*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
--Corruption Good Arguments Corruption Bad Arguments Wrong: Context Key-Can’t Make Generalizations
Download 2.51 Mb.
|
--Corruption Good ArgumentsCorruption Bad Arguments Wrong: Context Key-Can’t Make GeneralizationsGENERALIZATIONS ABOUT “CORRUPTION” INAPPROPRIATE – MUST BE CONTEXTUALIZED Philippe Le Billon, Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia, 2003, Journal of International Development, 15: 413-426, p. 414-5 As Johnston (1986, p. 1003) argues, the effects of corruption are not systematically disintegrative or destabilizing and their assessment requires ‘a knowledge of the systems involved and of the extent to which the linkages and divisions fostered by corruption correspond with the more basic fault lines of society’. Johnston differentiates four types of corruption—market, patronage, nepotism and crisis—along the line of numbers of suppliers and the stakes involved. In his analysis, market corruption, which involves routine stakes of exchanges and many suppliers dispensing corrupt benefits, is integrative and very stable. Patronage, involving few suppliers but routine stakes concerning large networks, is integrative and stable. Nepotistic corruption, which involves extraordinary stakes and a few suppliers within a kinship and friendship network, is disintegrative outside this network and likely to be unstable. Finally, crisis corruption, involving multiple suppliers and extraordinary stakes, is the most unstable and disintegrative. Building on this differentiation, the potential degree of conflictuality associated with corruption thus responds to legitimacy and competitiveness (see Figure 1).
Michael Johnston, Political Science Professor, Colgate, 1986, Comparative Politics, 18(4): 459–477, p. 461-2 It makes little sense to ask whether corruption is inherently good or bad. For some, the fact that it is a departure from established rules is sufficient to make it harmful by definition. But this is precisely the reason why we cannot reach an absolute verdict, for judgment requires comparison with the rules or procedures being broken. As Leys asks, "What is the alternative?" And in making these comparisons, we must judge official procedures by their actual content and consequences, not by stated goals or by the formal missions of the institutions involved. Unless we are willing to grant automatic approval to all policies and activities of the powers that be, we must acknowledge that corruption could at times create de facto policies less objectionable than their "legitimate" alternatives. "Normative statements about corruption." writes Rose-Ackeman, "require a point of view, a standard of 'goodness.' and a model of how corruption works in particular instances. . . . One does not condemn a Jew for bribing his way out of a concentration camp." NO GENERALIZATIONS ABOUT THE IMPACT OF CORRUPTION ON DEVELOPMENT Michael Johnston, Political Science Professor, Colgate, 1986, Comparative Politics, 18(4): 459–477, p. 462 But however tempting it is to explain trends in development in terns of corruption. Here too there are problems. We have yet to sort out basic causal relationships: is corruption an influence upon development" or a product of development?" And what do we mean by "development"? Nye reminds us that development is not one problem, but many. Related to this is the need for "mediated" explanation, in which causal linkages are traced through the behavior of people and groups whose political roles are well-understood. Without such linkages, we may be limited to circular arguments "explaining" development by fitting evidence of corruption to past trends. This approach will very likely overstate the importance of corruption. Moreover, Ben-Dor argues that studies of developing nations do not add up to a theory, or even to a comprehensive set of observations; corruption and development may interact in very different ways in more advanced setting. Relationships between corruption and development are clearly worth careful study, but our understanding of them will depend upon what we learn by looking at many more limited political processes.
