Institutional Weakness Quotes

The CIA is an incompetent bureaucracy, generally.

Once you touch the trappings of monarchy, like opening an Egyptian tomb, the inside is liable to crumble

Legitimate institutions historically have been defenseless in the face of outright fraud.

Negrophobia tended to hold even sparse Reconstruction institutions ... at low throttle, and played a part in Reconstruction’s incompleteness

Big bureaucracies in business and government—they fail too.

We have an inherently weak institution in the Presidency. It was intentionally set up that way by the founders.

If religion comes into the public square, it is as vulnerable as any other human institution to be pelted with produce. Ignorance does not become wisdom just because you gussy it up with the Gospels.

Lots of countries have great constitutions, but their leaders have a practice of ignoring the rules whenever they feel like it.

All systems in Pakistan appear to be in a haste to achieve something, which can have both positive and negative implications. Let us take a pause and examine the two fundamental questions: One, are we promoting the rule of law and the Constitution? Two, are we strengthening or weakening the institutions?

The Church of Reason, like all institutions of the System, is based not on individual strength but upon individual weakness. What's really demanded in the Church of Reason is not ability, but inability. Then you are considered teachable. A truly able person is always a threat.

All institutions are prone to corruption and to the vices of their members.

Latin American legislatures have probably passed more laws over the past 175 years than their counterparts anywhere on the planet. Yet never have so many laws been ignored by so many for so long

The fault is in the system and not in the men.

Greece has great strengths, but much of this potential has been wasted. That's because of a wider political system, but also because of a lack of an institutional framework.

The EU suffers from … a structural democratic deficit. Of its seven institutions, just one—the European Parliament—is directly elected by the people, and it cannot initiate legislation.

The United Nations is actually a mid-20th century institution and much weaker than it was when it was originally created, because governments themselves are less capable of implementing the kind of promises or programs that they have put forward.

President Karzai does not have any idea of what is going on in his country.

We are taking over a completely broken Brazil. We've never had such a major ethical, moral, and economic crisis, and we want to get out of this quagmire.

If poverty and underdevelopment are primarily consequences of poor institutions, then by weakening those institutions or stunting their development, large aid flows do exactly the opposite of what they are intended to do.

Institutions are imperfect. Governments surely are. People are.

In America, we debate everything except capitalism. If there's an institution in your society that's above criticism, you're giving it a free pass to indulge all of its weaknesses and darker tendencies.

If you put too much aid too quickly into weak institutions, you have corruption and failure.

We may form free constitutions, but our vices will destroy them; we may enact laws, but they will not protect us.

The biggest drag on global growth in the coming decade will be lack of adherence to the rule of law

Corruption is the by-product of discretion when there is scope for interpretation of policies.