How has it come to this, particularly from a party that won power on a promise of clean and transparent government? To ask this isn’t to sound alarms that Canada’s institutional order is in immediate danger of collapse. The Tories’ troubles, like the Liberals’ sponsorship scandal, will pass (possibly with a change of government). The problem with both current and past scandals is that, like acid dripping on stone, they gradually weaken the institutional pillars of the Canadian polity by eroding the bedrock of trust on which those institutions rest.
Postmedia columnist Andrew Coyne alluded to this concern in a recent article, suggesting the various scandals tripping up the Tories are linked to a “culture of expediency” that has taken root within the party and the government. I agree, but would observe that the Conservatives aren’t the only ones who worship at the altar of expediency.
South of the border, President Barack Obama’s administration shows its propensity for expediency in its efforts to avoid responsibility for its inadequate response to the Benghazi riots that saw four American diplomats killed. A couple of years ago in France, there was a high-level scandal — the so-called Bettencourt affair — after revelations of illegal payments involving members of the French government associated with former president Nicolas Sarkozy. In Britain, the Cash for Influence Scandal in 2010 tainted the reputation of Parliament after undercover reporters posing as political lobbyists offered to pay members of Parliament to influence policy.
Nothing new under the sun in this, to be sure; corruption, if not the oldest practice, is a constant theme in political history. But it sometimes seems the scandals, in Canada and elsewhere, come faster and more frequently than they used to. Why might this be? Are ethical standards and moral coherence on the wane, or are the institutions that govern our polity at fault? Some might think Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to blame for the ills of our political order, but Jean Chrétien wasn’t labelled the “friendly dictator” for no reason. And those of a certain age will remember it was former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who, with his devotion to “rationalized” politics and “cybernetic” public administration, showed his disdain for Parliament by centralizing decision-making in the prime minister’s office.
Indeed, our culture of expediency is in some ways the consequence of a technologically-minded attitude that regards efficiency and effectiveness as the central purpose and goal of governance. The essence of technology, as the philosophers teach, is efficiency. The whole point of technology is to close as best as possible the gap between means and ends. The fondness of Trudeau and his successors for “centralization” reflects the desire to close the gap as much as possible between the inefficient means of parliamentary democracy with a more efficient means of decision-making. For the centralizers, many aspects of the democratic tradition — debate, committees, hearings, compromise and consensus building, and, yes, even voting — are outmoded, inefficient and increasingly ineffective in suitably responding to our high-speed, never-stop, crisis-a-minute world.
Every prime minister since Trudeau has basically taken this approach to the exercise of power; so much so that today most every important decision is vetted at the executive level of the PMO. As political scientist Donald Savoie observes, in the past 40 years or so “the shift from cabinet government to government from the centre” has been completed. Nowadays, the prime minister and his court dominate the entire political process, effectively or otherwise.
This devotion to efficiency breeds the cultural of expediency that fosters political corruption. Corruption, as political scientist Samuel Huntington once stated, can be defined as “behaviour of public officials which deviates from accepted norms in order to serve private ends.” (Private ends can include political interests.) Is this not what we’ve seen in the Senate expenses scandal? Politicians identify their self-interest with the public interest, assuming they’re entitled to every entitlement, advantage and benefit they can obtain, whether private or public, monetary or political, by the most expedient (or efficient) means.
Such an ethos is potentially corruptive when power and decision-making are centralized in the hands of a few. Those in high office are as susceptible to the persuasions of expediency as any university student who justifies the purchase of a term paper from an essay mill. In a culture of expediency you deny, delay, misdirect, omit and, if necessary, lie because that is the most efficient way to achieve your purpose, which, of course, you’ve persuaded yourself is in the public interest.
When this ethos prevails, the consequences for the public order can be the weakening of citizen trust in politicians and the political process. Why? Because our political institutions, to borrow Savoie’s words, have “the power to mould the behaviour of individuals and provide meaning for their participation in shaping public policy.” Conversely, in a kind of feedback process, individuals influence the behaviour of an institution by their conduct. Those who operate on the principle of expediency can corrupt the White House, the Senate, the prime minister’s office.
And therein resides the long-term concern around political scandals: When citizens come to mistrust the political class and lose confidence in the integrity of the institutions that govern their lives, it is not simply that they disconnect from the political life of their community and retreat to private diversions. Rather, as political beings by nature, they seek alternative institutional arrangements and different leaders to provide a sense of meaning and purpose. They don’t necessarily chose liberal democracy.
Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com
Author: Robert Sibley
No comments:
Post a Comment