It's funny how openly corrupt German political party leaders always turn out to be, yet we still don't consider it to be a corrupt country.
I'd trust my next door neighbor to be President more than someone who actually wants to be President.
Politicians are becoming like a caste, much too similar to each other and with very little exposure to real life.
The chance of a government staying in government for a long time also means that governments have to think long-term because they might still be in government when the consequences come around. In the US system the optimal strategy is to do things that look good in the short term but backfire as soon as your term limit expires. That way you look good, and the next president (who's with near certainty from the opposition party) looks bad.
I'd be more in favor of passing an age limit, but I'm well aware that that has no chance of happening.
Singapore's consistent ranking near the top is always hilarious to me!
People elected them and their party, their party had chosen them for the position. It's not like they forced anyone to put them there.
Term limits in democracies make very little sense when they affect a President or other directly elected positions of great personal power
They make no sense for chancellors or prime ministers who in any case are going to mostly be controlled by the parliament
Democracies benefit from change. Indeed I would argue that cadre change is their kill app. But it must be happening.
The same top politician will employ the same ministers, consultants etc., thus slowly creating an ossifying structure that aggregates a lot of mistakes of the same type. It is a process that reminds me of inbreeding in biology. Small pathologies slowly become more pronounced.
As we live longer and longer, we run into a risk that our Senates etc. will turn into gerontocracies of 80+ year old people and that a typical intern will be fifty.
In fact, one of the biggest domestic criticisms of the government right now is their terrible communication strategy.
English is the lingua franca and as such Anglo media has an incredible amount of power in shaping opinions in the West.
And frankly, the reporting, particularly from Anglo and Eastern European media, has had a heavy anti-German bias for weeks now. (Up from the usual moderate bias)
It’s by and large not, and to the degree it is, it’s open and not insidious. The kind of corruption that kills economies is the insidious type. (And the stealy variety.)
Nobody in government or industry has really been prosecuted for either (some Wirecard folks are on the run).
I'm not sure Germany isn't experiencing negative effects from this though. Like the Gazprom thing, for example, this broadband thing, maybe even the nuclear thing?
You will not find much local corruption though, which is what most people think of when they hear corrupt countries. Local corruption is paying of a cop, judge, that kind of stuff. I’m sure it also happens in Germany, but that is very very rare.
So to be corrupt in Germany, and places like it, is to do the "corrupt" thing "correctly" -- e.g. in some structural fashion tied to political parties, long term associations, business connections, etc. that have the appearance of being practical, official, and "right."
A friend of mine who came from Iran originally had a comment like this about western countries corruption vs "third world" or "second world" corruption:
In Iran or etc. corruption is almost more democratic, because it means as a regular layperson you can bribe some local official to make something go your way. It's not just, it's not fair, it's ugly, but it's "accessible" if you have some spare cash.
But in the west, corruption is for the super rich and the connected at a much higher level. e.g. you can't bribe a zoning official so you can build an addition or a shed, but if you're powerful enough you can control a political party and prevent it from investigating your company, have it enact some preferential laws, or stop it from some raising some tax.
In fact this kind of conglomeration between the public and private sector is why they get things done, compared to the vetocratic nature of other countries.