John Samuel
Corruption is primarily about abuse or misuse of power for personal aggrandisement or vested interests in society or institutions; from local to the global. Hence, the practice and process of corruption is deeply political. The word ‘corrupt’ is derived from the Latin root ‘corruptus’, past participle of’ corrumpere-’ to mean abuse or destroy and when used as an adjective it denotes means ‘utterly broken’.
The subversion, misuse and abuse of power have systemic and socio-historical manifestations in different contexts. This has to do with the way power is institutionalised and internalised in a given society, with a particular cultural and political history. For example, the political elite of South Asia often demonstrate the embedded feudalism and cumulative hierarchies (through cast system) internalised within the collective memory of the society. So the one common defining political aspect of South Asia is that all power-elites in most of the South Asian Countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Afghanistan) operate through family network and, cast/identity networks to acquire and maintain power. Such internalised ‘order of power’ tends to undermine the process and content of democratic process itself. Though political parties play a cardinal role in the democratic process of a country, the irony is that political parties themselves have least of internal democracy or accountability. And in many cases, political parties are reduced to institutionalised forms of ‘interest’ network to capture and control the power of the state. In many countries in Africa, the use and abuse of power can also linked to the internalisation of power in the form of ‘tribal’ hierarchies and identities.
So it is important to understand the causes and consequence of ‘corruption’ within the history of the institutionalisation and internalisation power, the nature and character of the power elites and in terms of social and economic inequalities within a given society. The political economy of corruption is primarily about the nexus between the economic, social and political elites in a given society to subvert, misuse, abuse or misappropriates institutions, policies and systems for the vested interests or, private gains of a privileged group or set of individuals embedded in the dominant power-structure of a country. The unholy nexus between the business elites, political elites and media elites in managing the economic, political and natural resources of a given country is a global trend across the world; from the richest country to the poorest country. Various studies indicate that the worldwide bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually.
The ongoing economic crisis exposed the depth and breadth of the role of corporate elites and the missionaries of finance capitalism in shaping the policy and political agenda even in the so-called democracies of the world. When the cyclone hit the Wall Street in 2008, it exposed the unholy nexus between the capital fund managers of the Wall Street and the mandarins in the corridors of political power: the entrenched ‘partnership’ between the rich and those who are ‘democratically’ elected to ‘run’ the government. Such unholy systemic power nexus between the economic and political elites of a country is at the root of entrenched political and institutional corruption in many countries. A state of unbridled political and economic corruption is known as a ‘kleptocracy’, literally meaning "rule by thieves". The cumulative impact of such unholy nexus of corrupt practices and instances is the erosion of the legitimacy of the state. The rather spontaneous mobilization of ordinary people across the world from New York to New Delhi, from London to Lisbon, from Rome to Rio and on the streets of Egypt, Tunis, Yemen, Syria, and India and all over the world has one thing in common: all of them questioned the legitimacy of the governments and in many cases the character of the state and all of them demand accountability from the leaders, the state as well as market.
Though corruption does have a moral, theological and philosophic connotations, it is important to analyse and address corruption in relation to political system, dominant economic power relations and culture of internalised power. The manifestations and forms of corruption may include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement. While corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, it is not restricted to these activities. The legality and illegality of a particular act of corruption or abuse of power may differ depending on the ‘jurisdiction’ of a country. In some countries, certain political funding practices are legal, but may be illegal in another country. In many countries, government officials have broad or poorly defined powers, which make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions.
While the cause of corruption is to do with misuse and abuse of political and systemic power, the consequences of corruption are many. Corruption undermines the effectiveness, legitimacy and accountability of institutions and governments. Corruption does siphon off money meant for social and economic development of a country. Corruption breeds on entrenched socio-economic inequality and further increase the gap between the rich and the poor, and the powerful and the marginalized. In the political arena, it undermines democracy and governance by flouting or even subverting formal processes. Corruption in elections and in legislative bodies undermines accountability and distorts the representation in policymaking; corruption in the judiciary undermines the rule of law; and corruption in administration results in the inefficient provision of services. Corruption violates a basic principle of centrality of civic virtue. The net result is that corruption undermines the value of democratic governance and erodes the institutional legitimacy and capacity of government to deliver services, ensure security of citizens and to deliver socio-economic development.
