To Ban International Vote Buying? Rethinking Corruption Norms and their International Applicability Isaac Freedman Georgetown University Abstract: This paper explores the understudied norms that characterize the field of international vote buying and asks if the international community should support a ban of the practice. Three traditional arguments against domestic vote buying – equality, efficiency and inalienability – are analyzed and applied internationally. I find that each is premised on non- transferable assumptions and is not applicable to the international arena. Using an analogy from the domestic level, this paper proceeds to offer an alternative conception of international vote buying as a legitimate practice akin to the legal vote trades politicians make within domestic governments. Since there is no international public good to which sovereign states are accountable, the international community should not condemn the practice of international vote buying. I: Introduction On 29 November 1990 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 678 twelve votes to two, authorizing United States-led military force to stop Iraq from invading Kuwait. In the months leading up to the vote, the US spent its time lobbying other members of the UN Security Council to support its proposal. In fact, it used its dominant position in the International
60
Embed
To Ban International Vote Buying? Rethinking Corruption Norms and their International Applicability
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
To Ban International Vote Buying? Rethinking Corruption Norms and their International Applicability
Isaac FreedmanGeorgetown University
Abstract: This paper explores the understudied norms that characterize the field of international vote buying and asks if the international community should support a ban of the practice.Three traditional arguments against domestic vote buying – equality, efficiency and inalienability – are analyzed and applied internationally. I find that each is premised on non-transferable assumptions and is not applicable to the international arena. Using an analogy from the domestic level, this paper proceeds to offer an alternative conception of international vote buying as a legitimate practice akin to the legal vote trades politicians make within domestic governments. Since there is no international public good to which sovereign states are accountable, the international community should not condemn the practice of international vote buying.
I: Introduction
On 29 November 1990 the United Nations Security Council
passed Resolution 678 twelve votes to two, authorizing United
States-led military force to stop Iraq from invading Kuwait. In
the months leading up to the vote, the US spent its time lobbying
other members of the UN Security Council to support its proposal.
In fact, it used its dominant position in the International
Monetary Fund and World Bank as well as its own bilateral aid to
coerce and entice other countries. For example, it offered an
undisclosed amount of military equipment as well as millions of
dollars in debt forgiveness to the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. In return, the US received not only an affirmative vote
from the DRC but also preferential treatment when it was
President of the Council: the DRC refused to convene a meeting to
discus US military tactics at the bequest of other Council
members. Indeed, the US withheld $70 million in aid from Yemen,
who did not receive an IMF loan for six years. The US told Yemen
that it was the costliest decision they’ve ever made. 1 November
1990 was not an isolated incident.
Significant evidence suggests that international vote buying
(IVB) occurs in a variety of institutions with many countries
participating.2 I define IVB as a transaction that occurs when a
state bestows or threatens to withdraw a benefit from another
state in exchange for a state’s vote in an election in an
international organization. It is important to note that
throughout the paper the term IVB describes a process by which
one international political actor uses material inducements to
2
persuade another actor to vote a certain way. It is not used
pejoratively as it is in the domestic setting. Such a moral
stigma casts a dark shadow on the practice internationally, but
does not offer a simple solution. Should it be morally condemned
and banned in the international arena? Or, is it fundamentally
different from the types of vote buying prohibited domestically?
In order for the domestic prohibition to apply internationally,
the rationales supporting its ban must also apply to the
international setting.
This paper explores three common arguments against domestic
vote buying – equality, efficiency and inalienability – and
transposes them onto the international arena. It discovers, based
on the non-transferability of the assumptions each argument
makes, that all three of these rationales cannot support a ban on
the practice. Rather than end the discussion at that point,
however, the paper proceeds to offer an alternative conception of
IVB as permissible using an analogy from the domestic level. IVB
is akin to the legitimate and legal vote trades political
officials frequently make within the government itself. I define
a political official as a member of the government that exercises
3
not only regulatory, but also political power. Behind the
comparison is the condition of anarchy that characterizes both
the government itself – there is no third party that can enforce
rules between political officials – and the international arena.
Anarchy means that as long as public channels conduct the IVB and
the benefits of the practice accrue to the general citizenry of a
country, it should not be banned.
Vote buying and the larger field of corruption are usually
considered and studied from a horizontal, society-to-society
viewpoint. This paper, in contrast, shifts the spotlight to the
vertical society-to-international perspective. It suggests that the
public-private line of separation may not only differ from
society-to-society, but that it may change altogether when we
shift our focus from society to the international arena.
The paper proceeds as follows: Part II reviews the relevant
literature on IVB and shows how and where this paper fits within
that literature. Part III provides empirical evidence – both
statistical and anecdotal – of IVB. Part IV analyzes the
applicability of the traditional domestic rationales against vote
buying to the international arena. Part V contains the core
4
argument: a proposal for an alternative way of examining vote
buying internationally by applying an analogy from the domestic
setting. Part VI concludes the paper and offers some general
implications of this work for the field of political corruption.
II: Presenting a New Framework for International Vote Buying
This paper presents a new way of perceiving the understudied
field of international vote buying. The majority of the
literature addresses the topic indirectly from two perspectives –
neither of which provides a clear direction to this paper’s
overarching normative focus. The relatively recent international
political economy literature treats IVB as an understudied
political economic phenomenon in which states trade to attain
certain foreign policy goals. Older work, which studies vote
buying in the domestic setting, is extensive. It, however,
altogether lacks application of its analysis to the international
arena. Only three scholars have directly touched on the subject
from a normative perspective and attempt to apply this extensive
literature internationally.
On one side of the debate is Gillespie, who in a 2004 study
of the International Whaling Commission, argues that IVB should
5
be banned because it is not in “good faith, good neighbourliness,
or any form of reasonable diplomatic practice.”3 Gillespie’s
bases his argument on an assumption that vote buying is corrupt
because it destroys the foundation of democracy. Since, he
believes, “the international arena is… predicated on principles
that are very similar to those in democratic domestic systems”,
the same rationales apply.4 IVB undermines international
democracy by introducing corrupt practices to the system and
preventing countries from expressing their own position. But
while vote buying as a form of corruption does weaken democracy
domestically, it is incorrect to assume that the same principles
govern the domestic and international structure. International
relations scholars have pointed out for decades that the
fundamental “ordering principles” of international and domestic
systems are different,5 and Gillespie’s understanding makes no
mention of this.
On the other side of the debate is Ofer Eldar who argues
that IVB may be net welfare positive.6 For the majority of the
cases he analyzes, IVB generates important benefits with only
minimal costs. But it is important to recognize that in contrast
6
to Gillespie’s assumption that the international and domestic
arenas are very similar, Eldar assumes that the principles
governing each arena are different. That is, there is nothing
fundamentally wrong about vote buying like there is domestically.
In doing so, Eldar avoids many of the fundamental arguments
against vote buying, such as equality or inalienability in the
domestic area.
