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

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978 The American Political Science Review Vol. 72large number of testable propositions about theconditions under which an act can and will beviewed as corrupt. We have only outlinedpropositions at the first level, i.e., dealing witheach subdimension singly, and have not definedpropositions dealing with more than one subdivisionat a time. Certainly an act having mostor all of the characteristics listed on the leftside is considered more corrupt than one havingonly characteristics on the right. Which componentsare most important in determining corruptnessis a researchable question not answeredhere. Yet taking a broader view, ourrudimentary scheme offers a conceptual frameworkfor analyzing and comparing potentiallycorrupt political acts. This framework allows usto circumvent the definitional problems surroundingthe meaning of "corruption."The Study DesignOur study was designed specifically to ascertaininformation on attitudes about corruptionheld by a large group of public officials. Wemailed questionnaires to all 978 state senatorsin 24 states.6 After three mailings, 441 senatorshad responded with completed questionnaires.7Response rate by state ranged from only 21percent in California to over 78 percent fromNorth Dakota. Generally, response rate wasslightly higher in the rural states than in theindustrialized ones.86AM1 of our mailings, sent in October, Decemberand January, 1975-76 were sent to the senators'home addresses, in order to minimize the possibilitythat the senator would delegate filling out the questionnaireto a staff member or legislative intern. Thestates surveyed were ALABAMA, California, Connecticut,Florida, Georgia, Illinois, IOWA, Kansas,Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, MICHIGAN, Minnesota,MISSOURI, Nevada, New Jersey, New York,NORTH DAKOTA, Oregon, PENNSYLVANIA,TEXAS, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Thesestates were picked randomly, with a few substitutionsto assure geographic dispersion (after our initialrandom selection, we had eight southern states but nostates from the industrial Middle West). Only some ofthe nonrespondents, those from the states listed incapital letters, were sent a third-wave questionnaire.7For a discussion of the rationale behind theshorter, third-wave questionnaire, see Welch and Peters(1977a).81n addition to California, only New York (25percent) had a response rate of less than 30 percent.Three more had response rates less than 40 percent:Massachusetts (30 percent), Illinois (32 percent), andMassachusetts (32 percent). On the other hand, eightstates had a response rate of more than 50 percent:North Dakota (78 percent), Utah (62 percent), Iowa(62 percent), Alabama (60 percent), Maine (58 per-The major focus of the questionnaire was aseries of items concerning ten actions by publicofficials that might or might not be consideredcorrupt. As sometimes happens, we have sincefound problems and lack of clarity in some ofthe items. These problems will be discussedlater. The items are as follows (in the orderlisted on the questionnaire):1. A presidential candidate who promises anambassadorship in exchange for campaigncontributions (AMBASSADOR);2. A member of Congress using seniority toobtain a weapons contract for a firm inhis or her district (WEAPONS).3. A public official using public funds forpersonal travel (TRAVEL);4. A secretary of defense who owns$50,000 in stock in a company withwhich the Defense Department has amillion-dollar contract (DEFENSESTOCK);5. A public official using influence to get afriend or relative admitted to law school(LAW SCHOOL);6. The driveway of the mayor's home beingpaved by the city crew (DRIVEWAY);7. A state assembly member while chairpersonof the public roads committee authorizingthe purchase of land s/he hadrecently acquired (LAND SALE);8. A judge with $50,000 worth of stock in acorporation hearing a case concerningthat firm (JUDGE);9. A legislator accepting a large campaigncontribution in return for voting "theright way" on a legislative bill (RIGHTWAY);10. A member of Congress who holds a largeamount of stock (about $50,000 worth)in Standard Oil of New Jersey working tomaintain the oil depletion allowance(OIL).We omitted items on which we felt therewould be near total consensus, either becausethey were so serious or because they were sotrivial: at one extreme, for example, a publicofficial engaging in heroin traffic, and at theother, a policeman taking a free cup of coffeefrom a local cafe. We asked several questionsabout each item, with five degrees of response.In this article we will examine responses to thecent), Kansas (53 percent), Wyoming (53 percent),and Oregon (53 percent).
