Dylan Kerrigan
  • Home
  • About
  • Academic Writings
    • Consultancy Summaries
  • Books
  • Opeds/Blogs
  • Other Writings
  • Teaching
    • Graduate Supervision
  • Therapeutic Cultures
  • In the Press
  • Presentations
  • Videos
  • Research
    • Data Visualisations
    • Past
    • Current
    • Future
  • Blog

What is corruption?

29/4/2013

0 Comments

 
_Thinking about the culture behind corruption in Trinidad and Tobago.
Picture
Many might say we have a simple answer to that question. It is the one offered by Western academics and the law—corruption is the abuse of public office and/or power for private and personal gain. Others may not have a definition but we can imagine they know corruption when they see or hear about it. And that’s the problem with defining corruption; it’s a lot more varied than the simple definition. 

For starters, any universal definition of corruption assumes culture plays no part in understanding corruption. Yet recognising cultural differences in societies is probably one reason why action on corruption remains ambiguous.

As IMF economist Vito Tanzi found: “to argue that the personal relationships that come to be established between public sector employees and individuals who deal with them reflect a ‘corrupt’ society may be correct in a legalistic sense, but it misses the point that these relationships simply reflect different social and moral norms.” 

For example, a recent discussion about Jack Warner’s alleged abuses of power are that they are part and parcel of how we do things in T&T. That it’s not just Jack who potentially has been involved in dodgy deeds, but also the people who allowed him to get away with those deeds. And that long list might potentially include current and former politicians, the police, the fire service, attorneys, bank personnel, the president, businessmen and various others.

Now the author of such an argument is right to suggest people involved in corruption are usually facilitated by people who at the least turn a blind eye or, at the worst, accept illicit payments. Yet if so many different people acquiesce to such behaviour, might that suggest not everyone perceives corruption with the same values and ethics as those of us outraged?

Anthropologists working around the world have demonstrated that what is acceptable behaviour is distinct depending on particular histories and social boundaries. So a bribe isn’t always bribe. And insider trading isn’t always wrong. Here’s a local example. Many people suggest there is mass corruption taking place at the licensing office on Wrightson Road.

Yet one person’s definition of abuse of public office is another person’s definition of the normal way things get done. Interestingly, not everyone pays the same “bribe” amounts for the same outcome there. This potential for barter suggests that while bribes might be an issue, to some it is the amount of the bribe rather than the act of a bribe itself that causes greatest offence. 

This negotiation, as anyone who has witnessed it can attest, is often a game of wit, intelligence and experience. The “negotiation” itself is a local, cultural way of interacting that takes place across T&T from land deals to getting drivers’ licenses. We haven’t always called this corruption though. For decades we’ve accepted it because that’s just how things get done here. 

We have specific local words like lagniappe, bligh, ease-up, bobolist, and bobol that provide linguistic evidence of a varying, historical way of doing things which was corrupt, but not corruption. This suggests that what is and what isn’t corruption varies from one country and time to another, depending on particular histories and cultures of behaviour. 

It is also suggests that corruption is not a singular act, rather it is a toolkit of practices and behaviours that can include peddling influence, nepotism, insider trading, untruthfulness, bribes, abuse of power, embezzlement, misappropriation of funding, false accounting and more. 

The other dimension to this wider definition of corruption is we start to see acts play out not only in arenas where power is most obvious, like politics and business. We see acts of corruption happen in most areas and activities where some sort of transaction takes place.

This includes hospitals, schools, roadblocks, customs, and many other places. Problematising what is corruption doesn’t excuse breaking the law, rather it is an explanation that variations in cultural values and social experiences contribute to how business and public services are conducted. 

This all leaves the question: how do we measure corruption? Do we hold to the universal standard of what is and what isn't corruption handed to us by a Western view of the world that, let’s be honest, is rife with corruption as the global economic crisis shows? Or do we take our own demographics and social history into account and recognise that as our corruption is endemic and cultural, we need indigenous and creative solutions to deal with it? 

http://guardian.co.tt/columnist/2013-04-29/what-corruption
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Academia
    Amerindian
    Bias
    Capitalism
    Carnival
    Census
    Change
    Charlotteville
    Christmas
    Cipriani
    Citizenship
    Class
    Clico
    Colonialism
    Comedy
    Community
    Conspiracy
    Corruption
    Crime
    Critical Thinking
    Cultural Logic
    Cultural Logic
    Cultural Myth
    Culture
    Degradation
    Development
    Differences
    Disabilities
    Discourse
    Discrimination
    Diversity
    Division
    Drugs
    Economic
    Economics
    Economy
    Education
    Emancipation
    Emigration
    Employment
    Environment
    Equality
    Ethnicity
    Ethnocentrism
    Ethnology
    Family
    Gang
    Gender
    Governance
    Government
    Grenada
    Hcu
    History
    Homophobia
    Identity
    Imperialism
    Inequality
    Institutions
    Intellectualism
    Justice
    Language
    Legislation
    Marriage
    Mas
    Militarism
    Military
    Morality
    Multiculturalism
    National Security
    Nepotism
    Opportunity
    Patriarchy
    Policy
    Politics
    Poverty
    Power
    Precolonial
    Prejudice
    Prisons
    Privatisation
    Privilege
    Progress
    Propaganda
    Prostitution
    Race
    Reflexivity
    Relationships
    Religion
    Rights
    Science
    Security
    Segregation
    Sexism
    Sexuality
    Sex Work
    Slavery
    (small-goal) Football
    Social Media
    Soe
    Solidarity
    Speed
    State
    Status
    Success
    Taboo
    Teaching
    Technology
    Tobago
    Tourism
    Trade
    Transparency
    University
    Violence
    War
    White Collar
    White-collar

    Archives

    December 2022
    October 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    August 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    February 2019
    November 2017
    October 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012

    RSS Feed