Anti-Corruption Efforts Fail: Too Vague – Don’t Know How to Meet Conditions

Anti-Corruption Efforts Fail: Too Vague – Don’t Know How to Meet Conditions

John Gledhill, Anthropology Professor, University of Manchester, 2004, Between Morality and the Law: corruption, anthropology, and comparative society, ed. I. Pardo, p. 161

As Philp notes, reliance on “pubic opinion” to define what is or is not corruption is, in practice, deeply problematic. To which segment of “the public” do we give most weight, recognizing that both class and ethnic differentiation may correlate with different views? A political elite may differ in perspective from an identifiable public “majority” (and majorities are not transparent constructs). Expressed “opinions” about corruption may differ spectacularly from actual behavior, and one of the casualties of pervasive corruption may be “the capacity of the citizenry to recognize a distinct set of public norms or a conception of the public interest” (Philp ibid., p. 25). Yet the law is also an inadequate guide, since not only may legislators fail to deal with acts that the public may widely perceive as corrupt, but the law itself can originate in corrupt practices (ibid.). Philp concludes that there is “an inevitable indeterminacy in politics” from the legislative point of view, since legal principles cannot define an exhaustive system of rules to cover all eventualities. Thus: “many public scandals are prompted by cases where, although the law does not prohibit an action, the action violates the public’s sense of appropriate conduct for public officials” (ibid.).
NO CLEAR DEFINITION OF CORRUPTION

Zoe Pearson, Doctoral Student, Australian National University, 2001, Corruption and anti-corruption, P. Larmour & N. Wolanin, eds., p. 32

Definitions abound for corruption and nearly all mention the difficulties involved in formulating a definition. Gould (1991:467) notes that “corruption has no single definition. It varies from region to region and remains largely contextual.” The World Bank (1997) suggests that part of the reason for the difficulty in defining corruption lies in the complexity of the concept. Corruption is a phenomenon that may refer to many different human activities and behavior in differing circumstances. As the causes and effects of corruption are different depending on the context of the country, it is perhaps not surprising that a single comprehensive definition that covers all the manifestations of corruption is difficult to formulate. As the Council of Europe notes, the result is that “no precise definition can be found which applies to all forms, types and degrees of corruption, or which would be acceptable universally as covering all acts which are considered in every jurisdiction as contributing to corruption.” The fact that corruption is studied from several different disciplines, including economics, law, sociology, political science and anthropology also contributes to the variety of definitions (Morgan 1998).
NO OBJECTIVE WAY TO MEASURE CORRUPTION – RELIANCE ON “PUBLIC OPINION” UNRELIABLE

Robin Theobald, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Polytechnic of Central London, 1990, Corruption, Development and Underdevelopment, p. 79-80

Yet Myrdal and virtually everyone else who has written on corruption has had to concede that there are no reliable indications of the level of corruption in any one society. There are no statistics on corruption, therefore statements about its incidence are necessarily impressionistic, heavily influenced by its public profile in a given country or to the extent to which it is discussed in the press and is also a topic of everyday conversation. This, however, raises the problem that more open societies, societies where there is a free press and political opposition is tolerated, may appear to be more corrupt than more authoritarian regimes. This Myrdal recognizes noting that whereas the Philippines press is (on American lines) quite outspoken about corruption, its counterparts in Burma, Pakistan and Thailand are much more reticent (Murdal, 1968, p. 942). Nigeria during the Second Republic (1979-83) for example, was widely held to have been one of the most, if not the most, corrupt country in Tropical Africa. Mention to anyone that you lived in Nigeria during this period and the conversation rapidly moves to the subject of corruption. Yet, as I usually point out, I frequently had to deal with tax officials, immigration officers and other bureaucrats and drove through hundreds of police checkpoints, yet never bribed anybody. On the other hand one was very much aware of corruption being regaled almost daily by stories in the newspapers of millions of naira going missing because contractors had absconded, usually with the connivance of politicians whose private jets, fleets of cars and extensive properties also featured regularly. However this may say more about the openness of Nigerian society and the competitiveness of politics at that time than about the actual level of corruption. I doubt very much whether one would have read a great deal about the corruption of politicians in neighboring Niger, Togo, Cameroon or Benin unless, of course, certain individuals had fallen from grace and were being targeted by the ruling oligarchy. It is also worth mentioning that with a population and GDP many times larger than most of its neighbors put together, the actual incidence of corrupt acts must almost inevitably be greater in a country like Nigeria (see Williams, 1987, p. 67).

Anti-Corruption Efforts Fail: Rule of Law Support/Legal Reforms Fail

Madalene O’Donnell, NYU Center on International Cooperation, 2006, Post-conflict Corruption: A Rule of Law Agenda?, Draft Chapter for International Peace Academy, Civil War and the Rule of Law, [http://www.worldbank.org.ezp1.harvard.edu/wbi/governance/pdf/corruption_conflict_and_rule_of_law.pdf], p. 5-6

Kempe Ronald Hope. Center for Graduate Studies, Atlanta University, 1987, Corruption and Reform, 2:127-147, p. 135-6