Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption
10.6092/issn.2421-2695/5468
In the last decades a growing awareness emerged of the relevance of corruption as an hidden factor which may negatively affect political and economic decision-making processes. In spite of a lively scientific debate there is no general consensus on a commonly accepted definition of what corruption is.The A. distinguishes three main paradigms, focusing on different (though not irreconcilable) variables.The first is the economic paradigm, which usually takes the principal-agent model of corruption as its founding pillar. In this paradigm corruption is considered the outcome of rational individual choices, and its spread within a certain organization is influenced by the factors defining the structure of expected costs and rewards.A second approach – the cultural paradigm – looks at the differences in cultural traditions, social norms and interiorized values which shape individuals’ moral preferences and consideration of his social and institutional role. These are a leading forces that can push a corrupt public or private agent (not) to violate legal norms.A third neo-institutional approach considers also mechanisms which allow the internal regulation of social interactions within corrupt networks, and their effects on individuals’ beliefs and preferences. Though the corrupt agreements cannot be enforced with legal sanctions, several informal, non-written rules, contractual provisos and conventions may regulate the corrupt exchange between agent and corruptor.The A. underlines that corruption is the outcome of a multitude of individual and collective choices which change public opinion towards corruption and its diffusion throughout the state, markets and civil society. There is no univocal recipe to deal with anti-bribery measures, since corruption is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon.Reforms aimed at dismantling systemic corruption have to be finely tuned against its hidden governance structures, i.e. its internal regulation of exchanges and relationships. Otherwise, a vicious circle may emerge: the more an anti-corruption policy is needed, because corruption is systemic and enforced by effective third-parties, the less probable its formulation and implementation.Only when official rules are complemented by coherent informal institutions, bottom-up initiatives, they tend to produce the expected outcomes and make anticorruption regulation more effective.
application/pdf
2421-2695
5468
2
it
Alberto Vannucci
Labour & Law Issues
employment
Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption
Text.Serial.Journal
https://labourlaw.unibo.it/
1
Saggi
2015-10-05
2015-10-05
2015-10-05
2016-12-16
1-31
LLI
Alberto Vannucci
2015/10/05
10.6092/issn.2421-2695/5468
1
Università di Pisa
2421-2695
2
employment
it
31
Vannucci, A. (2012) Atlante della corruzione, Torino, Edizioni Gruppo Abele.
Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption
https://labourlaw.unibo.it/article/download/5468/5177
1
Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption


              ALBERTO VANNUCCI
                Università di Pisa




                vol. 1, no. 2, 2015
                  ISSN: 2421-2695
      Three paradigms for the analysis of
                 corruption

                                                  ALBERTO VANNUCCI
                                                        Università di Pisa
                                               alberto.vannucci@unipi.it



                              ABSTRACT

        In the last decades a growing awareness emerged of the relevance
of corruption as an hidden factor which may negatively affect political
and economic decision-making processes. In spite of a lively scientific
debate there is no general consensus on a commonly accepted definition
of what corruption is.
        The A. distinguishes three main paradigms, focusing on different
(though not irreconcilable) variables.
        The first is the economic paradigm, which usually takes the
principal-agent model of corruption as its founding pillar. In this
paradigm corruption is considered the outcome of rational individual
choices, and its spread within a certain organization is influenced by the
factors defining the structure of expected costs and rewards.
        A second approach – the cultural paradigm – looks at the
differences in cultural traditions, social norms and interiorized values
which shape individuals’ moral preferences and consideration of his
social and institutional role. These are a leading forces that can push a
corrupt public or private agent (not) to violate legal norms.
        A third neo-institutional approach considers also mechanisms
which allow the internal regulation of social interactions within corrupt
networks, and their effects on individuals’ beliefs and preferences.
Though the corrupt agreements cannot be enforced with legal sanctions,
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption




several informal, non-written rules, contractual provisos and conventions
may regulate the corrupt exchange between agent and corruptor.
        The A. underlines that corruption is the outcome of a multitude of
individual and collective choices which change public opinion towards
corruption and its diffusion throughout the state, markets and civil
society. There is no univocal recipe to deal with anti-bribery measures,
since corruption is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon.
        Reforms aimed at dismantling systemic corruption have to be
finely tuned against its hidden governance structures, i.e. its internal
regulation of exchanges and relationships. Otherwise, a vicious circle
may emerge: the more an anti-corruption policy is needed, because
corruption is systemic and enforced by effective third-parties, the less
probable its formulation and implementation.
        Only when official rules are complemented by coherent informal
institutions, bottom-up initiatives, they tend to produce the expected
outcomes and make anticorruption regulation more effective.

Keywords: corruption; public ethics; informal institutions; economic
approach; neo-institutional paradigm; institutions responsibility;
employment.




LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                3
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



        Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption
CONTENTS: 1. Introduction. - 2. Three paradigms for the study of corruption: the
     economic approach. - 3. The cultural paradigm. - 4. The neo-institutional
     paradigm. - 5. Some conclusive remarks.



1. Introduction.

        Corruption, in spite of an extensive reference to it in the public
debate and in the political agenda, is a somewhat cluttered concept. In
the last decades a growing awareness emerged of the relevance of such
phenomena as an hidden factor which may negatively affect political and
economic decision-making processes in any complex organization and
social relationships. The issue of dissipation, misappropriation and
distortions in the allocation of resources caused by systemic corruption
developing within both liberal-democratic and authoritarian regimes has
become a serious concern for international institutions and national
policy-makers in an increasing number of countries.
        A corresponding interest came out also within the social sciences
but, as it often happens, in spite of a lively scientific debate there is no
general consensus on a commonly accepted definition of what
corruption is. It is quite obvious that such an old-fashioned concept,
bearing a long historical heritage, may carry several meanings. Among
them, in classical political theory the term corruption was used to
indicate a degenerative process operating at a macro-social level, through
the perversion of certain constitutive features of an institutional system
(1). In this macro perspective – which obviously requires a preliminary
normative judgement, i.e. a value-based distinction between “better” and
“worse” institutions – the theoretical focus is on the general premises
and consequences of the state of degradation of political systems as a
whole and social values underlying them.


        (1) See for instance Aristotle, who considered corruption as forms of
deviation from the three constitutions – monarchy, aristocracy and democracy;
Machiavelli describing corruption as a degradation of citizens’ political virtues;
Montesquieu who looked at corruption as the perversion of a good political order into
an evil one. See among others Friedrich (1972) and Dobel (1978) for an analysis of
this concept of “corruption” in classical political philosophers.



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                           4
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



        A different approach – which is dominant in the social sciences,
and will be adopted here – takes corruption as a specific social practice,
having distinctive features which can be defined at micro-level,
minimizing value-laden implications and requirements. Corruption is a
type of behaviour, a specific social practice which can emerge within a
particular relational context. Any explanation of its facilitating conditions
and effects, however, may requires an analysis of variables at a macro-
level, but there is a clear distinction between individual actions and their
social premises or consequences (Gambetta 2002). More or less stable
configuration of informal rules and enforcing mechanisms can in fact
regulate the patterns of systemic corruption, making its equilibria more
resilient to political reforms and judicial prosecution (della Porta and
Vannucci 1999, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2014; Vannucci 2012).

2. Three paradigms for the study of corruption: the economic
approach.
        Several factors should be taken into consideration to explain and
qualify nature and mechanisms of corruption. We may distinguish three
main paradigms in the literature on corruption, focusing on different
(though not irreconcilable) variables. The first is the economic
paradigm, which usually takes the principal-agent model of corruption as
its founding pillar. The economic approach emphasizes the crucial role
of individual incentives reflecting contextual opportunities to engage in
corrupt activities. Corruption is considered the outcome of rational
individual choices, and its spread within a certain organization is
influenced by the factors defining the structure of expected costs and
rewards. As with other behaviours involving deviation from laws and/or
informal norms, the individual decision to participate in corrupt
exchanges depends also on the expected risk of being reported and
punished (or “cheated” by the partner in the deal), the severity of the
potential penal and administrative penalties, and the expected rewards as
compared with available alternatives. As Rose-Ackerman puts it:
       «In a study of corruption, one can make substantial progress with
models that take tastes and values as given and perceive individuals as
rational beings attempting to further their self-interest in a world of
scarce resources. Information may be imperfect; risks may abound; but




LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                   5
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



individuals are assumed to do the best they can within the constraints
imposed by a finite world» (Rose-Ackerman 1978, 5).
        As an axiom is taken that: “corruption is a crime of calculation,
not passion. True, there are both saints who resist all temptations and
honest officials who resist most. But when bribes are large, the chances
of being caught small, and the penalties if caught meagre, many officials
will succumb” (Klitgaard 1998, 4). Soreide (2014, 26) observes that:
        «The theory of individual utility maximization postulates quite
simply that an individual will be involved in corruption if the benefits
associated with the act are expected to outweigh the costs. (...) The
expected benefits obviously include monetary gains as well as positions
and power for oneself, one’s family, or one’s allies. The list of possible
costs consists of the bribe payment, moral “costs” of violating norms
and rules, efforts to hide the crime and money laundering, as well as the
perceived risk of detection and the consequences of prosecution and
punishment».
         In this “politics as a market” approach, corruption is generally
defined within a principal-agent theoretical framework, identifying three
necessary prerequisites of such conception of “abuse of entrusted
power”, which is a defined as a social practice emerging within a (at least)
three-actors relationship:
         1. delegation of decision-making power from one (individual or
collective) actor – i.e. the principal, the truster, etc. – to another actor –
i.e. the agent, the fiduciary, etc. – in order to pursue and realize the first
actor’s interests and values;
         2. the trust-giving, the betrayal of trust possibility, the control of
agent’s actions and capabilities problems, usually dealt with rules,
supervision and enforcement mechanisms, which consequently develop
due to the “asymmetric information” condition of actors involved within
such relationship (2);


