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Middlemen in Third-World Corruption: Implications of an Indian Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Philip Oldenburg
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Extract

Corruption—like the weather—is a phenomenon people in the third world talk about a great deal, and, it would seem, do little about. Scholars of political change in the third world share this interest, but—although they are usually not expected to deal with corruption itself —they should move beyond the recounting of vivid anecdotes to a more systematic analysis of the problem. Steps in this direction were made in the 1960s and 1970s, but surprisingly little more work has been done since.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , July 1987 , pp. 508 - 535
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1987

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References

1 All the important prior articles and book extracts are collected in Heiden-heimer, Arnold J., ed., Political Corruption: Readings in Comparative Analysis (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970Google Scholar). See also BenDor, Gabriel, “Corruption, Institutionalization, and Political Development: The Revisionist Thesis Revisited,” Comparative Political Studies 7 (April 1974), 63–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; LeVine, Victor T., Political Corruption: The Ghana Case (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1975Google Scholar); Scott, James C., Comparative Political Corruption (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972Google Scholar); Scott, James C., “Corruption in Underdeveloped Countries,” Cultures et Developpement 5 (No. 1, 1973), 107Google Scholar–24; Waterbury, John, “Endemic and Planned Corruption in a Monarchical Regime,” World Politics 25 (July 1973), 533CrossRefGoogle Scholar–55; and Waterbury, John, “Corruption, Political Stability and Development: Comparative Evidence from Egypt and Morocco,” Government and Opposition 11 (Autumn 1976), 426CrossRefGoogle Scholar–45.

2 Among the studies that have appeared in recent years, see in particular Bunker, Stephen G. and Cohen, Lawrence E., “Collaboration and Competition in Two Colonization Projects: Toward a General Theory of Official Corruption,” Human Organization 42 (Summer 1983), 106CrossRefGoogle Scholar–14; Clarke, Michael, ed., Corruption: Causes, Consequences, and Control (London: Frances Pinter, Ltd., 1983Google Scholar); Macrae, John, “Underdevelopment and the Economics of Corruption: A Game Theory Approach,” World Development 10 (August 1982), 677CrossRefGoogle Scholar–87; Pal-mier, Leslie, The Control of Bureaucratic Corruption: Case Studies in Asia [India, Hong Kong, Indonesia] (New Delhi: Allied, 1985Google Scholar); Wade, Robert, “The System of Administrative and Political Corruption: Canal Irrigation in South India,” Journal of Development Studies 18 (April 1982), 287–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wade, Robert, “The Market for Public Office: Why the Indian State Is Not Better at Development,” World Development 13 (April 1985), 467CrossRefGoogle Scholar–97.

3 Harrison, , Inside the Third World (2d ed., Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1981), 366Google Scholar, 367, 369.

4 Ibid., 367, 368.

5 See Leff, Nathaniel H., “Economic Development Through Bureaucratic Corruption,” American Behavioral Scientist 8 (November 1964), 8–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Heidenheimer (fn. 1), 510–20; Nye, Joseph S., “Corruption and Political Development: A Cost-Benefit Analysis,” American Political Science Review 61 (June 1967), 417CrossRefGoogle Scholar–27, reprinted in Heidenheimer (fn. 1), 564–78; and Waterbury (fn. 1, 1973).

6 See Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 59–71Google Scholar; Scott (fn. 1,1972); Waterbury (fn. 1, 1976); and Carino, Ledivina V. and de Guzman, Raul P., “Negative Bureaucratic Behavior in the Philippines: The Final Report of the IDRC [International Development Research Centre, Canada] Philippines Team,” Philippine Journal of Public Administration 23 (July-October 1979), 350Google Scholar–85.

7 See Ben-Dor (fn. 1); Waterbury (fn. 1, 1973).

8 Macrae (fn. 2); Rashid, Salim, “Public Utilities in Egalitarian LDCs: The Role of Bribery in Achieving Pareto Efficiency,” Kyklos 34 (No. 3, 1981), 448Google Scholar–60.

9 The major exceptions are Wade's articles (fn. 2) and Carino, Ledivina V., “Bureaucratic Norms, Corruption, and Development,” Philippine Journal of Public Administration 19 (October 1975), 278Google Scholar–92.

