- A civil servant gives a position in his office to a relative rather than to a better-qualified applicant. [Nepotism]
- A political party wins an election and then removes all office-holders who supported the opposition party. [Patronage]
- A legislator owns stock in a mining company, and votes for a bill which will give tax concessions to the company. [Legislative conflict of interest]
- Government bureaucrats use their knowledge and contacts to establish a part-time consulting firm which gives advice to private clients. [Bureaucratic conflict of interest]
To Gibbons’ list, might be added the awarding of government contracts to favoured friends or political supporters lying to the media and the public and many forms of campaign finance; all raise similar problems of abuse of office.
Third, business corruption, fraud, theft, abuse, error and waste. These improprieties, differ from official corruption and abuse of office, primarily because they are committed by someone who is not an office holder. Probably, the most frequent activity under this category ,concerns business corruption or 'kickbacks.' A second form of private misconduct is fraud. And stil there are everal other forms of misconduct by corporations or private citizens.
The final public problem which should be mentioned is 'Organized Crime and Racketeering.' Crime syndicates and racketeers can and do corrupt publie officials to nullify law enforcement. However, while corruption is a tool of crime syndicates and racketeers, it is not the same thing. Many forms of official corruption are unrelated to crime syndicates and racketeering, and crime syndicates are sometimes able to operate even where officials are completely honest.
So, variations in definitions among nations, guarantee that no definition of corruption will be equally accepted in every nation. These variations can be found whether definitions are based on statutory criteria, on the impact of corruption on the public interest, or on public opinion.
The issue of corruption has to some extent entered the political and economic sciences, from the new interest in the role of the state in the developing world, and in particular from the idea that the state is an indispensable instrument for economic development.
In contrast to the largely rejected 'state-dominated' and 'state-less' development models, there is now much consensus on the relevance of an efficient medium-sized state in economic development. The 1997 World Development Report stated that 'an effective state is vital for the provision of the goods and services—and the rules and institutions—that allow markets to flourish and people to lead healthier, happier lives. Without it, sustainable development, both economic and social is impossible.'
Corruption has come up as a thematic constituent of this renewed paradigm, in which development necessitates economic reform, which is again dependent on political and administrative reforms like good governance and civil service reforms (CRS), accountability, human rights, multipartyism and democratisation. Besides, very high levels of corruption has been observed where the government is regarded as illegitimate in the eyes of the population—implying widespread disrespect for legal procedures—and in countries where the state plays an interventionist role in the economy. The role of the state and of politics is therefore essential to understand corruption.
The decisive role of the state is also reflected in most definitions of corruption. Corruption is conventionally understood, and referred to, as the private wealthseeking behaviour of someone who represents the state and the public authority, or as the misuse of public goods by public officials for private ends. The working definition of the World Bank is that corruption is the abuse of public power for private benefit.
In other words, corruption is a particular (and, one could say, perverted) statesociety relation. On the one side is the state, that is the civil servants, functionaries, bureaucrats and politicians, anyone who holds a position of authority to allocate rights over (scarce) public resources in the name of the state or the government. Corruption is when these individuals are misusing the public power they are bestowed with for private benefit. The corrupt act is when this responsible person accepts money or some other form of reward, and then proceeds to misuse his official powers by returning undue favours. For instance, it is an act of corruption when a state official takes a bribe to render some public service that is supposed to be free of charge or demands more than the official cost of it.
The involvement of state officials in corruption is also emphasised in an alternative definition, where corruption is seen as 'a form of secret social exchange through which those in power—political or administrative—take personal advantage, of one type or another, of the influence they exercise in virtue of their mandate or their function.' In sum, almost every definition—or rather conceptualisation—of corruption has a principal focus on the state and politics ('the corrupted'), and a 'demand-oriented' perspective.
On the other side of a corrupt act is nevertheless the 'supply side”, and some theories and conceptualisations exist that emphasise the 'corrupters,' those who offer the bribes, and the advantages they gain. These suppliers are the general public, or—in other words—the non state society. The counterparts to the corrupt officials are any non-governmental and non-public individual, corporate and organisational, domestic and external.
Corruption also exists within and between private businesses, within nongovernmental organisations, and between individuals in their personal dealings, without any state agency or state official being involved. There is corruption also in the form of bribing, swindling, and mafia-methods within and between private businesses, there are treacherous individuals and disloyal employees also in private firms. This kind of corruption may even have repercussions into the political system as it destroys the public morale, and it may be symptomatic for the general economic and moral development of a society.