        (2) Trust here can be defined here as the expectation or belief by the principal
that the other actor (e.g. the agent) in a transaction – where the first delegates
decision-making power to the latter – will not cheat. Asymmetric information among
the contracting parties exists on relevant profiles of the transaction: on agent’s future
actions (moral hazard) – whose monitoring has a cost – and on agent’s motivations
(adverse selection), which influence his future efforts and integrity. When trust
overcomes a certain threshold, reducing transaction costs of monitoring and enforcing



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                               6
         A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



        3. the interest of a “client” – the potential corruptor – in the
agent’s activity, which he may try to influence entering in an exchange
relationship – the corrupt exchange – with him (3).
        Not any breach/betrayal of trust, nor any failure of the control
and sanctioning mechanisms of agent’s actions by the principal, which
are a potential consequence of the delegation of decision-making power,
can be labelled as corruption. Not any form of agent’s misbehaviour or
malfeasance is corruption, even if often contiguous to it, having similar
causes or corrupting effects. In formal terms, within the P-A framework
corruption could therefore be defined as:
        (i) the infringement of formal rules and/or informal constraints
(corresponding to explicit and/or implicit norms and contractual clauses)
within an exchange relationship stating the delegation of decision-
making power from a principal/truster to an agent/fiduciary to pursue
the interests of the first;


the deal, a cooperative relationship – i.e. the exchange –between the two can take
place. The sources of trust can be diverse, as we will see, both transaction-specific and
institutional. This is an application to the P-A framework of Gambetta’s definition:
“trust (or, symmetrically, distrust) is a particular level of the subjective probability with
which an agent assesses that another agent or group of agents will perform a particular
action, both before he can monitor such action (or independently of his capacity ever
to be able to monitor it) and in a context in which it affects his own action"
(GAMBETTA 2000, 217). We limit here the analysis to the issue of public agents’
trustworthiness. We do not consider the reciprocal source of potential of distrust,
assuming that the public agent who accepts the exchange trusts his principal, i.e. he
believes – for instance – that the principal will not “cheat” him not paying his public
servant’s salary.
          (3) The basic components of corruption within a P-A perspective can be
found in Banfield’s definition (1975: 587) of corruption within governmental
organization: “The frame of reference is one in which an agent serves (or fails to
serve) the interest of a principal. The agent is a person who has accepted an obligation
(as in an employment contract) to act on behalf of his principal in some range of
matters and, in doing so, to serve the principal’s interest as if it were his own. The
principal may be a person or an entity such an organization or the public. In acting on
behalf of his principal the agent must exercise some discretion; the wider the range
(measured in terms of effects on the principal’s interest) among which he may choose,
the broader his discretion. The situation includes third parties (persons or abstract
entities) who stand to gain or lose from the action of the agent. There are rules (both
laws and generally accepted standards of right conduct) violation of which entails
some probability of penalty (cost) being imposed upon the violator”.



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                                   7
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



        (ii) the violation of such rules – which are aimed at preserving the
principal’s interest – realizes when the agent enters into another
exchange with a corruptor, offering the discretionary power to take (or
to abstain from) decision or to provide confidential information which
assign or preserve property rights over resources the corruptor would
otherwise not be entitled to;
        (iii) in the corrupt exchange the agents receives from the
corruptor as a reward money or other valuable resources (i.e. the bribe)
(4).
Within this framework every market relationship or organizational
relationship, involving individual or collective actors, public as well as
private entities, can be influenced by corruption. Corruption in the
public sector, as such, implies a fourth condition:
        (iv) the principal/truster is the political sovereign, whose interest
can be defined as public interest depending on the institutional setting of
the corresponding polity. The exercise of public decision-making power
in a democratic government can correspondingly be analytically
described as a complex chain of principal-agent relationships between
electorate, elected officials and bureaucrats in their functional and
hierarchical attribution of roles and functions (5) According to Cox and


         (4) State activity, like market exchanges, modifies the existing structure of
property rights over valuable resources. Public agents may use the coercive power of
the state to create, regulate, allocate and maintain property rights to the advantage of
corrupters. In the transaction between the corrupt agent and the corrupter, in fact,
property rights created or allocated through the political process are exchanged. Three
decision-making sectors may create such rights: a) the acquisition of goods and
services paid by the private actors for more than their market value; b) the selling of
the licensing of use of public goods for a lower price than their market value; c) the
arbitrary use of enforcement activities, that attribute the competence to selectively
impose costs or reduce the value of some private goods to public agents (ROSE-
ACKERMAn 1978: 61-3). Corruption therefore is “just a black market for the property
rights over which politicians and bureaucrats have allocative power. Rather than
assigning rights according to political power, rights are sold to the highest bidder”
(BENSON 1990: 159; BENSON AND BADEN 1985).
         (5) A similar representation implies that along the chain all principals are
“benevolent”, i.e. public-interest oriented: “apart from a limited number of countries
and situation, however, this is not the current state of affairs. Most principals’ must be
assumed to be non-benevolent, which by implication means that both corruption
deterrents in this model can be easily cheated upon: there is hardly any risk of being



