Political Corruption in America: A Search for Definitions ... - See also

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982 The American Political Science Review Vol. 72When the "favor" done for a constituentcoincides with personal enrichment, then thecharge of conflict of interest is relevant. Clearlyour sample is ambivalent and divided about thepropriety of these acts.In sum, the simple rank ordering of our tenexamples shows at one end of the continuum aclustering of acts that are clearly illegal orrepresent a direct financial gain, at the other,acts that are minor influence peddling, and inbetween a set of acts representing a variety ofconflict-of-interest situations. A Guttman scalingprocedure revealed that this set of acts wasunidimensional. They scaled in the same orderas discussed, and produced a coefficient ofreproducibility of .95, as shown in Table 4.1 0Our categorization of the components of acorrupt act aided in pinpointing some of thereasons for differential perceptions of the corruptnessof various acts. The nature of thefavor, the donor, the public official, and particularlythe payoff were all useful in analyzingthese perceptions. Acts most perceived as corrupttended to have different characteristicsfrom those few perceived as corrupt. And,where there was near-unanimity about thecorruptness of an act, more components of theact were regarded as corrupt than where therewere divided sentiments. Using only these tenacts, it could not be determined which (if any)components, or combinations of components,were crucial in influencing perceptions. Moreresearch on that point is necessary. We haveonly explored reasons why some acts areperceived as more corrupt than others; we havenot yet tried to analyze why there are intergroupdifferences in perception of corruption,particularly differences between elites and thepublic. I IDiscussionPolitical corruption has not been subjectedto the sort of rigorous analysis received byother phenomena in American politics. In largemeasure, the difficulty of defining "politicalcorruption" accounts for this neglect. Thepresent analysis develops a fourfold classificationscheme composed of what we consider theessential ingredients of every act of politicalcorruption. While this scheme is not a "theory,"it does offer a conceptual frameworkhelpful in comparing and analyzing potentiallycorrupt acts. In doing that it allows us to avoidthe definitional pitfalls which have stalematedthe study of corruption for so long. Theseproblems can be avoided because the componentsof our conceptual scheme allow one toanalyze acts classified as corrupt according toany of the corruption definitions describedearlier: the public opinion, public interest, andlegalistic definitions.The scheme, for instance, renders the "publicopinion" definition more usable by refiningit in such a way as to allow gradients ofcorruptness in an act and to assist in findingreasons why public officials and elites holdsimilar or divergent beliefs about a particularcorrupt act. This can be accomplished bysystematically varying each component of ourscheme over a wide variety of acts. The resultshould enable researchers to pinpoint differencesbetween elites and the mass public,and thus to infer why there are divergentareas-"gray areas of political corruption."Might it be because the two groups view the"payoff" differently: what is seen as small orpetty by public officials may be viewed as largeand serious to citizens? Or, does the divergencelie in the perception of what is extraordinary inthe act providing the favor? Many similarexplanations could be posited and tested.government contracts can be arranged within theconstraints of the law and ethics. But some legislatorsare not content to wait until election day to bask inthe gratitude of the voters."10This correlation matrix of the ten items partiallyconfirms the clustering into three groups though thecorrelation between the two influence-peddling itemsis very small.I We have no public opinion data to test hypothesesabout elite-mass differences. We do, however,have data on how our respondents think citizens feelabout these acts. While the rank ordering or legislators'perceptions of citizens beliefs of corrupt acts is similarto the respondents' belief that most citizens would seeevery conflict-of-interest act as corrupt (Table 3). Theonly acts the majority of our respondents believecitizens would not condemn are the WEAPONS andLAW SCHOOL acts. Unfortunately, these data do nottest our propositions. They are only suggestive. Therespondent's views of citizens reactions to thesepotentially corrupt acts also form an acceptableGuttman scale, with a CR of .94 and with no itemshaving more than 10 percent error.One study that surveyed public opinion aboutcorrupt acts was that of John Gardiner (1970), whoassessed the attitudes of citizens about politicalcorruption in their community. While he examinedtolerance of corruption as it related to several socioeconomicattributes, he did not compare public andelite attitudes. He did find, however, that moreeducated people were less tolerant of corruption thanthose with less education.