In the middle of the debate is Natalie Lockwood, who
provides a new normative framework.7 Rather than taking a strong
position, Lockwood chooses to complicate the debate by examining
existing domestic rationales against vote buying. Asking if these
rationales apply to the international order, she finds that
certain rationales are more easily transferable than others, but
there are still important differences that prevent the complete
adoption of the even the more favorable rationales. The different
institutional structure of the international system is critical:
“Domestic voting is simpler… it takes place in settings that are
institutionally well-delineated.”8 States and institutions in the
international order play many different roles. Unlike the
domestic system, there are not citizens, legislators, judges and
7
an executive. States and organizations act in different
capacities in different circumstances. Nevertheless, Lockwood
leaves support for an international adoption of a ban on IVB to
the reader. This paper fits within the aforementioned literature
by taking Lockwood’s analysis a step further and attempting to
answer her question – left to us, the readers – of whether IVB
should be illegal.
III: Empirical Evidence of International Vote Buying
There is a mounting body of evidence on international vote
buying which finds that vote buying is conducted in a variety of
international institutions including the UN Security Council, the
UN General Assembly, the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade
Organization, and bilateral aid. The research finds that Western
countries use their dominant position in the IMF, World Bank, and
World Trade Organization to achieve certain desired outcomes in
the UN Security Council and General Assembly.
In a study of 97 countries from 1984-2005, Kilby finds
evidence that the WB focuses less on a country’s macroeconomic
conditions when determining structural adjustment loan
disbursements if that country is aligned with the US on important
8
UN votes.9 Dreher, Nunnenkamp and Thiele find significant
statistical evidence, using panel data for 143 countries, that
the US bilateral aid, particularly as general budget support and
untied grants, buys votes in the UN General Assembly.10 In a
study of 157 countries over the years 1970-2004, Dreher, Sturm &
Vreeland find a robust positive statistical relationship between
temporary UN Security Council membership and the number of
projects a country receives from the World Bank.11 Dreher, Sturm
& Vreeland also find a robust positive relationship between
temporary UN Security Council membership and participation in IMF
programs and the conditionality of IMF loans.12 Temporary
countries on the UNSC have less strict conditions attached to
their loans. In a later study, focusing on rewards and
punishments for actual voting behavior in the UN Security
Council, Dreher and Vreeland find a similar relationship. They
explain:
Voting with the US is rewarded and voting against the US is punished. The substantive effect of voting with the US is statistically significant, but small… voting against the US is also statistically significant, and larger – by an order of magnitude… the United States uses its influence at the IMF to buy votes on the UN Security Council.13
9
Statistical studies, rather than descriptive analyses, tend to
better identify these trades since the trades are, by their very
nature, secretive.
Nevertheless, there are a few public cases. In the months
leading up to the vote on UN Resolution 1483, which granted the
US and the UK the right to occupy Iraq, the US leveraged billions
of dollars in foreign aid and access to the US economy. To
support the United States, the UN offered Turkey a $15 billion
trade package. Pakistan received a new loan from the IMF of which
the US has the largest voting share; and Bulgaria was granted the
title of “market economy” to protect itself from dumping
allegations by US businesses. Countries that withheld support,
such as Chile who had delayed approval processes for free trade
agreements, were punished. In another example, Iran paid the
Solomon Islands almost a quarter of a million dollars for future
UN General Assembly votes against Israel.
Why do countries participate in IVB? The benefits for
developing countries are relatively straightforward compared to
developed countries. On the one hand, bilateral aid and
development loans from the World Bank can help improve domestic
10
infrastructure and living conditions. Developing countries in the
midst of balance of payments crises us structural adjustment
loans from the IMF. Developed countries, on the other hand, gain
international legitimacy. As Dreher and Vreeland write, “The
power of the UNSC is… to legitimate hostile actions that states may
take against each other ... to persuade some people because of
its moral force and to credibly signal information about the
severity of global security threats.”14 Recognizing that IVB does
occur, the next part of the paper applies domestic rationales
against vote buying to the international setting, asking whether
these rationales are, in fact, internationally applicable.
IV: Domestic Rationales against Vote Buying
This section applies domestic rationales to the
international area. The motivation for this comes from recent
work by US legal scholars that continue to find similarities
between the way that norms and laws function in the domestic and
international setting. As Martha Finnemore explains, scholars in
field of IR “generally assumed that the existence of a coercive
state able to enforce laws made domestic order very different
from international order.”15 That is, the condition of anarchy
11
implied the inapplicability of domestic norms. But recent legal
work, emphasizing the importance of norms on social behavior in
domestic settings, has shown that “the processes through which…
norms work domestically… are entirely consistent with the
research done by scholars in IR and suggest that IR norms
research might also learn from domestic analogies.”16
Which domestic analogies are worth considering? In 1982, the
US Supreme Court in Brown vs. Hartlage decided that the law
“prohibits a political candidate from giving, or promising to
give, anything of value to a voter in exchange for his vote or
support… [Since] no body politic worthy of being called a
democracy entrusts the selection of leaders to a process of
auction or barter.”17 It does seem intuitive that a ban against
vote buying exists in at the domestic level.18 Buying and selling
votes violates the electoral principles upon which democracies
are based. In contrast to a comprehensive review of all domestic
rationales, I focus here on the three traditional normative
rationales: equality, efficiency and inalienability.19 Each
rationale addresses different dimensions of the international
setting and utilizes separate insights to reinforce the claim
12
that domestic vote buying is wrong. In this part of the paper,
rather than questioning each rationale’s soundness at the
domestic level, I first assume that the domestic rationale holds,
and then consider if it is applicable at the international level.
Ultimately, I find that none of the existing rationales against
vote buying domestically can be compellingly applied to the
international arena.
Equality
Domestic Equality Rationale
General economic theory grounds the domestic equality
argument against vote buying. The principle of the declining
marginal utility of money states that a dollar is worth more to a
poor person than it is to a rich person.20 As a person
accumulates more dollars, each dollar becomes less valuable. A
few dollars to poor person may put some food on the table, but a
few dollars is not worth much to a rich person with millions.
Accordingly, the value of the sum of money paid for a vote – the
marginal benefit of a vote – will be worth more to the poor than
to the rich, while the cost – or value lost – of purchasing the
vote will be less to the rich than the poor. In a free and
13
competitive marketplace, the rich will have an incentive to buy
votes and the poor will have an incentive to sell votes. As such,
the rich will control a disproportionate number of votes, elect a
candidate that best promotes their interest, and skew the
political system in their favor thereby distorting political
equality, or as Richard Hasen puts it, a condition of
“egalitarian pluralism” in which “each person has roughly equal
political capital regardless of preexisting disparities in
wealth, education, celebrity, ability or other attributes.”21 As
Susan Rose-Ackerman notes, “vote selling is widely recognized to
be inconsistent with egalitarian democratic principles because it
biases political decisions in favor of the wealthy.”22
Underlying Assumptions of the Equality Rationale23
Assumption 1: The existence of economic and social inequality
In order for the rich to buy the votes of the poor, there
must be both a rich and a poor class. Levmore suggests that
accepting this assumption may weaken the equality argument, since
“if we could correct for wealth differentials, vote selling would
surely be more attractive to many observers.”24 But this
counterargument is questionable at best since there are many
14
different traits that may distinguish one group of people from
another. Even if wealth were approximately equal across voters,
many of the same negative results of buying would still exist.
