CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

From analysis to reform 217
democracies – attributes that, as noted, are more the outcomes than the
causes of long-term development. But a time will come when a country
needs to adapt to new challenges and open up to more diverse political
expectations – including those born of its own successes. At that point
tight elite networks may prove too rigid.
In the end both reform and systemic adaptation require vigorous
political contention among groups strong enough to demand that others
respect their interests, rights, and property – not just stability or administrative
improvements. Too often we think of reform as a process of
asking people to back off from their own interests and ‘‘be good,’’ or of
trying to restrain political influence to as narrow a range of functions as
possible. But in fact reform will be most sustainable and effective when
driven by self-interest, and when distinctions between state and society,
public and private, are not just abstractions but accepted boundaries
drawn, redrawn, and defended by actively contending groups.
At several points I have noted Rustow’s (1970) argument that the forces
sustaining democracy where it is strong are not necessarily the ones that
brought it into being. Affluence, literacy, a middle class, a free press and
independent judiciary, and a strong civil society (to name but a few such
elements) undoubtedly contribute to the vitality of democracy systems.
But where did those elements come from, and how did democratic values
take root? For Rustow, the answers lie in continuing political contention
among groups embodying real social interests, over issues that are important
to them (Rustow, 1970: 352). Democracy and good government are
not necessarily the point of such struggles; more often they revolve around
much more specific and immediate issues, with views on the ways government
ought to operate serving more as weapons in the struggle than as
ultimate goals (Rustow, 1970: 353). Much the same can be said with
respect to controlling corruption: many of today’s low-corruption societies
brought the problem under control in the course of fighting over other
issues. The matter at hand might have been land, taxes, religion, or
language, but the deeper issue was who had power, how they got it, and
what could and could not be done with it. The inconclusive nature of those
conflicts, too, was essential to their significance: no group got all it wanted,
but the resulting settlements defined acceptable domains of official
power and private interest, and set workable limits as to how wealth and
power could be sought and used. Such settlements are rarely precise and
never permanent: boundaries between public and private dealings, for
example, are often redrawn. But they survive and adapt not because they
are ‘‘good ideas’’ but because people have a stake in them.
Magna Carta, for example, was not a ringing declaration of the rights of
humanity or a scheme for good government, but rather a set of limits laid