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India's democracy has completely been funded by invisible money, says Arun Jaitley The Hindu For 70 years, India's democracy has completely been funded by invisible money elected representatives, governments, political parties, Parliaments and I must say that the Election Commission completely failed in checking it, Mr Jaitley said ... Arun Jaitley says for 70 years invisible money funded Indian democracy, slams politicians for taking benami routeFinancial Express For 70 years, Indian democracy was funded by 'invisible money': Arun JaitleyOneindia all 41 news articles »

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India's democracy has completely been funded by invisible money, says Arun Jaitley - The Hindu

Self-admiration isn't the answer.

In her new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America, Nancy MacLean writes that my Bloomberg View colleague Tyler Cowen, by questioning American political institutions, was creating a handbookfor how to conduct a fifth-column assault on democracy. As the Hoover Institutions Russ Roberts pointed out, Cowens quote was taken out of context. This is worth noting because Cowen has long been a staunch defender of democracy.

But its no secret that Cowen is willing to think critically about the potential weaknesses of the U.S. system. He does this not to attack democratic ideals, but to defend them. If we want to see democracy endure, we must think realistically and pragmatically about its weak points, so that we can focus resources on shoring them up.

Its very dangerous to indulge in triumphalism about ones own form of government. Yes, democracies appear to have a modest statistical advantage when it comes to economic growth. But thats just a statistical trend, not an ironclad proof of economic superiority. Plenty of autocratic countries have experienced rapid growth, from Germany in the 19th century to South Korea and Taiwan in the early 1980s. Whats more, theres a chance that the modest correlation between democracy and growth is driven by one massive outlier -- the U.S., whose alliance and patronage was undoubtedly a big economic advantage for many democratic countries during the 20th century.

Right now, democracy is being questioned more from both within and without. Its worth asking if this is because democratic systems have some unique economic challenges that were systematically ignored in previous decades.

Economists have long known that democracy doesnt always lead to the most economically efficient outcome. The Nobel prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow famously proved that no democratic political system can give all its citizens what they want in in all situations. Of course, real political systems dont even come close to optimality, so this finding is a bit academic.

But economic theory also points to a more concrete problem -- the difficulty democracies have in providing public goods. One of governments essential roles is to provide things that benefit people other than those who directly pay for them. Examples include national defense, infrastructure and basic research. Education and health care also have some aspects of public goods, since a healthy and educated populace creates broad benefits for everyone. Because free markets generally wont provide enough of these things, government needs to pick up the slack.

When building infrastructure, authoritarian countries dont have to worry about hurting the few to help the many. China forcibly relocated 1.2 million people to build a dam in the 2000s. Fortunately, that wouldnt be possible in the U.S., but it does mean that American companies are often forced to compete against authoritarian rivals that have access to cheaply built world-class infrastructure.

Paying for public goods can also be difficult. People differ both in their ability to pay and in the amount of benefit they derive from the public goods. Typically, countries use different types of taxes to take these two things into account -- gas taxes to fund highways, and income taxes that fall more heavily on the rich. But economic theorists have figured out that under a fairly general set of conditions, no tax regime can possibly provide a good deal for all citizens. Either government ends up not providing enough public goods, or it runs a budget deficit.

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There is an alternative. Its possible to balance the budget and provide the optimal amount of public goods, but only if some rich people are forced to pay very high taxes. But the amount of top-level taxation required is so steep that many rich people would rather just quit the system entirely -- move to another country, or abolish the government. This fairly general mathematical result probably explains many rich peoples affinity for libertarian ideas.

It also may explain why most democracies carry large amounts of government debt:

Gross central government debt as a share of GDP in 2014

Source: World Bank

This is also a recent phenomenon. Until about 1980, the U.S. did a good job of balancing its budget. But after 1980, structural deficits began to appear:

U.S. federal debt as a share of GDP

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Did this happen because globalization gave rich people the option to move their capital -- or even themselves -- overseas if their taxes got too high? Thats what the simplified economic theory would predict.

If so, this presents a problem for democracies. Authoritarian countries such as China or Russia can implement capital controls to prevent money from flowing out. But democracies -- or any liberal system that allows freedom of personal and financial movement -- may struggle to balance their budgets in a globalized world.

