Corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities like bribery, influence peddling, embezzlement, and fraud as well as practices that are legal in many countries, such as lobbying. Political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain.
Historically, "corruption" had a broader meaning concerned with an activity's impact on morals and societal well-being: for example, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was condemned to death in part for "corrupting the young".
Contemporary corruption is perceived as most common in kleptocracies, oligarchies, narco-states, authoritarian states, and mafia states, however, more recent research and policy statements acknowledge that it also exists in wealthy capitalist economies. In How Corrupt is Britain, David Whyte reveals that corruption exists "across a wide range of venerated institutions" in the UK, ranked as one of the least corrupt countries by the Corruption Perceptions Index. In a 2022 speech on "Modern Corruption", USAID Administrator Samantha Power stated: "Corruption is no longer just about individual autocrats pilfering their nation's wealth to live large", but also involves sophisticated transnational networks, including financial institutions hidden in secrecy. Responding to Whyte's book, George Monbiot criticized the CPI for its narrow definition of corruption that surveys mostly only Western executives about bribery. Similarly, others point out that "global metrics systematically under-measure 'corruption of the rich' - which tends to be legalized, institutionalized, and ambiguously unethical - as opposed to 'corruption of the poor'".
Corruption and crime are endemic sociological occurrences that appear regularly in virtually all countries on a global scale in varying degrees and proportions. Recent data suggests corruption is on the rise. Each nation allocates domestic resources for the control and regulation of corruption and the deterrence of crime. Strategies undertaken to counter corruption are often summarized under the umbrella term anti-corruption. Additionally, global initiatives like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 16 also have a targeted goal which is supposed to reduce corruption in all of its forms substantially. Recent initiatives like the Tax Justice Network go beyond bribery and theft and bring attention to tax abuses.
Definitions and scales
Stephen D. Morris, a professor of politics, wrote that political corruption is the illegitimate use of public power to benefit a private interest. Economist Ian Senior defined corruption as an action to secretly provide a good or a service to a third party to influence certain actions which benefit the corrupt, a third party, or both in which the corrupt agent has authority. World Bank economist Daniel Kaufmann extended the concept to include "legal corruption" in which power is abused within the confines of the law—as those with power often have the ability to make laws for their protection. The effect of corruption in infrastructure is to increase costs and construction time, lower the quality and decrease the benefit.Corruption is a complex phenomenon and can occur on different scales. Corruption ranges from small favors between a small number of people, to corruption that affects the government on a large scale, and corruption that is so prevalent that it is part of the everyday structure of society, including corruption as one of the symptoms of organized crime. "Corruption of the rich" is particularly hard to measure and largely excluded from conventional metrics like the CPI.
A number of indicators and tools have been developed which can measure different forms of corruption with increasing accuracy; but when those are impractical, one study suggests looking at bodyfat as a rough guide after finding that obesity of cabinet ministers in post-Soviet states was highly correlated with more accurate measures of corruption.
Petty theft, grand theft, speed money, access money
Political economist Yuen Yuen Ang "unbundles corruption" into four types, encompassing both petty and grand corruption as well as legal and illegal versions: petty theft, grand theft, speed money, access money. According to her definition, speed money "means petty bribes that businesses or citizens pay to bureaucrats to get around hurdles or speed things up." This is the kind of corruption associated with the "efficient grease hypothesis," which economists found burdensome to businesses in practice. Ang defines access money as "high-stakes rewards extended by business actors to powerful officials, not just for speed, but to access exclusive, valuable privileges." Most theories about bribery focus on speed money, but neglects access money. "From a businessperson's point of view, access money is less a tax than an investment... making it more sludge than grease." The Unbundled Corruption Index measures the prevalence of these four types of corruption.Whereas corruption with theft and speed money is endemic in poor countries, access money can be found in both poor and rich countries.
Petty corruption
Petty corruption occurs at a smaller scale and takes place at the implementation end of public services when public officials meet the public. For example, in many small places such as registration offices, police stations, state licensing boards, and many other private and government sectors.Grand corruption
Grand corruption is defined as corruption occurring at the highest levels of government in a way that requires significant subversion of the political, legal and economic systems. Such corruption is commonly found in countries with authoritarian or dictatorial governments but also in those without adequate policing of corruption.The government system in many countries is divided into the legislative, executive and judicial branches in an attempt to provide independent services that are less subject to grand corruption due to their independence from one another.