However, most definitions of corruption will exclude this intra-societal corruption, and emphasise corruption as a state-society relationship. This is quite appropriate as long as the focus is not exclusively on the personal, cultural and social aspects of corruption. Business-internal corruption can and will normally be handled as a disciplinary problem within the firm, as a judicial problem within a given legal framework, or as a moral problem within a cultural setting. Therefore, in contrast to corrupt state-society relations, business internal corruption will not necessarily have to consider the broader political and economic issues.
In the definition shared by most political scientists, political corruption is any transaction between private and public sector actors through which collective goods are illegitimately converted into private-regarding payoffs. In a more strict definition, political corruption involves political decisionmakers. Political or grand corruption takes place at the high levels of the political system. It is when the politicians and state agents, who are entitled to make and enforce the laws in the name of the people, are themselves corrupt. Political corruption is when political decision-makers use the political power they are armed with, to sustain their power, status and wealth. Thus, political corruption can be distinguished from bureaucratic or petty corruption, which is corruption in the public administration, at the implementation end of politics. Political corruption not only leads to the misallocation of resources, but it also affects the manner in which decisions are made. Political corruption is the manipulation of the political institutions and the rules of procedure, and therefore it influences the institutions of government and the political system, and it frequently leads to institutional decay. Political corruption is therefore something more than a deviation from formal and written legal norms, from professional codes of ethics and court rulings. Political corruption is when laws and regulations are more or less systematically abused by the rulers, side-stepped, ignored, or even tailored to fit their interests. Political corruption is a deviation from the rational-legal values and principles of the modern state, and the basic problem is the weak accountability between the governors and the governed. In particular in authoritarian countries, the legal bases, against which corrupt practices are usually evaluated and judged, are weak and furthermore subject to downright encroachment by the rulers.
The formal legal framework of the state is therefore insufficient as terms of reference to assess and judge the problem of political corruption. Moral, normative, ethical, and indeed political benchmarks will have to be brought in, not at least because it will be necessary to discern legality from legitimacy when it comes to political corruption. Besides, whereas bureaucratic corruption normally can be dealt with through auditing, legislation, and institutional arrangements, the degenerative effects of political corruption cannot be counteracted by an administrative approach alone. Endemic political corruption calls for radical political reforms.
Political corruption—usually supported by widespread bureaucratic or petty corruption—should furthermore be considered as one of the basic modes of operation of authoritarian regimes. However, the essence of the problem of political corruption differs much between authoritarian and liberal democratic regimes. In democratic countries, the problem of political corruption is more of an incidental and occasional nature, and can be dealt with within the existing political system; by reforming, strengthening and vitalising the existing political institutions of checks and balances.
A second analytically important classification of corruption, namely between private and collective forms of corruption. The degree to which the money or benefits collected through corruption is 'privatised,' is varying. It may be extraction for the benefit of an individual who will share nothing or very little of the benefits with his equals, or it may be extraction for a particular group with some coherence and unity. The 'private,' individual and intimate nature of corruption is repeatedly underlined because of the illegal and surreptitious nature of corrupt transactions. The illegality and immorality of corruption necessitates a collusion or conspiracy between individuals, or at least a certain closeness and confidentiality.
However, corruption may also be 'collective.' First of all because corruption has a substantial economic effect in aggregate terms, but also because corruption may in itself be a deliberate way of resource extraction for the benefit of a larger group. Some definitions of corruption also emphasises the point that the rulers as a group or class, or as an institution or organisation, make unjustified use of their influence to extract resources for the benefit of the group as such.
Corruption has a strong inclination for 'collectivisation.' To keep quiet and gradually take part in the practice is usually much less costly than to blow the whistle, inform, and confront. A conspiracy between individuals is easily extended into a larger practice involving colleagues, partners, assistants, patrons and superiors. Instances of petty corruption may therefore develop into larger networks, cliques and medium-sized brotherhoods, and finally into large-scale institutionalised corruption if unchecked, if there is 'room for manoeuvre.'
In whose interest does corruption take place, and who benefits the most from corruption? The various definitions of corruption maintain that the state—or some state agent—is always involved, and that corruption is basically a particular state-society relationship. It is furthermore maintained that this relationship is based on a mutual exchange of benefits, that it is an exchange from which both the state—the state agent—and the society—the individual citizen, client or businessman—will draw some immediate and private benefit. This relationship of mutual exchange is rarely balanced, however. In aggregate terms corrupt practices will generate a flow of resources either from the society to the state—extractive corruption, or corruption form above—or from the state to the society—redistributive corruption, or corruption from below.'
The Rat, suddenly interrupted, 'Sir, may I talk?' The miller replied, 'No, I am laying the law to you, about the lewdness of your life and conversation, and the abominable sin of stealing; but your thieving, is now come home to you, and I shall e’n leave honest: Puss here to reckon with you for all your rogueries. So, listen to what I'm going to say!'"
