CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Elite Cartels 111
their power; afterwards electoral competition gradually increased.
In either phase building a power base while staying within the rules was
a doubtful proposition: parties were weak and personalized, society was
poorly organized and fractious, and political elites were guided more by
personal, regional, and family loyalties than by official duties or
policy commitments. Elite Cartel corruption solidified power but
reinforced those systemic problems. It likely helped Korea maintain
order through the difficulties of political transition, and provided
elites with predictability in the early years of the new regime.
Business–political–bureaucratic networks evolved over time (Kim
Joongi, 2002: 174ff.): as the chaebols grew their power within the elite
stratum increased, but they never became dominant over the top political
figures (Kang, 2002a). Sharing political money with opposition leaders
was a way to pacify them in the short term and to accumulate damning
evidence for use later on. But building broad-based, competitive electoral
politics proved a slow process, and both credible anti-corruption reform
(as opposed to spectacular trials of past presidents) and creating a strong
civil society remain challenges a generation after the transition.
Much as Elite Cartel corruption enabled Italy to realize impressive
growth despite a blocked political system and only moderately effective
official institutions, Korea’s particular style of corruption likely aided
the economic takeoff and underwrote a measure of political continuity
through the democratic transition and the aftermath of the 1997–8
economic crisis. This does not mean that corruption is inherently
beneficial: particularly in the long run, as chapter 2 shows, the evidence
runs strongly to the contrary. Moderate economic policy changes, and
measures for political and corporate accountability, that might
havestavedofftheworstoftheeconomicmeltdownwerenotimplemented
in Korea. The logic of Elite Cartels – rather than aggregate
amounts of corruption – preempted economic and political
adaptation, turning the need for a variety of small changes into an
eventual systemic crisis.
Cheng and Chu’s notion (2002: 57) of a state that, in Korea’s authoritarian
phase, was ‘‘neither predatory nor captured,’’ raises one final issue:
because of its internal logic Korean corruption might have been selflimiting
in important respects (see also Kang, 2002a). Both accounts
suggest that those who are strong enough to form cartels are also in a
position to check excesses that might undermine their advantages. But
the question is complex: if by limits to corruption it is meant that overall
amounts were restricted we would need somehow to guess how much
corruption would otherwise have occurred – an exercise that is conjectural
at best. But limits could also refer to the scope of corruption – who