In recent weeks, President Donald Trump, who has never been quickly to separate public and private companies, was involved in a remarkable number of conflicts of potential interests. He recently announced his intention to accept a Boeing 747 of four hundred million dollars of the Qatari government, which would be used instead of the Air Force One for the rest of his presidency, after which he would be transferred to his presidential library; He continued to sell access to himself through his meme piece (a company with links with China recently announced that she would buy up to three hundred million dollars of the medal, $ Trump); And his trip to Saudi Arabia this week was preceded by the announcement of his family, at the end of last year, of a new Trump Jeddah tower. The magnitude of these conflicts can be unique for an American politician, but Trump, who has always condemned Washington’s “marshes”, is one of the many right -wing “populist” leaders – Viktor Orbán, of Hungary; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, from Türkiye; Narendra Modi, from India; Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil – who won the elections by presenting himself against a so -called corrupt system, then mixing with corruption scandals which often eclipsely eclipse those of their predecessors.
To talk about corruption and his relationship with contemporary right -wing populism, I recently talked by phone with Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs in Princeton. Scheppele studies the ways in which democratic institutions are threatened – individual politicians and events, such as economic accidents or in response to terrorism. During our conversation, which was published for duration and clarity, we explained why Trump’s corruption is distinct from those of his ideological brothers, why autocrats become surrounded by other corrupt people, and how corruption has been transformed into a cultural-war question.
The relationship between corruption and the modern incarnation of right -wing populism is double, insofar as populists often run against corruption and then behave in a corrupt manner. Is this a coincidence, or are these two things connected?
There is certainly a link between autocracy and corruption. There is also a link between corruption and all kinds of other things, so autocracy is not the only cause. But if a leader comes to power and begins to eliminate all the checks of the executive, a set of these checks will be the type of thing that can detect and control corruption. This is very often the case that autocrats who want to stay in power to always think, Well, gee, as long as I’m here, why don’t I know everything in sight? It is a fairly common scheme that autocrats, sooner or later, engage in self-enrichment in the context of their power entry.
How do you understand the fact that so many of these figures have won power by campaigning against corruption?
Many autocrats work on anti-corruption platforms, but often what they really do is changing the type of corruption that exists. The type of corruption we saw in post-communist Europe, for example, was a kind of corruption where all state employees were underpaid. They weren’t completely sure they wanted to be there. So, if you really needed to get something from the state, such as a license, or a license, or even a passport, you would go to the office and the clerk would tell you to stick something in his pocket and then there would be. It was this kind of corruption visible at the street level.
When Vladimir Putin came to power, in Russia or when Orbán came to power, in Hungary, they repressed a lot of this kind of corruption. They were really good to punish the bureaucrats at the street level to get involved. And, in exchange, they substituted another type of corruption, which erased state contracts and sought favors or was looking for rewards to people who needed something from the top of the system. This kind of corruption, where you give state contracts to your friends in exchange to withdraw something from the top, is not very visible for the average person. And so it is often the case that when these types of autocrats come to power, it seems that they prevent corruption, and they elect a particular type of corruption, but they move it elsewhere in the system, where it is not so visible. It is therefore not surprising that autocrats generally operate on anti-corruption platforms. And it is not surprising that their fans think they really fought corruption in a significant way. But it is not incompatible with the idea that these autocrats are also corrupt. They are simply corrupt differently.
I do not want to draw exact parallels, but it reminds me of how Trump and Elon Musk now talk about the American government, saying that it is a waste, it is ineffective, it gives all your money to people who do not deserve it. I am skeptical about the fact that Trump will succeed in stopping corruption of this type, but it is clear that what will be replaced is a type of oligarchy where Trump and his friends take up, as you explain.
Exactly. They say that Social Security pays for people aged one hundred and fifty years old, or that Medicaid is deserving people who are only clever. And they claim to see a lot of corruption in the types of social protection programs that the State manages. And this is something that has a very wide audience because, first of all, there are probably a lot of low -scale player with the rules. Many people probably know someone who has obtained an advantage of the state they did not deserve entirely. And so this kind of corruption looks like something that must be destroyed. But then what you get instead is a budget that goes through the congress that would massively incline the tax advantages towards Trump and Musk. In addition, if you look at Elon Musk, his fortune is largely from the base of state contracts. And there have been reports on the creation of the Federal Aviation Administration to use Starlink, which he owns or in the dismissal of people who were investigating his businesses. So Musk is becoming massively richer of what he does on a government. But this corruption may not be as visible as things in the street as people feel familiar.
What strikes Trump is what it is openly corrupted by other means. Does this distinguish him from other leaders?
Yes, but I think this kind of corruption is consistent with Trump’s brand. He is known as a prosperous businessman. Whether or not it is a different question. But it is the reputation. And he had a career by taking advantage of opportunities, or, at least, it is the way he depicts it, and that is part of what makes him succeed. Thus, the opening of corruption is partly just a flourishing of all the rules, for which it obtains a lot of credit with its base anyway. Part of this is also based on the brand that someone really intelligent will benefit from any opportunity that will be presented to them.
Now it’s really different from someone like Orbán or someone like Putin. They came to power while the anti-corruption figures determined to transform the economies that had essentially collapsed. They could not be seen to travel the top. So what is happening in Hungary is that very little of Orbán’s fortune is held in the name of Orbán. Instead, his school friend, a guy whose name is the Mészáros, who was a manual worker, has now become the richest man in Hungary. How did he become rich? It has become rich in state contracts, and its nickname is the wallet of Orban walking. He is the thing in which Orbán sticks his money. It is not in the name of Orbán. He hurts a lot to hide the wealth he has accumulated due to being autocrat.
Putin is roughly the same. He has these villas that drones have discovered, and a lot of offshore wealth, which is really difficult to document due to the complex way in which it is kept. But the corruption of these autocrats is hidden because it is not consistent with their brand. So, I think it varies, but Trump is really unique in the sense of being outdoors to violate all the rules of ethics that this government has.
Trump maintains that the system is corrupt and fake, but it says essentially, reading both the lines and not between the lines, that it is faked in favor of other people. And these other people tend not to be its base. I am therefore curious to know to the extent to which this is true in the countries you have studied – that it becomes difficult to separate corruption as a rhetorical problem of other cultural problems or resentments.
I think this is absolutely true in India, and to a certain extent in the United States, where the story of corruption is that there are all those non-deserving people who get things that you should get. And that I, the leader, will redirect you for you. Another thing about Modi, however, is that his whole brand is to appear pious and seem to be the kind of man for whom money is the least important thing in life. It would therefore be completely scandalous to discover that he is foaming money.