For example, some voters – for whatever reason, including
education, upbringing, etc. – will be more apathetic than others,
and the marginal value of a vote will be less to them. With legal
vote buying, but equal wealth, this individual would have an
incentive to sell their vote to another who values it more. While
this would not lead to political inequality on the basis of
wealth, it would lead to an unequal distribution of political
power based on the capacities Hasen identifies in his definition
of political equality.25 Thus, there need be some degree of
inequality between people.
Assumption 2: Political inequality is normatively wrong
In modern society, a man and his neighbor are considered
political equals. While justification for the principle of
equality can be traced to the classical philosophers, the
rationale for its modern interpretation starts in the seventeenth
century as a result of natural rights and social contract
theorists. Hobbes first promulgated the idea that because men
15
possess an equal capacity to inflict harm on one another, they
possess equal rights.26 Later on, Locke posited since all men are
born with and share the right of freedom and self-ownership of
their mind, body, labor, and property that they would not choose
to live in a political community unless they exercised those same
rights. 27 The categorical imperative, introduced by Kant, treats
all men as equal and deserving of the same respect and dignity.
This principle of political equality crystalized in 1789 with the
French Revolution and is now “accepted as a minimum standard
throughout mainstream Western culture.”28 In 1946, it was
enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. The point is that no individual’s ability to
differentiate between what is good and what is bad – the essence
of voting – is more or less worthy than another’s.
International Applicability of the Domestic Equality Rationale
First, it is necessary to point out that the principle of
political equality can apply to the international arena. That is,
it is entirely possible to substitute “state” for “person” in
Hasen’s definition of political equality and arrive at a suitable
international definition: “it is a condition of egalitarian
16
pluralism in which each [state] has roughly equal political
capital regardless of preexisting disparities in wealth,
education, celebrity, ability or other attributes.”29 While some
of these characteristics (celebrity status) are less applicable,
other attributes may be more applicable, such as population size
and natural resources. Each state, according to an
internationally altered conception of political equality, would
be entitled to roughly the same political influence within
international organizations. Whether this should be the case is up
for debate.
Applicability of Assumption 1: Holds
That there is inequality and specifically varying degrees of
wealth – the first assumption – holds. States vary widely in
regard to factors such as wealth, natural resource endowments,
population size and geography, to name a few. Rich states have
higher Gross Domestic Product than poor states. Rich states could
gain a disproportionate influence in international decisions as
they use that wealth to buy poorer states’ votes, since poor
states will value payments for votes more than the rich due to
the same principle of declining marginal utility of money. As
17
such, poor states have an incentive to sell their votes to the
rich for a certain benefit, and will consequentially end up with
an unequal amount of power in international institutions.30
Applicability of Assumption 2: Does not hold
The second assumption – that political inequality in voting
is wrong – does not hold in the international system. Indeed, for
many, the 1648 Treaty of Westminster marked the point at which
sovereign equality originated as the prevailing principle in the
international arena. International relations theorists assume
that after this point the principle maintained its significance
and prevalence. For example, Stephan Krasner believes the
“historical legacy of the development of the state system has
left a powerful institutional structure (sovereignty), one that
will not be dislodged easily, regardless of changed circumstances
in the material environment.”31 This idea is also emphasized as
the starting point from which the idea of anarchy evolves – the
primary condition governing the international order. Each state
must support itself in a self-help world. 32 This right of each
state to dictate what happens within its borders is known as the
18
legal principle of sovereign equality and it was enshrined in the
United Nations. 33
But as Samuel Barkin and Bruce Cronin point out, these legal
conceptions of sovereign equality do not necessarily imply
political equality.34 While as a legal term, sovereign equality
has not changed since 1648, as a political concept it has evolved
considerably. There has been a historical tension between
sovereignty claimed by states and nations. Context and relevant
political actors have over time determined how the term
“sovereign equality” should be understood - “the concept is
neither fixed nor constant.”35
The principle of equality is so variable that in terms of
voting in international organizations it is a principle of
inequality. The more powerful a state, the more power it wields
in international organizations. For example, despite the
principle of one state, one vote in the UN General Assembly, the
members of the UN Security Council wield a disproportionate
amount of power. In addition, while this power structure may
appear out of date, a relic of World War II, Jeffrey Dunoff
points out that after the first Gulf War the UN Security Council
19
still gained considerable power and importance in the
international arena.36
Moreover, voting power in international economic and
financial organizations, such as the IMF, World Bank and regional
development banks, is based on relative weighted voting
procedures, which take into account the comparative size of each
participating countries economy and their individual contribution
to the organization’s overall funds.37 As Stephen Zamora writes,
“international economic organizations are reflections of the
economic order, determined by – not determining – economic
realities. An international economic organization that does not
reflect actual economic forces in its operations as well as in
its decision making processes, has little promise as an active,
effective agency.”38
Finally, the behavior of states questions whether states
should morally have political equality when voting in
international organizations akin to the notion that individuals
who vote in domestic institutions should morally have political
equality. States are not persons; rather, they are made up of
persons. It is inconsistent, if we accept the person of
20
individual political equality, to simultaneously grant states
political equality. What happens when states violate individual
political equality? Should we condemn the state, or assume it is
the political equal of all other states – that it can do as it
wishes?39 From Kosovo to Libya, the principle of human equality
has compelled states to violate the doctrine of sovereign
equality by intervening within another state’s borders. As Dunoff
concludes,
States are not bearers of any inherent value, but exist only for the benefit of individuals within the state. Hence, norms protecting, the sovereign equality of failed or rogue states, such as rules of nonintervention, increasingly appear out of date, and an international legal order premised on them increasingly illegitimate.40
Efficiency
Domestic Efficiency Rationale
The efficiency argument against vote buying considers the
contribution to overall social welfare from the practice of vote
buying and concludes that the practice decreases rather than
increases overall social welfare. It is first important to
understand the lens typically used to determine the social
welfare benefits and costs of policies – Kaldor-Hicks
efficiency.41 Under Kaldor-Hicks efficient laws, winners are
21
able, but not necessarily required, to compensate the losers of a
policy. For comparison pareto-efficiency, a similar concept but
with more stringent standards, requires compensation for the
losers. In our case, the legalization of vote buying would be
Kaldor-Hicks efficient if and only if those who benefited from
the practice could compensate the losers.
The problem with vote buying, however, is that the very
nature of the practice causes it to be Kaldor-Hicks inefficient.
