…Is that they tend to only give you two options.
Following Jacques Chirac’s announcement that France will be joining the other countries holding refeendums on the constitution it’s prompted me to post a thought about the constitution referendum(s) that I’ve had before – wouldn’t it be nice to have a third option?
I’ve written here before about the concept of being ‘alter-European’ – that is, being generally in favour of the EU but not being convinced that the current and proposed structures of the Union is the best way to proceed. What I’d like (at the moment, anyway, all opinions are subject to change) is some way to register this opinion in a referendum. Instead of just voting ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the constitution, I’d like the option of a ‘No, but only to this constitution, I’m not opposed to the idea in principle’ vote. (Those who like to dismiss me as a wishy-washy, sit-on-the-fence liberal will find all the evidence they need in that last sentence)
I’m reminded of the 1999 referendum in Australia on whether to replace the Queen as head of state. Polls showed (and still show, I believe) that the majority of Australians wanted their country to become a republic, but when it came time to vote, they voted against change because they didn’t approve of the specific plan (a President appointed by Parliament rather than popular vote) proposed to them. I fear the same happening to Europe – a rejection of a poor constitution is likely to be seen as a rejection of all constitutions, not just this specific document. So, why not allow people the chance to say what they mean instead of forcing us into strange alliances with people we disagree with?
Nick,
Personally, I am unconvinced about the need for unnecessary, obfuscating complications in posing referendum questions on the EU Constitution.
The ultimate and crucial question is whether electors approve or not a *particular* constitution, not whether we agree with some nebulous principle about the need for some unspecified constitution.
It seems we are being pushed back into Robespierre’s devious political game after the French Revolution. Doubtless, many folks approved of the notion of creating a “virtuous society” but the fundamental issues were in agreeing on what being “virtuous” entailed, the route for getting there and what might happen to defaulters and those who didn’t agree in the first place. Robespierre’s response was straight forward – the guillotine for any critics.
As we have so recently seen with the decision of the European Court of Justice on the Eurozone’s Stability and Growth Pact, a recurring problem in the EU is member state governments signing up to some declaration of principles, often with much communautaire fanfare, and then finding it expedient to “suspend” the principles a few years down the line.
Just a few years ago, we in Britain were often told about the dire consequences that would follow if we didn’t join the Euro. Checkout the Eurozone’s unemployment and inflation rates and then recall:
“More than 150 German economics professors have called for an ‘orderly postponement’ of economic and monetary union because economic conditions in Europe are ‘most unsuitable’ for the project to start.
“The call to delay Emu ‘for a couple of years’ is made in a declaration signed by 155 university professors and sent to the Financial Times and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper in Germany. It signals intensified opposition to the government’s euro policy.
“The declaration was organised by Manfred Neumann, professor of economic policy at Bonn university and chairman of the Bonn economics ministry’s council of expert advisers. It signals concern among professional economists about Bonn’s determination to begin the single currency on January 1 1999. . .” – at: http://www.internetional.se/9802brdpr.htm
The big problem with referenda is that most people do not vote on the issue itself. They vote because they like or dislike a particular person or group vocal about the issue. They vote because of wider issues such as nationalism, or narrower issues such as fridge mountains. They vote because they love Belgian chocolate or because it rained during their entire holiday in Spain. Few will have ever read a secondary review of the constitution, and even fewer the constitution itself. Changing the question to make it more intelligent will, sadly, not change this.
Politicians are well aware of the limitations of referenda and play the game very well. Notice that a referendum is used only when the result will not matter in the long term. If this one fails, there is another just around the corner. The public is never consulted on serious issues such as whether a war should be fought.
I hope I don’t sound too disillusioned or cynical here, to a large extent this is the way it has to be. I pay politicians to make decisions on my behalf because I know that I don’t have time to understand the issue, and I trust them to take this responsibility seriously. And, convincing an audience to agree with something you want is democracy in action.
Unfortunately, however, there is not really much scope for making the referendum process broader by introducing options other than Yes or No. Even Switzerland after 300 years of practice, and very narrow and immediately relevant issues, can’t get that to work.
Michael:
“The big problem with referenda is that most people do not vote on the issue itself. They vote because they like or dislike a particular person or group vocal about the issue. They vote because of wider issues such as nationalism, or narrower issues such as fridge mountains. They vote because they love Belgian chocolate or because it rained during their entire holiday in Spain.”
All these caveats apply, mutatis mutandis, to parliamentary elections too. The only fact related to a referendum is that people vote MORE on the issue in question than when taking an agregate decision, Red versus Blue or whatever, at a parliamentary election.
Nick,
I too do not understand the difficulty. Just vote No if you dont want this particular proposal. A no vote is open to a wide variety of interpetations as to motive, just as a Yes vote, or staying at home.
More importantly: You seem to want a constitution, but not this one. What sort of constitution do you want? And is there any real likelihood of getting such a one?
“A no vote is open to a wide variety of interpetations as to motive, just as a Yes vote, or staying at home.”
In these times, backward induction to infer hidden agendas by the many or the few has become more than an intriguing dinner-table diversion for the chattering classes. It has become almost a daily necessity for survival among the political classes. As Andy Grove, past head of Intel, put it but in a business context: Only the paranoid survive.
I am so often reminded of an unreliable anecdote, recounted in history books, about Prince Metternich, who became successively foreign minister and then chancellor in the Austro-Hungarian empire until deposed as an outcome of the revolutions of 1848, whereupon he sought asylum living in Brighton, a sea-side resort in the south of England now appropriately celebrated for other reasons.
At the Congress of Verona in 1822, one among the long succession of European conferences to resettle continental affairs after the Napoleonic wars over European integration, it seems the Russian delegate to the Congress failed to arrive for the credible reason that he had died on route. As reported, Metternich’s response to the news was to say: “I wonder why he did that.” [AJP Taylor: From Napoleon to the Second International (1995)]
On Brighton, this passing reference in George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) is perhaps illuminating:
“There is nevertheless a real difference between North and South, and there is at least a tinge of truth in that picture of Southern England as one enormous Brighton inhabited by lounge-lizards.” – from: http://orwell.ru/library/novels/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/e/ewp_04.htm
As for Napoleon, I’m reminded of this in the American press: “In a best-selling account of Napoleon?s final days published two years ago, France?s multi-talented [previous] foreign minister, Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin, argues that, yes, even today, Napoleon?s defeat ?shines with an aura worthy of victory.?” – from (scroll down): http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55843-2003Feb23?language=printer
I do not like referenda. They are so much soaked in populism. I am glad I Finally found a start for debate in English on indirect elections
It is high time we get rid of the idea of democracy as half + 1 of all the voters.