In the last twenty years, anti-corruption initiatives have become a part of the governance and development discourse across the world. With the paradigm shift in the information and communication technology, it has become impossible to keep corrupt practices under the veil of secrecy and silence, either in the form of a controlled state media or suppressing the voices of dissent. The neo-liberal economic paradigm of free market capitalism and the economic globalization unleashed new power matrix in many of the countries, particularly those countries with a big market size( like India, China) or those countries with big natural resources( Nigeria, Sudan etc). Such corrupt nexus has a dimension of geo-politics as well as political economy of aid, trade and debt. It is not an accident of history most of the conflicts in Africa or Asia are fought with small weapons illegally exported by the big companies in Europe. It is also not an accident of history that most of the entrenched conflicts happen in countries with rich natural resources.
It is not an accident of history that the companies and the banks that benefit from the illicit flow of finance happened to be in some of the richest countries in the world. Illicit financial flows indicate the transfer of money earned through illegal activities such as corruption, transactions involving contraband goods, criminal activities, and efforts to shelter wealth from a country’s tax authorities. It is estimated that at an average more than US$ 1 trillion is transferred from the poor countries to rich countries in the form of illicit flow of funds. Illicit flow of finance from African countries is estimated to be around US$ 25 billion per year. It is also pointed out that for every dollar received as economic assistance or aid, around ten dollar is transferred from the poor countries to rich countries in the form of illicit financial flow. It is irony of our times that the very same countries that host the big companies and banks that benefit from the illicit flow of finance also preach to the ‘third world’ about the need to ‘fight’ corruption. So corruption has its local, national and international ramifications.
Reducing corruption to petty bribery without challenging the extremely corrupt system at the heart of the political economy at the national and international level would be equivalent to consuming aspirin tablet to fight a heart disease. However, the globalization of information and technology also helped to expose corruption in an unprecedented way. The social networks and new media could expose corrupt practices conveniently put under the carpet by the media and market elites in connivance with the political elites.
It is in recognition of the widespread instances of corruption across the world, the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) was adopted on 31st October 2003. UNCAC is the first legally binding international anti-corruption instrument. In its 8 Chapters and 71 Articles, the UNCAC obliges its States Parties to implement a wide and detailed range of anti-corruption measures affecting their laws, institutions and practices. These measures aim to promote the prevention, criminalization and law enforcement, international cooperation, asset recovery, technical assistance and information exchange, and mechanisms for implementation. The UNCAC is ratified or approved by 154 countries and European Union. In spite of the approval or ratification of UNCAC, the biggest challenge is that lack of implementation of the principles and provisions of UNCAS in the national context due to absence of effective laws or independent anti-corruption commissions to make them work.
In the context of the political economy of aid and governance, there has been effort to export a successful model of anti-corruption from western liberal democratic context to other countries in Asia and Africa. However, such measures did not work due to the fact that context of the internalization; institutionalization and culture of power are very different from the European context. In a recent book ‘Making the State Responsive’ (UNDP w 2011): Goran Hyden and John Samuel) we have made the following observation:
“Institutional innovations have typically come from external sources in the form of transfers from societies in which these institutions have evolved over long time. The Ombudsman institution found in the Nordic countries is one of these exports. It has been adopted quite successfully in countries that already have a tradition of rule of law, and where independent scrutiny of those in power is taken for granted. It has been much less successful in countries where particularistic values still prevail and the notion of universal norms is only weakly institutionalized. Transfers to these countries have typically ended as half-measures, for example when the ombudsman institution reports to the Presidency rather than the Parliament, rendering checks on the executive ineffective. The establishment of these institutions may not have been wholly unsuccessful, as the possibility exists in the future that groups of citizens will demand their independence and accountability from the legislature rather than the executive, but it is questionable whether these half-measures qualify as ‘good enough’ governance. There is evidence from a number of countries – Brazil, India, Mongolia, and South Africa – that institutional innovations spring out of hardship. Learning how to achieve something comes with the urge to change the status quo. Claiming the state, therefore, is very much a matter of challenging public institutions, whether national or sub-national, from below or within, to ensure adherence to norms and principles of equity in service delivering. Institutional innovations that help citizens to better monitor and measure government performance are important, but there are no shortcuts. Evolving such institutions, as the case study on India convincingly shows, are associated with political battles. Not all are won”
While a strong anti-corruption law, to a certain extent , can control or reduce the petty corruption or instances of bribery or ‘speed money’ /‘protection money’ at the lower level of bureaucracy( particularly police, land registration, public works departments), the real cancer of corruption operate at the heart of the political system in India and elsewhere.
