CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

190 Syndromes of Corruption
Other contrasts that did, and did not, emerge raise intriguing questions.
Chapters 6 and 7 develop ideas about how and why the corruption
problems of China and Russia differ. But many analysts of East Asia will
be surprised (and perhaps less than persuaded!) that Japan and Korea are
in different categories. Mexico’s presence in a group with Russia and the
Philippines may draw objections, particularly considering how recently
we might have called it an Elite Cartel case. Patrimonialism and clientelism
are sometimes treated as distinctive syndromes in their own right; in
my schema the former is found in both the Oligarchs and Clans and the
Official Moguls groups, while clientelism is found in various forms there
and in Elite Cartel cases too. But a focus only on techniques of corruption
might obscure important underlying factors: clientelism and patronage in
Korea, the Philippines, and Kenya, for example, involve differing kinds of
participants, and have contrasting consequences, reflecting (I argue)
systemic contrasts.
Another issue is that of contrasts within groups. To put two countries
into the same cluster is not to say that their corruption is identical in every
respect, as the relatively loose distribution of the Official Moguls group in
figure 3.4 suggests. Elite Cartel corruption preserved a political stalemate
in Italy while, in Botswana, it helped a modernizing traditional elite make
policy credible enough to launch sustained growth. Italy experienced
widespread colonization of the economy and state apparatus by major
parties, while Botswana’s most important cases were focused upon specific
bodies such as development banks and functions like housing construction
(Frimpong, 1997). In both cases elites used corrupt incentives
to defend their hegemonies, enrich themselves, and see off potential
competition, but Botswana is a small society with an elite to match, had
one dominant party, and did not have Italy’s mature economy, large state
sector, and overblown bureaucracy. Their Elite Cartel corruption reflects
differences, therefore, but the comparison is still more informative than
any blanket claim that either country is ‘‘more corrupt’’ than the other.
Contrasts within groups become greater as we move from Influence
Markets toward Official Moguls. In one way that is not surprising: affluent
market democracies resemble each other in many ways, and it would
be surprising if their corruption problems did not have important commonalities
too. As we move to the other groups, however, institutions
become weaker, climates of political and economic opportunities become
more diverse and changeable, and the risks involved in corrupt deals
become more unpredictable. Like Tolstoy’s happy and unhappy families,
advanced political and economic systems tend to be advanced in similar
ways, while weaker ones can have problems that are diverse and very
much their own. In the former, impersonal laws and institutions are