![]() ![]() National party politics could not overcome local power bases.īut now, the researchers point out, the incentives are entirely different. In 1938 Roosevelt tried to purge senators whom he saw as disloyal to his presidency and his New Deal agenda, but failed to unseat a single one. Roosevelt as a way to curb the influence of northern organized labor within the party. Southern Democrats, for instance, led aggressive congressional investigations of Franklin D. In the past, state parties drew most of their support from local constituents, which meant that politicians often had incentives to use investigations as a way to undermine other wings of their own parties. In “ Polarization and the Durability of Madisonian Checks and Balances: A Developmental Analysis,” the political scientists Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler argue that American politics has become nationalized over time. This week I’ve been reading about democracy and polarization, and particularly why the modern version of the former seems so prone to generating extreme forms of the latter. If courts are independent enough to bring charges against powerful ex-leaders, that’s often a signal they are strong enough to serve as robust checks on governmental misconduct.īut of course politics often plays a role as well. I’ve written before about how independent prosecutors can serve as “ islands of honesty” that disrupt the equilibrium of institutional corruption, making it easier to break cycles of graft, bribery and blackmail. That’s a good reminder that these kinds of criminal cases can in some ways be a positive sign about a country’s institutions (as well as, more obviously, a negative one about the integrity of its leaders). And in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing trial for corruption - a case that many of his critics believe is part of the motivation for his proposed judicial overhaul. In Italy, the ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been entangled in such a startling array of charges over the years that the allegations against him have their own Wikipedia page. In France, the former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac were both convicted on corruption charges. In Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was convicted of bribery-related crimes after his first term, then successfully ran again for president after the cases were thrown out on appeal. In South Korea, for instance, three former presidents have been jailed on corruption charges. is a bit of an outlier in that regard: In democracies around the world, it’s actually quite common for former leaders to be prosecuted, particularly on charges of corruption and financial crimes relating to their time in office. Follow developments as they happen via Times live coverage here. ![]() The big news this morning is, of course, the indictment of former President Donald Trump.
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