Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

It is all too evident that a pervasive corruption problem may undermine a government's legitimacy. Citizens lose faith in political and legal institutions and may become cynical or rebel. Ultimately, the very survival of the system may be at stake. This paper deals with these issues but at a rather specific conceptual level. In particular, I intend to explore the notion of a legitimation crisis and its implications for the issue of political corruption in Latin America. This exercise will make it possible to understand more precisely how it is that corrupt practices debilitate the state's claim to justification.

It was Joel Paul who suggested that I address this topic at the Connecticut Journal of International Law's conference entitled "Political Corruption in Market Democracies."' I must confess that my initial reaction was one of puzzlement. After all, German philosopher Jtirgen Habermas originally applied the notion of a legitimation crisis to developed or even over-developed countries. Habermas, in fact, called the book that introduces the terminology Legitimation Problems in Late Capitalism.2 It was Thomas McCarthy's translation that rendered the title simply Legitimation Crisis.3 How could such a notion apply to present day Latin American nations, which are the quintessence of underdeveloped - or, more euphemistically, "developing," and, up to several months ago, even considered "emerging" - economies? These countries have in the last decade experienced, contrary to the proverbial late capitalism, a drastic reduction rather than an expansion of state intervention. Instead of instituting the welfare state, these polities have been in the business of dismantling anything bearing it even the slightest resemblance.

It occurred to me at first that in deploying this concept with heavy Marxist overtones in an underdeveloped context which had yet to meet the conditions of application,4 Joel was just displaying his Leninist inclinations - of course, Leninism with a human face. Upon deeper reflection, I realized that the notion of a legitimation crisis does indeed illuminate the problem of corruption in Latin America. If properly reinterpreted, the concept enables one to understand political corruption as an endemic threat to the normative identity of society. The appropriate response, accordingly, cannot be simply technical - such as the enactment of tougher laws or the implementation of more effective enforcement mechanisms. Nor can it be merely motivational, in the sense not of Habermas but rather of U.S. psychologist David McClelland.5 That is, one cannot just seek to change the attitude or the prevailing professional culture in civil service. Instead, the challenge is to transform the way in which Latin American communities understand themselves, particularly the normative premises of their social integration. In other words, a metamorphosis of the underlying democratic principles is necessary.

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