Primo, I have to agree with Frans. I do not like referenda, because the question will often be asked in such a way that the government gets what it wants. And sure democracy is not what the half plus one says. Actually, I have seen very few implementations of real democracy. The particracy in most Western European countries surely does not qualify as such.
Secondly, actually, there are referenda with more than a simple yes/no question. Bonaire, one of the Netherlands Antilles, will have a referendum its future political status. People have to choose between four options: integration in the continental Netherlands, independence, autonomous part of the Kingdom, or remain within the Netherlands Antilles. Of courses, this raises other problems. Let’s say the most popular option has about 33%. Is that the choice of the people? Or do you organize a secound round with the two most popular ones?
Frans, I can understand why you do not like referendums.
They have a terrible history in some countries and there is a looming horror ahead with the emerging prospect for online voting once the techies finally and credibly resolve the challenging problem of preventing voting fraud.
The recent pressure for referendums has built up, I think, because elected politicians are regarded with increasing distrust by electorates, which is hardly surprising in the light of the growing evidence of embedded political corruption in some countries, the broken promises, the constant political spin and because of the way Britain’s government pushed us into the Iraq war on false pretences.
Otto
“All these caveats apply, mutatis mutandis, to parliamentary elections too.”
I disagree, there is a world of difference between: “Which of these candidates do you most wish to give temporary authority and responsibility to?” And: “Do you think this very long, technically complex document should become permanent law?” To begin with, most people can answer the first question, we are making judgements about other people every day in our home and work life. Secondly, it is much less frightening to later think you missed something important.
Frans & Peter
I agree. As Churchill said (almost): “Democracy is a terrible form of government, unfortunately we don’t know a better one.”
BTW Thinking about the ideas on Frans’s web-site where people vote for local leaders who then vote for the next level… In Europe this might be partially implemented by having national governments appoint / elect the EU parliment. Now there is a debate waiting to happen!
Bob
Is there really greater grass roots pressure for referenda? I see it in the newspapers, but I don’t really feel it from the people around me – maybe my environment is not normal.
If I was a conspiracy theorist I might point out that these referenda do allow our leaders to avoid making some more potentially unpopular decisions. (In English: “Weren’t me guv…”)
Bob, didn’t we have the whole “orderly delay” discussion a couple of months back? I was working around the currency markets at that time, and by the time the German professors published their letter, orderly delay was one outcome that was clearly impossible. You could have had order, or you could have delay, but you could not have both.
Similarly now with the constitution. The time to pose a fundamental alternative — say, a treaty that would just tidy up the other treaties — was about three years ago. The time to get more of any particular government’s pet issues into this draft was during the convention. Now is the time to decide whether the present draft is better than any of the real-world alternatives.
As I see it, the real alternatives to the constitution, for the Union as a whole, are trying to make the present structures work with 25 members and spending another three years preparing another constitutional treaty that will not be significantly different from the present one. For individual states, a third real alternative may be departing the Union for a period. (Thus trading down to the Swiss-Norwegian model, where they are significantly affected by EU rules with no formal means of influencing them.)
It’s too bad, really, that there’s not a perfect constitution available for ratification. In the meantime, “Not perfect but good. Should adopt and seek to amend.”
I’m from California, home to dozens of annoying referenda. I generally hate them but I hate them because they typically subject the voter to engage in minute-level decision making.
Referenda really ought to be reserved for high-level policy decisions. So a referendum on the constitution seems like it might be suitable. Really, if you don’t think the demos is capable of deciding to enter into a high-order decision like ‘should we abandon much of our national control to a larger state’ you really can’t believe they should have any say about anything.
Which is precisely why Nick wants a ‘No, but’… option on the constitution. This one is pretty horrible, but he wants to be able to say ‘Yes’ to the question above but ‘No’ to the stupid constitution.
@Bob
“.. there is a looming horror ahead with the emerging prospect for online voting”
Exactly. Once heard a discussion on TV on a book that described this horror perfectly: organizing a televised “democratic” (s)election of which criminal in the death-row was to be executed that day.
Fareed Zakaria’s “The future of freedom” describes the ‘illiberal democracy’ in just the right way: scholarly, firm and just not too theoretical. A must-read.
The referenda all have 3 drawbacks in common.
The problem of who is going to define the alternatives.
The problem who is going to evaluate the outcome (and how).
The third one of the drawbacks is least addressed: how long is the decision going to be ruling. If it is not long enough there will be the allegation again that “the politicians” don’t listen.
BTW: the defence of the idea of referenda can give rise to the worst kind of populism
@Sebastian
“..if you don’t think the demos is capable of deciding to enter into a high-order decision like ‘should we abandon much of our national control to a larger state’ you really can’t believe they should have any say about anything.”
No offense meant, but I really think this in the end is a populist suggestion. The referendum is not on that decision. Shifting of control is the outcome of a process of decades. The effective result of a negative outcome of the referenda is very unpredictable. So much so that this is reason enough to vote yes.
One of the biggest problems we face in Europe now is that national politicians use “Brussel”, or in the case of the Netherlands “the big countries” as some kind of outside enemy to gain sympathy. (so I am not very glad with Michael’s “support”)
In my opinion the really important issue is not the shifting of control to a larger unit but the organization of an effective and transparent distribution of responsibilities and accountibility.
Frans: “One of the biggest problems we face in Europe now is that national politicians use ‘Brussel’, or in the case of the Netherlands ‘the big countries’ as some kind of outside enemy to gain sympathy.”
This is terrible. We agree again. It is true, the EU is a heaven sent scapegoat for any EU national government under pressure from mounting unpopularity with its own electorate.
Unfortunately, the Charlemagne column in last Saturday’s The Economist on the Netherlands’ half-yearly Presidency of the EU is only available on subscription. It reports there a recent speech by Ben Bot, the Dutch foreign minister, in which he said that the EU had developed too fast for many of its citizens and that a ‘crisis’ of legitimacy was causing ordinary people to worry about a loss of national identity and to yearn for the familiar old world, the nation state.
