CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

152 Syndromes of Corruption
in cleaning up elections have inspired many other countries. Some state
institutions have been strengthened in impressive ways, and the IFAI, a
new agency, has launched an impressive effort to build transparency and
public trust. The national Controller’s office, recently renamed the
Secretariat for Public Functions, has become a much more credible
body over the past decade; many of its efforts to prevent corruption in
procurement and contracting involve innovative use of the Internet. Tec
de Monterrey, an innovative university with extensive online programs,
and the Mexican chapter of Transparency International have conducted
some of the world’s best surveys of popular experience with corruption.
A new initiative at the Autonomous University of Mexico, funded by the
World Bank and conducted by a team of social scientists, will provide
assessments of corruption of a sort available nowhere else.
But if the Russian and Philippine cases are indeed parallels, Mexico has
difficult times ahead. The Fox administration seemed to lack both a clear
agenda and a political base from which to pursue one. Economic liberalization
and democratization have cut in two directions. They have
encouraged foes of corruption, unleashing new manifestations of the
reformist spirit that has always been a part of Mexico’s self-image
(Tulchin and Selee, 2003). But growing economic and political participation,
weak state institutions, and the decline of the PRI – for generations,
the nation’s real political framework – have also spurred corruption
in riskier and more disruptive forms. If this analysis is correct, institutionbuilders
in Mexico are locked in an all-important race with corrupt
interests over the kind of future the nation will experience.
Oligarchs and Clans: who, if anyone, governs?
Influence Markets deal in access to decisionmakers and processes within
relatively strong public institutions. Elite Cartels are corrupt networks
that allow top figures to manage a weaker state apparatus, and to govern
for better or worse, in the face of rising political and economic competition.
But in Oligarch and Clan cases key influence networks are personal
in their incentive systems and agendas, and collude or conflict depending
upon the short-term stakes at hand. It can be unclear, in severe cases,
whether anyone governs at all. After a generation of liberalization and
privatization as a dominant development agenda, this syndrome of corruption
is a useful reminder of the value of an effective state.
Oligarch and Clan societies do not simply have ‘‘more corruption.’’
While some of their corrupt practices will be recognizable anywhere – the
United States and Italy have police corruption, for example, just as do
Russia, the Philippines, and Mexico – these cases embody qualitatively