CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

From analysis to reform 195
corruption scores. That discontinuity makes it difficult to account for
contrasts in our four groups via the cumulative effects of more corruption,
to the extent that the latter can even be known. At some point in the
corruption-and-development relationship something changes. That
‘‘something,’’ I suggest, is best understood in terms of societies’ differing
kinds of corruption and differing abilities to withstand it – issues that
bring us to our discussion of reform.
Reform: widening the worldview
Anti-corruption reform has become a staple of development policy and a
goal for many businesses too. The old view of bribes and extortion as
‘‘grease’’ for bureaucratic gears, or as a tolerable overhead cost of doing
business in some parts of the world, has given way to a more systemic
understanding of corruption as a drag on development, a threat to property
and legitimate gains, and a surreptitious tax upon honest effort, as
noted in chapters 1 and 2.
Solid results, however, have been difficult to show. The problems are
deep-rooted while the current reform movement is recent in origin.
Transparency International is little more than a decade old; frank
discussions of corruption were rare at the World Bank until 1995, and
the path-breaking OECD Convention on Combating Bribery – the first
inter-governmental effort to address corruption on a global scale and attack
its origins in wealthy as well as poor countries – did not enter into force
until 1999 (OECD, 2003). The risks of reform are significant: corruption
benefits well-connected people who will not surrender their advantages
easily. Reform is often most urgent where institutions and oppositions are
weakest, and as noted we cannot measure corruption with precision.
Other problems are more fundamental. Some have to do with the
liberalization-driven agenda that has shaped development policy: few
should quarrel with the idea of wider political and economic choices, and
some corruption does indeed grow out of actual or contrived ‘‘squeeze
points’’ in public processes. But it does not follow that markets – or marketlike
political processes such as elections – by themselves can substitute for
strong state, political, and social institutions. Reducing the state’s role to
‘‘governance’’ – a kind of societal referee function – makes it difficult to
mobilize participants in public life and to make reform less risky for
ordinary citizens. Not only has the hoped-for synergy between economic
and political liberalization (Przeworski, 1995) proven difficult to develop;
liberalization in either sphere without strong, accountable institutions
quickly turns into choices for a powerful few, insecurity and deprivation
for the many, and illicit connections between wealth and power.