PFHCSC: Semana 14, ¿Qué se puede hacer?

Semana 14: Controlling Corruption Through Collective Action, Mungiu-Pippidi

Central Idea: “In order to place effective checks on these officials [who act as patrons or gatekeepers for corruption in patrimonial regimes], thereby creating real accountability, there must exist at the grassroots level an active and enlightened citizenry rather than simply dependent clients or disempowered individuals” (103).

·         “Democratization is increasingly producing a new type of regime—one in which rulers who monopolize power and treat the state as their own patrimony are succeeded by competing political groupings or parties that practice similarly nonuniversal allocation of public resources based on patronage, nepotism, and the exchange of favors. (…) Despite the presence of political pluralism and contested elections in these societies, ethical universalism fails to take hold as the main rule of the game, and winners of the political process, in turn, treat the state as the major source of spoils, feeding off the public resources that they divert toward their clients” (101). Political competition in itself (maybe also economic competition) does not in itself solve particularism, patrimonialism or corruption. Competition does not ensure that a set of rules oriented at maximum social welfare will exist or even develop.

·         “It seems that ethical universalism becomes an institution (a widespread norm endorsed by the majority) rather than a mere ideology of the enlightened when 1) a significant part of society shares the belief in the superiority of ethical universalism over particularism as a mode of governance, and 2) enough individuals are also willing to act on this belief to make it a reality. This does not necessarily require an absolute majority, but rather a majority of active public opinion, including a fraction of the elite” (104). Public opinion (defined as that of the media and an active citizenry) can shape what the rules are when they act as watchdogs and are not relegated to being clients of the government. Mungiu-Pippidi focuses on what she considers to be a set of rules called “ethical universalism”, but it may be more a matter of justice than of ethics, as she also calls it “an optimal equilibrium that maximizes social welfare” (109).

·         Civil society must “have the permanent capability to exercise normative constraints, and not be forced to rely solely on the vertical accountability provided by elections” (109) through the extensive use of civil associations and political participation. In parallel, “the media must be pluralistic and must carry out their watchdog duties effectively and credibly in order to generate normative constraints. The media must promote ethical universalism as the chief principle of governance and denounce governments captured by private interests” (110). This ensures that there is one set of rules for everyone, and that the government cannot rely on its authority or clientelistic relationships with the citizenry or the media to circumvent them.

The “normative constraints” cited by Mungiu-Pippidi are (103-104):

·         Values: “A prevailing social norm of ethical universalism based on values such as fairness and honesty”

·         Social capital: “A widespread habit of engaging in formal or informal collective action around shared interests, purposes, and values”

·         Civil society: “A dense network of voluntary associations (including the NGOs in the Western understanding of the term, but also unions, religious groups, and the like)”

·         Civic culture: “Sustained participation and political engagement of the people, for instance through the media or social movements”

Mungiu-Pippidi tests her central thesis empirically and finds a “significant positive relationship between control of corruption and:

·         “the number of associations (CSOs) per capita that explains 54% of the total variation, controlling for either human development or GDP per capita”

·         “freedom of the press” (67%), via Freedom House’s index

·         “Number of internet connections” (71%), used as an indicator of individual autonomy and access to information

·         “Protestantism is the major religious denomination” (61%), which seems to be relevant due to its “egalitarian ethos, which may have worked indirectly to support a general orientation toward ethical universalism, literacy, and the promotion of individualism”.

·         Joined in an OLS regression, these four variables account for “nearly 78% of the cases” and 84% “when outliers are eliminated” (107).

These percentages refer to how much of the variation in countries’ measure in the World Bank Institute’s control of corruption indicator can be traced to these four characteristics, both individually and as a group.

Mungiu-Pippidi then goes on to explain the problems faced by external donors when financing anticorruption projects in developing countries. These are:

·         Insufficient concreteness: “Far too many projects deal with corruption in general, with a focus on “raising awareness”, while only a handful directly attack corruption in a specific organization or branch of government” (113).

·         Poor contextualization: “To challenge corruption, one must understand how it works in a specific environment. Importing anticorruption policies from developed to less-developed countries, where institutional fit is poor, cannot succeed” (113).

·         Confusion between civil society’s role as a watchdog over the government and a deliverer of services for that same government: “If civil society is funded by the government or asked by its donors to carry out joint programs with the government that it is supposed to monitor, it risks jeopardizing its critical oversight role, and a client-patron relationship may emerge instead” (113).

·         Lack of a local focus: “As normative constraints in corrupt societies are more often exercised against whistleblowers than against corrupt officials, it is essential that donor groups provide political support and take their cues from local actors rather than trying themselves to direct the creation of domestic forces in favor of change” (114).

Regarding a possible concept of corruption as it relates to particularism and patrimonialism, Mungiu-Pippidi says that “in a society dominated by particularism, it is more convenient for individuals to try to accede to the privileged group or to become clients of influential patrons tan to engage in a long-term battle to change the rule of the game to ethical universalism. In such societies, there is no tradition of association between equals, since trust is particularistic and is built on clans, patrons, and clients. Attempts to change this are bound to have high costs with few immediate returns. Any progress toward ethical universalism would threaten the existing order, and the predators and patrons who would fight against such progress are likely to be greater in number, richer, and better placed in the society than in the new horizontally structured associations” (109).