Those who benefit from the practice do so with the intention of
neglecting those who lose out. As Richard Epstein points out,
“Why would one want to purchase a vote? The most probable answer
is to obtain control of the public machinery in ways that allow a
person to recover, at the very least, the money that was paid out
to the individuals who sold their votes, with something left to
compensate the buyer for the labor and entrepreneurial risk.”42
The vote itself is worthless to the buyer unless it grants
political access. Those in control of the government modify the
distribution of goods in way that maximizes only their
preferences. In addition, there are “externalities imposed by
successful candidates who loot the public fisc to pay for the
22
votes they have bought.”43
Underlying Assumptions of the Domestic Efficiency Rationale
Similar to the equality argument against vote buying, there
are two assumptions on which this argument is based. First, the
enacted policies will tend to be Kaldor-Hicks efficient in places
where vote buying is illegal, while the policies in places where
it is legal will tend to be inefficient. For example, we could
create a scenario in which domestic vote buying might create
Kaldor-Hicks efficient outcomes. Suppose a legislature proposed a
Kaldor-Hicks inefficient bill. If vote buying were legal, those
opposed to the bill could organize and buy the votes of those who
are indifferent. As long as the negative social welfare costs of
the vote buying were lower than the negative costs of the
inefficient bill, the practice of vote buying would be Kaldor-
Hicks efficient. Thus, “the efficiency argument depends upon an
unstated empirical assumption that there would be less rent
seeking [Kaldor-Hicks inefficient laws] in a political regime
without vote buying than there would be in a regime with vote
buying.”44
23
Assumption 2: The majority of decisions are preference decisions
The second assumption is that most of the decisions and
policies that an institution promulgates are preference decisions
in which a socially optimal common good can be ascertained. That
is, a common indicator with a standard measure of value, such as
a dollar, can systematically analyze its costs and benefits.
Various government organizations in the US do this today by
analyzing the domestic costs and benefits of government policies
and regulations.45 Using the dollar as a unit of value, while not
perfect in theory, works in practice because it is based on the
economic theory of cardinal preferences. This theory calculates and
compares utility across individuals. Theoretically, under this
theory, social welfare maximization can be empirically
determined.46
In contrast are judgments decisions, in which individual
preferences, called ordinal preferences, are neither observable nor
comparable, and are based on value judgments. Institutional
decisions are not calculated and are instead subject to one’s
opinion. As such, these are considered noncomparable preferences.
Kenneth Arrow argues against the possibility of an ordinally
24
ranked social welfare model by proving the incompatibility of
several basic economic assumptions.47
International Applicability of the Domestic Efficiency Rationale
Applicability of Assumption 1: Does not hold
The first assumption – that places where vote buying is
illegal are more Kaldor-Hicks efficient - does not hold in the
international arena. Eldar’s analysis, while not exhaustive, is
thorough in terms of the variety and number of institutions he
covers as well as the exchanges he evaluates. He analyzes the
effect of vote buying in the Security Council, the General
Assembly, the World Trade Organization, and the International
Whaling Commission. Because IVB is legal, he asks if this status
quo has facilitated social welfare maximization or if it has
limited it. Ultimately, he finds that decisions made as result of
vote buying are generally in favor of the collective good, while
the effect of those that are not clearly in favor of the
collective good depends, for the most part, on one’s view of the
collective good. Far from inefficient, “there is not one clear
case where [IVB] has reduced global welfare, and there is
substantial evidence that [IVB] can generate benefits.”48 In the
25
international arena, vote buying is legal and it appears to
generate Kaldor-Hicks efficient outcomes.
Applicability of Assumption 2: Does not hold
Assumption 2 – that the majority of decisions are preference
decisions – does not hold either. In regard to the international
arena, countries make preference decisions based on self-interest
when deciding matters related to trade. With judgment decisions,
in contrast, participants are expected to identify and vote
according to the common good – what will benefit the majority of
countries and peoples. Judgment decisions, however, cover the
majority of international decisions and treaties. These decisions
are also made by those organizations where vote buying has
allegedly taken place.49 The point is that the process of common
good identification in judgment decisions is a disputed matter.
As Eldar points out, “any view as to the effects of vote-trading
depends on which view of the collective good is adopted.”50 Thus,
while the effect of IVB on social welfare is not clear and
perhaps net positive, because the majority of decisions made in
international organizations are judgment based and not
26
preference, the efficiency rationale against vote buying is not
applicable to the international arena.
Inalienability
Domestic Inalienability Rationale
The alienability argument against vote buying is the most
intuitive rationale. As Rose-Ackerman points out, voting, nearly
universally, is considered an inalienable right. It “need not be
exercised, but the right cannot be sold or given away and some
uses may be forbidden.”51 Margaret Radin believes even as an
inalienable right voting implies “moral or political duties
related to a community’s normative life… subject to broader
inalienabilities that preclude loss as well as transfer.” 52 The
voter performs of abstains from, but does not sell, this implied
act. Moreover, Radin argues that voting rights are
“nontransferable rights that at the same time may implicate
affirmative duties.” She situates them in the category of
community-inalienability. Her claim is non-instrumentalist and
normative, although it is not extensively developed.53 Tsilly
Dagan and Talia Fisher take the point one step further, arguing
that converting votes to dollars “seems to fundamentally
27
contradict the essence of what it means to be a part of a
democratic society… voting is not only about preference
satisfaction or personal gain, but also about the realization of
one’s civic personhood.”54
Finally, Michael Sandel takes an even stronger stance,
arguing that the “republican conception of citizenship” rejects
democracy as the aggregation of people’s preferences and the
translation of them into policies. Instead, he believes that this
market model does not belong in democratic politics. The
political institutions where decision-making in democracies
occurs consist of “the moral and civic goods that markets do not
honor and money cannot buy.” 55 Indeed, “commodification corrupts
the good of self-government.”56 The point is, as Karlan notes,
that prohibitions against vote buying, from the viewpoint of the
inalienability argument, are “best justified as protecting the
integrity of the political process rather than the autonomy of
individual voters.”57
Assumption 1: Existence of citizenship-based democracy
The arguments surrounding the inalienability rationale rely
on an assumption that vote buying is wrong in citizenship-based
28
democracies. Voting buying is not wrong, for example, in a
variety of cases of corporate governance in firm elections
because these votes are exercised in a business-centered arena in
which vote buying may be beneficial to the firm.58 It is not that
votes in general are inalienable, but rather that votes in
citizenship-based democracies are inalienable because they weaken
the moral and political fiber of democracies.
International Applicability of the Domestic Inalienability
Rationale
Applicability of Assumption 1: Does not hold
The inalienability rationale neglects the fundamental
difference in international systems that international relations
scholars have pointed out for decades – that there is a
fundamental difference in the “ordering principles.” There is no
higher political order in the international arena. There is no
world-government in which states participate. As Kenneth Waltz
has argued:
Domestic politics is hierarchically ordered. The units – institutions
29
and agencies – stand vis-à-vis each other in relations of super- and subordination… International systems are decentralized and anarchic. Domestic political structures have government institutions and offices as their concrete counterparts. International politics, in contrast, hasbeen called “politics in the absence of government.59
This is anarchy, not democracy. The different ordering principle
of the international arena creates different incentives for
actors. The relative power of states is critical to affect
decisions in the international arena. Of course, there are times
when a third state can act as an intermediary and broker
arrangements between other parties. But the permanence of that
agreement depends on that third states ability to enforce the
agreement with force or the threat of it.
