'POLITRICKS' - political corruption

          The health of political parties and electoral process are the most important markers of healthy democracy. Hence it is crucial to maintain the health of these two necessary factors in sustaining a democratic process. The cancer of corruption is actually eating into the heart of a democratic political system
The practice and process of corruption is deeply political.
Corruption is primarily the abuse or misuse of power in society or institutions for personal aggrandisement or vested interests. The abuse of power can be at the local or global level. The word'corrupt' is derived from the Latin root corrupts, past participle of corrupter – which means to abuse or destroy, and when used as an adjective it denotes utterly broken.

          The subversion, misuse and abuse of power has systemic and socio-historical manifestations in different contexts. This has to do with the way power is institutionalised and internalised in a given society with a particular cultural and political history.For example, the political elite of South Asia often demonstrate feudalism and cumulative hierarchies (internalised through the caste system). So the one defining political feature of South Asia is that the power-elites in most countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Afghanistan) use family and caste/identity networks to acquire and maintain power. Such an internalised 'order of power' tends to undermine the process and content of the democratic process. Though political parties play a cardinal role in the democratic process of a country, the irony is that political parties themselves have the least internal democracy or accountability. In many cases, political parties are reduced to 'interest' networks to capture and control the power of the state. In many countries in Africa also, the use and abuse of power can be linked to 'tribal' hierarchies and identities.

              So it is important to understand the causes and consequences of 'corruption' in the context of the history of the institutionalisation and internalisation power, the nature and character of the power elites and the social and economic inequalities within a given society. The political economy of corruption is primarily about the nexus between the economic, social and political elites in a given society that allows them to subvert, misuse, abuse or misappropriate institutions, policies and systems for vested interests or private gain. The unholy nexus between business elites, political elites and media elites in managing the economic, political and natural resources of a country is a global trend, affecting the richest and the poorest country.

             The ongoing economic crisis has exposed the integral role of corporate elites and missionaries of finance capitalism in shaping policy and political agendas even in the so-called democracies of the world. When the cyclone hit Wall Street in 2008, it exposed the nexus between the capital fund managers of Wall Street and the mandarins in the corridors of political power.



The entrenched 'partnership' between the rich and those who are 'democratically' elected to 'run' the government. Such a nexus between the economic and political elites of a country is at the root of entrenched political and institutional corruption in many countries. A state of unbridled political and economic corruption is known as a 'kleptocracy', literally meaning 'rule by thieves'. The cumulative impact of corrupt practices is the erosion of the legitimacy of the state. The spontaneous mobilisation of ordinary people across the world, from New York to New Delhi, from London to Lisbon, from Rome to Rio and to Egypt, Yemen and Syria, has one thing in common: all of them questioned the legitimacy of their governments and in many cases the character of the state, and all of them demanded accountability from leaders, the state as well as the market.

           Political parties and electoral systems need to be more transparent and accountable. The decoupling of the interests of business elites and political parties is imperative to sustain democracy in India and elsewhere. Funding for political parties and elections needs to be transparent and accountable. At the heart of the problem is the increasing lack of accountability in the political system, media, big corporations and even NGOs. The right to accountability should be an integral part of the right to democratic governance.