Between Morality and the Law

Corruption, Anthropology and Comparative Society

Italo Pardo, Italo Pardo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351955782
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología

This book explores illegal forms of corruption and, more widely, moral and legal forms of corruption. The authors draw on detailed ethnographic accounts of corrupt practice at local, national and international levels. Coverage includes both Western and non-Western societies, from Italy to Latin America, to Albania, Africa and post-Soviet bureaucracy in Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. There is also a chapter on corruption in the context of globalization. Key issues discussed include the problems caused by the inflated rhetoric of corruption and by the inadequacy of official definitions. The authors look at measures designed to bring corruption under some degree of control, discussing the level of legal intervention compatible with public expectations and with the dynamics of trust and responsibility. This fascinating book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of conflicting public and private moralities.

Chapter 1
Introduction: Corruption, Morality and the Law

Italo Pardo

Abuses of power are almost certainly present in all systems where there are marked asymmetries of power. Perhaps inseparable from the modern state and from a Weberian rational-legal bureaucratic authority, this key aspect of the kind of corruption which Friedrich (1989, p.19) describes as a ‘political pathology’ affects most profoundly associated life and the relationship between citizens and the state. In its most basic form, abuse of power in public life is characterized by the sale of the functions of the office. It consists of actions, or the failure to take actions, that favour selected individuals or groups in exchange for money or other returns, such as the expectation of a job, a favour or political support. This last case especially characterizes modern societies where politics and bureaucracy intermingle as a distinctive form of corruption of the democratic system.

The nature, dynamics and ramifications of abuses of power and corruption extend, however, far beyond such basic definition. The mismanagement of responsibility in the exercise of bureaucratic, economic and political power at various levels, of which corruption and abuse are critical aspects, involve moral choices that are often part of wider frameworks and modes of exchange. That the problematic of moral choice extends both to the corrupt actions of ordinary people and to the legislative process only strengthens the point that these complexities badly need to be understood empirically. The task of developing an ethnographic study of corruption is certainly made difficult by the complexity and elusive nature of this phenomenon; however, anthropologists are particularly well equipped to meet such a challenge.

Our concern in this volume at once includes and goes beyond the strictly legalistic view. Drawing on detailed ethnographies, we address illegal forms of corruption and, more widely, moral and legal forms of corruption, bearing in mind that these are shadowy fields of activity that often defy precise categorization. This necessary clarification would basically justify using the word corruption in inverted commas.

The Problematic of Defining Corruption

The discussions that follow, interdisciplinary debate developed over the years through round-tables, seminars and conferences, and the large literature on this subject (a selection of which is cited in this Introduction) meet the important point made by Heidenheimer, Johnston and Le Vine (1989, pp.3–14) that both the conceptualization of ‘corruption’ in any given society and its definitions at legal and political levels are marked by ambiguities that raise critical issues.

There is historical (Scott 1989) and ethnographic variation in the occurrence, dynamics and extension of corruption, in the perceptions of corruptness and in the interpretations of the legitimacy of corrupt acts. However, aspects such as bribery, extortion, tax evasion and illicit exchanges of favours would seem to recur across different societies. Along the basic lines given earlier, existing definitions of corruption and abuses of power in state societies tend to focus on the material, monetary aspect. Only in such restricted, hard-core sense is corruption clearly defined by most modern legal systems; particularly, in the attempt to control the payment of money to public officials in exchange for illegal acts. Constrained in such straightjacket, legislation proves to be limited, inadequate and inefficient (Lowenstein 1989), de facto allowing corruption to thrive. Countless cases, including those examined in this volume, bring out the issue that in this confuse situation law-enforcing agencies find it difficult to identify, investigate, prevent and punish both corruption in the strict sense and the criminal actions that it engenders. That the definition of (moral and legal) responsibility and culpability of those who take payment (in whatever form) and of those who offer or are forced to give it often defies categorical certainties (right/wrong; legal/illegal; moral/amoral) breeds further confusion. Moreover, the law struggles to cope with the problem that the phenomenon of corruption has evolved from one in which the predominant role was played by the, often coercive, bribe-taker to one in which the bribe-giver has acquired increasing power and increasingly plays the corrupting role of bribe-offerer. At various levels of corrupt deals these two roles have become interchangeable.