Its precisely because we want democracy to survive that we must not ignore its special challenges. Making it taboo to even discuss these issues would be a big mistake. The free world needs fewer over-optimistic cheerleaders, and more thinkers like Tyler Cowen, who love democracy but are willing to think about its flaws.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Noah Smith at nsmith150@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.net

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Be Clear-Eyed About Democracy's Weaknesses - Bloomberg

COMMENTARY:The bright spot in the U.S. Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United decision was the upholding of transparency. The ruling opened the floodgates for the uber-wealthy to grab greater control of our local, state and national elections but it also made clear that you have a right to know theyre doing it.

Heath Haussamen

Bringing political spending into the light enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages, the Citizens United decision states. In a ruling on another case that year, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.

And yet, New Mexico has struggled for years to come up with laws or regulations to combat dark money. Parts of our Campaign Reporting Act were ruled unconstitutional years ago, and policymakers have failed to fix it.

The Legislature finally sent a bill to Gov. Susana Martinez this year that would have required independent groups that spend more than $1,000 during a campaign to disclose their funding. She vetoed it.

Now Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver is trying to enact a new rule to supplement the states reporting law. Groups that spend more than $1,000 in an election cycle would have to report all donors who gave more than $200.

Several right-leaning groups are fighting the proposal. Some left-leaning groups that have fought against or been lukewarm about increased disclosure in the past have been largely silent about the proposal from Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat.

Common Cause New Mexico, which voluntary discloses donor and spending information, has been lobbying hard for the secretary of states new rule.

Given that parts of the states reporting law are unconstitutional, the secretary of state is likely to rely on case law and enforce her proposal regardless of whether its enacted as a rule, an assistant attorney general said during a public hearing this week.

Toulouse Olivers proposal is an important step. Id rather disclosure be protected in state law so it cant be easily undone by a future secretary of state who doesnt favor transparency. But a rule is better than nothing.

And it wont solve the problem of dark money. It would require disclosure when spending is expressly related to a race or issue on the ballot. But it wouldnt touch the massive spending by nonprofits on issue advocacy and criticism of government officials that shapes public opinion outside of an election season.

You should get to know, for example, whos funding billboards and other mediacriticizingU.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican, that a coalition of left-leaning groups has spread across southern New Mexico. You should get to know when a wealthy individual from the left or right funds an attack on your public officials.

Dark money has spread like a cancer throughout our system. Those of us who engage in the public debate politicians, candidates, nonprofit and other activist groups, journalists should be transparent about how our work is funded. We should, in Scalias words, have the civic courage to stand up in public.

Courts have largely upheld donor privacy for spending that isnt explicitly election-related, and thats unfortunate. The degree of transparency Im seeking may not ever happen.

But its needed to combat the United States oligarchical trajectory, to preserve our ability to participate in and influence the direction of our society.

Heath Haussamenis NMPolitics.nets editor and publisher. Agree with his opinion? Disagree? We welcome your views. Learn about submitting your own commentaryhere.

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Dark money threatens democracy - NMPolitics.net

By Michael Bratton and Boniface Dulani By Michael Bratton and Boniface Dulani July 20 at 8:00 AM

For 25 years, Zambia helped set the pace toward democratic consolidation in Africa. The country was quick to transition to a multiparty system, held six competitive elections and saw peaceful shifts of ruling parties. Based on past surveys, Zambians express among the longest and strongest attachments to the principles of democracy of people anywhere in Africa.

The past year, however, has seen authoritarian backsliding, marked by a government crackdown on free speech and the press. Since August 2016 elections marred by violent demonstrations, the opposition leader has been jailed, opposition members of Parliament have been banished, and a state of emergency has suspended civil liberties and granted the police increased powers of arrest and detention. Zambias church leaders recently warned that the country is, except in designation, a dictatorship.

What do ordinary Zambians think?

A recent national Afrobarometer survey shows that ordinary Zambians also see their democracy as beginning to erode (see detailed analysis here).

In face-to-face interviews in April 2017, two out of three Zambians say their country is headed in the wrong direction a stark reversal from 2012, when only 29 percent felt that way (see Figure 1). This mirrors what Zambians think about economic conditions in the country: Large majorities say that their national economy is underperforming (60 percent) and that the government is doing poorly at creating jobs (77 percent), narrowing income gaps (80 percent) and keeping prices stable (81 percent).

