CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

The international setting 25
and bureaucratic discretion is put up for rent due process, civil liberties, and
basic rights are endangered, and official policies become a sham. In both
instances benefits and advantages are likely to flow to the few and the wellconnected
while costs are extracted from society at large – ultimately, from
the poor and powerless most of all. Other effects are intangible, collective,
and long-term in nature: where corrupt connections guide decisionmaking,
democratic values and participation become irrelevant and opportunities
are denied to many who need them most. At times petty benefits
flow to poor people or ordinary citizens: Palermo’s local politicians sometimes
gave voters one shoe before an election, and its mate afterwards if
the ballot had been cast as expected (Chubb, 1981). But those short-term
incentives come at a long-term cost: they are given not for their own sake
but to maintain control, and accepting them means forgoing political
choices. Such costs are no less real for being difficult to measure.
From corrupt deals to systemic effects
How do the costs of specific corrupt deals become so harmful to development?
Consider, in light of the ideal sketched out in chapter 1, the wellknown
formulation proposed by Klitgaard (1988: 75):
Corruption equals Monopoly plus Discretion, minus
Accountability.
Klitgaard uses this formulation to identify and analyze situations conducive
to bureaucratic corruption. Officials can use the prospect of lucrative
contracts to extract corrupt payments, for example, if they can exploit a
monopoly – power to award contracts not available elsewhere – and
discretion – the ability to choose among bidders. A lack of accountability
means that there is little to prevent exploitation and no recourse for the
losers. Bidders who pay the bribes likewise short-circuit competitive
bidding, reward the corrupt use of discretion, and subvert transparent,
accountable procedures. Klitgaard’s equation is not intended to explain
why particular individuals do or do not become corrupt, or how a specific
client will respond to corrupt demands or opportunities. It does a better
job of explaining bureaucratic corruption, and bribery, than other varieties.
It is, however, a very useful model of situations most likely to foster
corruption (see also Rose-Ackerman, 1978; Della Porta and Vannucci,
1999; Della Porta and Rose-Ackerman, 2002).
For our purposes Klitgaard also shows how corruption and its underlying
dynamics subvert structured, competitive participation and sound
institutions. Monopolies by definition disrupt competition and, when
combined with discretion, encourage rigged processes rewarding