On a different level, the point needs to be stressed that, in any given society, corruption is a changing phenomenon, some of its aspects and received morality are culturally specific and its conceptualization is affected by personal interest, cultural values and socio-economic status. In this key sense, corruption needs to be treated contextually and diachronically (Alatas 1968, van Klaveren 1989, Lowenstein 1989). Ideas of what constitutes corrupt behaviour, officially endorsed deceits of language by which corruption – as well as other kinds of illicit conduct – may be routinized and the ways in which corruption and political bribery are legally defined may well change in time. While steering clear of cultural relativism, it is also important to bear in mind that different conceptions of corruption are found in different societies and among different groups and persons in the same society at any given time, raising the issue that the concept of corruption is not easily translated across cultures. This complexity poses several problems, not least of a methodological kind.

Corrupt Actions are an Empirical Challenge

In the ‘Supplementary Note to the 1977 Reprint’ of his seminal book, Political Systems of Highland Burma, Edmund Leach states that abstract thinking that does not systematically rely on the in-depth knowledge of the empirical situation has little to contribute to our understanding of the individual in society. With specific reference to the study of illegal behaviours, and particularly corruption, the importance of this methodological sine qua non is now recognized by a large number of scholars who specialize in disciplines other than anthropology.

The contributions to this volume, all except one (by a jurist) produced by anthropologists, are among the very few ethnographically based studies of corruption. Committed to study the contradictions of the political order, we engage in the challenge posed by the aforementioned methodological sine qua non. We are fully aware that in this field it is particularly difficult to meet the disciplinary commitment to the in-depth investigation of the micro-level – not only are official statistics notoriously unreliable and ‘closed’ questionnaires useless (when not counterproductive); but the traditional methods of participant observation, interviews and case-studies of relevant people and situations are not easily applied, especially if the objective is to meet the requirements of an analysis that endeavours to move beyond the ephemeral certainties of legal definitions. We are equally fully committed to an in-depth understanding of the dynamics and nuances of corruption, in recognition that these difficulties do not make ethnographic research impossible.

The chapters that follow, suggest that information and case-material on corruption are often a contested by-product of anthropological research; the ethnographer ‘happens’ to come across reports on corruption or collect first-hand material on corrupt behaviours while carrying out fieldwork on other issues (see, for example, also Gupta 1995; Gill 2000; Pardo 2000c, 2001; Pardo 2000a, 2000c; Parry 2000; Prato 2000a, 2000b). Of course, corrupt deals are usually, though by no means always, marked by degrees of secrecy and, as Alatas (1968) rightly points out, it takes a long time for their ramifications and implications to become clear. This key methodological point leads to important considerations. As in the course of extended field research the ethnographer has already gained the acceptance and trust of his or her informants, the construction of case-studies, in conjunction with other research methods, may well become practicable and information on illicit deals obtainable. Direct observation of such deals may not always be applicable but background, consequential and connected events can be more easily recorded. It may be difficult to reach sufficient insider status to meet fully the demands of the method of participation. However, useful information can still be extracted from officials’ reports, memoirs and autobiographies and from material collected through the construction of case studies. It is also highly productive to focus on the ways in which people talk about the corruption of others and, in some instances (for example people who have been convicted for this offence or people who believe that what they do, or have done, does not really fall into the category of corruption), their own role in corrupt deals.

As a collective effort, this volume is a concerted attempt to grapple with the ethnographic variety and complexity of corrupt practices in Western (Italy, Spain) and non-Western societies (Latvia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia, Albania, Latin America, Africa). Based on descriptive analyses of corrupt practices at and beyond the local level, it stands as a demonstration that empirical investigation can, and indeed should, be carried out, drawing on long-term research based on a combination of traditional anthropological methods, background knowledge and the study of documentary sources.

Economics of Corruption and Abuses of Power

It is broadly agreed that abuses of power in public office both damage the organization to which the office-holders belong and undermine market competition, particularly when contracts are involved. There is, however, much controversy about their effects on economic growth, and the dispute on whether or not such effects are negative remains unresolved (see, for example, Rose-Ackerman 1999; White 1996; Leff 1989, Nye 1989 and the other contributions in Heidenheimer, Johnston and Le Vine 1989). A collective reading of the contributions to this volume offers insights on three important issues in this debate, inviting us to steer away from the romantic, naïve view. First, by no means is corruption exclusively linked to underdevelopment, poverty and powerlessness. Second, it is certainly not a prerogative of ‘weak’ states. Third, its dynamics reach into the social dimension, as well as the bureaucratic, political, economic and moral dimensions.

