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The Neomercantilist Fallacy And The Contextual Reality Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Philip Nichols
The Neomercantilist Fallacy And The Contextual Reality Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Philip Nichols
Philip M. Nichols
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is domestic legislation and should be analyzed as such. This article addresses a persistent failure in analysis of the Act, by scholars and policymakers alike. Many discussions of the Act approach it from a neomercantilist perspective. This approach contains three flaws. First, whereas neomercantilism envisions manipulation of the market to give advantage to national champion industries, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was adopted for the purpose of strengthening and enhancing the integrity of the global market. A neomercantilist perspective is contrary to the purpose of the Act. Second, this article shows that neomercantilism fundamentally misunderstands …
The Perverse Effect Of Campaign Contribution Limits: Making The Amount Of Money That Can Be Offered Smaller Increases The Likelihood Of Corruption In The Federal Legislature, Philip Nichols
Philip M. Nichols
Corruption is an important issue, which poses a special threat to the democratic institutions and integrity of the United States. The purpose of campaign finance regulation is to reduce or eliminate corruption. Congress has enacted substantial legislation for this purpose, yet corruption flourishes. This paper suggests that the campaign finance laws fail to take into account the actual decisionmaking process of a legislator contemplating a corrupt act. By diagramming that process, this paper demonstrates that the legislation, which focuses on limiting the size of individual campaign contributions, actually increases the likelihood of corruption. An understanding of the decisionmaking process points …