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Endemic and Planned Corruption in a Monarchical Regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

John Waterbury
John Waterbury
Affiliation:
The Department of Political Science of the University of Michigan
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Extract

Corruption may be defined in a legal or normative sense, and in some societies the two definitions may be coincident. In the legal sense, corruption is self-regarding behavior on the part of public functionaries that directly violates legal restrictions on such behavior. Normatively, a public functionary may be considered corrupt whedier or not a law is being violated in the process. A legally corrupt person may arouse no normative reprobation; a person judged corrupt by normative standards may be legally clean. What is common to both definitions is the notion of the abuse of public power and influence for private ends. It can safely be assumed that any society or political system manifests some level of one or the other, or both of these forms of corruption.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , July 1973 , pp. 533 - 555
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1973

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References

1 From a “Comment,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vi (January 1964), 195, as cited in Nye, J. S., “Corruption and Political Development: A Cost-Benefit Analysis,” American Political Science Review, LXI (June 1967), 417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Bousquet, G.-A., Ibn Khaldoun: les textes sociologiques et économiques de la Mou qaddima (Paris 1965), 171.Google Scholar

3 Nye (fn. I); Leff, Nathaniel, “Economic Development through Bureaucratic Corruption,” American Behavioral Scientist, VIII (November 1964), 8–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scott, James C., “The Analysis of Corruption in Developing Nations,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, XI (June 1969), 315–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I regret that in the preparation of this article I was unable to consult Scott's, James recent Comparative Political Corruption (Engle-wood Cliffs, N.J. 1972).Google Scholar

4 Cf. Bill, James, “Modernization and Reform from Above: The Case of Iran,” Journal of Politics, XXXII (February 1970), 19–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 See Weber, Max, Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans, by Parsons, Talcott (Glencoe, Ill. 1947), 313–29.Google Scholar

6 Willner, Ann Ruth, “Neotraditional Accommodation to Political Independence: The Case of Indonesia,” in Pye, Lucian, ed., Cases in Comparative Politics: Asia (Boston 1970), 249.Google Scholar Cf. Zonis, Marvin, The Political Elite of Iran (Princeton 1971), esp. 100–102.Google Scholar The systemic parallels between Morocco and Iran are extraordinarily, although not coincidentally, close.

7 Wilkie, James W., The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change since 1910 (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1967), 5–9.Google Scholar

8 For a relevant analysis, see Scott, James C., “Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change,” American Political Science Review, LXIII (December 1969), 1142–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 For some excellent discussions of what has become the subject of a great deal of study among anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists, see Boissevain, Jeremy, “Patronage in Sicily,” Man: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, I (March 1966), 18–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lemarchand, René and Legg, Keith, “Political Clientelism and Development: A Preliminary Analysis,” Comparative Politics, IV (January 1972), 149–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lemarchand, , “Clientelism and Ethnicity in Tropical Africa: Competing Solidarities in Nation-building,” American Political Science Review, LXVI (March 1972), 68–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weingrod, Alex, “Patrons, Patronage, and Political Parties,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, x (July 1969), 376–400Google Scholar; Scott, James C., “Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia,” American Political Science Review, LXVI (March 1972), 91–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sandbrook, Richard, “Patrons, Clients, and Factions: New Dimensions of Conflict Analysis in Africa,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, v (March 1972), 104–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 For a useful discussion of the overlap between patronage and corruption, see Roy, Edward Van, “On the Theory of Corruption,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, XIX (October 1970), 86–110.Google Scholar Scott calls attention to the same overlap when he proposes “… that corruption may be viewed as a process of political influence such that similar practices may violate community norms at one place and time and not at another” (fn. 3), 317. I do not concur in the relevance of the distinction between “patron,” a person who controls resources, and “broker,” a person who controls access to resources-a distinction made by both Scott (fn. 9), 96–98, and Lemarchand (fn. 9), throughout. It would seem to me unlikely that any given patron would fail to combine some aspects of both functions, and, after all, connections are resources, as is the number of clients.

11 Andreski, Stanislav, Parasitism and Subversion: The Case of Latiti America (New York 1969), 11Google Scholar; see also Lemarchand (fn. 9), 75, n. 27, citing Ronald Cohen; Scott (fn. 9), 101.

12 Boissevain (fn. 9), develops this theme with reference to Sicily, suggesting that Catholicism, a saint-oriented religion, gives an other-worldly impetus to the quest for intercession. It may be that saints are part and parcel of belief systems emerging out of situations of real material scarcity. Islam, while hostile to saints, has been forced to tolerate saindy cults most everywhere it has spread. For more on the interrelation of scarcity, state power, and patronage, see Lemarchand and Legg (fn. 8); Vingradov, A. and Waterbury, J., “Situations of Contested Legitimacy in Morocco: An Alternative Framework,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, XIII (January 1971), 32–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 William J. Siffin emphasizes this process with regard to Thailand. See his “Per sonnel Processes of the Thai Bureaucracy,” in Heady, and Stokes, , eds., Papers in Comparative Administration (Ann Arbor 1962), 207–28.Google Scholar

14 Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven 1968), 60.Google Scholar

15 See Eldersveld, S. J. and others, The Citizen and the Administrator in a Developing Democracy (New Delhi 1968), 31–33Google Scholar (citation from p. 33).