Furthermore, states do not depend on one another in the same
sense that citizens must depend on and trust their fellow
citizens. In the domestic realm, citizens consistently rely on
other citizens for their protection and security. When in
trouble, citizens can call emergency services and expect a police
officer, fireman or paramedic to show up to help. Judges –
whether in county courts, federal courts, or the Supreme Court –
arbitrate disputes and apply the laws to specific cases. We trust
other citizens to uphold the principles of democracy. In
30
contrast, as John Mearsheimer points out, in the international
arena all states must be perceived as a threat: “Because there is
no higher authority to come to their rescue when they dial 911,
states cannot depend on others for their own security. Each state
tends to see itself as vulnerable and alone, and therefore it
aims to provide for its own survival.”60
V: Rethinking Vote Buying in the International Setting
I have identified various rationales for when vote buying is
impermissible domestically. But because these traditional
domestic rationales are inapplicable at the international level,
it may be worthwhile to consider that IVB should be permissible.
To do this, I turn to the domestic arena and locate norms that
support the buying and selling of votes. Determining reasons
behind vote buying norms that exist domestically in these
institutional settings might shed light on the norms surrounding
IVB. Because IVB involves states run by regime-based institutions
not individuals, I shift the domestic focus from the existing
literature’s focus on individuals to institutions. This approach
includes inter-institutional vote buying as well as intra-
institutional vote buying. In both of these cases, the individual
31
is still the level of analysis, the difference being that the
individual is in an institutional role as an elected political
official. This approach is more analogous to the international
setting.
Buying votes in quid pro quo exchanges is not an absent
practice in the domestic arena. Scholars consider this the
“principal-agent paradox” of vote buying. Legislators, as the
voter’s agent, are permitted to engage in vote trades with other
legislators while the voter, the principal, is not permitted to
exchange his vote for a benefit.61 As Kochin and Kochin write,
“Votes are not for sale by voters: instead, voters assign them to
agents who sell them on their behalf.”62 Indeed, logrolling is
legal and is the norm in legislatures across the globe.63 It can
even involve inter-branch vote trading as well. For example,
former President Bill Clinton, in order to secure ratification
for the North American Free Trade Agreement, “bought” votes for
millions of dollars. Former Representative Gerry Studds of
Massachusetts reportedly sold his vote to the former President
for $1.2 billion in maritime subsidies, approximately $50 million
of which were directed to a shipyard in his congressional
32
district. In fact, a Clinton official was even quoted at the time
as saying, “The store is open as far as the White House is
concerned.”64
There is a similar and related puzzle involved, which Karlan
considers the “wholesale-retail paradox.”65 Candidates are
legally prohibited at the “retail level” from paying voters to
vote for them, but at the “wholesale level” they can promise
particular benefits, akin to buying votes, to their constituents
if elected. For example, candidates in elections can promise
economic benefits to their constituents, preferential access to
government, and the provision of public services and goods, all
of which are much greater than the small lump sums voters receive
in traditional vote buying schemes. The nature of traditional vote
buying – as private arrangements outside the domain of the normal
processes of government – makes it wrong. As Karlan writes, it is
the act of selling a vote at the retail level that places an
individual’s interest above that of the collective good:
The right to vote is not given to an individual solely for his or her own benefit…. Voters also occupy a position of public trust, and their votes are thus not simply theirs to sell. Because voting is a public function… the worth of an individual's vote to the community as a whole may exceed the worth of the vote to that individual.66
33
In 1982 the US Supreme Court held up the wholesale-retail
paradox. 67 The case Brown vs. Hartlage involved the August 1979
election for County Commissioner in Jefferson County, Kentucky.
Candidate Carl Brown and Bill Creech promised to county voters
that if elected they would considerably lower their salary to
save taxpayers money. Soon after, they both found that their
promises violated the Kentucky Corrupt Practices Act and they
retracted their statements.68 Nevertheless, Brown went on to
defeat his opponent Hartlage, who decided to bring the case to
court. He argued that the result of the election should be
nullified because of Brown’s retracted but nevertheless illegal
campaign promise. The US Supreme Court ruled in Brown’s favor:
restricting promises made by candidates to voters during the
normal campaign processes should be subject to strict scrutiny.69
More importantly, though, the Court ruled that exchanges are
permissible as long as “the hoped-for personal benefit is to be
achieved through the normal processes of government, and not through
some private arrangement.”70 That is, the exchange must be “made
openly, subject to the comment and criticism of his political
opponent and to the scrutiny of the voters.”71 Public coffers
34
must be the source of the funds for the exchange. The benefit
must come once public officials, through the normal processes of
government, approve it. Finally, the benefits must extend to
those who voted for or against a candidate. “The common thread
uniting these factors,” Pamela Karlan points out, “is their
emphasis on ‘public’…Voters and opponents who are aware of an issue
are better able to debate it and evaluate its relevance.”72
Clearly, this decision is applicable to the principal-agent
paradox as well. Vote trading among politicians who act as agents
of individual voters is not only beneficial to society, as James
Buchanan and Gordon Tullock argue, but is also legitimate and
legal because it occurs publicly through normal government
processes.73
Herein lies the central argument of this paper: interactions
between states in the anarchic international arena can be thought
of as akin to vote trades between political officials within the
government itself.74 States, like politicians, are responsible
to their constituents and are incentivized to advocate on their
behalf and promote their interests. Indeed, there are several
35
striking similarities between domestic and international vote
trading that deserve further attention.
First, both arenas contain a relatively small number of actors
casting votes compared to the number of citizens that participate
in general elections. Initially, this may appear to undermine the
acceptability of vote-buying – since votes are worth more, the
value of a vote increases, thereby making the payoff of the
purchase of a vote more valuable and the occurrence more
frequent. In turn, this might lead to a perverse incentive toward
vote buying that over time could devalue the deliberative
processes of institutions.75 But as Kochin and Kochin show, the
opposite actually appears to be true. In small electorates the
cost of overcoming the collective action problem to block a
proposal is low and typically manageable.76 In large electorates,
however, the cost to individual actors of organizing and blocking
a proposal is high and often insurmountable. Vote buying at the
citizen level is banned to protect voters from the high costs of
organization that would be necessary to block a harmful proposal.
Vote trading within legislatures and the international arena is
acceptable because it contains fewer participants.
36
Second, both domains carry negative perceptions of the
phenomena. In the domestic arena, logrolling is one of the most
frequent types of exchanges, but it seldom occurs publicly for
fear of public retribution. 77 As James Buchanan and Gordon
Tullock point out, “with relatively few exceptions logrolling
phenomena have been viewed as deviations from the orderly working
of the democratic process.”78 Focusing on its moral stigma,
William Riker and Stephan Brams continue, “The conventional
judgment on vote trading in legislatures is one of severe
disapproval… the word has always had pejorative connotations.”79
Vreeland and Dreher find that the same is true internationally.
