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Essay on corruption in politics
Power and politics
Essay on corruption in politics
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The desire to preserve political authority, has motivated leaders, both autocratic and democratic, to make decisions since the dawn of time. The Dictator's Handbook banishes political idealism and hones in on the innate human desire for wealth and power. Mesquita and Smith further defend a cynical take on politics and a realist worldview through ample real-world examples and distinct economic analysis. The authors articulate the rules leaders abide by, what the motivation for government spending is, what causes order and revolt in a political system, and what must be done to pave the way for a brighter future.
Mesquita and Smith break down the rules leaders abide by in order to maintain political authority. They begin by initially point out
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They state, "Money is essential for anyone who wants to run any organization"(74). Leaders must have money or have a plan of how to acquiesce money, in order to offer their supporters a reason to support them, which is nothing more than a means to maintain political authority. The authors state, "Taxes, after all, generate much needed revenue, which can then reward supporters"(77). Both autocracies and democracies are in favor of taxation and borrowing funds, because this grants them the revenue they need to buy support from their essentials. Mesquita and Smith further argue that foreign aid can be understood in the same light. They state, "Aid is a tool for buying influence and policy." In this sense, the two groups are really only separated by the sizes of their various selectorates, as their motivations for government spending and foreign aid are almost identical.
Mesquita and Smith explain how corruption is inherent to power. They state, "Neither a smokescreen nor a witch hunt will root out sleaze"(160). Sleaze is therefore inherent to gaining and cultivating power. They state that counter corruption measures are either meant to look good to voters or to be used as a weapon against political opponents. The solution by Mesquita and Smith is to increase the accountability of leaders so that politics becomes a competition for the best idea rather than a crock
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I agree that democratic nations and authoritarian nations are far more similar than we give them credit for being. Most leaders do seem to be motivated by self-interest, and they do seem to care primarily about maintaining, growing, and sustaining power. The abundance of examples offered in this book illustrated to me that foreign aid is often about buying influence and political power, and that corruption often coincides with power. I would have to disagree with the authors in that I do believe some leaders are motivated to take certain actions because of an inherent ethical framework, whether instilled in them by their society or by the the Lord. This is not true for all leaders, but even the authors point out that Singapore's leader is "benevolent", which is certainly a trait many authoritarian leaders do not need to posses. This book was an insightful read and certainly challenged many preconceived notions that I had about the world around
...ls are convincing as guidelines that legislators should follow. These values promote integrity that has been lacking in Congress. Since a politician is an individual, outside influences should not overpower his or her decision-making process. In addition, fairness forces lawmakers to play by the rules. Lastly, politicians must be accountable to the citizens that they represent because they need to be protecting their interests. These three principles force politicians to follow the morals of the “American democratic tradition,” (Thompson p.24-25).
In today’s world, there are several types of governments that control their countries. There are democracies, dictatorships, republics, monarchies etc. Absolute monarchy was a very common form of government centuries ago. Throughout this time period, many leaders, dictators, monarchs made mistakes that the government looks at today. The abuse and misuse of power by absolute monarchs inexorably led to the rise of modern democracy. This is shown through leaders abusing their powers as absolute monarchs, the unreliability of monarchy, and corrupt governments.
Throughout history, it can be seen time and time again that rulers have different ways of rule. As expected, rulers may look over to different nations to see what is effective to prevent failures or encourage successes. With different forms of rule comes different thinkers and their take on the current methods of ruling which can be seen in Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and Locke’s Second Treatise on Government. Coming from different periods, it is expected that their perspectives are different. Assessing these works will ease the process of observing the differences between these thinkers and their thoughts on rulers who are above the law or have no morality and their notions of private property in society
The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy by William Dobson presents a thorough analysis of the continuous struggle in the modern world of dictatorship. For this research, Dobson travelled to a lot of countries with dictatorial government, with the intention of showing the rest of the world how modern dictatorship maintain its power and deal with any opponents who threaten its regime. In the beginning of the book, Dobson mentions that it is hard for dictators to keep their crimes away from the world. Dobson also talks about how communication media first affected dictatorship. In 1974, the Portuguese military played a song that signaled for a military coup, which caused the nation to exile its own dictator the following day (3). In essence, Dobson proposes that throughout the years the internet and social media have greatly hurt dictatorial regime’s power. However, Dobson also claims that dictators have learned their mistakes over the years and somehow managed to increase their power on their people, hence meaning of the dictator’s learning curve.
In response to unfavorable domestic conditions, Argentina’s military government sought self-promotion through invasion of the Falklands, yet failed to secure its own power and thus paved the way for a new political and economic order.