Rather than pressing forward with more integration, the Dutch presidency was reported as wanting to focus on cutting bureaucracy and sparking economic growth, which seems a very sensible set of priorities to me.
Later, the same column adds: “The idea that Brussels is a cesspool of corruption has almost become an orthodoxy in the Netherlands.” With this, we should not be surprised:
“Disciplinary proceedings have been launched against three senior bureaucrats over fraud claims at the EU’s statistics agency, Eurostat. . . ” – from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3053343.stm
Frans et al., can anyone give me something like a working definition of populism? In German discussions, and sometimes here as well, it seems that populism is anything the speaker doesn’t like and wants to be able to dismiss out of hand. Populism, both word and movement, has an honorable history in my country; one of the things John Edwards is trying to do in this campaign is to revitalize a populism of the left, something the US has been sorely lacking in the last twenty years or so. And so I’m curious, what do you really mean when you say populist, and why is it so reflexively bad?
Not sure about a definition of populism, but it certainly seems to be highly correlated with national self-confidence. When I lived in the Netherlands in the late seventies and eighties, despite a poor economy self-confidence was high, conversations were geographically and time-wise very broad, local politics didn’t exist – the “process” did all the hard work, people got upset about world issues not Dutch or even European concerns. When I visit friends there now I don’t recognise the place and barstool converation is depressing.
Germany (where I now live) is now going the same way a few years behind the Netherlands. Self-confidence about being German is rock bottom and populism is growing. Blaming the EU, America and everybody except themselves for all ills, real or imagined, is the order of the day. “Important” issues are all parochial. Polititians who try to address real concerns are, like many others, out of a job. Beergarden conversation is very quiet and revolves more around this year’s harvest than world hunger.
Ironically, Britain, the burr under the European sadle, is now becoming much more self-confident. Unfortunately I think they are a bit out of practice, but I see increasing frustration among my friends and family there with trivial issues being force fed to them by tabloid newspapers. Today, the Telegraph provided a low-key report on a pragmatic solution for a serious waste problem. And, it didn’t even mention the EU, its usual scapegoat! What progress. Ten years ago, pub talk was entirely interest rates, mortgages and salary levels but not now. I’ve even heard the EU contitution discussed – positively.
(Which all just goes to show that I’ve got far too much time on my hands today.)
Doug,
Of course, “populism” is just a convenient tag for politicians touting political nostrums which attract wide public support in their moment but which will likely have unanticipated and probably nasty downstream consequences.
Frans mentioned the prospect of popular votes on who to execute next among prisoners on death row. In Europe’s dark past, the Nazis gained sweeping majorities in popular plebiscites, firstly, in November 1933 for instituting a one-party state, and then in August 1934 for endorsing Hitler as the supreme leader to remove what vestiges of democracy remained – you can check that in well-known histories of those terrible times, such as William Shirer: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Since then, referendums have had a dubious reputation in Europe. Even so, Britain had one in 1975 on Britain’s continued membership of the European Community, as then, but that was seen at the time as just a device to resolve deep divisions in Harold Wilson’s Labour government. For the duration of the referendum campaign, government ministers were temporally absolved from their normal duty of “collective responsibility” for government by being allowed to campaign either way.
Btw I see from yesterday’s press releases:
“The European Commission said Monday it had decided to press charges against former French prime minister Edith Cresson before the European Court of Justice over alleged abuse of office when she served as a commissioner in the late 1990s.
“‘The Commission has decided to ask the court to determine if Mrs Cresson failed in her duties as a member of the Commission,’ a statement said.
“The charges against her relate to alleged ‘clear favouritism and negligence’. . .
“Cresson has been under investigation since she left office [in 1999, when all the EU Commissioners resigned following an adverse report by an expert panel into allegations of fraud, nepotism and maladministration in the European Commission]. This is the first time that a sitting or former commissioner has been sent before the Court of Justice.”
– from: http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040719172248.6q2xk1uc
On populism, two quotes by H.L.Mencken.
The first one is the subtitle of my own blog
“For every complex problem there is a simple solution… and it is wrong”
The second one is on demagogy. IMO populism is a mild form of demagogy.
“Demagogue: one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots”
When you are pm or minister of finance and suggest that the deficit should be compared with keeping a housekeeping book. He knows that it is wrong.
Still I don’t blame politicians doing that very much for these kinds of comparisons. In the end all comparisons fail and why should one not be allowed to present the problems a little bit simpler. The real problem arises when politicians in political debates refuse to go into the more complex nature of the issues just to address ‘the common people’, ‘the man in the street’ past the person one is speaking to.
The EU Constitution draft is awful. Must be rejected either by referendum or by other means. Every sensible person who read the draft must be horrified. I’m just saying NO.
Pavel,
What really worries me about the EU and the Europhiles online is when I post about widely reported cases of corruption in the EU Commission all goes quiet as though I had transgressed all boundaries of respectable behaviour. So long as this denial persists, we should be wary of endorsing the Constitution to extend supra-national competences of the EU, it seems to me, as that can only embed corruption more deeply by making it harder to detect, unravel and resolve.
Another reason for due caution is that once EU policy is constituted or legislated, it is in practice very hard to amend or repeal by due process. The observable downstream outcome is that some governments simply ignor the EU legislation to go their own way regardless and nothing is done about that. When governmental compliance with mutually agreed law, treaties and pacts becomes entirely voluntary, it is hardly surprising if electorates in EU countries regard the whole venture with mounting cynicism or even disgust.
A classic case is how some EU national governments have unilaterally breached the Eurozone’s Stability and Growth Pact. As customary, it was signed up to in 1997 with the usual communautaire fanfare to defend the reputation of the new Euro currency. Just a few years on, the Pact was quietly “suspended” by a decision of EU finance ministers last November after it had been unilaterally breached by several governments and then reinstated by the recent decision of the European Court of Justice. After all that, are we really expected to take EU treaties and pacts seriously? What is worse, is that the Pact is far from being the only notable example. What of the EU Directive liberalising energy markets?
@Bob:
A question first: referring to the negative reactions on your posts on corruption do you have that experience here at fistful too?
