*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
Corruption Good: Promotes/Strengthens Democracy
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- CORRUPTION GOOD FOR POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: MORE EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY
- CORRUPTION PROMOTES POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: SPURS DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL PARTIES
- WE DISAGREE WITH THE GENDERED LANGUAGE IN THIS CARD CORRUPTION FOSTERS POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: INCREASES MASS PARTICIPATION
- CORRUPTION CAN BENEFIT BOTH ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
- SOME CORRUPTION HELPS THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY AND PREVENTS THE EMERGENCE OF MORE DISRUPTIVE FORMS OF CORRUPTION
- MUST TOLERATE CORRUPTION IN THE DEMOCRATIZATION PROCESS TO AVOID THE MORE DESTRUCTIVE FORMS OF CORRUPTION
Corruption Good: Promotes/Strengthens DemocracyCORRUPTION HAS EMPIRICALLY STRENGTHENED DEMOCRACIES BY PROMOTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL PARTIES AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION Robin Theobald, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Polytechnic of Central London, 1990, Corruption, Development and Underdevelopment, p. 114-5 From the point of view of economic growth there is only one thing worse than a ‘rigid, over-centralized dishonest bureaucracy’ and that is a “rigid over-centralized honest bureaucracy” (Huntington, 1968, p. 69). Huntington recognizes that although contributing to economic development by oiling the wheels of bureaucracy, in that it undoubtedly weakens administrative capacity corruption, is incompatible with political development. This appears to be offset, however, by the contribution that a corrupt bureaucracy can make to the development of political parties. Historically strong party organizations have emerged either out of a revolution from below or patronage from above. England in the eighteenth and the USA in the nineteenth centuries provide clear cut examples of the use of public resources – offices, pensions, sinecures – to build party organization. Huntington believes that the repetition of this pattern in third world states has significantly assisted the development of effective and stable political parties. The role of patrimonialism here is particularly important in societies where the volume of private wealth is too small to make an effective contribution to party development. Accordingly, in the 1920s and 1930s Ataturk used the resources of the Turkish state to promote the development of the Republican People’s Party. In Mexico government patronage played a vital role in the emergence of institutionalization of the PNR (National Revolutionary Party, subsequently PRI – Institutional Revolutionary Party). In Korea the Democratic Republican Party, in India Congress and in Israel Mapai – were all launched down a ramp of official patronage. And a good deal of the misappropriation of public monies in West Africa, Huntington believes, derived from the financial needs of fledgling political parties. Lastly, and for Huntington most blatant of all, are communist parties which, having once gained power, proceed directly to subordinate the state apparatus to their own needs. Huntington here is presumably thinking of the use of public office for the purposes of faction building. In the process of promoting the emergence of political parties, indeed of some form of “modern” political system, corruption also facilitates the expansion of mass participation. Recently urbanized and enfranchised elements can use their votes to secure jobs and other favors from the party machines. That is to say, corruption in the sense of the possibility of concrete returns provides an incentive for hitherto marginal groups to get involved in politics. However, and paradoxically, corruption in fostering the development of parties and mass participation assists in its own demise. The historical experience of the West reflects the operation of the principle that corruption varies inversely with political organization. Although parties in their early stages may have played a parasitical role – “leaches on the bureaucracy” – they are eventually transformed into “the bark which protects it from destructive locusts of clique and family.” Partisanship and corruption, as Henry Jones Ford recognized, are basically antagonistic principles. Partisanship entails commitment to a set of principles and goals which transcend individual interests, whereas corruption embodies the clandestine pursuit of private ends in a way that seeks to escape accountability of any kind: “The weakness of party organization is the opportunity of corruption” (Ford, quoted in Huntington, 1968, p. 71). CORRUPTION GOOD FOR POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: MORE EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY Robin Theobald, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Polytechnic of Central London, 1990, Corruption, Development and Underdevelopment, p. 122 Administrative Capacity We have already encountered, in the context of American cities, the argument that corruption can overcome the administrative fragmentation which results from the division of authority. Whereas the problem for American municipal government was mainly that of decentralization, third world states are usually afflicted by over-centralization, with decision-making authority concentrated at the top. This usually results in a pronounced