This week I had the opportunity to attend a very eye-opening lecture by Professor Nicolas van de Walle about government in Africa. I was completely blown away by his description of all the corruption that takes place in many African governments. For example, he said that large amounts of money would simply disappear from the government in Cameroon, and workers would often take their office lightbulbs home with them at the end of the day for fear that somebody would steal them overnight. According to van de Walle, many of the governments were simply looking to profit off of everything, placing 400-500% tariffs on imported goods without any guilt over the resulting strangulation of the economy. All of these facts were a complete shock to me. It made me realize how much we take for granted in the United States – if somebody discovers government corruption, they are usually hailed as a whistleblower and an exemplary citizen. Senators or Representatives may assign people to look into the corruption. The people involved in the corruption will usually lose their jobs and/or be subject to criminal punishment. In the countries that van de Walle described, the citizens have none of those options – they simply have to deal with it.

van de Walle also talked about how attempts to “reform” the corruption are often not only unhelpful, they actually further the corruption. Dictators who lead successful coups often promise to get rid of the corruption, and they make it a point to prosecute the allies of the previous president, but then right after that the new leaders end up being just as corrupt as the old ones. To me, this seems like an incredibly vicious cycle – and as van de Walle pointed out, one that can only be solved by democracy.

Finally, van de Walle’s suggestions for how to encourage democracy in such countries made me, again, realize how lucky we are to have democracy in the United States and how important it is to not take it for granted. van de Walle said that term limits are one of the most important factors to preventing corruption – he suggested that any government run by the military or by a president who has been in power for more than ten years should not be eligible to receive foreign aid. In the United States, the 2-term limit for presidents is something that we are all familiar with, but never really give much thought to. van de Walle made me realize how lucky we are to have such checks and balances.