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                                8
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



McCubbin (2001, 2-3), in fact, each polity – according to the divisions
and needs of its society and rulers – select a set of institution to resolve
its fundamental political problems:
        «These institutions define a sequence of principal-agent
relationships. In a typical representative democracy, for example, there
are three broad delegations that might be noted. First, the sovereign
people delegate decision-making power (usually via a written
constitution) to a national legislature and executive. […] A second step in
the delegation of power occurs when the details of the internal
organization of the legislature and executive are settled. […] A third step
in the delegation of power takes the legislature (or its political chiefs) as
principal and various bureaus and agencies as agents».
        More generally, in this ideal liberal-democratic institutional setting
the ultimate principal/truster can be identified as the sovereign people,
i.e. the citizenry, while any public officials (elected, appointed,
nominated, selected by merit, etc.) is the agent/fiduciary. Any agent
entrusted by public organizations (governments, public companies or
agencies, etc.) with the power to manage resources in the interest of the
principal also has private interests that may not coincide with those of
his principal/truster. Moreover, he can hide information on himself as
well as on the characteristics and content of his tasks and activities. This
is the reason why, in the delegation of power and responsibilities to the
agent, the principal usually does not attribute him an unconstrained
capability to act in his interests, laying down rules and procedures which
limit the agent’s range of discretion, and develops various mechanisms of
legal, administrative, social, political or contractual control and
enforcement of infringements and abuses. Among the rules posed by the
principal there is the prohibition of accepting payments or other rewards
from “third parties” for the accomplishment of delegated tasks, as this
would increase the risk of the agent disregarding the interests of the
principal.
        Corruption causes then a specific distortion of the relationship
between principal and agent– to be distinguished by other distortions
and abuses – induced by a third actor, the corruptor. The exchange

detected if there is no one seeking detection; similarly, no severe punishment will be
enacted if those responsible for enacting legal remedies are themselves corruptible”
(TEORELL 2007, 4).



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                            9
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



relationship with a briber causes/prompts the agent to violate
constraints imposed by (formal and informal) rules. By offering money
or other rewards, the corrupter succeeds in obtaining from the agent
favourable decisions, reserved information, protection (della Porta and
Vannucci 2012, 6). In the transaction between the agent and the
corruptor property rights on resources created and allocated as a
consequence of the public agent’s activity and influence are shared
between the two. The agent modifies (or maintain, having the power to
modify) to the advantage of the briber such allocation of property rights,
obtaining as a reward a fraction of the value thus created.

3. The cultural paradigm.
        A second approach – the cultural paradigm – looks at the
differences in cultural traditions, social norms and interiorized values
which shape individuals’ moral preferences and consideration of his
social and institutional role. Ethical standards matter in corruption. They
are a leading forces that can push a corrupt public or private agent (not)
to violate legal norms. Taken as a relevant explanatory factor, they have
been labelled in different ways in the literature on corruption: moral
costs in economic theory, cultural norms in comparative politics,
professional standards in constructivist perspectives, informal constraints
in neo-institutional theory.
        In an economic perspective moral cost of corruption is a negative
addendum, reflecting individual’s ethical preferences, that enters in the
choice of individual actors whether or not to engage in corrupt
exchanges. Reframed as a first-party control mechanism over certain
rules, moral cost can be considered as normative barriers, expressing the
agent’s preferences and internalized values addressing his actions (6).

         (6) First-party mechanisms are enforced on oneself by an actor: “An actor who
imposes rules and sanctions on himself is exercising first-party control” (ELLICKSON
1991, 126). This mechanism is based upon the structure of internalized values (such as
ethical or moral codes) and self-control system, sanctioned by the personal feeling of
discomfort or guilt which – even if not discovered and exposed – accompanies certain
actions (in this case, the betrayal of trust of agents towards the interests of citizenry
they should realize, or between partners in illicit deals). As Coleman (1990, 243) puts
it: “The norm may be internal to the individual carrying out the action, with sanctions
applied by that individual to his own actions. In such a case a norm is said to be
internalized. An individual feels internally generated rewards for performing actions



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                              10
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



