Grey Corruption

Grey literature is published but seldom indexed, seldom catalogued, and poorly distributed. Grey literature is not noticed. It is at once central and peripheral to the state: central, in that the machinery of government runs on intelligence, which in written form is grey literature; and peripheral in that it is on the fringes of state communication with citizens and the media. Most people have never heard of grey literature, which is very much the point.

Grey corruption is public but seldom investigated, seldom reported, and never prosecuted. Grey corruption is not noticed. I'm going to define grey corruption as the influence of the state on civil society. The example I will take is that of associations. In Catalonia alone there are some 25,000 registered associations, or one for every 280 residents.

Shortly before the Diagonal plebiscite, two groups of civil society organisations stated or demonstrated their support not only for the process but for but two of the three options put forward by the municipal authorities. There was some overlap between these groups. I'll deal with the second group, and the overlap, in my next post. In the meantime, here's a list of the signatories of the "Manifest per a la transformació de la Diagonal" (Manifesto in Support of the Transformation of Diagonal Avenue):

1. UGT (a trade union federation)
2. CCOO (a trade union federation)
3. Consell d'Associacions de Barcelona (the Barcelona Associations' Council, not to be confused with the Consell Muncipal d'Associacions de Barcelona or Barcelona Municipal Associations' Council.
4. Federació d'Associacions de Veïns i Veines de Barcelona (Federation of Barcelona Neighbourhood Residents' Associations)
5. Consell de la Joventut de Barcelona (Barcelona Young People's Council)
6. Consell de la Gent Gran de Barcelona (Barcelona Elderly People's Council, which seems not to exist unless it is the same as Consell Assessor de la Gent Gran de Barcelona)
7. Diagonal per a Tothom (Diagional Avenue for Everyone, about which more below)
8. Fundació Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia
9. Institut Muncipal de Persones amb Discapacitat (Muncipal Institute for People with Disabilities)
10. Federación de Entidades Latinoamericanes de Cataluña (Federation of Latin-American Organisations of Catalonia)
11. Federación de Casas Regionales y Entidades Culturales de Cataluña (Federation of Regional Clubs and Cultural Organisations of Catalonia)

Some of the signatories are para-governmental:  No. 9, as its names suggests, is part of the apparatus of municipal administration, headed by an elected politician and governed by a board of whose twenty members ten are named by Barcelona city council. No. 6 is likewise sponsored by city hall, which names four members to a fourteen-member board directly, and another two indirectly. The mayor called the plebiscite, city hall advertised two of the three options; it's no surprise that city hall would support its own initiative.

Of the rest, three related questions suggest themselves. How are they funded? Were they acting independently of political manipulation? And were they exceeding their mandate, concerning themselves with an issue that does not readily mesh with their raisons d'être? A few examples:

• Nos. 1 and 2, the unions, receive state funding, and have enjoyed a great increase in funding under the two successive PSOE minority governments in Madrid. The PSOE's Catalan sister party, the PSC, leads the coalition at city hall. 
• No. 4 is an umbrella organisation representing residents' associations large and small all over the city. In the 2010 master list of municipal grants, 128 project grants were made to associations whose titles include the word 'veïns' and which, presumably, belong to the federation. If the average grant were 3000 euros--a low estimate--the total disbursed to member associations would come to 384000 euros. 
• No. 5, the Consell de la Joventut, received an 18000-euro generic grant in 2006. It has been an official interlocutor of city hall's on youth policy since 1980 and has signed a series of accords with city authorities since its inception. It runs a youth services centre jointly with the municipal youth services department.  For 2010, it was accorded, together with its neighbourhood level constituent bodies, over 5500 euros of municipal funding.  
• No. 8, a left-of-centre think-tank, received 18000 in municipal project grants in 2010 and 
• No. 10, Fedelatina, was accorded a 27500-euro grant towards the "social integration of immigrated (sic) persons" in March of this year. (The grantor, the Catalan autonomous government, is of the same three political stripes as city hall.) From city hall it's received 32000 euros in project grants, including 10000 for a Latin American Eco-Fest. 

I could go on and on, and probably will when I have a chance to trawl for more data. The point is that a civil society will not bite the hand that feeds it: if funding has come from the same funders for over thirty years--if you're tight--you're not likely to act in good faith, independently, with an eye to your own constituency and membership. By way of comparison: if a self-employed professional is only billing one client, isn't that professional an employee of the client's in all but name? If an association is dependent for funding on the largesse of one party through the various levels of government that it controls, how can it be independently and honestly critical?