Second: in my opinion you are not addressing a problem that is specific to Europe.
Compare this:
“What really worries me about the EU and the Europhiles online is when I post about widely reported cases of corruption in the EU Commission all goes quiet as though I had transgressed all boundaries of respectable behaviour”
with this:
“A classic case is how some EU national governments have unilaterally breached the Eurozone’s Stability and Growth Pact.”
and to me it is obvious.
The real problem is the almost total lack of interest in political issues: both national and towards the EU.
Although there is a danger of ‘blowing my own trumpet’ I refer again to a post on my own site: The dilemma of the independent blogging politician.
The number of blogs deserving the characterization to be the blog of a politician is very, very small. A lot of people care to comment on politics but very little actually get involved.
Third: June 10th brought back pride among (some) Dutch people thanks to ‘our’ choice for mr van Buitenen. I just finished his book and one of the interesting things I found out that he did get some support from the EP at important moments.
A special problem for Europe in my view is that in parliament we can not vote outside our country.
Franck Biancheri, Director of Studies and Strategy at the foundation Europe 2020 and President of the transatlantic organisation TIESweb, sees that problem too: he argues “To get 60% of voters, Europe-wide, in 2009 (a very reachable goal in my opinion), we need to see at least two major trans-European parties emerge by that date.”
I like that idea: perhaps we should start to build an EU-wide supportive system for Europa Transparant (not a typo: transparant is Dutch for transparent) ?
Frans,
I do not know how it is in the Netherlands but whenever they do one of those polls in Britain on how people rate or trust those who work in different occupations, politicians and journalists come out near or at the bottom of the list.
The total registered membership of the three main political parties in Britain, which naturally includes almost all professional politicians, adds up to about three-quarters of a million in an electorate of some 44 million. Compare that with the numbers of floating voters who can and do switch party allegiance between elections. Most of the research I have seen, estimates the percentage of “floaters” in the electorate as being upwards of 20 per cent, sometimes as high as a third. In other words, political activists in mainstream politics are an extreme minority and it is the way floaters swing that decides the outcome of elections.
Europa transparant sounds like an an excellent idea and I profoundly hope for all our sakes that it makes headway in the European Parliament. It will have a difficult task. I have often teased Americans that Europeans are much better than they are at news management. That is one of the reasons, I suspect, that so much difficult and bad news in Britain and Europe has been crowded into to late July when so many normal folk, across Europe, are getting ready for their summer holidays. For career reasons, I know my way about official sources and news media better than most and I also know how much time and effort it takes me to keep track of what has been going on. Most folk do not stand a chance and that is why I tend to post up lots of (challenging?) quotes with links.
It does not surprise me that the initiative for Europa Transparant has come from the Netherlands. Most studies of political corruption I have come across rate the Netherlands as one of the cleanest countries in Europe after the Scandinavian countries. I have no ready explanation as to why, especially since the Netherlands – and Britain – are often rated, with due cause, as the least religious countries in Europe.
Frans,
You are quite correct about the need for trans-European parties and it is interesting that the traditional right-, left- and centrist catagories do not work in this environment. I’m not surprised that the greens are the only ones coming close to forging an inter-national party.
However, I’m confused. Surely a party built on railing against corruption is populist, even if its subject is trans-European. I thought you were against populism.
1. Corruption isn’t a political issue but a serious managerial deficiency. Sorting out expenses, getting countries to follow rules they invented themselves and and generally permitting transparency is a question of getting internal processes correct – not something the electorate should be interested in except, perhaps, firing those unable to to the job.
2. All parties are against corruption with possibly the sole exception of UKIP to whom its a useful stick to beat a concept over the head.
3. You can’t have a party that is only against something and turning anti-corruption into pro-transparency is syntactic juggling. Electors (at least me 🙂 want to know what a party is for: what positive things will it create, not the negatives it will destroy.
Bob
“I have no ready explanation as to why, especially since the Netherlands – and Britain – are often rated, with due cause, as the least religious countries in Europe.”
What an interesting sentence. How is corruption related to religion?
Michael: “How is corruption related to religion?”
That is worth several PhD theses. The (relatively) well-defined moral standards of religions – and charities – ostensibly inhibit corruption but can provide a convenient camouflage for real but concealed intentions. With recent church scandals, that hardly needs elaboration. Besides that, some religions (as well as some political manifestoes) actively advocate market regulation in ways that can lead to, possibly suppressed or hidden, arbitrage opportunities – obvious examples being prohibitions of usury, alcohol or narcotics. Whenever that happens, it is verging on a racing certainty that opportunities for corruption will arise.
Max Weber also famously expounded a thesis that for good or ill protestantism was more conducive to the rise of capitalism – and thereby industrialisation – than catholicism. In places there is challenging debate as to why almost all the newly industrialising countries in the last half century have been concentrated in south-east Asia. Lee Kwan Yew, past PM of Singapore, argued a case about ten years back for the superiority of the Confucian ethic over the Christian ethic. Most research I’ve seen rates Singapore as among the least corrupt economies in the world.
Picking up on a point you made to Frans: “Corruption isn’t a political issue but a serious managerial deficiency.”
That properly applies in the case of bureaucracies but not to political leaders or the upper echelons of bureaucracies. The proliferation in recent years of “watchdogs” to monitor Parliamentarians suggests public concerns about the need to guard the guardians. Many of the more notorious cases of corruption in European affairs over the last quarter century have implicated elected politicians, not bureaucrats down the line.
Bob
I’m sorry, I’m not challenging what you say about the relationship between religion and corruption, but I still don’t understand. (AFoE – we are OT and could take this elsewhere if you wish.)
Paraphrasing your first point: although religions are outwardly anti-corruption, people tend to be homogenous across religions (and, I’d add, across a-religious populations.) Agreed: so no relationship there.
Second point: when religious ideals influence law-making the conflict with those having other ideas can lead to “crime” and hence to corruption, e.g., prohibition. Agreed: but in European countries such influence is highly restricted and any effect is small. For example, one reason Germany is considered “religion influenced” is because of Sunday trading laws; but, however annoying this is, there is little scope for political corruption because of it. However, if it were so, if religion-inspired laws did tend to lead to corruption, wouldn’t it explain your original “no ready explanation?”