Normative barriers depends on the self-imposed and self-enforced rules
constraining the agent not to accept corrupt deals with other actors,
whose intensity corresponds to the “moral character” of an individual
facing the choice among different actions that are rule-governed in the
interest of the public organization. Normative barriers are stronger the
higher is the degree of agent’s identification with the public
organization’s values and purposes. They correspond to a self-inflicted
loss of utility that results from engaging in an illegal or socially blamed
actions (Rose-Ackerman 1978, 113; della Porta and Vannucci 2005) The
higher the moral cost for a given agent, the stronger will be his
“preference for formal rule-fulfilment”, that is, the kind of psychological
suffering, discomfort or guilt personally expected in case of
infringement, perceived as a betrayal of public trust, independently from
its detection. In general terms, moral costs are higher when public
agents’ preferences ordering over his actions (and their outcomes) are
closer to those embodied by the rules addressing the functioning of the
public organization, and backed by the values which prevails within his
social circles. In this case, in fact, the betrayal the public trust becomes a
cause of discomfort in itself, similar to betraying the own agent’s second-
order preferences towards his own integrity (Hirshmann 1982; Pizzorno
2007).
      Individuals belonging to different societies and organizations can
be pushed towards corruption by the nature of their internalized values and
by social pressures. While the economic paradigm in the last decades
dominated scientific research on corruption, theories on “moral costs” –
or better, on normative barriers against corruption –consider not only
the influence of exogenous macro-variables on the degree of “average
ethical aversion” against corruption, but also endogenous dynamics
which shape individuals’ preferences and moral constraints (Pizzorno
1992). If the economic perspective considers corruption as a crime of
calculation, not passion, according to the cultural approach also passions
matter in corruption choices, which means ethical judgements, civicness,
public spiritdness. As Elster observes: “Although it is hard to prove, I
believe that a variation in corruption across countries is explained largely

that are proper according to an internalized norm or feels internally generated
punishment for performing actions that are improper according to an internalized
norm.”



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                     11
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



by the degree of public-spiritedness of their officials, not by the
cleverness of institutional design” (Elster 1989, 158). According to
Pizzorno (1992), the average degree of “sense of the state” of public
officials and politicians is a crucial variable, perhaps the most relevant
factor in the explanation of variations in corruption across countries and
along time. The analysis of such factors requires a more in-depth
research on the mechanisms which allow actors to enter and operate
within networks of corrupt exchanges, through a selection and
socialization process which – besides transmitting “routines” and
informal norms – also shapes them along time their interiorized values.
       Generally speaking, any theory of normative barriers has to explain
under which conditions agent’s preferences on the outcomes of his
actions (in the exercise of a delegated power, or as potential corruptors)
tend to overlap, are homogeneous or coherent with purposes embodied
by state procedures and rules. In countries, organizations and exchange
relationships where agents exhibits stronger normative barriers there is
trust that a correct and effective exercise of the decision-making power
delegated to the agent will not be misused or deceived – even without
implementing strict controls. On the contrary, lower normative barriers
encourage defection from their contractual and procedural constraints,
therefore promoting distrust towards agents, which can be
counterbalanced by a strengthening of public supervision, i.e. state-
backed enforcement mechanisms.
       Developed within rational choice approaches, the notion of moral
costs implies that individuals are able to manage “rationally” a trade-off
between        different    interests    (“ethical”/second-order    versus
“material”/first-order preferences, for instance) and consequently
maximize their utility. Expressing moral preferences as a cost is
functional to formal economic modeling of purposeful corruption
choices. The implicit assumption is that a same numeraire can be used by
an agent to weight – as an constant unit of account – both the measure
of worth of the expected proceeds of corrupt exchange and the loss of
utility caused by moral discomfort. On the contrary, ethical preferences
imply that the individual’s evaluation of any conceivable action – and
even more clearly when they are stigmatized as corrupt within a certain
society – can be expressed only in a framework of mutually recognized
values, i.e. in an inter-subjective and relational dimension. Unlike moral



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                               12
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



costs, the concept of interiorized normative barriers reflect individuals’
preferences, slowly developed through a socialization process and the
intergenerational transmission of norms, values, principles. When
normatively oriented, agents do not evaluate the “economic cost” of an
infringements of their interiorized normative standard, which are shared
and recognized as valuable within their relevant social circles.
      A notion of moral cost as exogenously given preferences is,
implicitly or explicitly, challenged also by comparative approaches that
stress how several mechanisms can induce variations in values and
cultures, not only among different individuals, but also across groups,
social contexts, states and historical periods. The “average distribution”
of moral costs may vary along time, normally in slow-moving process, as
a cultural heritage (Pierson 2004). Variations in normative barriers could
therefore explain different individual responses to similar opportunities
for corruption. Even when comparable institutional frameworks produce
analogous structures of incentives, the diffusion of political corruption
may vary – even significantly, as Transparency International Corruption
Perception Index shows – due to the average moral attitudes among the
citizens, entrepreneurs, public agents (7) Among others, the robustness
and other properties of social capital, civicness, political culture, amoral
familism, religious beliefs have been considered in the literature as
macro-variables having a direct effect on the average structure of “ethical
preferences” of actors potentially involved in corrupt deals (8)
      Taking normative barriers as a sort of psychological aversion to the
betrayal of public trust, i.e. as a first-party enforcement mechanisms of
rules against corruption, some factors we be singled out that through
social interaction influence their strength and evolution. In other words,
there are social processes that – under certain conditions – make
individual preferences and values adapt to prevailing beliefs and
expectations about the reality of corruption. When socially transmitted

