CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Official Moguls 177
conflict in some respects, also draw upon rich historic traditions. Still, it is
clear that corruption has helped divide those social forces, pitting them
against each other instead of fostering groups capable of checking official
abuses, and has deprived Kenyans of basic rights and opportunities.
Without corruption, Kenya would still face poverty, AIDS, rapid population
growth, human rights abuses and other problems. But with significantly
less of it the country would be better able to confront those
challenges, and to use the resources at its disposal in effective, accountable
ways.
Kenya, of course, is not alone in experiencing Official Mogul style
corruption. The specifics of the syndrome will vary according to a variety
of local factors – notably, just who is in charge and what he or she chooses
to do with political power. To examine some of those variations, and to
look further into the implications of democratization for serious corruption,
we turn to one final case – that of Indonesia.
Indonesia: korrupsi, kollusi, nepotisme
Indonesia experienced forty-plus years of Official Mogul corruption
under Presidents Sukarno and Suharto. Misappropriation of government
funds and international aid, judicial and bureaucratic abuses, business
ventures by politicians and military officers, and widespread patronage
marked Sukarno’s Guided Democracy (1955–65). Those practices
reached even more pervasive and profitable levels under Suharto’s New
Order regime (1966–98). From the mid-1970s onwards, patronage and
elite privilege were aspects of a broader political settlement under which
citizens tolerated official abuses and personal rule in exchange for rapid
economic growth and occasional political spoils. These were interlinked
in complex ways: Suharto’s personal power was cemented by his national
patronage system, one-party dominance through his Golkar organization,
and the loyalty of military leaders who shared in the spoils (Liddle,
1985; Cole, 2001; Makarim, 2001). He could give and withhold major
rewards, enforce commitments both of the state to its policies and of
individuals to specific deals both legitimate and otherwise, and impose
working limits upon the exploits of his subordinates (MacIntyre, 2003:
11–13). International investors could thus factor corruption into their
business plans as a somewhat predictable cost, and take advantage of an
attractive mix of political order, labor docility, and lax regulation.
Indonesia enjoyed a rapid economic rise between the 1970s and 1997.
Ambitious institutional reforms followed the fall of Suharto in 1998.
A President, chosen before 2004 by the People’s Consultative Assembly
and now popularly elected, is both head of state and head of the