When I started this MSc and especially this module I was surprised at how almost everything (Development, Politics, Democracy, change, the list goes on )we are studying is said to be complex, difficult to measure ,no clear definitions and is dependent on different issues and mostly relative to context. When the topic of Corruption came up , I didn’t expect it to fall into the complicated category as I thought that there was an agreed definition and agreed ways to measure. I then discovered that corruption is also complex and dynamic, rooted in economic, political , social and cultural factors. It is harmful yet sometimes beneficial and comes in a varied forms, from petty to grand in scale, political to bureaucratic, incidental to systematic. A victim today can be a perpetrator tomorrow. According to Rocha Menocal (2015, p 15) , “It opens up and closes down spaces for individuals, groups, organisations and institutions that populate civil society, the state, the public sector and the private sector”. In their study Rocha Menocal et al (2015) concluded that corruption disproportionately affects the poor as they depend more on state services, it keeps basic services out of their reach. Corruption causes vary and are mainly contextual however it is mainly caused by weak governance. In countries were governance is weak power is mainly centralized in the executive and there are poor accountability mechanisms. This gives the elites too much discretion which then manifests itself as corruption.
I found the relationship between corruption and development interesting. The Transparency international measures corruption with a score from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). On top of the ranking are strong democracies that is Denmark (88), New Zealand (87) and Finland (85). On the opposite end are failed and fragile states a very low score, Somalia (10), Syria (13) and South Sudan (14). This shows that corruption is a problem in the developing world and is worst in failed and fragile states. Corruption is prevalent and higher in political systems in transition than either fully democratic or fully authoritarian regimes. Resource rich countries tend to have high levels of corruption, these countries rich in natural resources tend to be highly corrupt and poorly governed, due to the incentive these extractive resources generate for the ruling elite. An example of this is Angola with a rating of (19) which is ranked one of the world’s most corrupt nations.
The complex nature of corruption makes tackling it difficult because it is not easy to separate it from social, political and economic dynamics because of its many interconnected causes and effects. For example a demand of a bribe or gift by a civil servant issuing passports from an ordinary citizen can be linked to a chain of expectation from a higher authority. They might be expected to pay their supervisors a certain amount for a certain period. In such cases corruption cannot be addressed at the level of the passport issuing office because there are many interactions at different levels.
Corruption and Development
The definition of corruption as “the abuse of public office for private gain” leads to the conclusion that that corruption has a negative effect on economic growth. When public offices make decisions based purely on their own personal interests, their decisions are not likely to be of benefit the public. Since large capital projects provide tempting opportunities for corruption, a civil servant may award a contract to an inefficient contractor simple because they offered him a bribe or they stand to gain in one way or another. Corruption affects development in many ways, it can lead to waste of resources, bribes can results in a higher expenditure. It takes money out of the economic system especially if the embezzled funds are taken out of the country, the money is lost and not invested locally. Corruption could imply less private investment since it is a barrier to investors, and therefore slower economic growth.
I learnt that not all corruption is bad, some countries have been able to advance in economic growth despite high levels of corruption. Corruption can also have a potential positive influence on economic development, it sustains public services that could otherwise collapse in its absence. People pay small amounts of money for services that are meant to be free thereby supplementing the public workers’ salaries and in turn receive services. Corruption can also allow bureaucratic procedures to be speeded up and allow businesses to launch valuable new projects that would have not been possible in closed economies.
Anti-corruption efforts
I found it surprising that despite the significant investments made by international donors to combat corruption, few strides have been made in tackling this monster. There is evidence that anti-corruption efforts have increased corruption levels. So far there has been little agreement on how to tackle corruption. The principal agent and collective action theories dominate the anti-corruption field of how corruption happens and how it can be addressed. The principal agent theory is the bases of how government functions, the principal delegates an agent who ensures that others comply with regulations. Corruption becomes solvable with policies that reduce discretion or increase the ability of principals to hold agents accountable. The collective action theory is based on the idea that non-corrupt behavior is in the group’s collective interest and that it is not clear that the principals will want to hold the agents accountable. People often participate in corruption because everyone is doing it, and it’s the only way to get things done. In such societies corruption is the norm and anti-corruption efforts have failed because it is difficult to change the norm. According to Marquette and Peiffer 2015, “both theories are in fact valuable, but both miss out an important third perspective, which is that corruption can serve important functions, solving difficult problems that people face, especially in weak institutional environments”.
Anti-corruption tackling needs people to understand the complexity, domestic context and factors driving corruption, and should be driven by context and not theory. A coordinated approach should be used that takes into account the principal agent problem, collective action problem and that corruption as problem solving. Many anti-corruption campaigns aim to target corruption directly and publicly. This makes it easy for the corrupt system to adapt and reform and emerge as new forms of corruption . As a result, short-term successes are recorded but become unsustainable and sometimes generate negative effects in the long run. There is thus an argument to combat corruption quietly through projects that are not seen as anti-corruption but those that address the many facets of the socio- political systems.
References
Marquette, H & Peiffer, C 2015 ‘Corruption and collective action’ Developmental Leadership Program, University of Birmingham.
Rocha Menocal, A., et al. (2015). Why corruption matters: understanding causes, effects and how to address them. Evidence Paper. London: DFID.
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