And two out of three Zambians believe official corruption increased (somewhat or a lot) over the past year, while 70 percent consider that the government is handling the fight against official corruption fairly badly or very badly. A similar proportion say they fear retaliation or other negative consequences if they report incidents of corruption.

Despite the economic challenges, Zambians remain strongly committed to the ideals of democracy, according to the April survey. They overwhelmingly prefer democracy to any other form of government (81 percent) and reject authoritarian systems such as one-party rule (82 percent), military rule (92 percent) and rule by a big-man dictator (92 percent, up from 87 percent in 2012) (see Figure 2). Most Zambians favor checks on the presidents executive powers: 64 percent think Parliament should monitor the president and 71 percent think he should always obey the courts. And 84 percent favor a limit of two five-year terms for the presidency.

Fewer Zambians are confident of their democracy

But further survey responses suggest Zambians arent seeing these principles in practice, and confidence in the quality of the countrys democracy is declining (see Figure 3):

Figure 3: Satisfaction with democracy | Zambia | 2012-2017 Survey respondents shared their thoughts on the quality of Zambias democracy, including to what extent the last national election was free and fair, as well as their personal fears of political intimidation or violence. Data: Afrobarometer.

Afrobarometer has used trends in public opinion to appraise political risk in Africa. In countries such as Kenya, Mali and Zimbabwe, rapid drops in popular political satisfaction have correlated to risk to democratic regimes. In Kenya and Zimbabwe, such risk was manifest in violent elections; in Mali, an ill-prepared military coup overthrew the civilian government.

What happens next in Zambia remains unclear, but early warning signals are present that the countrys hard-won democracy may well be in danger.

Michael Bratton is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and African Studies at Michigan State University and senior adviser to Afrobarometer.

Boniface Dulani is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political and Administrative Studies at the University of Malawi and Afrobarometers operations manager for fieldwork in southern and francophone Africa.

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Half of Zambians aren't happy with their democracy and that's a ... - Washington Post

Shaun King, columnist for the New York Daily News, knows how to fix American representative democracy. For King, a democracy that could elect Trump is no democracy at all, and he has five solutions, growing increasingly more ambitious: automatic voter registration, mail voting, making elections a national holiday, abolishing the Electoral College, and making the Senate more representative.

Now, I have no problem with moving federal elections to weekends or allowing mail voting, and it doesnt bother me very much when states institute automatic voter registration. As for abolishing the Electoral College and making the Senate more representative well, those are truly terrible ideas, but they have approximately no chance of happening anytime in the near future. The actual proposals in Kings article are a convenient mix of the inoffensive and the unrealizable, and therefore are not particularly concerning. But the underlying attitude behind the piece is concerning indeed, it reflects a very popular theory of democracy that is unworkable in practice and incoherent in theory, and that undermines confidence in our own quite excellent system.

Why, one may ask, does American representative democracy need fixing? To be sure, there is much room for debate as to the current state of American institutions: My particular hobby-horses here are the growing power of the presidency and the courts relative to Congress, and the parlous state of civic culture. But Kings concerns have little to do with such institutional concerns what worries King is that American governance doesnt represent the popular will. Our current system is such that the overwhelming majority of Americans despise Trumpcare, but politicians have the power to pass it anyway, laments King. Were not getting meaningful gun reforms and reasonable immigration reforms and its because our government no longer represents the popular will of the majority of Americans.

King is advocating here the popular theory that governance, properly construed, is a sort of constant referendum: that government consists of always advocating the policies that obtain majority support in the latest poll. Put aside the fact that even liberals dont consistently believe this, that Obamacare didnt have majority support when it was passed, that many wanted the courts to mandate gay marriage when most of America still opposed it, that some polls suggest most Americans support one way or another Trumps refugee-ban policy and consider the two main complaints: that some American institutions allow politicians or parties to win without winning a plurality of votes, and that Americans dont vote enough. Both are very frequent complaints generally on the left, but occasionally on the right as well. Both are unfounded.

