“IS IT FAIR TO ARGUE THAT CORRUPTION IS ONLY PRESENT IN NONDEMOCRATIC SYSTEMS?”

Democracy has been defined to be a system with four significant pillars; representative government, active participation of the citizen within the political election process, freedom and transparency of process in general and political acts. However, critics and authoritarians portray a very common misapprehension in consideration of the “democracy and power”. They say that- “Democracy or a democratic government, lacks the power to dominate and might even lack the weight to govern the entire system”. Their perspective has been proven wrong as numerous authors illuminated the positivity of a democratic system (Girling, 2002). A democratic system is fundamentally formed of a government that believes “to be limited not weak”.
Democratic systems have gained popularity in all over the world, Asian or western; people have embraced the democratic system and believed it to be a near perfect political system. However, some parts of the world are still equipped with non-democratic political system. Numerous politicians have their personal views and perspectives over the meaning of democracy and non-democracy. Practically, a democratic system and a non-democratic system differs from one another in their theory and practices as well. As far as corruption is concerned, it would be partially true to say that only “Non-democratic systems indulge corruption”. In case of a government within democratic governance fail to keep up to their promises, they will encourage corruption (Morris and Blake, 2009).
Definition of democracy and non-democracy
A Democracy as described by numerous researchers as the “rule by population”; a democracy includes participation of the government and the population in the interest of the community. While on other hand, some authors and political scientists described the “Democracy as a descriptive terminology with majority rule”. Democratic system includes a process of voting or election as legitimate process for applying the opinion of majority. In other words, democracy symbolizes a political system that allows common people to participate in the election and influence the system.
“Non-democracy” or “autocracy” includes a single ruler or a group of rulers not by the population (Phillips, 2002). In comparison with a democratic system, a smaller group of people or a single ruler rules or forms the policies or the system of law in non-democratic governance.
Main body
There are numerous case and theoretical evidences that supports the statement “democratization does breed/encourage corruption hypothesis”. Various researchers have emphasized over commercial sector; they opined that corruption can trigger behaviour with monopolistic competitive attributes that can be witnessed among the agents belonging to the private sector. Young or juvenile democracies often suffer from unsatisfactory funds or monetary resources, thus they facilitate rent seekers with superior access to the public administrators, hence facilitates superior opportunities for gathering rents from public sector. Democracy often triggers political corruption, which affects numerous aspects of the society. The corruption takes root in the democratic process from the start where the representatives of public are supposed to be chosen solely based on the faith of public and the reputation of an individual (Rackley, 2006). But the choosing process is filled with corruption in even most advanced of countries. There has been the setting of strict regulation on what a candidate for representation can or can’t do in the election campaign. But the those rules are often circumnavigated by giving false promises by corrupt politicians who are not in any way interested in serving the people who choose him as representative but instead they are only interested in the position of the representative which will afford them the power to involve themselves in even more corrupt practices which will benefit only them and not the people who chose him to be their representative. Even the president bush Jr. was accused of breaking the rules of election campaign by distributing cigars to the public to entice them into voting for him during the precedential campaign.
Then after being elected as the representatives of the public they choose to further pursue their own goals of political power and higher ranking which will afford them even more power to provide benefits for them and their own or in many cases provide benefits for specific organizations or individuals by brokering deals which will afford them benefits or power or in most common cases money. Many different politicians who are supposed to be representing different factions of the population often broker deals among themselves with total disregard for the faith the people put in them to represent their interests in the parliament or the senate. In many cases the choosing of these corrupt politicians are the responsibility of the public as they allow themselves to be enticed into choosing the wrong person as their representative by being influenced by their false promises. These foolish people deserve no better than being represented by morally deficient politicians who are governed by self interest and in most cases do not care about the general populace they are chosen to represent at all. In most of the cases of corruption it is clearly evident who is thinking about the public or the benefit of some specific organization or individual (Girling, 2002). But the even the most intelligent of the people often ignore these lapses of ideal as they often ignore to see the long lasting effect of such decisions in their lives.