Systemic corruption
Systemic corruption is corruption which is primarily due to the weaknesses of an organization or process. It can be contrasted with individual officials or agents who act corruptly within the system.Factors which encourage systemic corruption include conflicting incentives, discretionary powers; monopolistic powers; lack of transparency; low pay; and a culture of impunity. Specific acts of corruption include "bribery, extortion, and embezzlement" in a system where "corruption becomes the rule rather than the exception." Scholars distinguish between centralized and decentralized systemic corruption, depending on which level of state or government corruption takes place; in countries such as the post-Soviet states both types occur. Some scholars argue that there is a negative duty of western governments to protect against systematic corruption of underdeveloped governments.
Corruption has been a major issue in China, where society depends heavily on personal relationships. By the late 20th century that combined with the new lust for wealth, produced escalating corruption. Historian Keith Schoppa says that bribery was only one of the tools of Chinese corruption, which also included, "embezzlement, nepotism, smuggling, extortion, cronyism, kickbacks, deception, fraud, squandering of public money, illegal business transactions, stock manipulation and real estate fraud." Given the repeated anti-corruption campaigns it was a prudent precaution to move as much of the fraudulent money as possible overseas.
In Latin American countries, corruption is permitted as a result of the cultural norms of the institution. In countries like the United States, there is a relatively strong sense of trust among strangers, one that is not found in Latin American countries. In Latin American countries, this trust does not exist, whereas the social norms imply that no stranger is responsible for the wellbeing or happiness of another stranger. Instead, the trust is found in acquaintances. Acquaintances are treated with trust and respect—a level of trust that is not found among acquaintances in countries like the United States. This is what permits for corruption in Latin American countries. If there is a strong enough trust within an administration that no one will betray the rest, corruptive policies will take place with ease.
State-business collusion
While not necessarily involving bribery, recent research documents the emergence of "a particular kind of large, non-state business group" that is akin to a mafia system in China. In this situation, the boundary between public and private actors blurs.Causes
Per R. Klitgaard corruption will occur if the corrupt gain is greater than the punitive damages multiplied by the likelihood of being caught and prosecuted.Since a high degree of monopoly and discretion accompanied by a low degree of transparency does not automatically lead to corruption, a fourth variable of "morality" or "integrity" has been introduced by others. The moral dimension has an intrinsic component and refers to a "mentality problem", and an extrinsic component referring to circumstances like poverty, inadequate remuneration, inappropriate work conditions and inoperable or over-complicated procedures which demoralize people and let them search for "alternative" solutions.
According to a 2017 survey study, the following factors have been attributed as causes of corruption:
It has been noted that in a comparison of the most corrupt with the least corrupt countries, the former group contains nations with huge socio-economic inequalities, and the latter contains nations with a high degree of social and economic justice.
While petty, grand, and systemic corruption, described above, are largely found in poor countries with weak institutions, a newer literature has turned to money politics in wealthy democracies and extreme global inequalities. Simon Weschle at Syracuse University examines the prevalence of campaign finance and its consequences for democracy. Kristin Surak at the London School of Economics explores the controversial practice of millionaires buying "golden passports" with no intention of actually migrating. In her words, "a full-blown citizenship industry that thrives on global inequalities" has arisen."
Much of existing literature focuses on explicit corrupt actions like bribery and embezzlement, endemic in poor countries. For "money in politics," the causes are very different and largely ignored in conventional literature. For example, the UK is a developed economy with a robust democracy, and yet London is a hub for money laundering. In a critique of the failures and politics leading up to the US financial crisis, a Stanford financial economist noted, "In the real world, it turned out, important economic outcomes are often the consequences of political forces. During 2010, people within regulatory bodies told me privately that false and misleading claims were affecting key policy decisions... I saw confusion, willful blindness, political forces, various and sometimes subtle forms of corruption, and moral disengagement, first hand."
Social norms have been posited as an explanation for why some environments are corrupt and others are not.
Contemporary corruption in Africa has been linked by a book to the historical systematic use of material incentives by colonisers to compel local African rulers to collaborate. For all developing countries, the degree of European settlement in the colonial era correlates with levels of contemporary corruption.
Within less democratic countries, the presence of resources such as diamonds, gold, oil, and forestry and other extractable resources tends to increase the prevalence of corruption, also called the resource curse. The presence of fuel extraction and export is unambiguously associated with corruption, whereas mineral exports only increased corruption in poorer countries. In wealthier countries, mineral exports such as gold and diamonds are actually associated with reduced corruption.
While democratization in countries with below average democracy levels was found correlated with some increase in corruption, in countries with above average democracy indices further democratization tends to reduce corruption. A study found the increase in corruption at low democracy levels associated with unfair elections and limited freedom of speech and freedom of association.