        (7) Cfr. Transparency International, Corruption perception index, in
http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014.
        (8) When looking for cultural norms and values framing the choices of
individuals belonging to different societies and organizations, a first observation,
fuelled by comparative analysis, often points to religion as a determinant. Several
studies have found, for instance, a statistically significant correlation between the
diffusion of hierarchical forms of religion (Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and
Islam) and corruption (LA PORTA ET AL. 1997; 1999; TREISMAN 2000, PALDAM 2001).



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                          13
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



and enforced values are coherent with state-backed rules and procedures,
corruption will be collectively labelled and individually experienced as a
blameable activity; vice versa, it will be taken as a “normal” or justifiable
activity when shared and convergent expectations on its unavoidability
or “normality tend to prevail”, socialization on its daily practice is set in
motion, etc..
      In the literature on corruption normative barriers/moral costs are a
neglected variable– even when they are taken as a variable, and not as a
parameter exogenously given (9). Hirschman (1982) formulated a
theoretical hypothesis on factors shaping normative barriers along time,
emphasizing how the incidence of corruption depends not only on
institutional opportunities, but also on “public morality” or “public
spirit”, i.e. on how many individuals within a certain society are corruption-
prone or corruption adverse. The evolution of public ethics standards among
citizen and public officials may reflect generalized disappointment after
cycles of strong involvement in public affairs and collective action:
      «Corruption can thus be viewed as a response to a change in tastes:
losses in satisfaction that is yielded by action in public interest are made
up by material gains. But ordinarily the process is not one of small
variations in individual preferences, This is so because the practice of
corruption has a further, powerful effect on the public-private
preferences. If I act this way, o the erstwhile public citizen will argue in
order to justify his corrupt actions to himself» (Hirschman 1982, 124).
      When the diffusion of values oriented towards the pursuit of
private welfare follow an intense but unsatisfactory mobilization centred
on public issues, the “moral barriers” against the application of the same
logic to the management of public affairs are inexorably lowered. A shift
in the balance between the “public versus public oriented” preferences
of agents – generated by discontent – is the premise for a diffusion of
corruption. In turn, when such practices become a dominant feature of
public life, the “bad example” contribute to this “value shift” lowering
normative barriers: “corruption, which is at first a response to

         (9) An underling hypothesis is that moral costs are either constant, a sort of
“fixed cost” of corruption, or increase as the size of the bribe increases (ROSE-
ACKERMAN 1978: 121). Alam (1990) adopt an analogous concept of “aversion to
corruption”, defined as the value of the marginal utility of corruption payoff relative
to that of a legal activities.



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                            14
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



dissatisfaction with public affairs becomes a determinant of further,
more profound dissatisfaction which in turn sets the stage for more
corruption. At the end of the process the public spirit is driven out
altogether” (Hirschman 1982, 124-125).
      In fact, the structure of values underlying the so-called neo-liberal
paradigm – dominant since 1980s’ in western democracies economic and
social policy-making, after the cycle of collective mobilization of the
1960s and 1970s – may have produced a similar result. It is not just the
corresponding regulative framework, or better the de-regulative policy
approach underlying neoliberalist policies, which may be corruption-
enhancing: “in an attempt to reduce certain kinds of government
interventions in the economy, it encourages or provide space for a
number of mutual interferences between the government and private
firms, many of which raise serious problems for both the free market
and the probity of public institutions” (Crouch 2011, 93). The
glorification of “greed” as petrol fuelling the self-regulating gears of
markets – coherently with a naïve expression of the neoliberalist creed –
has been exemplified by the fictional character Gordon Gekko, the
cynical trader of “Wall Street” movie, in a often quoted speech:
      «The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better
word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through,
and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit» (10).
      Clearly, amoral neoliberalism as “a cynical ideology according to which
profits have to be maximized at all costs” defines a structure of values
conflicting with any conceivable notion of public ethics and public
spiritedness (della Porta 2013). Mény (2000, 213) observes that
“corruption is thus more likely to spread in cases where the ‘immune
defence systems’ of the group tend to weaken and the ‘moral cost’ drops;
as will occur when public behaviour is less prized than private, when
producing results comes to matter more than observing standards,
monetary values more than ethical or symbolic values”.
      When shared and transmitted through socialization, amoral
conceptions and practices of capitalism may bring to the application of a
similar “market fundamentalism” (Stiglitz 2012) also in the relationship
between private and public agents. Since corruption in a democratic

        (10) Quotation from the movie Wall Street, directed by Oliver Stone, 1987, in
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/quotes.