The first complaint is very often a simple failure of civics. There are two sovereign bodies in the American political system: the states and the federal government. The Electoral College and the Senate the two allegedly undemocratic elements of the American political system fail to consistently reflect plurality popular opinion at the national scale because they are also structured to represent the states. Now, it is possible to make the case that it shouldnt be this way: that the states shouldnt be sovereign units and that the Constitution should be amended to reflect this. As a staunch federalist, I disagree quite strongly with this point of view, but it is an honest argument. But it is disingenuous to claim that these federalist structures are intrinsically undemocratic. Rather, they reflect a federalist view of democracy that balances democracy at the level of the state with democracy at the level of the broader nation. Martin Diamond put it best in his excellent essay The Electoral College and the American Idea of Democracy:

In fact, presidential elections are already just about as democratic as they can be. We already have one-man, one-vote but in the states. Elections are as freely and democratically contested as elections can be but in the states. Victory always goes democratically to the winner of the popular vote but in the states...Democracy thus is not the question regarding the Electoral College, federalism is: should our presidential elections remain in part federally democratic, or should we make them completely nationally democratic?

It is unfortunately representative of the current political debate that the word federalism never once crops up in Kings article.

The second complaint falls apart upon closer examination. The claim that American democracy requires automatic voter registration, mail voting, and a federal holiday for elections is in effect a claim that democracy entails the largest possible number of citizens voting. In the same vein are the occasional proposals that America adopt Australias system of mandatory voting. There is debate over whether voter-ID laws effectively prevent some Americans from voting National Review has weighed in on this debate but that isnt really whats at stake here. Whats at stake here is a matter of just getting as many people as possible to the polls: King, for instance, worries that finding where, when, and how to register to vote is cumbersome beyond belief.

Now, as a 21-year-old who has voted in three elections since turning 18, I would challenge the contention that its really that hard to fill out some forms and make your way to the correct polling place. But it probably is true that if we automatically registered everyone, or made Election Day a federal holiday, or allowed people to vote by e-mail, more people would vote. To which I wonder: So what? What good is done by dispensing ballots to every adult citizen who would not trouble himself with investing the effort to send an application to the registrars office, or to figure out the correct polling place, or to arrange his schedule so he has time on Election Day? How much harm is really done to democracy when those who by all accounts dont seem to prioritize their own voting very highly dont vote?

Liberals like to talk about the sanctity of votingthat it is a civic duty, an ethical responsibility that comes with citizenship. And actually, unlike, say, Kevin Williamson, I agree. But if you believe that voting is a sober obligation, why would you want to make it such a trivial act that it can be done without a moments thought or planning? If voting really is sacred, ought we really to make it frictionless for those who dont seem to take it very seriously at all? Really, its not voting that liberals hold sacred its votes. Liberals believe that an expanded electorate will vote Democratic and, in large part because of this belief, they have internalized a notion that democracy, properly construed, is something of a poll. The higher the response rate, the better the poll as if democracy were nothing more than sampling the attitudes of the broader public to see which candidate is most in line with a Rousseauian sort of general will.

This version of democracy does not make any sense, for the simple reason that there is no such thing as a static set of coherent public attitudes that can be dispassionately measured. Poll after poll has found that Americans are shockingly ignorant about politics a problem almost certainly compounded within the population that doesnt regularly vote. Public opinions are often far less robust than they may seem support for an issue often changes dramatically depending on how it is phrased in opinion polls. And many widely held political positions are incoherent: Americans often express support for the good parts of Obamacare such as the pre-existing-conditions provision and community rating but not the bad parts of the bill such as the individual mandate as if it were possible to have some without the rest. This all suggests that expanding the electorate would serve less as a transparent view of the policy preferences of America and more as a slightly improved measuring of tribal allegiances.

Fortunately, there is an alternative vision one that I, at least, find quite compelling. In this vision, there is nothing passive about voting: rather, voting is the crucial act whereby the American people affirm the consent of the governed by collectively choosing their leaders and representatives. The heart of democracy is not some abstract correspondence between governance and popular attitudes; it is the citizenry going to the polls and choosing its government. This is a serious task, and it should be taken seriously. It is a shame that many Americans are poorly informed, or lazy, or dont particularly care much for voting. But it is not a failure of democracy that we dont reach out to them with open arms. Democracy is not just a poll. Its something greater.

READ MORE: Why Are Democrats Afraid of the Election Integrity Commission? The Obama Administrations Ugly Legacy of Undermining Electoral Integrity Non-Citizen Voting Has Not Been Debunked

Max Bloom is an editorial intern at National Review and a student of mathematics and English literature at the University of Chicago.

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Democracy: Electoral College, Senate Exemplify Its True Meaning ... - National Review