1978 Political Corruption in America 979question as to whether the act was believed tobe corrupt or not.FindingsWe do not have enough items to exploresystematically a number of propositions thatcould be generated by our work, but we willuse these data in ways that indicate theusefulness of our scheme in analyzing corruption.We first ranked the items according to theproportion agreeing that the act was corrupt orvery corrupt (Table 3). In Table 2 we havesketched the most salient characteristics of eachact, according to our fourfold scheme; we havealso outlined the characteristics of a hypotheticalact in which a member of Congress in adistrict with a large percent of minority populationsvotes in favor of the civil rights act(CIVIL RIGHTS). In return, members of civilrights groups in the district support the memberof Congress in a reelection bid. We judge thatfew would see anything corrupt in this sequenceof events.The first conclusion from Table 3 is that theacts considered corrupt by most people havemany characteristics starred (where starredcharacteristics indicate more corrupt features,i.e., features on the left-hand side of Table 1).Clusters of stars are particularly apparent in the"payoff" boxes. Acts considered by few to becorrupt have few stars; CIVIL RIGHTS hasonly one. Those acts whose corruptness is mostdisputed have an intermediate number of characteristicsstarred. We can also immediately seethat any one attribute, in isolation, probablydoes not determine corruptness. For example,an act performed in one's public role may leadto corruption, but simply knowing that anofficial performed an act as part of a public roletells us nothing by itself. Unfortunately notenough information was given to classify fullysome of the acts on our four components.Greater specificity may have changed the publicofficials' responses, and would also have madethe pattern of classification clearer.Four acts were perceived as corrupt by over90 percent of our sample: RIGHT WAYDRIVEWAY, TRAVEL, and LAND SALE.While two of these acts involve minor sums ofmoney, all are illegal and all result in personalfinancial gain for the public official. In terms ofour four components we can say that three ofthe four acts are characterized by the merger ofthe donor and the public official role. That is,in the cases of DRIVEWAY, TRAVEL, andLAND SALE, the public official is in theposition of personally ensuring direct financialgain. Of our ten examples, these are the onlythree where such a merger is the case, and arethe instances of highest consensus. The fourthcase perceived as corrupt by over 90 percent isRIGHT WAY. Here the donor is not the publicofficial but an unspecified second party. However,the payoff is very direct and immediate,though in the context of a campaign contribution.We assume that if a campaign contributionwere not involved, almost all would have seenthe act as corrupt. RIGHT WAY might becompared with another example, OIL, wherethe payoff from voting a certain way is muchmore indirect and long-range (i.e., the possibleincrease in the value of the legislator's stock),and fewer see this type of payoff as corrupt. Insum, from these four examples, we infer thatthese illegal acts are judged highly corruptbecause of the merger of the donor and publicofficial role in three cases, and because of thedirect and monetary gain in exchange for a votein the fourth.At the other end of the continuum, less than40 percent of the sample found LAW SCHOOLand the WEAPONS examples corrupt. Theseacts might be characterized as rather minorforms of influence peddling. In both cases, thepayoff is indirect and long-range: good will thatperhaps increases the possibility of future campaignsupport. In both cases the donor ispresumably a constituent. The acts themselvesobviously are seen by most as routine kinds offavors that public officials try to do forconstituents, and thus only a minority areWilling to call the acts corrupt.Our fourfold typology also sheds some lighton why there is some ambiguity about theseacts. While the payoff is long-range, the donor aconstituent, it is implied that doing the favortakes the legislator outside the narrow performanceof legislative duty. While the questionis unfortunately silent about some aspects ofthe transaction, it can be presumed that thelegislator is calling the law school dean ormembers of the admissions committee in theone instance, and perhaps putting undue pressureon a bureaucrat in the other. These actswould be considered by some to be oversteppingthe normal scope of a legislator's activity,but by others as routinely trying to provide aconstituent service. Perhaps a clarification ofthe item would allow a better interpretation.The acts where there is the least consensusare conflict of interest activities: OIL, DE-FENSE STOCK, JUDGE, and AMBASSADOR.In each case, public officials are in the positionof furthering personal financial interests whilemaking a decision in their public role. In thecase of DEFENSE STOCK, OIL and JUDGE,public officials are in the position of performinga favor (i.e., casting a favorable vote orawarding a contract) for which the payoff is an
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