Corruption in Contemporary Politics. Edited by Martin J. Bull and James L. Newell.
Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants, 2003, 274 pages, GBP50.00 ISBN 0-333-80298-5.
Book Review by Liliane Karlinger.
When, in February 1992, the head of a Milanese old people’s home was arrested in the act of taking a bribe of a modest 7m lire (about 3,500 euros), nobody would have imagined that this event was to trigger the most serious political crisis in the history of post-war Italy, uncovering a network of systemic corruption and extortion of unprecedented dimensions that would soon become known by the name of Tangentopoli. If Tangentopoli had demonstrated that the
unthinkable was at least possible, subsequent revelations in previously “unsuspicious” countries, like the German party financing scandal exposed at the end of 1999, or the Dutroux affair in Belgium, proved that the worst fears could become reality anytime and anywhere. One
consequence of this “decade of scandals” was that corruption reappeared on the research agenda of political science and economics, and the present book bears witness to this trend.
The structure of the book clearly reflects the two major shifts in perspective that characterize this new strand of literature on corruption. First of all, corruption is in no way confined to the
developing world, but afflicts the wealthy liberal democracies of the Western world alike.
Second, if liberal democracies turn out to be far more vulnerable to corruption than was commonly believed before the 1990s, the question arises whether there are elements built into democratic institutions and procedures that may encourage corruption. Consequently, attention shifted from the “corruptors”, be it big business or organized crime, to the “corrupted”, that is politicians, parties, and civil servants, who constitute the backbone of modern democracies.
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After an introductory chapter by the editors, the book proceeds with 13 country chapters, one comparative chapter on Central and Eastern Europe, one international chapter, one chapter on the European Union, and a conclusion. While the chapters consist of individual contributions by different authors, they are structured around a common set of core issues such as the newness, scale and varieties of corruption, its causes and dynamics, anti-corruption laws and campaigns, and the impact of political corruption and its exposure. The book has a clear focus on European countries, giving detailed accounts of Spain, Greece, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland, and the UK. Only two non-European countries are represented in this book, namely the United States and Japan.
Each of the country chapters offers a short narrative of the main scandal (or scandals) in that country, and elucidates the institutional framework and historical context of both the scandal itself and its revelation. To anybody interested in comparative studies of corruption, these short portrays will give valuable reference points when trying to interpret the various countries’ scores in Transparency International’s “Corruption Perceptions Index”, the main “temperature curve” of corruption in international comparison. Targeted at a student audience, the book will also be a helpful starting point from which instructors can develop their courses.
The great strength of this book probably lies in the wealth of experiences and proposals it offers, making it clear that there are no easy answers and “cook-book recipes” for the problem. For instance, there can be no doubt that the failure of the legislature to effectively monitor and control government has contributed to the spread of corruption in several countries (e.g. Italy, Ireland, Britain). Nonetheless, a number of chapters point to the dangerous consequences of opposition parties exploiting corruption for electoral purposes, which partly explains the success of extreme right-wing parties in countries like Belgium or France.
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The book concludes that legal sanctions (even if adequately designed) are unlikely ever to be a significant deterrent, and pleads for the creation of a political culture of integrity and moral leadership at both the individual and society level (p. 245 f). The author of this review fully agrees that more attention must be paid to the prevention of corruption, and there is a series of pragmatic measures that deserve appraisal. For instance, the work of Ades and Di Tella, 1999, shows that the presence of economic rents can provide incentives for corrupt behavior. Thus, measures aimed at reducing such rents, like pro-active antitrust policies, opening domestic markets for foreign competition, privatizing and depoliticizing state monopolies, and a well shaped system of public procurement, can help bring individual incentives back in line with the public interest. Many European countries have achieved major progress in the implementation of such policies, which gained momentum also from those scandals that shook these countries during the 1990s.
While there may be reasons to worry that intense competition may in turn generate corruption (see Shleifer, 2004), such corruption will be of a different nature and dimension, and is likely to be easier to control than the kind of corruption induced by sumptuous “pork barrels” feeding the lucky few.
References:
Alberto Ades & Rafael Di Tella, 1999. "Rents, Competition, and Corruption", American Economic Review, vol. 89(4), pages 982-993.
Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "Does Competition Destroy Ethical Behavior?", American Economic Review, vol. 94(2), pages 414-418.
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