Paraphrasing an interview with former Ambassador John Bolton,
they write: “Explicit public deals are extraordinarily rare, and,
in reality, the public tends to be unaware of specific vote-aid
trades… even if a diplomat wanted to make bald-faced trades of
aid for political support, he would not dare because they would
leak to the press.”80
Despite the perception of vote trading as immoral, Gordon and
Tullock argue that the gains from vote exchanges between
politicians is a beneficial and rightfully legal part of the
37
workings of domestic politics.81 It permits the expression of
preference intensity. For example, representatives of elderly
districts are more concerned with entitlements than foreign
Sunstein, Cass, " Incommensurability and Valuation in Law", Michigan
Law Review 92, (1994): 779.
"Taiwan Politicians Brawl Over Procedure." BBC News. July 05, 2004.
Accessed December 23, 2013. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-
pacific/3692855.stm.
Udehn, Lars. The Limits of Public Choice: A Sociological Critique of the Economic Theory.
London: Routledge, 1996.
Vaubel, Roland. "A Public Choice Approach to International
Organization." Public Choice 51, no. 1 (1986): 39-57.
Vreeland, James R., and Axel Dreher. Money and Politics on the International
Stage: The Political Economy of the United Nations Security Council. Submitted for
Review to Cambridge University Press, 2014.
50
Walter, Barbara F. "Bargaining Failures and Civil War." Annual Review of
Political Science 12, no. 1 (2009): 243-61.
Waltz, Kenneth N. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley
Pub., 1979.
Werner, Wouter, and Janne Nijman. "Legal Equality and the
International Rule of Law." Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 43
(2012): 3-24.
Zamora, Stephen. "Voting in International Economic Organizations." The
American Journal of International Law 74, no. 3 (July 1980): 566-608.
51
52
1 See James R. Vreeland and Axel Dreher, Money and Politics on the International Stage: The Political Economy of the United Nations Security Council (Submitted for Review to Cambridge University Press, 2014), 126-128. [Hereinafter Money and Politics]2 See Part III of this paper for a comprehensive overview of the evidence. 3 See Alexander Gillespie, "Good Governance, Corruption & Vote Buying in International Forum," New Zealand Yearbook of International Law 1 (2004). 121. [Hereinafter“Good Governance”]4 See Ibid., 104.5 See below for more discussion of on the Inalienability Rationale against Vote Buying and its inapplicability to the international arena.6 See O. Eldar, "Vote-trading in International Institutions," European Journal of International Law 19, no. 1 (2008).7 See Natalie J. Lockwood, "International Vote Buying," Harvard International Law Review 54, no. 1 (2013): 97-156.8 See Ibid., 151.9 See Christopher Kilby, "The Political Economy of Conditionality: An Empirical Analysis of World Bank Loan Disbursements☆," Journal of Development Economics 89, no. 1 (2009): 51-61.10 See Axel Dreher, Peter Nunnenkamp, and Rainer Thiele, "Does US Aid Buy UN General Assembly Votes? A Disaggregated Analysis," Public Choice 136, no. 1-2 (2008): 139-64.11 See Axel Dreher, Jan-Egbert Sturm, and James R. Vreeland, "Development Aid and International Politics: Does Membership on the UN Security Council Influence World Bank Decisions?," Journal of Development Economics 88, no. 1 (2009): 1-18.12 See Axel Dreher, Jan-Egbert Sturm, and James R. Vreeland, "Global Horse Trading:IMF Loans for Votes in the United Nations Security Council," European Economic Review 53, no. 7 (2009): 742-57.13 See Axel Dreher and James R. Vreeland, "Buying Votes and International Organizations," Mortara Center for International Studies Working Paper, May 2011: 21.14 Dreher and Vreeland, Money and Politics, 4.15 Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, "International Norm Dynamics and PoliticalChange," International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 893.16 Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, "International Norm Dynamics and PoliticalChange," International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 893.17 Brown vs. Hartlage 456 U.S. 45 (April 5, 1982).18 While there seems to be an innate distaste for vote buying in general, there arealso reasons to think that vote buying should not be banned. As Hasen points out, “The ban conflicts with the traditional rule that two competent and willing partiesshould be able to engage in transactions that make each better off without harming other individuals.” Should not voters be able to engage in an exchange of a vote for a good with another party if both consent to the transaction? Supporters of thepractice might contest that individuals have a right to sell their vote since it istheir property. As such, one should be able to do what one pleases with their property. While we may see vote buying as not ideal, we should not prohibit it. Others may argue that vote trading is efficient and welfare maximizing. In a competitive marketplace, voters will sell their vote only until the marginal
benefit of the good or gift received equals the marginal cost of not expressing their political opinion in an election. For example, the marginal cost of no vote – or marginal benefit of a vote – may be minimal to many citizens. It seems reasonable, then, to permit them to exchange that vote with another who places a higher marginal benefit on a vote and to receive something else that one values higher, as this type of exchange would be efficient and maximize social welfare. See Richard Hasen, "Vote Buying," California Law Review 88, no. 5 (October 2000): 1329.19 See Hasen, “Vote Buying.” 2000.20 See Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law, 5th ed. (Boston, 1998), 500-504.21 What is political equality? While there are different ways to conceptualize the term, I choose to adopt Richard Hasen’s straightforward definition for the sake of the argument. See Hasen, “Vote Buying,” 1330.22 See Susan Rose-Ackerman, “Inalienability and the Theory of Property Rights”, Columbia Law Review 85, (1985): 963.23 Levmore argues that the equality argument is also based on the assumption of collective actions problems. He argues, “[I]f vote selling were legal, many entitled individuals would sell their votes at trivial prices even as these voters recognize that a large block of votes is a valuable asset. But it does no good for an individual to hold out for the value that a buyer might attach to each vote in such a block because there are many other potential sellers willing to part with their shares for some trivial price. Absent some coordination strategy, these voters reason that since others will sell at a low price rather than be left holding essentially worthless rights, they too may as well sell at a price greater than zero but far less than what might be obtained from an eager buyer if these sellers could coordinate.” Levmore’s argument implies that if the collective action problem could be overcome, it may be legitimate to legalize vote buying. I choose to not address this argument because, as Michael Kochin and Levis Kochin note, these sorts of problems do not exist with small electorates. Compared to the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people voting in domestic elections, international elections involve a couple hundred states at most. See Saul Levmore,"Voting with Intensity," Stanford Law Review 53, no. 1 (October 2000): 137; Also see Michael Kochin and Levis Kochin, "When Is Buying Votes Wrong?," Public Choice 97, no. 4 (1998).24 See Levmore, “Voting with Intensity,” 118. Also, see Rose-Ackerman who similarlypoints out, “In a direct democracy in which choices are made by unanimous consent, the buying of votes does assure choices that benefit all citizens given the existing distribution of resources. This can only be a desirable outcome, however, if the existing distribution is believed to be fair. And even this limited defense of vote selling does not survive the move to a representative system making choicesby majority rule.” Rose-Ackerman, “Inalienability and the Theory of Property Rights,” 963.25Lockwood also suggests that because of this, “the equality argument has no persuasive force against vote trading, since each person is endowed with one vote.” Vote trading would, for example, consist of two individuals agreeing to both vote for a candidate in an upcoming election, if both for a candidate in a separate election. It seems plausible, however, that the inequality argument would also apply to vote trading. Vote trading may be influenced by factors other than money, such as social status,. See Lockwood, “International Vote Buying,” 124.
