CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

144 Syndromes of Corruption
8–10; appendices 1 and 2). Such figures are approximations at best, but if
corruption did siphon off 3–4 percent of GDP that, in most years, would
be the difference between stagnation and solid growth. Such losses help
perpetuate a weak and ineffective state, inhibit the rise of challengers to
the oligarchs, and reflect massive transfers of wealth into the hands of a
few families – and then, most likely, out of the country.
Oligarch and Clan corruption in the Philippines is hardly a clone of the
Russian model, but it is marked by a similar organization of power, and
contention, among personalized followings that extends deep into an
ineffective state. Formal moves to liberalize the economy have likely
helped key families extend their empires – as did the end of the Marcos
dictatorship – although as in Russia the real extent of liberalization in an
economy so dominated by clans, connections, colonized public agencies,
and occasional violence is open to question. Institution-building and
anti-corruption efforts have had only indifferent success, and are unlikely
to become much more effective as long as a few wealthy families and
widespread poverty, rather than a truly open economy and an active civil
society, dominate national life.
Mexico: oligarchs in the making?
Mexico’s presence as our final case in this category may be a bit surprising.
As recently as the late 1980s Mexican corruption coexisted with –
indeed, was integral to – an impressive (if stultifying) political stability.
Presidents dominated political life; they had large secret funds at their
personal disposal and the power to hand-pick their successors. They had
ruled since 1929 through the venerable Institutional Revolutionary Party
(Partido Revolucionario Institutional, or PRI), a near-monopoly party
that was part political machine, part repository of nationalist ideology,
but first and foremost a means of control and the nation’s strongest single
institution. In many respects Mexico embodied the Elite Cartel
syndrome.
But lately there has been change. In 2000 the PRI suffered its first-ever
defeat in a presidential election; for years before that, drug gangs and
corrupt police had been undermining central authority in some states.
Liberalization opened up some segments of the economy and made it
more difficult for the PRI to monopolize opportunities; international and
domestic pressures for reform, particularly after the deeply suspect presidential
election of 1988 (Preston and Dillon, 2004), attacked the PRI’s
dominance as well. The PRI’s loss in 2000 hardly changed Mexico from
an Elite Cartel to an Oligarchs and Clans case by itself: just how much
that election really changed remains an open question. But the erosion of