Verite Researach courtesy of Daily Mirror, May 2016, where the title is “Economic mismanagement is a governance problem – It needs governance solutions”
Elected officials and selected bureaucrats are given a huge amount of power to act on behalf of the public – modern democracies function on this basis: that citizens hand over their power to elected representatives. But how can the citizens then protect themselves against those individuals misusing that power? This is the perennial problem of governance. The simple answer that is given to this question of governance is “elections” – that elections ensure the displacement of politicians who violate the public trust and thus create political incentives for better behaviour. This Insight provides an example, which explains why the answer cannot be that simple – the behaviour of officials during elections can both abuse public trust, as well as benefit these officials politically. As such, other governance solutions are needed.