The pamphlet recently produced by the World Bank (2000) and the reports published by various agencies have brought new life to the aforementioned controversy and to the debate on the relationship between corruption and morality. The official view appears to rely too heavily on what is seen by many as an absolutistic approach unconcerned with specific social and cultural realities. Most corrupt actions are violations of rules and procedures. Socially constructed ideas of what is legitimate and what is not legitimate play an important role in the extent to which such rules and procedures are established and received in any given society and, therefore, in the impact and ramifications of such violations and in the degree of tolerance which they enjoy. When such rules and procedures are externally devised and imposed, their violation appears to become less of an issue for the people involved. Endorsing a point made by Gledhill’s chapter with reference to Latin America, Prato’s with reference to Albania and Sedlenieks, with reference to Latvia, Harrison’s analysis of the distortions of aid in Africa, and particularly Food and Work schemes in Ethiopia, illustrates the weakness of external categorizations of specific acts and persons as ‘corrupt’ – focusing on finding solutions to what is corruption in the terms of outside agents (the donors), rather than on comprehension of what actually goes on at local level, only compounds the problem.

The relationship between values, norms, and interest (particularly self-interest) is arguably neither fixed nor un-negotiable. I shall expand on this issue later. For now, I shall simply point out that the amount of violations of rules and procedures, even when they are internally devised, is in part determined by their inadequacy or over-complicated nature. Those regarding business transactions, including transactions between private contractors and public bodies, offer a good example. It has been repeatedly found that they are too restrictive, limited or ambiguous. As a consequence, not only do they tend to breed corruption among those who are appointed to apply them and among those who are expected to operate under them (see, for example, Rose-Ackerman 1989, Mazzoni 2000, Feld de la 2000, Paravia 2000); they also form the ground for moral legitimation of not strictly legal actions and practical justifications of corrupt actions (Pardo 2000a).

To put it bluntly, an analysis which relies on a basic definition of corruption as outlined in the opening paragraph of this Introduction is unhelpfully restricted by the underlying assumption that corrupt acts are explained by material interest and dubious moralities. It may well be that corruption and its related practices often involve such kinds of interest and moralities. However, it would be reductive to say that either or both these aspects explain implicitly about corruption. Most certainly, they do not always dictate the dynamics of corrupt action and they do not necessarily play a significant role.

As it is repeatedly shown in this volume, corruption often happens at various levels and involves socially and morally diversified actors, and substantially different motivations may explain the exchanges which take place at each level. Even when money plays an important part, as in the case of contracts for public works, from the point of view of one or more parties in the corrupt deals, the monetary aspect may play second fiddle to, or it may be overruled by, other motivations. A determinant role may well be played by the dynamics of power (its achievement, maintenance and enhancement); the non-material economics of social pressure; political ideology; networked loyalties; moral or political obligations that enjoy legitimacy; even vanity. The conjunction of some of these aspects is exemplified by the case, which I have described elsewhere at length (Pardo 2000a), of the laws passed in Italy in the 1990s. Such legislation absolved the new local administrators from repaying debts contracted by their predecessors with local (mostly small) entrepreneurs for work done for the council. Since coming to power, the new political élite had motivated their refusal to pay the debts on the moral grounds that those entrepreneurs had souped with the devil (the previous ‘corrupt’ administrators) using a very short spoon. Now their refusal was legally justified. As a consequence, many of those creditors went bankrupt, to the advantage of their competitors, who were more keen to toe the new dominant political line and were (therefore?) deemed to be more moral. This leads to some necessary considerations.

Corruption Between Legality and Illegality: Values, Norms and Interest

The weaknesses of legal definitions also undermine a large body of literature that deals with illegal forms of corruption (see, for example, Della Porta and Meny 1997, Levi and Nelken 1993, Rose-Ackerman 1999). As I have indicated, an informed approach needs to engage in the significance of corrupt behaviours that are not strictly illegal and of the individual moralities underlying such behaviours. As it has been argued in detail elsewhere (see contributions in Pardo 2000b), what is legal is not always broadly regarded in society as moral and legitimate and what is illegal as immoral and illegitimate.

The primary task of the ethnographic study of corruption is to account for the variety and complexity of this phenomenon at the levels of official and non-official normative systems. In order to understand the causes, effects and ramifications of corruption we must address two critical aspects, taking into account the gradations of individual positions between the ‘ideal’ extremes – sociological and moral – of right and wrong, legal and illegal, in the messiness of everyday life. First, we must investigate the empirically diversified motivations of those who undertake such actions at both ends of the exchanges; that is, of those who perform those actions and of those who require them to do so, whether on their own initiative or because they feel they have no alternative. Second, we must account for the ways in which corruption is talked about among the corrupt – whether they act inside or outside the law – and among the rest of the population...