CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

From analysis to reform 211
resumption of aggressive marketization, and reforms that directly confront
corrupt interests until the situations of both oligarchs and networks
of governing elites have become more secure – in the latter case, capable
of withstanding the stress of such initiatives. A political settlement can be
built relatively quickly and then become a foundation for comprehensive
institutional reform and building social support. Reformers aiming
directly for those goals without the intermediate steps may perpetually
be dealing from weakness. Corruption will not vanish during these early
stages; indeed, the main change may be in its form. The most difficult
part of the strategy, from a reform vantage-point, is that it requires a
temporary tolerance of corrupt dealings that help link governing elites
together across party, sectoral, and other lines.
Equally difficult will be turning elites toward reform once they have
become more secure. At that point external influence and conditionality
may become crucial. There is no guarantee that networked elites will be
enlightened nor that, once in place, they will eventually give way to a more
democratic order. The Korean regime before 1988 was highly corrupt in
an Elite Cartel fashion and brutally repressive when threatened; democratization
was never an inevitable ‘‘next stage.’’ But histories of some of
today’s affluent market democracies include stages or episodes during
which interlocking networks of political and economic elites arose, pursued
important developmental objectives, and were eventually pushed
aside by new competitors and fundamental democratization: consider,
for example, nineteenth-century joint ventures and elite cartels that built
the canals and railways of the United States (Trent, 1981; Bain, 1999:
675–710; Hauptman, 1999; Ambrose, 2000).
Official Moguls
The connections between reform and justice are posed most clearly by
our final syndrome, where the core dilemma is official impunity. Official
Mogul cases diverge from our developmental ideal in many ways:
institutions are very weak, popular participation in politics is feeble or
orchestrated from above, and in the worst cases corrupt leaders and their
personal favorites exploit society and the economy, including aid
and investment, rather than developing it. But it is also a diverse category
of countries because, as noted, the implications of unchallenged power
depend upon the agendas of those who hold it. Singapore’s Lee Kwan
Yew, for example, pursued highly successful anti-corruption and
development agendas from the time he assumed power in 1959, and
that city-state falls into our first group of cases, not our last. But where
power serves the personal interests of a dominant leader, administrative