26 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited with an Introduction and Notes by Edwin Curley (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1994; originally published in 1651).27 John Locke, The Second Treatise Of Civil Government, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1980; originally published in 1690).28 See Stefan Gosepath, "Equality," Stanford University, March 27, 2001, 2.3 Moral Equality, accessed December 23, 2013, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/.29 Hasen, “Clipping Coupons for Democracy,” 6. 30 In 2012, the economy of the United States, at almost $16 trillion, was 440,000 times the size of the economy of Tuvalu, which stood at roughly $37 million. Hundreds of other countries fall somewhere in between. , A bilateral aid payment of$3.7 million would be a tiny earmark for the United States, but would represent 10%of Tuvalu’s GDP. As long as a vote in an international institution was worth more to the US than $3.7 million, which is highly likely, under the principle of one state, one vote in international institutions, there is an incentive for the US to buy the vote of Tuvalu. According to the equality argument, the domestic rationale against vote buying should apply because these disparities exist and create incentives for IVB. See "The World Factbook: Tuvalu," Central Intelligence Agency, Economy; Also see “The World Factbook: United States” Central Intelligence Agency, Economy. 31 See Stephan D. Krasner, "Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective," Comparative Political Studies 21, no. 1 (April 1988): 90.32 See Robert Art and Robert Jervis, "The Meaning of Anarchy," International Politics: Anarchy, Force, Political Economy, and Decision Making, 2d ed. (1985): 5. 33 In Moscow in October, 1943, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China assured the world of "the necessity of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving States, and open to membership by all such States, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security.” Of course, that was the United Nations. See New York Times, Nov. 2, 1943, p. 16, cols. 1-4.34 Samuel Barkin and Bruce Cronin, "The State and the Nation: Changing Norms and the Rules of Sovereignty in International Relations," International Organization 48, no. 01 (Winter 1994)35 Ibid., 109.36 See Jeffrey Dunoff, "Is Sovereign Equality Obsolete? Understanding Twenty-First Century International Organizations," Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 43 (2012). [Hereinafter “Is Sovereign Equality Obsolete?”]37 For example, the US wields 16.75% of the IMF’s total votes, while Tuvalu holds amere 0.03%. Antigua and Barbuda, Bhutan, Cape Verde, Comoros, Dominica, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Kiribati, Maldives, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Somoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles, the Solomon Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis,St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Timor-Leste, and Tonga hold 0.03% as well. The 85% threshold for the most important IMF votes gives the US an effective veto power over all decisions. In addition, some states – the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China, and Saudi Arabia – have their own representativeon the Executive Board, which runs the day-to-day operations of the IMF. Others arerequired to elect a Director to represent the interests of a group of states. See
"IMF Members' Quotas and Voting Power," International Monetary Fund. 38 Indeed, international commodities agreements, environment protocols, the International Maritime Organization, the Convention on International Civil Aviationand the International Labour Organization’s Constitution use similar weighted voting procedures. Political decisions in many international organizations are not based on the principle of political equality, but rather on each state’s unequal capacities. See Stephen Zamora, "Voting in International Economic Organizations", The American Journal of International Law 74, no. 3 (July 1980): 608.39 See Wouter Werner and Janne Nijman, "Legal Equality and the International Rule of Law," Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 43 (2012) for more on this point.40 Dunoff begins this excerpt with the following: “Concerns over transnational terrorism, internal conflict in failed states, and grave violations of human rightsranging from ethnic cleansing to war crimes to genocide have combined to persuade many that sovereignty-based and state-centric understandings of international law and international relations are outdated, and should be replaced with understandings grounded in a respect for human rights…” See Dunoff, “Is Sovereign Equality Obsolete?”, 110-11.See Dunoff, “Is Sovereign Equality Obsolete?”, 124. 41 See Posner, “The Ethical and Political Basis of the Efficiency Norm in Common Law Adjudication.” Hofstra Law Review 8: 487–507. (1980) and “Utilitarianism, Economics, and Legal Theory.” Journal Of Legal Studies 8: 103–40. (1979); also see EdwardStrigham, "Kaldor-Hicks Efficiency and the Problem of Central Planning," Quarterly Journal of AUS trian Economics 4, no. 2 (Summer 2001).42 See Richard Epstein, "Why Restrain Alienation?", Columbia Law Review 85 (1985): 987-8.43 See Pamela Karlan, "Not by Money but by Virtue Won? Vote Trafficking and the Voting Rights System," Virginia Law Review 80, no. 7 (October 1994): 1467. [Hereinafter“Not by Money”]44 See Hasen, “Vote Buying”, 1333.45 See Robert Hahn and Patrick Dudley, "How Well Does the U.S. Government Do Benefit-Cost Analysis?," Review of Environment Economic Policy 1 (2007).46 Social welfare maximization is possible when the effect of the majority of decisions made by an institution can be calculated with cardinal preferences. This distinction is important. If the majority of decisions are judgment decisions, thenKaldor-Hicks efficiency is not an applicable criterion to evaluate those decisions,and thus it will be ineffective at calculating the overall social welfare optimization of an institution. Certainly it can be used to assess individual policies. But because bans against vote buying apply to the election of bodies as awhole, not the type of decision made, it is necessary to consider the aggregate decisions of an institution. 47 See Kenneth Arrow, "A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare", Journal of Political Economy 5, 4 (August 1950), 328–346.48 See Eldar, "Vote-trading in International Institutions", 40.49 Future research might focus on other international institutions in which the majority of decisions made are preference decisions. This might include the IMF, World Bank, and other regional development banks. The only organization Eldar analyzes in which preference decisions are made is the World Trade Organization, and here the argument is focused less on vote buying and more on vote trading and
the coercive tendering tactics, such as threatening to withhold aid or IMF loans, that developed countries practice when trading votes. Moreover, Eldar points out that even in regards to the latter practices, the overall social welfare effect depends on the view one adopts toward the general impact of the World Trade Organization.50 See Eldar, "Vote-trading in International Institutions", 37.51 See Rose-Ackerman, “Inalienability and the Theory of Property Rights,” 936.52 See Margaret Radin, Market-Inalienability, Harvard Law Review 100, (1987): 1854. 53 Cass Sunstein makes an instrumentalist argument against vote buying focusing on the importance of public-regarding voting. She believes it is wrong because of the effects it could have on the decision-making processes of individuals exercising their right to vote. Voting is not about thinking about what is in one’s economic self-interest but rather thinking about the greater good of the community. Placing a dollar value on a vote changes the way we view the voting process. It neglects Radin’s implied political and moral duties. See Cass Sunstein, "Incommensurability and Valuation in Law", Michigan Law Review 92, (1994): 849. 