Then there's the matter of expertise. Civil society is wide and deep. La Leche League and Amnesty International do excellent work, but would we ask for their brief on an urban planning issue? They know about breast-feeding and human rights; they are respected because they stick to what they know. What qualifies Fedelatina or CCOO to issue pronouncements on new designs for a six-lane avenue? Nothing, except the tune being called from the counting house. No wonder half a dozen of the signatories, or constituent organisations, set up polling stations in their offices, though they had publicly campaigned against one of the options.

Strong Medicine, Weak Doctor

Spain is carrying 225 billion euros of debt that will come due this year. A fund set up to save small savings banks (cajas) caught up in the financial crisis by arranging mergers has just taken charge of Cajasur, and the IMF has called, among other things, for the transformation and de-politicisation of cajas.

Spain has a minority of government. It has had minority governments for thirteen of the last twenty years, and will for the next two. The leader of the opposition, Mariano Rajoy (b. 1955, first elected 1981), does not generally negotiate with the government: he confronts, and his allies in that part of civil society colonised by his party take to the streets and make all the noise they can. Spain cannot afford two more years of confrontation and noise. Mr Rajoy should accept a new role as Mr Zapatero's formal or informal coalition partner, strike deals, defend them, and stick to them. In the absence of a majority government and of any other parliamentary math allowing for stability, ambitious reform depends on it.

Accounts and Accountability (with apologies to Jane Austen)

Accountability and accounts share seven letters for a reason. Effective democratic governance makes it hard to waste public money, as a corollary, hard to colonise civil society by spreading largesse. Take, for example, an item on page 14 of Thursday's La Vanguardia (click on the clipping for a full view):

There's a bigger story here: where the item was placed in the paper and how long the story will play. Wasting €6 million in public funds isn't an amusing one-off, like a hacker pasting a picture of Mr Bean onto an official web page. The press should report it, public opinion turn against it, and reforms arise from it as a consequence. If waste has no impact on public opinion, no-one will turn off the tap. Thus the mess we are in: public education, universities and health services are under-funded but thoroughly audited and so accountable, while money channelled elsewhere--a.k.a. Fèlix Millet--paid for family outings to the Maldives. If grants make for waste, graft, corruption, and poor accountability, perhaps most of the money granted should be spent by public institutions instead of businesses and the third sector. If you turn on a sprinkler and don't tend your garden, you get weeds. What public spending is Spain needs is the equivalent of drip irrigation. 

Another Referendum: 20 May 1980

Thirty years ago today voters in Québec were called upon to vote on sovereignty. It is one of my earliest political  memories, though no-one in my immediate family could vote. The decency of the two principle political actors--Trudeau and Lévesque--is now shocking. For an ounce of retrospect, see http://www.nfb.ca/playlists/champions-series/viewing/champions_part_3/# and start around minute 35.

Political Ecology

It is a commonplace of Spanish politics that the transition of the late 1970s in unravelling. Here's one reason why: a multi-party system has been superseded in most, but not all, of Spain, by a two-party system. Here's the percentage of votes and number of deputies won by the two winning parties in every election since 1977. Note that the total number of deputies has not varied.

1977:  69.9% (284 deputies)
1979:  65.62% (289 deputies)
1982:  74.8% (309 deputies)
1986:  70.46% (289 deputies)
1989:  65.01% (276 deputies)
1993:  73.66% (300 deputies)
1996:  76.42% (297 deputies)
2000:  78.68% (308 deputies)
2004:  81.6% (312 deputies)
2008:  83.8% (323 deputies)

The institutions set in place in 1978 presupposed a multi-party environment in which deals between big and small parties would be possible and, indeed, desirable. They were to serve as a safeguard against the manipulation of institutions for party-political purposes. In theory, parties would have to seek out honest brokers, independent of party loyalties, for positions in such institutions as the constitutional court. It's the sort of theory that works in a country like Germany.

Elections to the Constitutional Court require a 3/5 majority, i.e. 210 votes, but the winning party in the last election--2008--only holds 169 seats. Only 27 seats are held by other parties (i.e. neither the party in government or the main opposition party). 169+27=196. Spain must now develop an informal mechanism--a culture, as people are fond of saying these days--between the two main parties, or the institution itself will eventually fall apart. When enough justices have died in office or retired, the court won't have a quorum and the whole judicial system will grind to a halt.

I began this post with the observation that most of Spain had adopted a two-party political system. The ecology of parties in the Catalan parliament has trended the other way. Support for the first- and second-place parties began at 50% in 1980, only to jump to 78% (and 113 out of 135 seats). Since then, the percentage of votes going to the two largest parties has declined steadily: in 2006 they only polled 58%.