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                          15
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



decision-making implies precisely the substitution of a demand-supply
logic to the universalistic principles of the rule of law, we may expect
that amoral neoliberalism as an internalized set of values produces a
twofold effect. First, it weakens normative barriers against corruption,
especially when accompanying the disappointment which follows public
engagement cycles, according to the Hirschman’s hypothesis. Secondly,
being involved in corrupt practices, i.e. applying a market logic within a
“bureaucratic” and “state-centred” environment, may produce within
circles of agents involved in illicit acts a self-legitimizing stance, therefore
reversing into some sort of moral benefit the practice of corruption
itself.
        According to Pizzorno (1992) a crucial variable shaping moral costs
(or benefits) of corruption is the nature of ethical values and criteria for
moral judgement which are currently applied within certain social
groups, organizations, “circles of moral recognition” modelling along
time the individuals’ “ethical preferences”. Specifically, a category of
political actors vulnerable to corruption are “business politicians” (della
Porta 1992), as well as other bureaucratic and economic agents who
originate from or are socialized within groups not fostering the respect
of law and legal procedures as a value in itself. Business politicians can
be described as "homines novi" – literally new men – whose entry into
politics from the Roman Republic onwards is considered to have raised
the tolerance threshold for deviation from established norms and
customs (11).
        Pizzorno (1992: 45) has suggested that the "homines novi" are
more susceptible to participation in corruption because of lower moral
costs of behaving illegally:
        «entering politics, the 'new men' tend to break with what still binds
them to their roots or, leaving aside metaphors, to detach themselves
from the reference groups in which they were socialized. Politicians who
belong to the socially dominant classes and have been socialized in
reference groups whose morality is the same as that of legal authority, on

        11According to Banfield and Wilson (1967), for instance, in American cities
the greater propensity of newcomers to involvement in political corruption can be
explained by the need of new entrepreneurs and political bosses to break into a world
which tends to exclude them. Once they have "arrived", these same social groups
become defenders of the new order.



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                          16
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



the other hand, continue to view their actions as being judged and
rewarded according to the criteria of those groups and therefore
conform to their norms».
      Monetary and political rewards gained through corruption, in fact,
can be enjoyed in a socially and personal satisfying manner only if this
does not lead to stigmatization by an individual's reference groups, i.e.
those groups whose members’ judgments really matter for the individual.
For an individual, in fact, “the moral cost is lower the more ephemeral
appear to him those circles of moral recognition that offer positive
criteria for the respect of the law” (Pizzorno 1992: 46). Individuals will
incur in a psychological suffering when in both their own (and their
peers’) perspectives corrupt behavior involves a violation of values –
such as “public service oriented” ethics – which are internalized (12)
Typically, the internalization of norms depends also on so-called pride in
one’s position and the prestige of public service: the more public roles are
socially rewarded in the public consideration, the less desirable it
becomes to violate official procedures and norms – since it implies the
risk of a costly exit from those social circles.
      The congruence between legal rules regulating public agents’ conduct
and the informal norms which shape the value structure of social groups –
politicians, entrepreneurs, functionaries , professionals, etc. – is therefore
the key variable. Higher consistency between them makes first-party (the
internalized sense of guilt, expressed by normative barriers) and second-
party (ostracism, social stigma, etc.) enforcement mechanisms
constraining. The activation of “virtuous” or “vicious” circles above
described between state and societal accountability in turn influence the
strength of normative barriers. The (divergent) contents and the degree
of institutionalization of informal constraints which de-facto regulate
public agent’s activity – and their private counterparts’ – come here into
play. But informal norms can generate a structure of incentives going

        (12) The diffusion of corruption, like other white collar crime, can be
explained with reference to work-related subcultures providing a specialized “reality
construction” on the basis of ideological commitment or work concerns (HOLZNER
1972: 95). Work-related subcultures “tend to isolate their members from the
mainstream of social life (…). Because of this isolation, work-related subcultures are
often able to maintain a definition of certain criminal activities as acceptable or even
required behavior, when they are clearly condemned by society as a whole”
(COLEMAN 1987: 422-23).



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                             17
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



both ways. They can support legal rules against corruption, as well as an
alternative sets of non-written codes of conduct and “values” justifying
and disciplining it. Far from anomic behaviour, corruption emerges as
endemic, i.e. well-regulated. This is precisely the focus of the neo-
institutional paradigm.