According to Lipset’s modernization theory the more economically developed a country is, the more likely that democratization will occur as Lipset’s theory states that “Democracy is secreted out of dictatorship by economic development” (Prezweorski & Limongi, 1997:157). This is explained by the thought that economic development brings complexity to social structures making them harder to control; in addition, technological advancement has allowed autonomy and privacy when information is concerned and the role played by (Prezweorski &Limongi, 1997:157). When there is room for autonomy varies groups whether their elitists or not begin to feel like they can challenge autocratic rule thus prompting political reform (Prezweorski &Limongi, 1997:157). This theory ultimately insinuates that authoritarian regimes that have endured have done so because of the lack of development in that particular state. Written during the second wave of democracy, Lipset’s modernization theory is not a phenomenon that would adequately explain what causes democratization nor would it explain why authoritarian regimes endure in contemporary politics. States such as Russia and Egypt exhibit characteristics and traits associated with economic development yet it autocracy is still deeply entrenched in those nationms. Jason Brownlee’s book Authoritarianism in an Age of Democracy aims to explain why and how regimes in countries like Russia and Egypt have managed to retain autocratic rule in an era where information, ideas and philosophies of liberation have led to great political reform over the past 25 years. This review will be using concepts by various authors that try to explain why authoritarian regimes endure in light of Brownlee’s book. Findings will concl...
What Foreign Aid Is There are two words that many politicians like to shy away from, and those are the ones that aren’t two words are "foreign aid. " Taking a firm stand on either side of this topic. is usually side-stepped by decision makers. Their opinions are usually based on a case-by-case analysis. This extremely controversial topic involves whether or not to support the policy of foreign aid to needy or sometimes not so needy countries.
...aid is inefficient and prodigal as most foreign aid program fund are paid into the irresponsible government, the mismanagement of fund and embezzlement makes the aid program become wasteful (BBC). However, this objection is not convincing because nothing is perfect, the politicians are kept on working hard to make aid program become more efficient as there are regular reports have been produced on whether the foreign aid program are carried out effectively, and, therefore imposes pressure on those government decision makers. (BBC)
As a result, political repression and political laziness often run rampant. Under these circumstances, the incumbent party is almost always re-elected because of the appeasive payoffs that they are able to finance from resource wealth (Wantchekon, 1999, p. 20).... ... middle of paper ... ... Norman, C. N. (2008).
How can someone fully understand a tragedy such as the Holocaust? Many say the event ineffable to anyone who wasn’t there to begin with, but people are still striving to achieve complete or near complete comprehension. In order to do this people have used multiple media like books and recordings but the one that gives “the greatest illusion of authenticity” is movies. The purpose of Holocaust-filmmaking is to help people get a grasp on what it felt like to be in the middle of such a horrific thing as the Holocaust. If this isn’t done, then the true emotions won’t influence the audience who won’t find a way to preserve the history of the Holocaust and memories that took place in those awful times will be lost forever. Many films of the Holocaust
Wole Soyinka in the essay, “Every Dictator’s Nightmare”1999, asserts that an overbearing power with seize to exist once humans acknowledge their rights. Soyinka supports his assertions by explaining events in history in which humans had limited power. The author’s purpose is to inform the public about the importance of fundamental rights and with that the power that rights have. The author writes in a formal tone for the present and future generations. Soyinka’s three main ideas build up to this precise meaning in which religious absolutism, the evolution of communication, and fundamental rights all intertwin.
I chose among the list, the speech of the fabulous comic actor Charles Chaplin. When I started the video of him talking, I got surprised, because I know him as the movie without conversation. This speech wasn’t exactly from Charles Chaplin, but from his character of the movie “The Great Dictator”. The Great Dictator was Chaplin’s first film with dialogue. “Charles Chaplin came up with the idea to make this video, when Alexander Korda, his friend, noticed the physical resemblance between Charles Chaplin and Adolf Hitler.
Charles Spencer Chaplin born in London, England on the 16th of April 1889, his parents are Hannah Chaplin and Charles Chaplin. His mother and father both had jobs as hall entertainers at the time of his birth. Chaplin’s parents had a very bad relationship around the time of 1891, they never officially got divorced. Through his young childhood the living conditions were poor having to fight with poverty and hardship, as time began to worsen he was sent to a workhouse at the age of seven years old. Chaplin’s mother was sent to Cane hill metal asylum at the young age of nine years.
In his book International Politics on the World Stage John T. Rourke (2008) states that governments range from the strict authoritarian at one end of the spectrum to a completely unfettered democracy at the other end (p. 78). His definition of an authoritarian style government is a “political system that allows little or no participation in decision making by individuals and groups outside the upper reaches of the government” (p. G-1). Those of us who live in a country that has a democratic government may find it difficult to understand why people who live in countries with authoritarian governments do not revolt and change their system of government, but in fact a truly democratic system of government is a relatively new concept in the age of man.
Throughout history different types of instrumental regimes have been in tact so civilizations remained structured and cohesive. As humanity advanced, governments obligingly followed. Although there have been hiccups from the ancient times to modern day, one type of government, democracy, has proven to be the most effective and adaptive. As quoted by Winston Churchill, democracy is the best form of government that has existed. This is true because the heart of democracy is reliant, dependent, and thrives on the populaces desires; which gives them the ability for maintaining the right to choose, over time it adjusts and fixes itself to engulf the prominent troubling issues, and people have the right of electing the person they deem appropriate and can denounce them once they no longer appease them. In this paper, the benefits of democracy are outlined, compared to autocratic communism, and finally the flaws of democracy are illustrated.