Corruption
2. Intractable Conflict Threat and Opportunity
Concern about the health and stability of democracy is being felt around the world. While the most often cited threats include what we call "hyper-polarization," ineptitude and non-performance of existing governments, social media and the spread of disinformation and hate, and fear about the future, a recent Stanford Report argues that corruption should also be on that list. Citing a study done by Jha, Rivera, and Seira, they wrote that
corruption does have a causal impact on undermining support for democracy, which people express in a variety of ways: trusting government institutions and one another, willingness to volunteer to support electoral agencies, and voting itself,
The Stanford report went on to say that the problem is just as significant in the United States as it is elsewhere. Quoting Jha, they wrote:
Americans increasingly believe that private interests are corrupting democracy, which may be linked to calls by U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle to “drain the swamp.” Former President Donald Trump based his 2016 platform on this pledge. In 2019, then-House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi promised that Democrats would “drain the swamp of dark-interest money” in Washington, D.C.
Another study, surprisingly, found that "recent work documents that even though partisan polarization may have detrimental economic and social outcomes, polarized societies lead to better governance and less corruption." But, they also found that "corrupt behaviors are associated with more partisan polarization in the European Union, indicating that a stronger presence of corruption leads to higher partisan polarization."
So even if polarization doesn't lead to more corruption, corruption does lead to higher polarization, and, as explained by the Stanford report, bad governance (be definition) and less trust in government institutions.
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