Government officials often misuse their power and authorities for unlawful, personal benefits and secret use, which makes the societal foundations completely corrupt. Corruption is considered to be a crucial societal and social evil that alters mass welfare and equal chances especially for have-nots. While on one hand developed countries are rarely affected with the issue of corruption due to the availability of enormous resources (Trang, 1994). While on the other hand, developing counties witness numerous corruptions due to the reason that their resources are limited and very few, which leads to rampant corruption that affects common population. Corruption can generate financial distortion; public investments are redirected into private/capital projects that engage maximum number of bribes and other forms of corruption. In a democracy, government officials are allowed to use their power/authorities in public interests; however government officials take illegitimate advantage of their power and turn things in their favour. Officials may even raise the technical difficulties for public sector projects in order to hide for the illegitimate dealings, which additionally increase the distortion. Corruption can also affect the compliance with environmental, construction or any other regulations, which reduces the superiority of government infrastructure and services that eventually amplifies the budgetary strain on the government.
Since, corruption triggers financial distortions it weakens the monetary growth and development of the country. Political parties or officials are despite of being west or east, without any exceptions flourishing corrupt democracy and politics that provides suitable stage that they use to gain wealth as much as possible during their ruling situation/period. Corruption affects every element or individual of the society from wherever it passes through. Though, there are agencies for neutralizing corruption, they are making nearly no difference of very smaller difference to the corruption of the society. Government officials often restrict such anti-corruption officials or take neutralize their personal conditions, which makes them incapable of doing anything.
Thus, once again it would not be fair to state that only non-democratic governance indulges corruption, as evidences and reports show a completely different image.
The non-democratic country does not support the equal power of the public. The public do not have the authority to run or control the activities of the government (McClelland, 2006). The autocratic system mainly runs with the concept of encouraging a person with the supreme power over the country. It is criticised that the autocratic systems are mostly encourages the corrupted government. In most of the cases as the power of the supreme power is concentrated in the hand of only one person and as he or she is able to decide anything inside the country, the unethical autocrat will utilise the property of the public illegally. Actually, an autocratic system does not have any constant mode of the particular behaviour of the government (Dixit, 2010).  The situation differs with respect to the personal ethical perspectives of the individual who is holding the power in the country. However, the autocratic system can be different types, oligarchy, monarchy, technocracy or theocracy. In case of the oligarchy, the power of the government lies in the hand of very few number of people or the government. In most of the cases, the power is provided to the hand of the family. The particular group of people can be a royal family, wealthy community or military power. In case of the oligarchic government,   the few people who hold the power are eligible to utilise the property of the people without any control of the constitution or the legal authorities. However, in case of the Military control, a country is much safer from the corruption (Rackley, 2006). The military government is usually run by the head of the military force of the country. In case of the monarchy, the supreme power of the government lies in the hand of an individual person or the king who has obtained the power of thorn by birth or by war. In case of monarchy, the autocratic government is efficient to control the corruption by his skills. The king can be unethical and may be corrupted as he has the right to do anything with the public fund. An ethical king also may reduce corruption in the government by applying his supreme power and positive will for the good of the country (Maddison and Denniss, 2005).  A country can also be a theocracy where the supreme power mainly lies in the hand of certain religious groups. The theocratic government may be corrupted as the people who are in the role of controlling the government activities may misuse the religious sentiment or the religious instructions. The corruption in a theocratic country mainly affects the people who are not in the religious community of the main religion. However, good ethical considerations can be observed in the countries where the theocratic authority follows the religious instruction and do not utilise the public property by their own will. The theocratic government can be observed in most of the Islamic countries, where t he legal and administrative authority is mainly directed by the law of Islam. The need of the people are many times harmed as in the theocratic country the common public may not be aware about the absolute instructions of the religion (Khan, 2009). Moreover, the theocracy does not support the secular government that results in a great fluctuation of the ethical perspective how a government in the modern world should be. Aristocracy can also be a form of the autocracy. In that case, the financial powers usually are the main source of the power of the controller of the government. In these types of autocracy, the government is highly corrupted. The people who are in the best financial position run the government activities misuse the public property for their own purpose (Nur-tegin, 2014). However, unlike the democratic system, the autocratic government do not have any liability to show the cause their activities. The people are not able to contact or advice the government for changing any decisions.
