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In This Issue
From Notes from the Editors:
Of this issue's ten articles, the first six deal with aspects of politics in democracies, while the last four ask how rights are asserted or maintained against all regimes—but in particular, less democratic, or even genocidal ones.
Democratic politics. The first two articles cover corruption—its incidence, detection. and prosecution—among elected politicians; the second two ask whether, and how, parties position themselves ideologically; and the final pair focuses on maneuvering, and the policies ultimately adopted, within legislatures.
Does corruption diminish as democracies grow wealthier and more stable, or does it just take subtler forms? In a lead article that may inspire lurid headlines in the British press, Andrew C. Eggers and Jens Hainmueller advance strong evidence for the latter proposition. Even in the ancient and honorable “Mother of Parliaments,” they show in “MPs for Sale? Returns to Office in Postwar British Politics,” that election to office roughly doubles a Conservative MP's wealth over subsequent years, mostly through lucrative jobs in the private sector—which, in the UK, are perfectly legal to hold, so long as they are disclosed during one's term of office. (The proof is in an ingenious matching strategy—unanimously praised by our usually hypercritical referees—which compared the wealth of Conservatives narrowly elected to Parliament with that of Tory candidates who narrowly failed of election). Presumably the employers of these MPs were animated less by charity than by the hope of access to current officeholders and senior civil servants; and that presumption, Eggers and Hainmueller show, is borne out by a considerable amount of anecdotal and documentary evidence. Intriguingly, no such effect on wealth prevailed among Labour MPs. (more)
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