Third-point: the protestant “work-ethic” vs catholic “community well-being”. I can’t disagree with Max Weber 🙂 but any implication for corruption is a step too far for me.
Last point: Other religions can go even further…(?) Singapore illustrates… What? Are south east Asian countries generally less corrupt than European nations because of confusianism? How does this square with point 2?
On the issue of whether corruption is a political or managerial issue, I disagree with you completely. The fact that politicians are more-, equal- or less corrupt than bureaucrats is irrelevant. Corruption, abusing authority, exists wherever authority exists, whether it is minor (getting a bigger chair – sometimes also called reward) or major abuse (contracts for kickbacks). The more authority, the greater the pressure to abuse it. This appears to be a fact within humanity and not something we can or should change. The solution, or the closest we can come to a solution, involves both carefully ensuring appropriate levels of authority (the foundation of Dutch success) and watch-and-punish (the British model.) It still comes down to the process that those with authority work within.
It is true that managerial processes can be changed by politicians for better or worse and that therefore a particular administration can indirectly increase or decrease corruption levels by fiddling with the managerial structure. However, if this makes it a political issue then I find it hard to think of anything that isn’t a political issue.
@Michael’s “However, I?m confused. Surely a party built on railing against corruption is populist, even if its subject is trans-European. I thought you were against populism.”
To address the latest first:
Yes I am against populism. But answering Doug I gave my ‘definition’ of it ending with: “The real problem arises when politicians in political debates refuse to go into the more complex nature of the issues just to address ?the common people?, ?the man in the street? past the person one is speaking to.” That is the evil part of populism in my opinion. So railing against corruption can be populist but is not when you are ready to go into the details of it with your opponents like mr van Buitenen surely is. (he is religious, almost churchy btw).
But I understand your point very well. March of this year I wrote an e-mail to van Buitenen with a similar concern. It was in Dutch. My main point: if you are a mep on your own I can understand that you focus on only one issue but what if you win 3 or 4 seats? You have to give your opinions on CAP, fighting terrorism, the SGP etc. He answered with an appeal to wait for his book (which did not answer my questions BTW).
More to the point however, just before the elections I had a little bit of discussion on this topic (on my site, in Dutch). My conclusion was that at this moment the really big challenge is to win back the confidence.
You may have noticed that my suggestion to help Europa Transparant is at odds to some extend with my anti-party point of view and my support for the idea of indirect elections. But we are talking different terms here.
As I said in the abovementioned discussion: maybe there will come a time when you should elect on a more ideological basis. At this moment I am very pleased with van Buitenen’s pragmatic, non-ideological, non-partisan approach.
He announced btw that ET would not enter the 2009 elections if he succeeded in making Europe more transparent.
So we do need a successor anyway…
And finally: do you know a more appropiate site to discuss this topics than aFoE? (of course I would not mind at all if my own site served this purpose but it has a very limited audience)
Michael,
“religions are outwardly anti-corruption, people tend to be homogenous across religions”
People are not homogenous across religions but the active espousal of some religions is has been demonstrated as an effective means for disguising malign intentions – which is how the recent church scandals managed to flourish unrecognised for so long. It would be naive to suppose that is the only species of corruption concealed by religious espousal and the successful concealment in respect of one variety will possibly incite emulation in other directions.
“any implication for corruption is a step too far for me”
Unpick why Max Weber thought protestantism was more conducive to the rise of capitalism and, thereby, industrialisation as well as why almost all newly industrialising countries in the last half century have been concentrated in south-east Asia rather than in, say, South America. One clue is to look what happened to Galileo in the early 17th century after he continued to challenge the approved orthodoxy of a geocentric universe. Another is to review the history of the fate of the Huguenots in France from 1572 on.
The last time a monarch in Britain refused to sign an Act of Parliament was in 1707. By increments, the sovereignty of Parliament became the fundamental precept in Britain’s constitution.
“On the issue of whether corruption is a political or managerial issue, I disagree with you completely. The fact that politicians are more-, equal- or less corrupt than bureaucrats is irrelevant.”
The separation of powers in government between the executive, the legislative and judicial functions was intended to provide checks and balances against abuses of executive powers. The complete separation is admittedly fudged in many European parliamentary systems but used to work tolerably well to all appearances. However, over the last quarter century a succession of corruption scandals in Europe, implicating professional politicians, raises pressing questions about the dependable effectiveness of the model. Who is guarding the guardians? IMO it is a profound mistake to suggest that better management of bureaucracies is all that is required to prevent or, at least, contain, corruption from flourishing.
In 1999, all EU Commissioners resigned following an adverse report by an expert panel into allegations of fraud, nepotism and maladministration in the Commission. Five years on, the Commission eventually decides to refer the case of one of the resigning Commissioners to the European Court of Justice. Meanwhile, news of a whole new set of Commission related scandals has surfaced, some apparently pre-dating the resignations in 1999. Besides that, from last year:
“[Britain’s] National Audit Office has vowed to increase its scrutiny of EU spending after Europe’s own financial watchdog failed to approve euro accounts. The NAO stressed that problems in the management of the EU’s funds were a matter of concern, especially in view of worries over enlargement costs. . . The EU’s Court of Auditors failed to approve the EU’s accounts in November for the NINTH year in a row.” – at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3688241.stm
Remarkably little progress seems to have been made in sorting out the EU Commission’s accounting system despite public concerns created by the resignations of the Commissioners in 1999. Electorates in the EU are entitled to know why.
Frans
OK. I can live with driving transparency being top of the agenda – as long as there is an agenda.
However, pragmatically, an initiative to get the issue further up the agendas of full-coverage parties may be more successful than a new party. Though, I do admit the incentive (reward) for those doing the encouraging is hard to see.
“…do you know a more appropiate site to discuss this topic than aFoE?”
Not at all. But, we are off-topic, and its only polite to apologise before hi-jacking somebody else’s site & thread 🙂
Bob
“People are not homogenous across religions…”
Perhaps you can give an example of how people from one religion are different to those of another, or of no religion at all. Not how their beliefs are different, or how their actions based on those beliefs are different, but how the people themselves and their moral fibre are different.
Of course, people lie to get and keep personal advantage or benefit in religion, and also in politics, business, science and every other walk of life. It is an a-religious trait.