In the South Asian context, one of the major systemic causes of corruption is the subversion of the political party system and electoral process. In the post independence era, the legitimacy of the political party system and that of the state was relatively higher. Hence, it was relatively easier to collect individual contributions from the ordinary members of the party or general public. However, in the last thirty years, the political party system itself got corpotorised, often controlled by the family or cast/identity network. While the cadre of the political parties got dissolved from below, the visibility and the ‘out-reach’ mechanism of the political parties were outsourced through costly advertising campaign, media ‘management’ and ‘image’ mangers from the public relations companies. When the cadre got dwindled on the ground, the institutional structures of political parties took precedence over the mass politics. ‘Mass’ was to ‘demonstrate’- in rallies ‘outsourced’ to the local leaders- with money and muscles. The degeneration of the political party systems in terms of the erosion of democratic values within and in terms of the instrumental use of ‘mass’ as the ‘muscle’ to ‘demonstrate’ or as ‘vote’ banks coincided with the increasing corporate control of the political parties.
When it has become difficult to raise financial resources from the cadre of the political parties, the new fund-managers of the political parties build new nexus with the new corporate elites in the neo-liberal era. The new corporate elites of multinational corporations and big Indian companies scrambling for ‘market share’ – also took ‘political share’ by ‘investing’ in various political parties and leaders. A percentage of the corporate budget as ‘miscellaneous’ items or ‘charity’ found their way to the coffers of political parties and leaders. They have in turn provided tax rebates, new policies helpful for one or other companies, or helping them to acquire land and resources. The new economic elites ‘invested’ in political parties, political leaders, elections as well as media. The Nira Radia tapes dramatically exposed this unholy nexus at the heart of the political and policies process in the so-called largest democracy in the world. Political Parties in turn ‘invested’ in ‘media companies and campaigns’ and market research groups to get ‘favourable’ poll result.
The media-market nexus of subverting electoral process has become complete through the ‘outsourced’ poll- using the methods of market survey to determine the ‘mood’ of the country or ‘legitimacy’ of its leaders. As a result media became the midwife to strengthen the unholy nexus of the political, policy and corporate elites in a country. In the absence of real mass politics and erosion of cadre party politics, the political leaders resorts to new tactics like ‘Radha Yathra’ to attract the attention of the media and the masses. The very term ‘Radham’- or chariot denotes ‘power’ of the King. When the political leaders began to think and act like ‘Kings’- they can at best be benevolent patrons and at worst be corrupts pimps in the corridors of power.
The health of political Parties and electoral process are the most important markers of healthy democracy. Hence it is crucial to maintain the health of these two necessary factors in sustaining a democratic process. The cancer of corruption is actually eating in to the heart of a democratic political system. And erosion of the legitimacy of such a system can be detrimental to the very viability and sustainability of democracy itself. This was evident in the context of Bangladesh, when Army stepped in with ‘appointed’ civil government to ‘fight corruption’ at the cost of democracy.
The political parties and electoral systems need to be more transparent and accountable. The decoupling of the interests of business elites and political parties are imperative for the sustainability of democracy in India and elsewhere. The funding for political parties and elections need to be transparent and accountable. At the heart of the problem is increasing lack of accountability in political system, media, big corporation and even NGOs. The Right to Accountability should be an integral part of the Right to democratic Governance.
