The Political Consequences of Corruption: A Reassessment

Abstract

Disagreement continues over the political consequences of corruption. Perspectives on the question are almost as numerous as cases of corruption itself. Thus, the literature resists any easy classification into schools of thought. In general, however, (a term used more by critics of this outlook than by its adherents) have long argued that corruption is harmful to societies and governments, impeding development and eroding the legitimacy even of honest elites and well-run institutions.' by contrast, point to possible benefits of corruption, suggesting that it can speed up cumbersome procedures, buy political access for the excluded, and perhaps even produce de facto policies more effective than those emerging from channels.2 A third outlook suggests that the consequences of corruption depend in part upon the characteristics of political systems, such as the balance of political and economic opportunities,3 levels of economic development, national integration, and governmental capacity,4 or upon the relationships among key factions and elites.5 But while the debate has produced many useful studies of particular cases, its overall findings have been contradictory. In one sense, the debate has been curiously asymmetrical, with moralists arguing that corruption is harmful, while revisionists reply that it can be beneficial.6 Moralistic analyses also suffer, at times, from an a priori assumption that corruption is a bad thing (or that legitimate policies are inherently preferable to those produced corruptly) and tend to blame corruption for a disproportionate share of a society's problems. Revisionists, for their part, often rely too much upon anecdotal evidence, hypothetical cases, and speculative linkages between corruption and social outcomes. This paper is an attempt to refocus the debate by calling attention to two recurring problems. First, I will argue that we have tended to focus upon overly broad (and at times unanswerable) questions. Before we can attribute general systemic trends and problems to corruption, we need to understand its more specific political effects. Second, I will suggest that we can reconcile seemingly contradictory findings if we recognize that corruption can come in many forms with differing consequences. Most forms of corruption, I will argue, can be studied as processes of exchange whose internal logic differs from one form to another. This approach will be used to define four common types of corruption and to point out the political consequences of each. These will be micro consequences, specifically the extent to which each tends to solidify or weaken linkages among people and groups at various strata of political systems. This analysis is not intended to produce global generalizations about the implications of corruption for such systematic processes as economic or political development. Rather, it will propose categories which will allow us to employ the concept of corruption more