EuropeAid

Putting Corruption in the Context

A Socio-Anthropological Perspective

Giorgio BlundoEcole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS),

Marseille, France

EuropeAidSession Objectives

• Provide some insights from recent anthropological research on corruption practices and representations

• Provide an analytical grid in order to understand how corruption works in a specific socio-cultural setting

• Open a debate on the implications of adapting anti-corruption policies to a country context.

EuropeAidA Qualitative Research

• the first systematic comparative anthropological study on everyday corruption in Africa

• Three countries (Benin, Niger, Senegal) + Mauritania

• Corruption in customs and transport, justice, health, public procurement, development projects, forestry services

• To study the “complex of corruption”: all practices involving the incorrect (illegal and/or illegitimate) use of a public office which result in the procurement of unwarranted private or collective advantages.

EuropeAidMain Findings

• Corruption is embedded in multiple levels of the social, administrative and cultural context

• Corruption is not just a symptom of the failure of a system of governance. It is a specific mode of governance

• Everyday corruption is a social activity which is regulated de facto and in accordance with complex rules, and tightly controlled by a series of tacit codes and practical norms.

EuropeAidThe Basic Forms of Corruption

• “Commission” for illicit services: the official benefits in part from the

illicit gain that he helps the user to obtain

• Unwarranted payment for a public service: a service that is normally

provided free of charge, on which a private charge is imposed

• The “ gratuity”: a spontaneous gesture on the part of the user, generally

viewed as entirely legitimate

• Favouritism

• The tribute or “toll”: exhorted without any kind of intermediation or service,

either legal or illegal, actually being supplied

• “Sideline” and moonlighting: work places and resources are widely used by

personnel for private ends

• Embezzlement

EuropeAidDegrees of legitimacy

Forms of corruption Type of interaction Degree of legitimacy

Gratuity Spontaneous transaction Legitimate

Commission for illicit service Negotiated transaction Highly ambivalent

String-pulling, favours, nepotism Spontaneous transaction Legitimate

Unwarranted fee for a public service

Negotiated transaction or extortion

Predominantly illegitimate

Tribute or toll Extortion Illegitimate

“Sideline” and moonlighting Appropriation Predominantly legitimate

Embezzlement Appropriation Highly ambivalent

EuropeAidCorruption is embedded in administrative practices and bureaucratic cultures (1)

• Bureaucratic logics of organization and managemento Parallel orders and hierarchies

• A two-speed bureaucracy

• Unofficial classification of administrative postso Strongly skewed and top-down allocation of human and

material resources• The institutionalisation of « informal » state agents and

administrative brokers

• Field officers acquire significant autonomy and their

operations are effectively privatised

EuropeAidCorruption is embedded in administrative practices and bureaucratic cultures (2)

o This informal privatisation is not synonymous with predation and is not incompatible with provision of public service. In certain cases corruption can ensure the survival of the public service.

o Transfers as the unique mode of internal sanction

• Public services deliveryo Ambivalence of administrative relationships: between

dehumanization and over-personalizationo Negotiated enforcement of law

EuropeAidSome socio-cultural logics that contribute to banalize corrupt behaviour

• Pluralism on institutions and norms ----> civil servant are subjected to different competing regimes of accountability

• Obligations of solidarity and redistribution• New ethos of social achievement:

o Ostentation and over-monetizationo Social positive value of craftiness and of « challenging the

State »• Due to their extensive proximity to or interpenetration with

common and ‘normal’ social practices, corrupt practices are largely ‘justified’ or ‘excused’ in the eyes of the actors

• But people simultaneously condemn the practices that they justify. How do they deal with his paradox? With a cross-cutting moral principle: ‘there’s no need to overdo it’

EuropeAidImplications for anticorruption policies

• No unique or uniform solution for such a complex, ambivalent and multi-

form phenomenon

• Conceive interventions that « work with the grain » and not « against the

grain » of local societies

• Need for more qualitative research providing fresh insights on

mechanisms and representations of corruption in different areas of

service delivery

• Honest behaviour has a high social cost: complete integrity is a luxury or

virtue that is beyond the scope of the majority of the citizens of these

countries under current circumstances

• However, local reformers and « highlands of integrity » do exist. How to

support and encourage such initiatives?

• Civil society’s dilemma: counter-power or « good governance brokers »?