unwillingness at lower levels to act in the most routine of cases so that minor decisions are passed up the hierarchy. Over-centralization is aggravated by administrative confusion, unclear lines of authority, inadequate role definition, poor training and low morale. In short all the characteristics outlined in the previous chapter and which together conspire to produce administrative paralysis. Under such conditions nepotism and bribery can elicit administrative action where adherence to formal procedures would yield none at all. The possibility of misappropriation can form the basis for informal coalitions which can provide a focus for policy formulation and implementation. In the absence of a strongly institutionalized ethic of public service, self-interest may be the only means of securing cooperation both within and across departments of state. The possibilities of gains through corruption may, in addition, have the positive consequence of attracting to the public service talented individuals who might otherwise be discouraged by poor career prospects. As stated earlier corrupt public officials are not necessarily incompetent nor inefficient. On the contrary, those at the top will be keen to advance the careers of the more ambitious and resourceful. Political appointees are therefore likely to be more innovative and flexible than career officers who have entered the service on the basis of minimal educational qualifications and are likely to be obsessed with formal rules and procedures. In short, nepotism, bribery and spoils may be the only means of making a remote and rigid administration responsive to the needs of various groups in society, of teasing out some minimal level of service. Their absence, by contrast, is likely to enable public servants simply to further their own interests effectively shielded from outside criticism and scrutiny. CORRUPTION PROMOTES POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: SPURS DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL PARTIES Robin Theobald, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Polytechnic of Central London, 1990, Corruption, Development and Underdevelopment, p. 122-3 Development of parties We saw in Chapter 2 how in Europe the prospect of spoils played a key role in binding together the factions out of which were to emerge political parties. In the USA, too, graft played a pivotal role in galvanizing nascent parties into action. Not all parties, however, developed in this way. European social democratic and communist parties emerged from the trade union movement and matured on the basis of support, both financial as well as political, from a mass membership. This last pattern is unlikely to be replicated in UDCs primarily because, with certain exceptions in the more economically advanced countries of Latin America, the trade union movement is extremely weak. That is to say because of economic backwardness the proportion of wage labor in organizable work situations is low. Also in poor countries the vast mass of the population living at or near subsistence level is unable or unwilling to meet the costs of participating in voluntary associations. This unwillingness is furthermore intensified by the persistence of primordial loyalties and the atmosphere of mistrust that surrounds universalistic organizations. It thus seems that the spoils option presents possibly the only means of building followings and transforming them into political parties, of providing the incentives for those disposed to devote their energies to a political career. Politics, as Colin Leys has pointed out, must be made to pay, must offer sufficiently desirable inducements to attract the ambitious and the able from other career trajectories (Leys, 1965). The likelihood of tangible returns also promotes the formation of opposition parties. In fact, according to Riggs, without the prospect of spoils opposition parties are unlikely to flourish. Where there is no hope of getting into power and reaping the rewards of power, opposition politicians will simply carpet-cross to the main party, abandon the game altogether or resort to extremist tactics. Riggs goes even further to maintain that without the expectation of electoral victory and spoils there can be no consensus for one cannot invest in a political system which offers nothing in return (Riggs, 1971). WE DISAGREE WITH THE GENDERED LANGUAGE IN THIS CARD CORRUPTION FOSTERS POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: INCREASES MASS PARTICIPATION Robin Theobald, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Polytechnic of Central London, 1990, Corruption, Development and Underdevelopment, p. 123-4 Mass Participation In so far as corruption promotes the development of political parties with politicians seeking election, it may be claimed to encourage mass participation in the political process and so enhance government accountability. But the character of the ‘mass’ in rapidly changing societies makes it unlikely to respond to the issue-based political style we associate with developed polities. For a start the majority of voters will be living in rural communities where social exchanges are dominated by cross-cutting ties of kinship, clanship, and other village-based associations as well as, for some; clientelism. Most of their urban counterparts will be quite unaccustomed to the impersonal character of urban life. Both sets of voters, then, will be looking for a politician who can broker the remote and anonymous government departments to them; who can intervene personally to ‘fix’ things for them: get their children registered for school; put them in touch with the right official who will stamp their form with a minimum of fuss. Corruption in the form of nepotism and favoritism thus humanizes an impersonal state apparatus and so helps to assimilate newly enfranchised masses to national politics, to national life generally. Even bribery provides a means of interest articulation for those who lack the organizational base for expressing their needs through more formal channels. In this respect the peasant who bribes a government official is using such means as are available to him [sic] to influence the political process just as the wage earner may press his [sic] needs through his [sic] trade union. CORRUPTION CAN BENEFIT BOTH ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT Mlada Bukovansky, Professor of Government, Smith College, 2002, ‘Corruption is bad: normative dimensions of the anti-corruption movement’, Australian National University Working Paper, 2002/5, p. 23-4 Furthermore, economists and some political scientists have in the past (and some still do, though they are in the minority) argued that corruption may not necessarily be a bad thing. Corrupt practices have been defended by at least some analysts as cutting red tape and facilitating the smoother operation of markets, especially where governments are not subject to checks and balances, accountability, and transparency, and where they hold disproportionate power over state resources. Thus in some ways corruption could help rather than hurt development by allowing investors to elude inefficient laws and deny greedy officials the proceeds of legal but onerous tax revenues (substituting illegal but presumably smaller side-payments). Moreover, scholars such as Samuel Huntington have argued that corruption is an inevitable byproduct of the modernization process; hence there could be serious tensions or even contradictions in advocating modernization on the one hand and anti-corruption measures on the other.
Michael Johnston, Political Science Professor Colgate University, 1993, Corruption and Reform, 7:189-204, p. 199 Some types of corruption do more to disrupt linkages between state and society than do others. This does not mean that there is a clear-cut category of “good corruption,” but rather that some kinds are less unstable and disintegrative than others. One way to classify different sorts of corruption is by the scale of the stakes involved: routine, such as ordinary consumer goods, versus extraordinary, such as major manipulations of imports or hard currencies; and by the number of suppliers of these corrupt stakes (few, or relatively many). Combining these factors produces the following classification. Where stakes are small and held in many hands, corruption begins to approximate a market (albeit an illegitimate market); the terms of corrupt exchange are likely to change gradually and reflect a rough kind of quid-pro-quo equality. Moreover, market corruption, by the nature of its stakes, is more likely to provide ways for ordinary citizens to meet their basic material needs. They may not like this market, and it may be no substitute for fundamental reform; but it is a more stable and less disruptive kind of corruption than those varieties in which larger stakes (contracts, kickbacks, major foreign-currency dealings) are held in fewer hands. Here the mass of the citizenry, and many “counter-elites,” will be shut out of the dealing, a fact that can become a major political issue. At the extreme these more unstable forms of corruption become “smash and grab” operations in which those in power take as much as they can as quickly as possible, or exploit any and all who seek to influence them. One implication of this classification is that while widening access to influence and public goods may encourage new corruption, it may also shift the mix of corrupt activities toward more broadly integrative and less disruptive types. This in turn could cushion the effects of the possible “explosion of interests” – discussed in the section on micro reforms – that might be a consequence of democratization. Illicit markets may satisfy some material needs; and extended patronage organizations, or machine-like parties, may strengthen links between political leadership and society, and give more people a stake in political participation. I hasten to add, however, that these advantages are uncertain and transitional at best. MUST TOLERATE CORRUPTION IN THE DEMOCRATIZATION PROCESS TO AVOID THE MORE DESTRUCTIVE FORMS OF CORRUPTION Michael Johnston, Political Science Professor Colgate University, 1993, Corruption and Reform, 7:189-204, p. 202 Nonetheless, a few general possibilities can be suggested. First, while a shift toward democratic politics will take a long time to build systems of public order, it may more quickly produce a shift toward more integrative forms of corruption (market corruption, patronage) and away from more disintegrative forms of corruption such as cronyism and nepotism. The danger here is that politics may open up too quickly and chaotically, in that elites and brokers who see their influence rapidly evaporating will tend to take as much as they can, as quickly as they can, and private parties who regard democratization as chaotic and temporary will likewise strike as quickly as they can. Scott (1972) has noted this “hand-over-fist” pattern in nations where power suddenly becomes fluid and unpredictable. The result may be “crisis corruption.”
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