Proliferation

Government has two businesses. It provides services--education, medical care, defence. Citizens use these services, which are tangible in the sense that teachers, doctors, and soldiers can be seen in public places performing their duties. Government also conduct and commission research: in this sense, there is no service other than words spoken at a seminar or symposium or published as a working paper, in a journal, or in a book. In this sense government parallels the work of universities and think tanks; and one of the trends in Spanish government since the transition to democracy has been the founding of publicly funded think tanks, often in tandem with new museums.

How many think tanks is enough? How many is too many? How many can a society afford? It's hard to know. A think tank can do good work, employ useless but well-connected people and do little work, or occupy the middle ground. Some (like Barcelona CIDOB) have built up an impressive international reputation. The European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMED), a Catalan initiative and, frankly, a vanity project of former Catalan premier Jordi Pujol's, overcame early allegations of nepotism and a series of name changes to make a respectable niche for itself. Like Madrid's Casa de América, a showcase for Latin American countries, the IEMED is now run by a consortium: all three levels of government contribute to the institute's budget. Indeed, the IEMED only needed a name change and an expanded public program to dovetail with Spain's other two casas: Casa África and Casa Asia. Their missions, funding, and models of governance are all broadly similar. One notes in passing that there is also a Casa Árabe, as well as a Casa Sefarad, so few bases had been left uncovered.

How many specifically Mediterranean think tanks can a society afford? Apparently, two. The Casa Mediterráneo, set up in 2009 as yet another vanity project, has a mission that overlaps with the IEMED's. But the IEMED hadn't adopted the 'casa' brand and will remain a think tank. Casa Mediterráneo will be a think tank plus. For the time being, it is of note because the mother of its political godmother, Leire Pajín, is on one of the boards, and because the English of the website is of very poor--if it were a university-level English student, it would fail. If they paid anyone or anything for these translations, they should hang their heads in shame. There has been no quality control whatsoever. Here are a few gems:

"And in this context Casa Mediterráneo has born"
"Casa Mediterráneo throws towards the present and more contemporary world to be a bridge"
"Casa Mediterráneo participates the next 4th March in the Anna Lindh Forum 2010 at Barcelone, a meeting assisted by more than 500 organizations "
"The department Culture and Heritage intends to reveal the contemporary sociocultural realities of the riverside countries through the celebration of activities, by inviting the Mediterranean citizenship and the civil society to know better the cultures involving, mostly unknown."

Underwritten and Undermined

The independence of Amnesty International is founded on funding: Amnesty doesn't accept grants or subsidies of any kind from any public source. International PEN, the world's oldest human rights organisation, is also dependent on its membership and on donors. Writers support writers (and PEN staff, presumably) in their efforts to defend the rights of other writers.

Spanish trade unions, like many of their European counterparts, do not rely on their members: they rely on the State, to the tune of sixteen million euros in 2009. Such generic funding is only part of the picture, as unions qualify for funding under a wide range of programmes for their work in research, training, and development. Yet fewer than one fifth of workers belong to unions, so it's difficult to know whose interests are being defended. Workers lucky enough to have been signed to open-ended contracts (which bind worker and employer until the former's retirement) are difficult and very expensive to dismiss. Other workers may have limited social rights, even in the public sector. I know public university staff who taught for ten years under administrative contracts that did not entitle them to unemployment benefits if they had lost their jobs. Their unions made little noise about the issue and no-one went on strike.

Labour reform would mean stripping the most privileged workers of some of their privileges. Yet, if carried out justly, it would also mean improving the lot of those workers who are, in all but name, second-class citizens.  For the time being, the unions have responded to the civil service wage cut by calling for a general strike. The state will be funding a strike against the state as Spain floats on the edge of a maelstrom of insolvency. So be it. What's worth asking is whether public funding of unions has mad them less accountable to workers for the simple reason that they do not need union dues to operate. They are part of the system, paid to play the part they play in collective bargaining and thus make collective agreements possible. Collective bargaining is a right; it is also a necessity for the state, as it simplifies labour law incalculably. When union leaders refer to civil servants whose contracts are iron-clad as "the weakest" members of a society where one worker out of five is unemployed, something other than class interest is at play.

Trust

Trust is not a feature of arbitrary power. Obedience, coercion, intimidation, indoctrination, and force underwrite the absence of fixed rules, the fluidity of rules. The rule of law means arbiters--judges--and entails trust in those arbiters. As civil society matures, the sources of trust--individuals, groups and institutions who may be relied upon to act independently of state coercion--grow in number and influence, facilitating public scrutiny of the exercise of power.

