CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

204 Syndromes of Corruption
noted earlier; its implications are complex and depend upon what elites
choose to do with the influence corruption offers them. Elite Cartels in
Korea and Botswana, for example, have been able to pursue their development
agendas effectively; on the other hand, in pre-democratic Korea
governing was at times a brutal and violent process. Italy too experienced
steady growth during several phases of its pre-1993 era but the state,
while pervasive, was ineffective. The partitocrazia regime and its component
parties steadily lost political vitality – suggesting that even if Elite
Cartel settlements have their early uses they can become stagnant after a
time. Again, much depends upon who is in charge. Other elites may use
corrupt connections to maintain hegemony for its own sake: Paraguay,
also in this group, exemplified that political style during the later stages of
the thirty-five-year rule of Alfredo Stroessner.
To move Elite Cartel countries toward the developmental ideal outlined
earlier state, political, and social institutions need to be strengthened and
existing trends toward increasingly open competition must continue.
Multiparty elections and market economies (the latter sometimes extensively
politicized) are already in place in most of these societies, but
parties are weak, sometimes collusive, and serve the personal agendas of
leaders rather than lasting interests in society. Political competition can
be made more decisive by changing electoral systems: Italy’s move, in the
wake of tangentopoli and mani pulite, to a parliament including more
single-member, winner-take-all constituencies was intended to inhibit
collusion. That by itself will not end party colonization of the bureaucracy
and the state sector of the economy; indeed, parties in organizational and
financial disarray will exploit such connections more aggressively as
competition grows. For that reason meaningful, well-enforced financial
disclosure and caps on overall spending may be more critical here than in
Influence Market cases. It will take a series of genuinely competitive
elections, and of alternations of power, to change elite political habits
and voter perceptions in Elite Cartel societies. But if citizens can reward
effective government and punish the most corrupt over time, strong
disincentives to collusion will have been created.
Those ideas in turn underline the value of an independent judiciary,
free press, and long-term efforts to shore up administrative autonomy and
professionalism. Bureaucracies in most Elite Cartel countries are of middling
quality, improving significantly in some countries while in decline
elsewhere. Enhancing transparency will be a worthy goal but its practical
value will depend upon the rise of real political competition, and upon the
emergence of a civil society and press able and willing to put transparency
to use. Civil societies in Elite Cartel countries tend to be only moderately
strong and independent. In many cases civil society too has been