Paul Heywood, Politics Professor, University of Nottingham, 1997, Political Corruption, ed. Paul Heywood, p. 8-9 Perception is clearly important. Heidenheimer drew a distinction between three types of corruption: one which is accepted and tolerated, its opposite, which is widely rejected and criticized, and intermediate forms which elicit different responses from different groups. In practice, it is difficult to make such clear-cut distinctions; on close inspection, corruption tends to fall within the intermediate category:
Mark Philp, Politics Tutor, Oriel College, Oxford, 1997, Political Corruption, ed. Paul Heywood, p. 35 What distinguishes politics from other forms of relation and systems of exchange is the type of general, public orientated justification used to legitimate its claims – something which also gives it, however tentatively, a conception of the state as an entity, and its people as a unity. For us to be able to say that political rule exists, it must be practically sustainable in the face of competition from these other forms. This does not mean that it will be differentiated from these other forms consistently across all cultures. In some systems it may not be seen as incompatible with the ends of politics for public offices to be filled by patronage, favoritism or nepotism, or for those holding office to make large personal fortunes; in others, anything less than a perfect meritocracy and an absolute scrupulousness about financial matters may be deemed corrupt. But what is required is that the ends which a political system recognizes, and which are acknowledged in its creation of public office, are able to curtail the scope of other principles of exchanges when these encroach on the political domain.
Mark Philp, Politics Tutor, Oriel College, Oxford, 1997, Political Corruption, ed. Paul Heywood, p. 45 Greiner’s characterization of politics (as I understand it) is that it is a process of struggle for the exercise of sovereignty, by groups who have to use the distribution of office and patronage as a way of consolidating their grasp on the powers of the state. To take away those powers of patronage would be to destroy the government’s capacity to hold together otherwise atomistic and factional tendencies within its political institutions. One way of characterizing the disagreement between Greiner and the Commission is that the latter was working with a more classically liberal set of concerns about politics serving the public interest and not being exercised in an arbitrary manner. But there is a much deeper issue at play here concerning the balance between the legitimacy of outcomes being guaranteed by procedures and the legitimacy being guaranteed by effects. The more discursive conceptions of politics, in which public deliberation and collective understandings play a substantive role in ensuring the legitimacy of the outcomes of the political procedures are in stark contrast to a more Schmittian realism with respect to the political process as a struggle for the assertion of sovereignty over a territory. The disagreement between Greiner and the Commission, if couched in such contrasting terms, reveals deeply conflicting conceptions of politics. Nothing I have said here denies such conflict. It may be that if we understand the political process in a certain light we will see it as essential that what any liberals would see as “rules of the game” should be regarded as themselves open to strategic manipulation by the players. But that argument would not involve denying the distinctive character of political authority. Even the insistence that politics must get dirty depends on a particular understanding of the imperatives which face attempts to establish political authority. Political realism bows to what it recognizes as political necessity. And while there are philosophical anthropologies and a range of foundational commitments behind both realism and its alternatives, there are also more empirical issues in play – issues which might, for example, lead us to endorse Schmitt’s account as capturing the central feature of politics in the Weimar Republic, on in many European states after 1914, without thinking that the account works across all conditions. As such the case for or against realism is one which we have to recognize as to some extent empirical. NO GENERALIZATIONS ABOUT THE SCOPE OR IMPACT OF CORRUPTION IN AFRICA Steven P. Riley, Social Science Professor- Staffordshire University, 1993, Corruption and Reform, 7:249-261, p. 258 A few African states have avoided these high levels of administrative corruption, maintaining relatively honest and efficient bureaucratic systems, and are considered economic “successes” despite having authoritarian, neo-patrimonial politics. Cote d’Ivoire may be an instance of this. It is also the case that there are significant variations in the levels of administrative corruption, and the damage it causes, across Africa (both between African states and also within individual societies, regimes, and institutions over time). Directory: assets assets -> Northern territory of australia assets -> Number: caveat in the [Will/Will and Codicil/Estate of] assets -> Invitation for Bid Calact/mbta for Standard Floor and Low Floor Rural Duty Vehicles ifb no. 12-03 November 14, 2012 assets -> 12 Step Retreats For Everyone in Twelve Step Recovery Ratner Fellowship assets -> 12 Step Retreats For Everyone in Twelve Step Recovery Ratner Fellowship assets -> Sigaccess annual Report assets -> Central Government is expected to ask the seventh pay commission to consider merging 50% dearness allowance assets -> List of accessible executive records assets -> Emergency telephone numbers Call toll-free from anywhere in France Download 2.51 Mb. Share with your friends:
|