Whatever trust was generated during Spain's transition to democracy is eroding. Here's proof: Hacienda confirma la financiación ilegal del PP valenciano, que responde con una querella. For those with no Spanish, a political party is suing the revenue service--the tax man--over incriminating documentation. In a country where the revenue service and the judiciary are accused of playing party political games, the rule of law is compromised and democracy under threat.

"In a democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve"

A bit of counterfactual history: it is 1980, and the Parti Québécois has called a non-binding referendum on Québec's place in or out of the Canadian confederation. Here are the options:

(1) Sovereignty-association (i.e. an independent Québec in a currency union with Canada)

(2) Unencumbered independence (i.e. no currency union)

(3) The status quo

This differs only in one respect from the historical referendum: Option 2 was not on offer. Still, let's imagine that the referendum--which was purely consultative--featured three options, but was conducted under the historical rules. Therefore:

-under the supervision of the chief electoral officer, three committees would have been formed;

-each of the committees would have received equal public funding to conduct its campaign

-total expenditure for each of the committees would have been capped

-equal time for each of the committees would be allotted by broadcaster

-the only other campaign permitted, that of the electoral authorities to explain the purpose and workings of the referendum--that is, the institutional campaign--would have likewise strictly allotted equal space to all three options

The most important outcome of the referendum would have been the same, whatever the number of votes tallied by the three options: the political process was accepted, the vote clean, and the convener--René Lévesque--lost none of the respect he had always received from his political opponents.

This week's Barcelona plebiscite offers none of the guarantees of the 1980 Québec referendum. In response to criticisms that the process was skewed from the outset and money being wasted (it's now clear that €1.3 million was spent on political pantomime, the state disguised as civil society), city hall took out a full page advertisement in Saturday's La Vanguardia, according to which such criticisms are tantamount to "an unacceptable questioning" of the body charged with oversight:

No-one seems to have objected to dissent being labelled "unacceptable". Then again, as Adlai Stevenson is said to have said, "In a democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve."

Not With a Bang, But a Whimper (Guided Democracy II)

This will be an update to my last post, on the quality of the democratic process in an upcoming referendum on plans to alter the design of one of Barcelona's main cross-city thoroughfares. Last Sunday La Vanguardia published a 20-page special section under its masthead, as part of the paper rather than an insert. It's not clear who paid for it. The lead article is the writer's first professional byline in the paper; the tone is not that of a reporter, but a propagandist. Here, in translation, is an example of that tone, from the opening paragraph:

"The urban renewal of Avinguda Diagonal is not a whim or matter to be taken lightly, but a necessity, for the avenue is polluted, often congested, and falls short of the needs of Barcelona in the twenty-first century."

Voters have three choices in the plebiscite: the third--Option C--is to reject either of the plans for renewal. That option is described as "inmovilista," resistance to change.

Page two of the supplement features an article signed by the mayor; a two-page spread denounces the avenue as "over-crowded" and "agressive"; diagrammes of re-designed intersections are labelled "Option A," "Option B" and "Current Situation," as though Option C were not an option; the back page is a guide to voting.

If this is, as it appear, a publication commissioned by public authorities, it represents the utter decadence of liberal democratic culture in Spain. Information on the formalities of the voting process is mixed with editorialising by a branch of the state which is openly attempting to shape choices to be made by citizens in a public plebiscite, and hiding its own role in making that attempt; and

Guided Democracy

One of Barcelona's grand avenues is looking a bit shabby and smelling a bit nasty. Avinguda Diagonal, choked by up to eight lanes of traffic, needs a make-over, and the mayor and council have decided to submit the matter to citizens in a non-binding referendum. In a referendum process, as in any electoral process, the state is supposed to be neutral. The state handles logistics; parties and civil society campaign, and citizens vote. Not so in Barcelona: we can vote three ways, but public money is being spent to publicise only two of the options, while the third goes unmentioned or is hushed up. A flashy website (http://www.bcn.cat/diagonal/) does its flash for Option A and Option B; city hall's monthly mass-mailed glosses them; billboards on subway platforms illustrate them. Where is Option C?

City Hall is campaigning, not informing.

The campaign has a Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/ideadiagonal#p/a), a Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/IdeaDiagonal), and a blog (http://ideadiagonal.wordpress.com/). The campaign has an official documentary (http://www.bcn.cat/diagonal/46-passat-present-i-futur.html), available for viewing on the self-described "official page of the street". The documentary lacks proper production credits. Who paid for it? Who produced it? I couldn't say. The production values match the quality of the prose on the campaign's web page: they are what you'd expect, derivative, hackneyed, and not very good. Option C must be lost on the editing room floor. Perhaps we'll see it in the director's cut, after we've voted.