I’m still confused about the contention that either protestantism or catholicism or any other religion can be more- or less- prone to corruption, however I will take your homework recommendations (unpick Weber and review Huguenots’ history) and I’ll let you know if I come to the same conclusions that you have. No promises on timescales. As for Galileo, wasn’t he persecuted by catholic fundamentalists who preferred their interpretation of the Bible to looking out of the window? Pretty much the same preference that protestant creationist school agendas have today?
Corruption as a management or a political problem…
All of your examples indicate a process failure. A discrepacy / potential crime is suspected and has not been addressed adaquately. That is the prosecutor’s (or equivalent’s) job – a managerial position not a political position.
“its a profound mistake to suggest that better management of bureaucracies is all that is required to prevent or, at least, contain, corruption from flourishing.”
It works for corruption within national environments. It also works for fraud, theft, discrimination, assault etc. etc. within the EU. What is so special about corruption with the EU’s political and bureaucratic systems?
Preventing corruption, apart from the legal stick and better, more transparent processes, is difficult. Pay everybody enough they don’t need to cheat? Only hire uncorruptables? Don’t give anybody any authority? Making it a political problem will not bring answers either.
BTW Can you imagine what a can-of-worms we’d have if politics was directly involved in handling corruption. A YUKOS every day!
Michael,
“Perhaps you can give an example of how people from one religion are different to those of another, or of no religion at all.”
Anthropology studies abound with acounts of distinctively different customs and practices of different social groups both within and across religions. At the most basic level, there are polygamous and polyandrous societies. Some tribes and cultures have a practice of suitors paying a bride price while, in others, brides come with dowries. A recent news report:
“THEY like to think they do a good job protecting women’s rights and fighting paedophilia. Canadians would not be so smug if they knew of the dirty little secret in the Creston Valley, in south-eastern British Columbia. For half a century, a hotbed of polygamy has quietly flourished there in a commune called Bountiful. It is run by a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church, in successful defiance of the law.
“Bountiful is no secret to local people, some of whom enjoy its business. Nor is it to the province’s police and social workers. It is known to British Columbia’s top law-enforcement officer, the attorney-general. His office was first made aware of concerns about Bountiful more than a decade ago. But the provincial government has felt constrained by an untested legal opinion that Canada’s law banning polygamy was unconstitutional. . . ” – from: http://economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2907136
The population of India includes 200 to 300 million Muslims but practising Hindus would face daunting problems living in Pakistan.
Max Weber surely believed protestantism fostered different social values from catholicism or he would not have argued his thesis that protestantism was more conducive to the rise of capitalism and industrialisation.
“As for Galileo . . ”
From Microsoft Encarta: “Early in 1616 Copernican books were subjected to censorship by the Roman Congregation of the Index of Forbidden Books, after the Jesuit cardinal Robert Bellarmine had instructed Galileo that he must no longer hold or defend the opinion that the Earth moves.”
“All of your examples indicate a process failure.”
But that can be said indiscriminately of every and any flawed decision or practice of government for whatever reason. What we need to worry about in Europe especially is the like of these news reports, of which only the last relates to bureaucrats:
“The former Secretary General of Nato, Willy Claes has been given a three-year suspended jail sentence after being found guilty of corruption by Belgium’s highest court. Mr Claes was one of 12 defendants standing trial over allegations that two defence firms paid millions of dollars in bribes during the 1980s to secure Belgian Government contracts.” – from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/241342.stm
“Former Prime Minister Alain Juppe resigned from the presidency of France’s ruling party Friday, paving the way for a succession battle at the head of President Jacques Chirac’s powerful political organization. Juppe, one of Chirac’s closest allies, was convicted earlier this year in a corruption case and had agreed to step down from the leadership of the Union for a Popular Movement.” – from: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/16/yuppe.resigns.ap/
“Craxi, Bettino (Benedetto) Italian socialist politician, leader of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) 1976-93, prime minister 1983-87. In 1993 he was one of many politicians suspected of involvement in Italy?s corruption network; in 1994 he was sentenced in absentia to eight and a half years in prison for accepting bribes, and in 1995 he received a further four-year sentence for corruption. In April 1996, with other former ministers, he was found guilty of further corruption charges, and received a prison sentence of eight years and three months, but avoided imprisonment by living in self-imposed exile in Tunisia.” – from: http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0018909.html
“The European Union was thrown into turmoil on Tuesday [16 March 1999] after the entire 20-member executive commission stepped down in light of a scathing independent report accusing the powerful body of ignoring cronyism and financial irregularities.” – from: http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9903/16/eu.commission.01/
“BRUSSELS [9 July 2003] The European Commission has come clean and admitted the huge extent of fraud in its statistical office, Eurostat. . . ” – from: http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?aid=12040
Bob,
Your examples show how different religious regimes create different societies. This has never been in dispute and the original question tried to exclude this: “Not […] how their actions based on [religious] beliefs are different…” Swap all the people of the world around at birth and nothing would change – people are homogenous – the regimes they are nurtured in are not, and so societies vary.
“As for Galileo…” Exactly what I said, no?. I also pointed out that protestant extremists are using exactly the same logic today. Difference between catholicism and protestantism (the original subject) is still nil as far as I can see.
Our original subject was the relationship between religion and corruption within the EU. You maintain there is one and I am yet to be convinced.
“But [process failures account for corruption examples] can be said indiscriminately of every and any flawed decision or practice of government for whatever reason.”
My admitedly simple view of the way government administrations work is:
1. What are the goals? – political issue
2. What is the process to achieve the goals? – a management issue with input from politicians wearing management hats to get passed…
3. Implement the process as law? – political issue
4. Is the process working as it should? – managerial issue – answer “no”, fix it
5. Are the goals as stated being achieved? – managerial issue – answer “no”, redesign & reimplement the process, may require changing the law for procedural, not political, reasons
6. Reviewing the results, were our original goals what we really want? – political issue – start again from beginning
So, I disagree that every government failure is a process failure. Failures at step 1, 3 & 6 are political failures. However, your earlier examples were step 2, 4 & 5 failures, managerial process failures.
“What we need to worry about in Europe especially is the like of these news reports, of which only the last relates to bureaucrats.”
