Most Africa and the Middle East nations are plagued with extreme forms of bottom-up corruption. The efforts of The United States to "bring democracy" to them are doomed to failure, as has been demonstrated by our attempts at regime change. I believe that the motivation behind our numerous attempts at regime change have never been to improve the wellbeing of their populations but, rather, to enhance our own economic standing in those particular nations.
Where the forces for change have come from their own population in a bottom-up corrupted state, forming and maintaining a republic has been shown to be extremely difficult as was demonstrated by the "Arab-Spring's" uprisings in the Arib world. Machiavelli's observations of the difficulties in forming a republic are being repeatedly demonstrated. The post Arab-Spring in Egypt is a classic example of an attempt to form a republic that has failed.
President Mubarak had been in office for thirty years when there was a citizen's uprising that forced him to flee. Following a two day celebration in Tartaric Square, the military took over the nation. A new constitution was written and elections were held. Political parties had been suppressed under Mubarak and the formally illegal extremist Muslim Brotherhood was the only well structured party. Mohamed Morse, a member of the Brotherhood, was elected president. He served for one year before being deposed in a coup d' teat by the military. This led to the appointment of Abdel Fatah e-Sis, former head of the Egyptian armed forces, to be president of a military state that has the support of the United States.
The United States has a top-down form of corruption that influences our foreign policy is also working its way down into the population. This also funnels money to the top, but the method is different.
Whereas a bottom-up corruption is essentially illegal but accepted, the top-down corruption of a republic is mostly legal or semi-legal. It is formed by changing the laws and their interpretation. The laws become a tool to protect and enhance power, shift the financial burden of governance away from the aristocracy and to the population permitting the accumulation of great wealth in the aristocracy.
This top-down corruption has been developing in the United States ever since the Railroad Barons persuaded the Supreme Court to grant the railroads a limited personhood.
Since the Nixon administration, Congress has been re-writing laws to give tax relief to corporations and the aristocracy. These tax laws have encouraged corporate mergers further strengthening the powers of the aristocracy that control the major "too large to fail" corporations. In addition, by reinterpreting laws a hawkish State Department has fostered continuous wars and loans to other countries.
This has funneled vast sums back into a small group of American corporations. Recently, the Supreme Court has granted full personhood under the Constitution to the corporations, including making money a form of "free speech." This has completed the development of a top-down corruption in the United States.
As Machiavelli pointed out, the only way to preserve the republic is for someone to recognize the problem early enough and be able to mobilize its citizens sufficiently to force corrections to the bad laws. Otherwise, the increasing power of the aristocracy will change the republic into an oligarchy.
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