1978 Political Corruption in America 983Moreover, the opportunity now exists toexplore possible differences in corruption perceptionsbased on social class and other subgroupsin the population such as race, region,and sex (see Welch and Peters, 1977b). Corruptionmay also be related to psychological orattitudinal predispositions. For example, "private-"vs. "public-regarding" distinctions sometimesused to explain corrupt behavior can beencompassed within our scheme. For instance,are citizens and elites whose approach topolitical life is considered "private-regarding"inclined to be less severe in their condemnationof certain political acts than those displaying a"public-regarding" disposition? In this manner,the study of political corruption can be integratedinto the broader propositions aboutthe social and attitudinal bases of politicalbehavior.The scheme can also be related to thedefinitions of corruption based on "illegal acts"or violations of the "public interest." Are allcorrupt acts viewed similarly which are proscribedby law because they deviate from theformal duties of public office for personal gain?If so, the explanation for the common beliefmay lie in the components of illegal acts such asthe payoff, favor, public official or donor. Onecan view acts considered to be against thepublic interest or order in a similar way. An actof political corruption may or may not beviewed by all public officials and citizens asviolating a responsibility to maintain civic orderor as destroying a political system. Given thewide and varying opinions about the "publicinterest," one would expect they would not.And the four elements, public official, donor,favor, and payoff, allow us to compare andanalyze a wide variety of political acts, whethertheir potential corruptness is based on illegality,violation of the public interest, or condemnationby public opinion. Our approach is alsocompatible with the "systemic view" of politicalcorruption. If a large part of politicalcorruption in the United States can be attributedto inherent weaknesses in certainoffices, situations, or processes, then morehonest government will only come about whenthose weaknesses are identified and eradicatedby public officials and concerned citizens. Thusan understanding of individual attitudes isimportant even when considering the systemicview of corruption.Inherent weaknesses are difficult to identify.But once exposed they can be analyzed accordingto our conceptual scheme. Patterns mayemerge which would help one predict thoseoffices, institutions or processes susceptible topolitical corruption. In this manner the sourcesof political corruption can be systematicallyidentified.1 2Our approach to defining corruption, then,is offered as a way to integrate research oncorruption with the mainstream of research inAmerican politics, a way of integrating theoriesabout corruption to a well-grounded literaturein American political beliefs and behavior. Thisapproach also offers a way to study politicalcorruption from the comparative and internationalperspective. Again the four componentsare common to every potentially corruptact. Different hypotheses might be suggested inthe cross-national or international study ofcorruption, but our scheme offers a frameworkfor such a study. For example, a hypothesismight specify that one type of political cultureviews a certain type of payoff as a routine partof a public official's prerequisites, whileanother culture views the payoff quite differently.Thus our understanding of differentialviews toward potentially corrupt acts is en-hanced. The citizens of one country maycondemn a specific political act as corruptbecause it violates the norms of public officeholding, while the citizens of another countrycondone the same act because it does not. Thescheme can help us understand why the leadersof a foreign country consider it proper toexpect monetary kickbacks from large U.S.corporations in exchange for a governmentcontract, or to offer bribes to key members ofthe U.S. Congress in exchange for favorabletreatment. Moreover, it may well be that stagesof economic development, modernization, socialinfrastructure, and so forth, bear systematicrelationship to the components of our conceptualframework. It provides us with anotherway of demonstrating how political corruptionis related to political development.This approach can also be linked to the moretraditional approach of studying corruptiononly when a significant local or national scandalhas occurred. One can monitor public and eliteattitudes over time in an attempt to link publicattitudes to the situational context.For too long the systematic study of politicalcorruption has been neglected by seriousstudents of American politics. That this shouldbe so is understandable, considering not onlythe imposing conceptual problems but also the121n our own sample, 35.5 percent believed thatthere were no specific offices particularly susceptibleto corruption; rather, it was a few susceptible individuals(the "rotten apple" view). Of the remaining64.5 percent, there was little apparent agreement as towhich offices were more susceptible to corruption.Most frequently mentioned were offices handling a lotof money, named by 7.3 percent.
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