I don’t see corruption by a politician as a political issue per se, anymore than a crime commited by a policeman is a policing issue, or one by a doctor is a medical issue. Redress for the crime may, like a bad policeman, doctor or priest, have a abuse of trust component but that’s a different issue.
A politician’s corruption is only a political issue if you want the corruption law for politicians to be different to the law for everybody else, such as bureaucrats. This is the case for some sitting heads of state in Europe who are immune from corruption charges while in office. But, not, as far as I am aware, the case for any other EU politicians.
Michael,
We are evidently very far apart.
“people are homogenous”
If people are, indeed, literally homogenous, it would not be possible to distinguish between them in terms of features, finger prints or DNA, let alone systematic behaviour differences or in their sentiments, beliefs and customs. During the last few years, much genetic research has gone into distinguishing, for example, the incidence of distant Viking ancestry among residents in different parts of Britain, which would not be feasible if people are entirely homogenous in respect of their DNA: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/genetics_results_01.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/wales/2076470.stm
We know too that susceptibility to various human ailments, such as sickle-cell anaemia, differs markedly between different races: http://www.sicklecellsociety.org/education/sicklecell.htm
On the basis of the scientific evidence, I am only able to conclude that your claim is false.
“Difference between catholicism and protestantism (the original subject) is still nil as far as I can see.”
In which case, Max Weber’s (and RH Tawney’s) thesis that protestantism was more conducive to the rise of capitalism and industrialisation than catholicism would be false when there is much to commend it on the basis of the historic evidence. We have, for example, to explain why industrialisation was pioneered in Britain in the course of what has been dubbed the industrial revolution. We also need to probe why almost all newly industrialising countries in the last half century are concentrated in south-east Asia, rather than in, say, South America.
The censorship and detention of Galileo by the catholic church in the early 17th century is especially relevant. That sent out a clear message to anyone disposed to research the causes of movements of planets in the solar system. Newton, later that same century, would have encountered similar barriers in the development of his theoretical work on the laws of motion and gravity had catholicism prevailed in England.
“I don’t see corruption by a politician as a political issue per se, anymore than a crime commited by a policeman is a policing issue, or one by a doctor is a medical issue.”
Even more curious. Are you really saying that politicians should do nothing when one of their own is implicated in corrupt practices in the course of his/her activities as a politician, that the police should do nothing if police are implicated in corruption, and the medical profession – or lawyers – should do nothing if a professional colleague breaches their respective codes of professional ethics? I greatly doubt the police, medical doctors or lawyers would agree.
We are evidently very far apart.
That is easier to ascertain if we stay within one context.
…susceptibility to [ ] sickle-cell anaemia, differs markedly between different races
Which says absolutely nothing about whether susceptibility to corruption differs between races or any other groups – which is our context and the context of the post’s use of the word “homogenous”.
…Max Weber’s [ ] thesis [on capitalism] would be false…
Not necessarily as we are discussing corruption in the context of a sentence beginning: “As for Galileo…”
The censorship and detention of Galileo by the catholic church in the early 17th century is especially relevant…
No, it isn’t, when our context is the difference between the two religions’ affect on corruption and extremist protestant churches do very similar things.
Are you really saying that politicians should do nothing when one of their own is implicated in corrupt practices [ ] if a professional colleague breaches [ ] codes of professional ethics?
Actually, I said only that it wasn’t a political issue however, corruption in the context of this thread is a crime and this supercedes any professional ethics implications.
In other words, I am saying that while the politicians identify corruption as illegal, the place to deal with it is in the judicial system not the political system. And, if the judicial system is broken, then the answer is to fix it, not to move the problem to somewhere it doesn’t belong.
Michael,
“Which says absolutely nothing about whether susceptibility to corruption differs between races or any other groups – which is our context and the context of the post’s use of the word ‘homogenous’.”
We have the challenging problem of explaining why distributed parts of the world now have flourising market economies while other parts don’t – such as South America and Africa. Differences in social cultures, dominant religions, political systems, natural resource endowments and climate are all potential candidates as contributing factors.
“Not necessarily as we are discussing corruption in the context of a sentence beginning: ‘As for Galileo…'”
The crucial point is that the catholic church stopped Galileo from publishing his work on the solar system while Newton was not prevented by ecclesiastical authorities in England from pursuing and publishing his research into theories of motion and gravity. Significant historic consequences flowed from that difference.
“No, it isn’t, when our context is the difference between the two religions’ affect on corruption and extremist protestant churches do very similar things.”
Quite – the protestant churches were disputatious, not monolithic. Theological and philosophical pluralism, at least within wide boundaries, was permissible and practised, which perhaps helps to explain why Descartes (1596-1650) found it expedient to live most of his adult life in the Netherlands, rather than in France, his country of birth and upbringing. It also helps to explain what happened to the Huguenots. By comparison with events in France in 1572, 9-11 was a relatively minor incident. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot
“In other words, I am saying that while the politicians identify corruption as illegal, the place to deal with it is in the judicial system not the political system. And, if the judicial system is broken, then the answer is to fix it, not to move the problem to somewhere it doesn’t belong.”
Even were I to accept that as a starting point, it would usually fall to politicians to fix broken judicial systems and they may not be disposed to do that for self-serving reasons.
There are also open questions about policing, investigations and bringing cases to trial. To all appearances, politicians in many places are very astute about protecting institutional arrangements which enable them to continue to garner personal wealth at the expense of electorates. Passing responsibility for policing political corruption off to the judicial system is a convenient get-out. Judging by the sample of reports on political corruption in Europe I posted above, existing institutional arrangements have not been working satisfactorily:
“Three of the European commission’s most senior officials were yesterday implicated in the biggest fraud scandal to rock the EU executive in years when they were accused of siphoning off millions of euros into secret Luxembourg bank accounts ‘over a long period of time’.” – from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,995142,00.html
Perhaps of special interest is the line in that news report: ” . . he [Commissioner Kinnock] admitted that the EU executive had first been made aware of the allegations in 1997.” And we also know that it has taken the EU Commission five years to refer one of the resigning Commissioners from March 1999 to the European Court of Justice. Hardly expeditious progress in either case.