10 See Scott (fn. 1, 1973).

11 In addition to those by Wade (fn. 2) and Carino (fn. 9), see Greenstone, J. David, “Corruption and Self-interest in Kampala and Nairobi; A Comment on Local Politics in East Africa,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 8 (January 1966), 199–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Hei-denheimer (fn. 1), 459–68; and Barnabas, A. P., The Experience of Citizens in Getting Water Connections (A Survey Report on Knowledge, Communication and Corruption) (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Public Administration, 1965Google Scholar).

12 See, for example, Waterbury (fn. 1) and LeVine (fn. 1).

13 In 1980–1981, this state had a population of about no million; the land consolidation department had 25,000 employees.

14 The exceptions include Barnabas (fn. 11); LeVine (fn. 1), 52–57; and Myrdal, Gunnar, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1968Google Scholar), excerpted in Heidenheimer (fn. 1), 236.

15 In addition to my research into land consolidation, I draw on my earlier work, Big City Government in India: Councilor, Administrator, and Citizen in Delhi, Association for Asian Studies Monograph XXXI (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976Google Scholar), and on my general understanding of Indian politics and administration.

16 Myrdal (fn. 14), 231; emphasis in original.

17 Ibid., 230.

18 Tips are often agreed upon beforehand, and an official who accepts bribes from a particular person on a regular basis may allow for credit. In Hindi and Urdu, the difference is between rishvat (bribe) and baksheesh (tip). The difference may blur; for instance, when the mailman comes to expect a tip at Christmas, his displeasure at an inadequate (especially a nonexistent) one may be made manifest in delayed or damaged mail.

19 Sahi, I.D.N., “Consolidation of Holdings,” Journal of the National Academy of Administration [India] 9 (April 1964), 9Google Scholar.

20 In the rest of U.P. the figure is closer to 80–85 percent. Many villages were consolidated before the act was changed to mandate single-plot farms “as far as possible,” and other areas have a much wider range of land quality, with less chance of improving it, than Meerut. In Meerut, farmers said, “give me my new farm anywhere, as long as it's in one place”; elsewhere, farmers wanted to retain some good, irrigated land rather than have one plot on poorer, drought-prone land.

21 Elder, Joseph, “Land Consolidation in an Indian Village: A Case Study of the Consolidation of Holdings Act in Uttar Pradesh,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 11 (October 1962), 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Khanna, K. C., “Economics of Agriculture: Putting First Things First,” Times of India (New Delhi), June 9,1981Google Scholar. For more precise analyses of the economic impact of consolidation, see Agarwal, S. K., Economics of Land Consolidation in India (Delhi: S. Chand, 1971Google Scholar); Bonner, Jeffrey P., Land Consolidation and Economic Development in India: A Study of Two Haryana Villages (Riverdale, MD: The Riverdale Company, 1986Google Scholar); and India, Planning Commission, Programme Evaluation Organization, Report on Evaluation of Consolidation of Holdings Programme, P.E.O. Publication No. 69 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1969). These studies may underestimate the effect, since they use data from the initial period of the program. Farmer after farmer—admittedly mainly those with holdings of more than one hectare—told me they expected their production to double after consolidation.

23 The actual ownership is transferred only when a fee is paid at the time of registration of the sale.

24 As can readily be imagined, farmers play games to maximize their benefit. For instance, if they expect to lose the field in question (typically because their major holding is elsewhere), they will try to get it overvalued; their neighbors who expect to receive it will try to get it undervalued. If the field is given too high a value, though, the farmer may be forced to retain it—thus winding up with a farm in two places. In Meerut, farmers and officials agreed that the valuation was completely fair in all but a few cases; even those farmers who maintained that corruption was rife agreed that it did not occur at this stage of the process.

25 Philip Oldenburg, “Forced to Be Fair: Citizen Participation in the Land Consolidation Process in Uttar Pradesh, India” (manuscript).

26 Appeals to the highest level—the Deputy Director, Consolidation—typically affect only a few “sectors” of the village—which, however, have significant numbers of farmers; the rest of the villagers may informally exchange their fields pending the official transfer of possession.