16 It may be hypothesized, although I have seen no systematic test of the hypothesis, that in many developing countries corruption fails to arouse mass moral indignation because the notions of public and private spheres are not highly developed. That is, when we speak of the use of public power for private ends, it is assumed that we can define what is private, and that public power is subject to universalistic criteria. It is also assumed that there is a kind of multiple role specialization whereby a bureau crat is a “public” figure for eight hours a day and a “private” citizen the rest. In fact, it is common for bureaucrats in developing countries to carry role-playing to extremes by insulating themselves rigidly in the impartiality and rule-conscious role of the public official in order to stave off the importunities of clients who want to force them into the role of dispenser of particularistic favors. Variations on this theme are explored in Riggs, Fred, Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of Prismatic Society (Boston 1964)Google Scholar; Lee, Hahn-Bee, “Developmentalist Time and Leadership in Developing Countries,” CAG Occasional Papers (Bloomington 1966)Google Scholar; and Silva Michelena, José A., “The Venezuelan Bureaucrat,” in A Strategy for Research on Social Policy (The Politics of Change in Venezuela), I (Boston 1967), 86–119.Google Scholar

17 Bailey, F. G., “The Peasant View of the Bad Life,” Science and Culture (Calcutta), XXXIII (February 1967), 31–40Google Scholar (emphasis in original).

18 See the graphic description of one such process in Patch, Richard, “The La Paz Census of 1970,” American Universities Field Stag Report (West Coast Latin American Series, Hanover, N.H., 1970), 7–10.Google Scholar

19 Leff (fn. 3); Nye (fn. 1).

20 Scott (fn. 3), 335; see also Weingrod (fn. 9).

21 Boissevain (fn. 9) sustains this point with regard to Sicily; see also Gellner, Ernest, “Patterns of Rural Rebellion in Morocco: Tribes as Minorities,” European Journal 0f Sociology, in, No. 2 (1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lemarchand (fn. 9), 68.

22 Many Moroccan entrepreneurs combine elements of the Marxist notion of “comprador” as well as the more graphic expletive of “Lumpen-bourgeoisie” used by André Frank, Gunder in Lumpen-bourgeoisie et lumpen-développement, Maspéro, Cahiers Libres 205–206 (Paris 1971).Google Scholar Omar Ben Messaoud, former attaché in the Royal Cabinet and go-between between Pan American and the Moroccan Ministry of Finance, is exemplary of the Moroccan bourgeoisie, although his arrest indicates that he overplayed his hand. See Waterbury, , “The Coup Manqué,” American Universities Field Staff Report, North African Series, xv, No. 1 (1971).Google Scholar

23 Riggs (fn. 16), 141–42.

24 In this instance, sanctions were applied. The businessman's newspaper was temporarily closed down by order of the Minister of Interior, just long enough for the shipping companies that published their schedules in it to transfer their advertising and notices to another newspaper. The “leftist” newspaper went out of business. Its publisher, after having mulled over his fate for a while, was put at the head of an important state investment body.

25 There are so many operations going on within the Ministry of Finance that it is hard to know which are the most profitable. One steady source of income to the Ministry's black box comes from the processing of all governmental claims for over-rime payments. A fixed percentage of whatever total is approved by Finance for a given agency is retained for Finance's black box. A threat that Finance can always use vis-à-vis other ministries is to refuse to budget their unfilled slots; as much as 25 per cent of all funded slots in the civil service may go unfilled, allowing one man to draw two salaries. Finance holds the key to this practice.

26 See Waterbury, , The Commander of the Faithful: The Moroccan Political Elite—A Study in Segmented Politics (New York 1970), chaps. 5Google Scholar and 6.

27 At the time of writing, Morocco was awaiting new parliamentary elections in the wake of the attempted coup of July 1971. It may be that the opposition parties will participate in the elections, and, because the King needs their pardcipation, the elections may be relatively unrigged. But the parties do not have many material rewards to attract voters; they must rely on the appeal of dieir programs and the rewards they can offer if they win a majority of Parliament.

28 So too, senior army officers, most of whom served in the French army at the time King Hassan's father, Mohammed V, was sent into exile by the French authorities in 1953. That mese officers wound up in command of the Moroccan armed forces after 1956, rather than being tried as traitors, is attributable only to the will of the Moroccan monarchs. Both Mohammed V and Hassan II never let them forget that fact—which is all the more testimony to dieir desperation in trying to overthrow Hassan II in July 1971 and again in August 1972.

29 From an interview in Réalités, No. 250 (November 1966).

30 Interviews with ninety high-ranking bureaucrats revealed that only a few ventured to predict what job they would have a year hence. It is not pure hyperbole to note that one of those who did predict was shot and killed at Skhirat a year later. It is also important to note that the rebel officers were allegedly partially motivated by their unhappiness with unstable careers and political marginalny.

31 Over a period of twelve months, 25 per cent of an initial sample of 160 high ranking bureaucrats changed posts at least once, some of them three times.

32 Since the attempted coup, some ministers have been actually been put on trial for corruption—up to then an unheard-of punishment. At the same time, a minister who was fired in the fall of 1970 amid rumors of malfeasance has been made Minister of Interior.