Last year, the European Court of Auditors qualified its approval of EU Commission accounts for NINE years in succession. The only observable outcome from the perspective of the wider public has been the victimisation of Marta Andreasen, the Commission’s chief accountant from 2001 until she was suspended:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/2293519.stm http://www.heatonharris.org.uk/martabriefing.html
No difference there either.
B, F & M, Please don’t worry about being off-topic. You’re grappling at length with serious and interesting questions. Just because we aren’t commenting along, doesn’t mean we aren’t enjoying the debates and the erudition. Keep it up!
Doug,
Thanks for the encouragement. For various reasons, I had to start taking more than a passing interest in political corruption several years ago and so began to dig out and follow relating news reports. Believe me, it is a high risk interest – my PC has been repeatedly hacked. I’ve a long but relentlessly boring personal tale to tell about dealing with hacking and worse.
The messages above relate to the EU Constitution in several ways even if that is not always explicit. For one thing, the EU Constitution will extend EU competences over national governments – in economic policy, for example – and from the perspective of ordinary voters, EU decisions are inescapably more remote.
The blame game of buck passing will increase and so will the scope for embedding corruption when the EU Commission has not so far credibly demonstrated its competence in dealing with corruption or in installing systems to deter it. A dependable accounting system with audit trails is a fairly basic requirement for any large organisation and the Commission doesn’t even have that. How many more years will it take to get one?
I find the proposition that religions don’t matter utterly extraordinary in a European perspective when different religions very evidently espouse divergent values. We need only look back on the consequences of the religious wars in European history, such as the Thirty Years war, which was finally brought an end with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. That Treaty established the principle that the internal affairs of a nation state were the sole prerogative of its sovereign ruler, which has remained the working principle in international affairs since – until recently.
Ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia and the despotism of Saddam’s regime in Iraq have brought into question the principle established by the Treaty of Westphalia, as will the EU Constitution in respect of EU member states. The European Court of Justice will be left dealing with contested claims over the boundaries of EU competences: will EU competence over coordination of economic policy, as conferred by the Constitution, supercede national autonomy in respect of taxation and social security, one of Blair’s red lines?
Some in Europe have been pressing that the new Constitution should somehow endorse Europe’s Christian heritage. For the present, the secularist view has prevailed that the constitution should define a right of freedom of worship but without a presumption favouring any particular religion and that is my preference too. Others may not agree but reviving historic controversies between religions is the last thing we need. I mean, the catholic church only finally decided to fully exonerate Galileo in 1992, only twelve years ago – I checked the date.
I’ve deliberately stayed away from this thread in order to think a little bit about why I’m so disturbed by it. We were also getting a little too focussed and started going around in circles.
The first issue was: is corruption within the EU processes a political or a management (judicial) issue? Is burglary a political issue? What about when the target of the burglary is an office of the Democratic party in the Watergate hotel? Is tax evasion a political issue? What about when the accused is called Yukos? Murder? The deaths of 16 children in Dunblane forced many changes to British legislation, but was the shooting a political issue?
Crimes can have political implications. Crimes can be committed by politicians. Crimes can trigger politicians to change the law or the political process. This does not make them political crimes or political issues, they simply have political consequences. Similarly, corruption is a crime and should be managed as such and its fallout may then be political and dealt with accordingly. However, to confuse the two can only lead to injustice with those responsible being treated subjectively, the political system, rather than objectively, the judicial system. Or, to put it another way, when politics is confused with law people either get away with murder (e.g. My Lai, Zahra Kazemi) or are unjustly punished (many political prisoners worldwide.)
The second and third questions we are debating are, if anything, far more frightening than mere injustice and both for very much the same reasons so I’ll lump them together. The questions are: do any fundamental differences exist between (a) two religions, or (b) individuals from different groups. My personal conviction is that the answers are a very definite NO and NO, and for that I am grateful as any other answer would be awful. Why? Because, difference implies the possibility of superiority and I cannot think of any excuse for bloodshed used more often than a claimed fundamental superiority of either one religion over another, or the members of one group over another.
Of course, not liking the implications of an answer is not a good reason for rejecting it, so to answer Bob’s points:
If people are, indeed, literally homogenous, it would not be possible to distinguish between them in terms of features, finger prints or DNA…
We know too that susceptibility to [] sickle-cell anaemia, differs markedly between different races
No. If all people are similarly endowed with “unique” fingerprints and DNA they are “homogenous” within the meaning of the word. All people receive their basic genes from their ancestors which gives many interesting effects depending on local conditions, inbreeding etc. We don’t need sickle-cell to tell us that, just look at one another: black, white, tall, short, blond brunette – all inherited within breeding groups. But, is there really a fundamental difference between people from different groups?
I find the proposition that religions don’t matter utterly extraordinary…
The question was whether there was any real difference between catholic and protestant religions in the context of secular affairs such as corruption – not whether religions “matter”. There is no doubt that the histories of the two religions vary enormously and that this has shaped the relationships between the various churches, governments and the public at large. To begin with, the catholic church had a 1200 year head start and is consequently much larger, richer and more powerful, its influence, both positive and negative, more pronounced. However, this is not as far as I can tell a religious factor, rather a historical one. So one must be careful to compare the religions and not the histories?
Bob’s favorite example is Galileo: the catholic church tried to suppress the ideas it didn’t like whereas, across the water in protestant England Newton was given a free hand to explore ideas; ergo the catholic religion is different to the protestant. Really?
Galileo effectively worked for the catholic church, they paid for his equipment and he worked alongside a number of Jesuits. When he came up with ideas that contradicted and threatened his employer’s “legitimate” interests, the church squashed them. Wouldn’t happen today, would it? Say, in the tobacco industry? Newton (3 generations later), however, was a researcher at an independant University, a very religious man himself, an “extremist” protestant (Unitarian) but he kept quiet because it was against University rules. He discovered a number of things contradicting the church’s – catholic and protestant – view of the world and managed to reconcile these things in his own mind so didn’t care. The government of the day was a parlimentary democracy and not religiously oriented. And, all this proves…what? Apples & oranges.
However, give the protestant church some of the power exercised by the catholic church in Galileo’s time, say control over the science syllabus in US schools, and what happens? Suddenly, scientific theory is suppressed and an extremist interpretation of the bible dominates once more. Tell me again that fundamental difference between the catholic and protestant religions…
Veay good article!!!