Inside Job: How Government Insiders Subvert the Public Interest
Cambridge University Press, 3/10/2017
EAN 9781107153738, ISBN10: 1107153735
Hardcover, 262 pages, 23.5 x 15.6 x 2 cm
Language: English
National decline is typically blamed on special interests from the demand side of politics corrupting a country's institutions. The usual demand-side suspects include crony capitalists, consumer activists, economic elites, and labor unions. Less attention is given to government insiders on the supply side of politics - rulers, elected officials, bureaucrats, and public employees. In autocracies and democracies, government insiders have the motive, means, and opportunity to co-opt political power for their benefit and at the expense of national well-being. Many storied empires have succumbed to such inside jobs. Today, they imperil countries as different as China and the United States. Democracy - government by the people - does not ensure government for the people. Understanding how government insiders use their power to subvert the public interest - and how these negative consequences can be mitigated - is the topic of this book by Mark A. Zupan.
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Government for the people?
2. Why worry about government insiders and their profits?
3. How do government insiders profit at the public's expense?
4. What do government insiders stand to gain?
5. What factors curb hijacking by government insiders?
6. Why are government insiders so hard to control?
7. Where and when has the state been co-opted from within?
8. Government insiders
a day of reckoning for China?
9. Government insiders
a day of reckoning for the US?
10. How can we form a more perfect union?
Bibliography
Index.