CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Participation, institutions, and syndromes of corruption 41
few examples. But there are also consolidating or reforming democratic/
market societies in which political competition is still emerging or undergoing
significant change; often their economies are becoming more open
and competitive too. Institutional frameworks in such societies seem likely
to be moderately strong, but weaker than those in the first group. The most
consolidated post-communist democracies of Central Europe, Chile,
Botswana, and South Korea might be examples of the second group.
Countries in a third group are undergoing major transitions in politics
and their economies. Many kinds of change are happening at once;
political and economic opportunities are both rapidly expanding, and
relationships between them will be difficult to predict. Weak institutions
are both a result of rapid, broad-based change – even when institutions
are well-designed and supported, which will often not be the case, considerable
time will be needed to acquire legitimacy and credibility – and
they are a cause of further unstructured and unpredictable political and
economic changes. Russia, Turkey, India (with its economic transition),
the Philippines, Thailand, and Ghana are possible examples of this sort.
Finally, undemocratic regimes by definition are marked by political
opportunities that are few in number and tightly controlled (indeed,
that often become the stakes of corrupt deals). But in part because of
international pressures economies in many such countries have been
liberalizing over the past generation, even if they are nowhere near fully
open or competitive, with the result that growing economic opportunities
can be exploited by a powerful few. Political institutions in systems ruled
by a few are likely to be weak; parts of the state or a dominant party may
well be coercive and widely feared, but that is not strength in the sense
outlined above. Strong economic institutions are also uncommon
because of the nature of political power, a general lack of accountability,
and (as above) the scope of recent economic change. Institutional weaknesses
both reflect and abet the power of rulers and their favored interests.
In this last group we might find countries such as China, Indonesia,
many but by no means all sub-Saharan African states, and Middle
Eastern countries such as Jordan and the Emirates.
These are intentionally very general categories; at the same time there
will be some countries that fit none of them. A later section of this chapter
will, as noted, use statistical indicators to test whether such groupings
make empirical sense. But what might they have to do with corruption? In
the remainder of this book I suggest that they correspond to four major
syndromes of corruption: Influence Markets, Elite Cartels, Oligarchs
and Clans, and Official Moguls. The proposed connections are summarized
here, in Table 3.1, and brief descriptions of each corruption
syndrome follow.