27 Small payments to the lower-level staff, for small services such as getting the field boundary moved a few meters at the demarcation stage, for example, are quite common. Officials as well as farmers treated this level of corruption as unfortunate, uneradicable, and not very significant.

28 For a definition of “systematic” corruption, see Stephen Riley, “The Land of Warring Palms: Political Economy, Corruption Inquiries, and Politics in Sierra Leone,” in Clarke (fn. 2), 195.

29 In the one instance I observed, the hearing was conducted with a seriousness of purpose on all sides that was impressive.

30 I wish to thank Veena Talwar Oldenburg, Prabhu Ghate, and D. N. Mittal for helping translate this statement, and others quoted below, from the original Hindi. The statements of officers are drawn largely from their written answers to a questionnaire they filled out anonymously. Eight of the twenty officers of the Meerut section of the consolidation department completed the questionnaire. I have also paraphrased field notes that I kept of remarks made by farmers and officers.

31 Wade (fn. 2, 1982).

32 Ibid., 288.

33 See Cariño (fn. 9). As I conducted research in Delhi in 1969–1970, systematic corruption was readily revealed to me.

34 Cf. Elder (fn. 2:), 26; Palmier (fn. 2), 111.

35 In the words of one officer, “clever farmers [i.e., acting as dalals] will claim to ‘get the matter decided’ by passing the time of day with the A.C.O. in the sight of the farmer.”

36 See Oldenburg (fn. 25).

37 Wade (fn. 2, 1982), 292–300.

38 Ibid., 303–7. Wade (fn. 2, 1985), uses this case to build a model of a corrupt system in which payments for transfers occupy the central place.

39 In my judgment, there is a comparatively low degree of corruption in most of these departments taken as a whole, though certain sections—those dealing with the purchase of supplies, in particular—are quite corrupt.

40 Wade (fn. 2, 1985).

41 Werner, Simcha B., “New Directions in the Study of Administrative Corruption,” Public Administration Review 43 (March-April 1983), 146CrossRefGoogle Scholar–54.

42 Many of these “fees” are quite open, and not resented by the people who have to pay them; many a farmer expressed sympathy with the plight of these ill-paid and overworked men. The lekhpal, for example, is allowed to charge a fee for making a special copy of the record, but that fee was set decades ago, and so the informal adjustment for inflation that the lekhpal adds is seen as proper, even by his superior officers.

43 As Pompey said to Menas (the subject was not bribery but proposed murder): “In me t'is villany, in thee't had been good service.” (Antony and Cleopatra, act 2, scene 7)

44 This was the case during the time of my research. Wade's study (fn. 2, 1982) is the best and most detailed discussion of a case of this type of corruption. The Santhanam Committee reports:

We were told by a large number of witnesses, that in all contracts of construction, purchases, sales and other regular business on behalf of the Government, a regular percentage is shared in agreed proportions among the various officials concerned. We were told that in the constructions of the Public Works Department, seven to eleven per cent was usually paid in this manner. ... India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Report of the [Santhanam] Committee on Prevention of Corruption (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1964), 10.

45 Palmier (fn. 2), 73.

46 One would like to test the proposition: the more frequent (regular) the corruption transaction, the less the use of outsider middlemen and the greater the use of insider middlemen, and vice versa for sporadic (irregular) transactions.

47 The points are sometimes not obvious. In Delhi, to prevent “speed money” being paid at the city planning office, there was a rule that a set of building plans would be deemed to have been passed if they were not acted upon within a certain number of days of their submission. People with irregular plans simply bribed—directly or through a middleman, whose knowledge was sure to be required—the office boy who carried the application (after its date of submission had been duly registered) to “misplace” it for the requisite period. This cost less than bribing the building department officer.

48 For a discussion of this phrase, see LeVine (fn. 1), 12–39.

49 R. K. Karanjia, interviewer, The Mind of Mr. Nehru (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1960), 61.

50 Oldenburg (fn. 15).

51 Levine (fn. 1), 9–10.

52 Even in many of the countries where corruption is widespread, most citizens, though possibly inured to it, find it reprehensible; see Waterbury (fn. 1, 1973), 428, and Carino (fn. 9), 280.

53 For an example of this kind of research, see Carino (fn. 9), and Carino and de Guzman (fn. 6).