Campaign Contributions and Corruption: Comments on Strauss and Cain (original) (raw)

A decade ago, I concluded an article on political bribery with the thought that corruption is an" 'essentially contested concept,' that is, a concept containing a descriptive core on which users of the concept can agree roughly, but so unbounded and so intertwined with controversial normative ideas that general agreement on the features of the concept is impossible." 1 I went on: I do not believe, however, that we should provide our political scientists and theorists with such a convenient escape hatch just yet. Even if the problem of political bribery will not be solved in the end, there is value in the attempt. We need to think more about the concrete situations in which actors in our political system characteristically find themselves, and what we reasonably can ask of them in order to have the kind of system and the kind of results we would like. Intermediate political theory will no more solve our problems than other varieties of political theory, but it may help us disagree more intelligently. 2 In the present Symposium, Professors David A. Strauss and Bruce E. Cain-both scholars of the first rank-take up the challenge, by theorizing about whether it is corrupt for elected officials and pressure groups to exchange favorable official actions, such as legislative votes, for campaign contributions. 3 The fact