the Philippines
since the 1950’s as shown by its adopting protectionist trade and
macroeconomics policies and import-substitution industrialisation. However, the
effort applied to competing in the political arena over sources of rent,
particularly in the form of quotas, tariffs and public monopolies resulted in a
particularistic policy and demands for resources by a politically and
economically powerful oligarchy.
Second,
according to the theory of the causes of corruption, public
officials in some countries misuse public office for private gains more
frequently and for a larger payoff than officials in others. The said official
may be analysing the expected cost of a corrupt act including psychological,
social, as well as financial costs, against expected benefits. It is suggested
that a variety of characteristics of the countries’economic, political and
social situation may affect expected cost, benefits or both. According to the
theory of the causes of corruption, in a democratic form of government where
the political system is open -- literacy, freedom of association, and freedom
of the press -- the probability of containing corruption is high. An educated
citizenry is motivated to expose a corrupt act and closely monitors government
transactions.
The third trend to be investigated
is called the public choice theory. Public choice can be defined as the
economic study of non-market decision making, or the application of economics
to political science. The subject matter of public choice are: the theory of
the state, voting rules, voting behavior, party politics, the bureaucracy, and
so on. The behavioral postulate of public choice as for economics, is that man
is an egoistic, rational utility maximizer.
Self (199) assumes public choice
thought as individuals who act as “rational egoist” who pursue their private
interests in both economic and political life. Sutter (1999)attempts to explain
public choice theory as an agent of the political process such as the
candidate, voter and interest group that rationally pursues its self-interests;
equilibrium results when no agent unilaterally alters his behavior given the
behavior of others.
The logic of collective action
specifies an outcome of political necessities; incorporates the impact of
campaign contributions, lobbying and even bribes; and illustrates that the
willful choices of politicians, hence, their motives, are important outcomes.
The purpose of public choice theory
is to explore the role that politicians play by the use of models which predict
interest group dominion of politics. As long as interest groups are not
completely ineffective in bargaining with politicians, the agreed upon price or
support will reflect the interest group’s willingness to pay and the
legislator’s reservation price.
Thus, rent-seeking requires specification of legislator’s
politician motivations, e.g. a legislator may have multiple motives in voting a
particular bill. A politician’s motivations depend upon on whether rent-seeking
is“primarily”a consequence of electoral necessity, constituent preferences,
personal financial gain and personal non-financial gain.
Rent-seeking is
sometimes used interchangeably with corruption, and there is a large area of
overlap. Corruption involves the misuse of public power for private benefit,
rent-seeking derives from the economic concept of “rents”, i.e. earnings in
excess of all relevant costs, and equals monopoly
Rent-seeking, is
largely“directly unproductive”, wasteful and very often economically
inefficient. The theoretical framework of public choice theory attempts to
clarify the politician’s motives in rentseeking:
The first motive is electoral necessity. Modern electoral campaigns are
relatively expensive requiring campaign staff, polling and
advertising. Because of intense competition to win, politicians face constraints and need logistical support;
these drive them to make deals with interest groups.
The second motive
for rent seeking is constituent preferences. In the Philippines, this
may result in a culture of people where
an election is used as an opportunity for earning money from the politician.
The Filipino politician may influence a large number of the electorate to sell
their votes to support his/her
candidacy. The money spent by the politician may be recovered from the
government if she wins the election by means of graft and
corruption.
The third motive
is personal financial gain derived from elected position. The payment can be direct, as in bribery, or indirect, as in
directing benefits to favoured businesses and providing postelective positions. In the Philippines, it can also
be in the form of commissions earned from government projects and office supplies.
The fourth motive involves personal non-financial gain. Prolonged
intensive lobbying influences mendacious
beliefs among politicians. In the Philippine bureaucracy, the
appointment of unqualified candidates
to government positions according to recommendations by members of the big
family clans may result in bias
against other applicants who are more qualified.
IV. Conclusion
First, in some circumstances,
expectations influence patterns of electoral participation. Second, the
character of elections can influence expectations. Third, when the previous two
points hold, there can exist incentives for contenders to pursue electoral
corruption not only for its direct (or ‘material’) effect on the vote, but also
for its indirect effect on the vote via the character of the election and its
effect on participation.
Parties,
politicians, and machines use a large array of tactics to win public office. Many
of these—including making speeches, distributing leaflets, and promising to
build infrastructure—remain
perfectly legal ways of attracting votes. Buying votes, however, is an
activity that parties practice, but is an unaccepted way of winning an
election.
The
Philippine electoral system provides an avenue through which corruption is used in the government. Philippine election is a highly
personalistic competition between candidates. The Filipino electorate votes for
individuals rather than along party lines.