54 Tsilly Dagan and Talia Fisher, "Rights for Sale," Minnesota Law Review 96 (2011): 122.55 See Michael J. Sandel, “What Money Can‘t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets.” Address at Brasenose College, Oxford (May 11–12, 1998), in The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 21, (2000): 122. [Hereinafter “What Money Can’t Buy”]56 Also, consider Sandel’s view fully explained: “According to the republican conception of citizenship, to be free is to share in self-rule. This is more than amatter of voting in elections and registering my preferences or interests. On the republican conception of citizenship, to be free is to participate in shaping the forces that govern the collective destiny. But in order to do that, and to do it well, it is necessary that citizens possess or come to acquire certain qualities ofcharacter, or civic virtues… The republican conception of citizenship… seeks to cultivate a fuller range of virtues, including a moral bond with the community whose fate is at stake, a sense of obligation for one’s fellow citizens, a willingness to sacrifice individual interests for the sake of the common good, and the ability to deliberate well about common purposes and ends... Commodification corrupts the good of self-government.” See Sandel, “What Money Can‘t Buy”, 108-9.57 Karlan, “Not by Money”, 1467.58 See Hasen, “Vote Buying”; also see Kochin and Kochin, “When is Buying Votes Wrong?”.59 See Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub.,1979), 88.60 See John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001), 33.61 Refer to the Efficiency Rationale above for more on this argument against retailvote buying.62 See Kochin and Kochin, “When is Buying Votes Wrong?” 646.63 For strong empirical evidence on the global prevalence of logrolling in legislatures, see Thomas W. Gilligan and John G. Matsusaka, “Deviations From Constituent Interests: The Role Of Legislative Structure And Political Parties In
The States,” Economic Inquiry 33, no. 3 (1995).64 See Josh Gerstein, "Pork Greased Reform's Passage," Politico, December 22, 2009.65 See Ibid. Also, Kochin and Kochin point out a very related paradox which they call the conditionality paradox: “Candidates can offer even individual voters benefits in return for votes or support as long as these promises are conditional on the candidates’ reelection. It is far more dubious and frequently illegal for the candidate to offer benefits even to large groups of voters whether or not the candidate is actually elected.” See Kochin and Kochin, “When is Buying Votes Wrong?”, 646.66 Karlan, “Not by Money”, 1466. Italics added.67 4 456 U.S. 45.68 The law reads: “No candidate for nomination or election to any state, county, city or district office shall expend, pay, promise, loan or become pecuniarily liable in any way for money or other thing of value, either directly or indirectly,to any person in consideration of the vote or financial or moral support of that person.” See Section 121.055, Revised Statutes of Kentucky. 69 That is, there must not only be “a legitimate state interest, but a compelling one” to prohibit candidates from making promises to voters in exchange for their support. See 4 456 U.S. 45.70 The Court’s full statement in regard to this matter reads: “Candidate commitments enhance the accountability of government officials to the people whom they represent, and assist the voters in predicting the effect of their vote. The fact that some voters may find their self-interest reflected in a candidate's commitment does not place that commitment beyond the reach of the First Amendment. We have never insisted that the franchise be exercised without taint of individual benefit; indeed, our tradition of political pluralism is partly predicated on the expectation that voters will pursue their individual good through the political process, and that the summation of these individual pursuits will further the collective welfare. So long as the hoped-for personal benefit is to be achieved through the normal processes of government, and not through some private arrangement, it has always been, and remains, a reputable basis upon which to cast one's ballot.” See Ibid.71 Ibid.72 Karlan, “Not by Money”, Italics added. 73 See below for more on their argument. James M. Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and Charles Kershaw. Rowley, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004).74 Of course, the norms that affect the behavior of political officials in the domestic realm of government are more institutionalized than those that condition the behavior of states. This is not to say, however, that there are not international norms or institutions that cannot influence behaviors. Internationally, Robert Axelrod and Robert Keohane have pointed out that institutions can promote cooperation among states. Ethan Nadelmann has also found international norms against a variety of activities, with “those who refuse or failto conform… labeled as deviants and condemned not just by states but most communities and individuals as well.” International law additionally acts as a powerful body of rules and regulation to which most states obey. As Harold Koh
argues, the “overlooked process of interaction, interpretation, and internalizationof international norms into domestic legal systems is pivotal to understanding why nations "obey" international law, rather than merely conform their behavior to it when convenient.” But these norms that condition the behavior of states are in factsimilar to the norms that govern political anarchy. The use of violence, of course,is extremely rare (although not entirely absent) within political anarchy as compared to the international arena. Legislative violence engulfed the Taiwanese and South Korean parliaments recently. The biggest difference, it seems, between anarchy in the international arena and political anarchy is the degree of institutionalization of the norms that affect behaviors. The former has a long way to go. See Robert Axelrod, Robert Keohane “Explaining Cooperation under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Strategies,” World Politics 38, No. 1. (Oct., 1985): pp. 226-254; Ethan A. Nadelmann, "Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society," International Organization 44, no. 04 (1990); Harold Koh, "Why Do Nations Obey International Law?" (1997). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 2101; "S Korean Politicians in Mass Brawl," BBC News, July 22, 2009; "Taiwan Politicians Brawl OverProcedure," BBC News, July 05, 200475I wish to thank Professor Michael Johnston at Colgate University for raising thisimportant point. 76 See Kochin and Kochin, “When is Buying Votes Wrong?”.77 See Lars Udehn, The Limits of Public Choice: A Sociological Critique of the Economic Theory (London: Routledge, 1996), 118.78 See James M. Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and Charles Kershaw. Rowley, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004).79 See William Riker and Steven Brahms, "The Paradox of Vote Trading," The AmericanPolitical Science Review 67, no. 4 (December 1973): 1235.80 See Dreher and Vreeland, Money and Politics, 97-119. 81 They argue that logrolling is beneficial, aside from the obvious gains that occur from trade, because it can increase the power of minorities and permit the expression of not only ordinal preferences, but cardinal preferences as well. See Buchanan and Tullock, The Calculus of Consent; William C. Mitchell, "The Calculus of Consent: Enduring Contributions to Public Choice and Political Science," Public Choice 60, no. 3 (1989).82 Kochin and Kochin, “When is Buying Votes Wrong?”, 648.83 Vreeland and Dreher, Money and Politics, 31. 84 See Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1954).
85 That is not to say that a global collective good does not exist, only that thereis not currently a single institutional authority that legitimately claims to act on behalf of every citizen of the world. For more on the negative impact of political incentives in governments and their role in the ineffectiveness of international organizations to produce efficient global outcomes, see Roland Vaubel, “A Public Choice Approach to International Organization,” Public Choice 51, no. 1 (1986): 53.
86 See Bruno S. Frey, "The Public Choice View of International Political Economy, "International Organization 38, no. 01 (1984): 215.87 See Carl J. Friedrich, "Corruption Concepts in Historical Perspective," in Political Corruption: A Handbook, comp. Arnold J. Heidenheimer and Michael Johnston (New Brunswick: Transaction Publ., 2009), 15/