The elimination of the corruption is an important factor for the different kind of the government bodies.  The democratic system has a well-established constitution that can be referred for directing the level of corruption of the government. In case of the democratic government, the people also can select the government authority according to their own with using their voting power. In case of the democratic system, the people have the right to information about the government activities (Kleinjan and Coutinho, 2009). However, in case of the autocratic government, the government may or may not be corrupted in accordance with their personal wish and ethical perspectives. The people usually are not able to judge the government as the people do not have the power of controlling the government. In case of the autocratic government, the ministry is usually run by the intension of the autocrats. The news media is also can be controlled by the autocratic government. This harms the usual ethical perspectives of the government activities (Schubert, 2005).  If any misconduct is observed in the activities of the autocrat, there are no proper processes of controlling his activities. In the modern world most of the countries have power of sovereignty. This directly affects the normal process of the controlling the misconduct of another country. The solution of eliminating the corruption from the government is very much difficult in case of the autocratic country, unlike the democratic one.  The proper power distribution is also an important part of elimination of the corruption. The government never runs by singlehandedly (Linde and Karlsson, 2013). In autocratic country, the autocrat only can supervise the activities of the government and make the final decision by his or her own power. Hence, the process of controlling the misconduct carried out by the other government authority is also affect the public interest. However, a strong autocratic leader with anti corruptive attitude can also improve the process of the utilising public property in a fairer way.
Corruption is not in any way dependent on a specific political system by which a state is run. The corruption can be equally present in a autocratic system as well as a democratic one. The corruption levels of the governments of different nations and states depend upon the nature of the politicians or the representatives or in case of an autocracy on the leader himself or the people in the government who are directly supporting the leader. The basic nature of a person is either in support of corruption or strictly anti corruption. There is also a segment who are not corrupt themselves but do not speak up against corruption when they see it happening in front of their eyes. The democratic system of every nation is a balance between these three kinds of people (Linde & Karlsson, 2013). If there are the majority of politicians with anti corruption mindset then the government is in most cases corruption free but it is a sad truth that such a system is rarely seen in the current world. The democratic system is division of power among the population or specifically the representatives of people who are responsible for the running of the government. In most of the cases there is some percentage of corrupt politicians in the systems and in the government offices of unscrupulous individuals. There is neither an abundance of corruption or total absence of it. But in the case of autocracy as it has been noted before a dictator with strong morals and an anti corruption mindset can stop corruption in the tracks but it is only possible because he is the individual who has the power to do so. In the case of many dictators it can be the exact opposite as they themselves support corruption and give undue benefits to their own people and unlike democracy no amount of public opinion can remove him from power and his influence will force other people who are not in support of corruption to stay silent and allow the anarchy to go on(Yatsunyk, Bryan & Brad Johnson, 2012). So it can be said that the corruption is present in all the systems to some extent. In democracy it is almost always present to some extent but in case of autocracy it exists in more of an all or nothing form. Where there is either no corruption at all or an over abundance of corruption in all aspects of the system. This is why democracy in most cases is having problems regarding corruption as it is possible for the people to remove the corrupt leaders of the state from power by united protest against the individuals. It is hard but doable but in case of autocracy it is not possible to stop corruption if the dictator is corrupt without massive upheaval. So democracy is the situation where most corruption is uncovered and ensuing protest follows and they come into the focus of the media.
Conclusion
It is clear from the topic of the essay that the matter is highly controversial and totally dependent of the opinion of an individual. In the opinion of the researcher it is a matter of opinion as corruption is present in many forms in all the different control systems that are seen in many states all around the world. The corruption is present is democratic systems and non democratic systems both. But as it has been discussed in the previous point that the corruption is the facet of politics that is present in all systems of states to some extend independent of the way the state is controlled or run. Even if some dictator with morals which is an anti thesis of the general idea of dictators is present in some state he is theoretically able to stop corruption in its tracks. But in most cases the corruption level is higher in the autocratic systems than in the democratic ones because the power of a dictator behind the corruption makes it unstoppable and much more noticeable by the general populace and the news media (Nur-tegin, 2014). In case of democracy the corruption is stoppable by public opinion and censure so it is done much more discreetly and the level is noticeably lower than other systems. So it is wrong to say only non democratic systems are prone to corruption as it is not true. The democratic systems are as prone to corruption as any other system but are less conspicuous and the level of corruption is lower in most cases. So the argument on whether it is fair to say that only non democratic systems are prone to corruption the scale weighs on the side of negative. The conclusion to which we come after discussing the supporting statements in the essay is that all systems are equally prone to corruption to some extent.