7 - Learning From Political Corruption Case Studies

Summary

There is no single explanation for why any political outcome happens. As such, our broader understanding of why corruption occurs is coloured by this underlying complexity. In drawing together concluding thoughts surrounding what can be learned from our four case studies, it is useful to rely on some of the conceptual, theoretical and methodological bedrocks that ground our analysis as political scientists. It has generally been accepted that there are five “I”s that help us to draw together these threads and better help us to understand specific phenomena in the round (Peters 2020).

First, the causal power that (both formal and informal) institutions within society hold over how and why we act the way that we do. Second, how we might understand the interests that actors have that can explain their political actions. Third, that our underpinning ideology and/ or the widely held ideas within a society can, somewhat amorphously, explain certain outcomes. Fourth, that the role and influence of individuals can be central in understanding certain courses of action. Finally, that the importance of the international environment in structuring what is, and is not, appropriate may well have an effect on political behaviour.

The five “I”s in context

The study of corruption is often represented as a pitched battle between explanations that favour the power of interests and explanations that favour the power of institutions – and the submissions from our four contributors here (and their interpretations of the case studies therein) are no different. On the one hand, sensible solutions might well be based around rebalancing incentives structures. So, for example, Jacques Chirac sees it as not in his best interest to indulge in misbehaviour.

On the other hand, a problem highlighted is one of an institutional failing where both Darleen Druyun and Jack Abramoff indulge in illegal behaviour due to a mixture of both implicit and explicit institutional weaknesses such that it stretches credulity that they are merely “bad apples”. Or, as the Azerbaijani case highlights, institutions can end up being structured in ways that can implicitly encourage misbehaviour. As such, the solution posited is to focus far more on embedding the aforementioned logics of appropriate behav-iour within said institutions, such that cultures and norms of good behaviour exist from top to bottom.