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Political Corruption in America:A Search for Definitions and a Theory, orIf Political Corruption Is in the Mainstream of American PoliticsWhy Is It Not in the Mainstream of American Politics Research?*JOHN G. PETERSSUSAN WELCHUniversity of Nebraska, LincolnLack of a clear definition of political corruption has limited its systematic study by analysts ofAmerican politics. This article offers a conceptual framework with which to view corruption. Acorrupt act is categorized by its four components: the donor, the favor, the public official and thepayoff. For each component, propositions about perceived corrupt and noncorrupt elements canbe formulated and tested. The usefulness of this scheme in analyzing attitudes about corruption isdemonstrated with data from state legislators. Finally, the article suggests some future researchpossibilities using this scheme to compare elites and public or other groupings in the politicalsystem.Though corruption has been an everpresentpart of American political life (cf. Tooqueville,1861), analysts of American politics have notstudied it systematically (for exceptions, seeGreenstein, 1964; Gardiner, 1970; Wolfinger,1972). This paper offers a conceptual schemewhich circumvents definitional problems thathave posed such a roadblock to the systematicstudy of corruption. We also provide someattitudinal data about corrupt acts gatheredfrom state senators across the U.S. and showhow our scheme contributes to the analysis ofthis data. Finally, some reasonable future researchdirections for the study of corruptionare briefly discussed.Definitions of Political CorruptionThe attention devoted to a serious examinationof corruption in America occurs largely atthose times when particularly venal acts havebeen exposed. Thus, the post-Watergate periodhas brought with it a renewed interest in thestudy of political corruption, especially amongpolitical scientists (cf. Rundquist et al., 1977;Scoble, 1973; Gardiner 1970, Berg et al.,1976). In all of these studies it becomesimmediately apparent that no matter what*The authors would like to thank Barry S. Rundquist,University of Illinois-Urbana, and Alan Booth,University of Nebraska-Lincoln for their helpful comments.This project was supported by a grant from theUniversity of Nebraska Research Council.974aspect of American politics is examined, thesystematic study of corruption is hampered bythe lack of an adequate definition. What maybe "corrupt" to one citizen, scholar, or publicofficial is "just politics" to another, or "indiscretion"to a third. Several definitions ofpolitical corruption have been proposed andgSeerallyf w be tsuiftd according to *wreecriteria: definitions based on legality, definitionsbased on the public interest, and definitionsbased on public opinion (Scott, 1972).The definition of political corruption basedon legalistic criteria assumes that political behavioris corrupt when it violates some formalstandard or rule of behavior set down by apolitical system for its public officials. Perhapsthe clearest statement of this definition hasbeen given by J. S. Nye when he stated that apolitical act is corrupt when it "deviates fromthe formal duties of a public role (elective orappointive) because of private-regarding (personal,close family, private clique) wealth orstatus gains: or violates rules against the exerciseof certain types of private-regarding influence"(Nye, 1967, p. 416). While such adefinition of corruption is useful to the researcherin that it is generally clear-cut and canbe operationalized, when the behavior in questionallegedly deviates from a legal norm orstandard which is not tied to a specific statuteor court ruling, this definition of politicalcorruption becomes less useful as the formalduties of office or the appropriate rules ofinfluence become ambiguous. Moreover, thisdefinition suffers from being simultaneouslytoo narrow and too broad in scope; all illegal
1978 Political Corruption in America 975acts are not necessarily corrupt and all corruptacts are not necessarily illegal.1Definitions of political corruption based onnotions of the public or common interestsignificantly broaden the range of behavior onemight investigate. Consider the definition proposedby Arnold Rogow and Harold Lasswell:"A corrupt act violates responsibility toward atleast one system of public or civic order and isin fact incompatible with (destructive of) anysuch system" (Rogow and Lasswell, 1966, pp.132-33). While this definition focuses ourattention on any act or set of acts whichthreaten to destroy a political system, theresearcher has the responsibility of determiningwhat the public or common interest is beforeassessing whether a particular act is corrupt.The possibility exists that a behavior may beproscribed by law as corrupt but be beneficialfor the common good, such as "fixing" thepapers of an illegal alien who contributed hislabor and skills to a rapidly expanding economy.Furthermore, this definition enables apolitician to justify almost any act by claimingthat it is in the public interest.A third approach to the definitional problemsuggests that a political act is corrupt when theweight of public opinion determines it so (see,for example, Rundquist and Hansen, 1976).This conception of political corruption harborsthe same limitations as the public interestfocus. Studies of public opinion have revealedthat on many issues public sentiments are eitherambiguous (significant portions of the publichold no opinion or hold those of low intensity)or are divided in their opinions. Additionally, adefinition of corruption based on public opinionmust consider the differences which mayexist between the public and political elites intheir assessment of appropriate standards ofpublic conduct.This approach to political corruption isprobably best illustrated in the work of ArnoldJ. Heidenheimer (1970). In his view the corruptnessof political acts is determined by theinteraction between the judgment of a particularact by the public and by political elitesor public officials. According to this scheme,behavior is judged particularly heinous or corruptif both public officials and the publicjudge it corrupt and both wish it restricted.This type of behavior is referred to as "black"corruption. An act such as "a public officialinvolved in heroin trafficking" would mostlBerg, Hahn, and Schmidhauser (1976, p. 170)discuss seminars being conducted for large campaigndonors on how to use the loopholes in the newcampaign fund laws.likely fit this category in that both groups findthe act reprehensible and would demandpunishment for the guilty public official. At theother end of the corruption spectrum might becategorized political acts judged corrupt byboth public officials and the people, but whichneither feel are severe enough to warrantsanction. Quite possibly such acts of "white" orpetty corruption as a city council memberfixing a parking ticket for a constituent fall intothis category. Between these two extremes ofcorruption acts lie the forms of behavior whichare the most difficult to define and detect, andconsequently are potentially most destructiveto a political system organized along democraticprinciples. Heidenheimer refers to thesepolitical acts as "gray corruption" when eitherpublic officials or the people want to see anaction punished, while the other group doesnot, or it may well be that one group is intenseabout the issue and the other ambivalent orunconcerned.2 Heidenheimer's work in thisarea, therefore, points to the existence of ascale or dimension of corruption that can beused to classify political behaviors according totheir degree of corruptness from "black" to"gray" to "white." It does not, however,account very well for those acts seen as corruptby only one group, nor does it seek to explainwhy some groups may see an act as corrupt butother groups see it as less corrupt. Althoughthis conception of political corruption is basedon the criterion of opinion (both public andelite), the assessment of a specific political actmay rest on violation of a legal norm or a threatto the public interest. In other words, definitionsof corruption are not mutually exclusive:elements of the public interest and publicopinion criteria are embedded in legal normswhich sanction certain political behaviors ascorrupt.Although the Heidenheimer scheme enablesus to classify politically corrupt acts in ageneral way, a more detailed scheme seemsrequired if we are to classify adequately the2Harry Scoble (1973) refers to the situation (graycorruption) where public officials tolerate a corruptact or practice and citizens are unaware or ignorant ofthe act but would condemn it if they knew about it as"systemic corruption." Moreover, this view of politicalcorruption is useful and important in that it leads toan emphasis on the basic defects and weaknesses in thepolitical system which may be responsible for corruption(see Berg, Hahn, and Schmidhauser, 1976).Therefore, rather than attributing such phenomena as"Watergate" to the weaknesses and foibles of individualpolitical actors, the "systemic view" of corruptionwould lead to a search for the sources of "Watergate"in the defects of the political process itself.
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