4. The neo-institutional paradigm.
        A third neo-institutional approach considers not only moral
values or economic incentives, but also mechanisms which allow the
internal regulation of social interactions within corrupt networks, and
their effects on individuals’ beliefs and preferences (13). The concept of
normative barriers is a cross field to introduce two variables, which refer
to the informal “institutional framework” where the exchange between
corrupt agent and corruptor takes place. Public agent’s and corruptor’s
reciprocal “contractual obligations” are illegal or contrary to socially
enforced informal codes of conduct which regulate their activity. As a
result, they cannot be overtly arranged nor enforced through state third
party-mechanisms. The risk of being cheated by the partners, who may
renege on their promises, failing to pay the agreed bribe or failing to
provide the agreed favors, consequently increases. In these cases, the
public agent and the corruptor of course cannot ask a judge to protect
their property rights over the resources that were exchanged. In the
agreement between public agents and corruptors: “contracts are not
enforceable in court of law; the assets of the illegal operation may be
seized at any time that law enforcement agencies identify the operation
and the associated assets; all participants are subject to the risk of arrest
and imprisonment” (Reuter 1983: 114). The natural environmental
conditions for corrupt exchanges are secrecy, lack of transparency,
severely restricted participation, significant exit costs (Lambsdorff 2002:
222). High transaction costs, in other words, are a by-product of the
uncertainty on the successful conclusion of their deal: “Since corruption
transactions occur outside the law, there are many opportunities for the
parties to take advantage of each other. Numerous situations allow for


       (13) A neo-institutional approach to the analysis of corruption has been
adopted, among others, by Husted (1994), della Porta and Vannucci (1999; 2012),
Lambsdorff (2007).



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                    18
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



the systematic distortion of information in order to benefit a particular
party in a corruption transaction” (Husted 1994: 19) (14).
        The corrupt contractual agreements cannot be enforced with legal
sanctions, but several first, second, and third-party enforcement
mechanisms are nevertheless available to actors. Informal, non-written
rules, contractual provisos and conventions may in fact regulate the
corrupt exchange between agent and corruptor, with sanctions attached
to them. Without any enforcement mechanisms, in fact, the corrupt
exchange would be doomed to failure, being trust in potential partners’
goodwill a scarce resource in itself, even more in illicit deals. Once a
certain organizational texture and ‘cultural adaptation’ to corruption has
developed, informal codes and governance structures provide internal
stability and enforcement mechanisms to illegal dealings in specific areas
of public activity, reducing uncertainty among partners in relationships
which thus appear more lucrative and less morally censurable. This co-
evolution of incentives and cultural values, in other words, is path
dependent: the heritage of corruption in the past produces increasing
returns in subsequent periods by providing informal norms, learning of
specialized skills, organizational shields and other mechanisms of
protection against external intrusion by the authorities and internal
friction among corrupt actors (della Porta and Vannucci 2012, 219-22.).
Along time, the informally regulated practice of corruption may also
influence other economic and cultural variables, since it neutralizes moral
barriers and creates more profitable opportunities rooted in formal
procedures and decision-making processes.

          (14) Transaction costs are the costs incurred by social actors to establish,
maintain and transfer property rights, i.e. to protect ones’ capability to exercise a
choice over valuable resources (ALLEN 1991). In this perspective, they are “associated
with the transfer, capture, and protecting of rights” (BARZEL 1989: 2). Such rights
simply reflect the individual’s expected capability to consume or transfer valuable
assets, that can – or can not – be guaranteed by third-party state enforcement
mechanisms (which can be invoked only in case of legal rights). The difference
between ordinary exchanges of legal commodities and corrupt exchanges is that in the
latter case property rights over the resources at stakes are more fragile, uncertain,
aleatory. Actors participating to corrupt exchanges can indeed be assimilated to
thieves, who “lack legal rights over what they steal; nevertheless, they are able to
consume it and to exclude others from it, to derive income from it, and to alienate it.
[...] The lack of legal rights may reduce the value of those capabilities, but it does not
negate them” (BARZEL 1989: 110).



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                               19
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption




        Under certain conditions, the “value of the word given” to
partners in the corrupt exchange can have a positive consideration in the
actor’s moral preferences. For instance, personal or idiosyncratic sources
of trust and loyalty towards counterparts can generate an ethical
preference towards “integrity in corruption”, a moral stance that to be
trustworthy in the management of bribes has a value in itself. First-party
control occurs when the violation of the informal norms of corruption
produces for those who have internalized their obligations a psychic
cost, feelings of guilt or discomfort. If all partners in corrupt deals share
similar internalized norms, reciprocal trust – if existing – will not be
betrayed and illegal exchanges can be successfully concluded.
        Under certain condition such moral benefit of corruption can be
amplified by the existence of strong sources of loyalty alternative to the
state, particularly within societies where there are relevant (ideological,
ethnical, religious, etc.) cleavages and contrasting sub-cultures (Pizzorno
1992). Kinship, ethnic, political and other social ties, in fact, tend to
strengthen such first-party enforcement mechanisms. The corrupt
exchange can be judged as functional to the realization of long-term
purposes of actors and organizations (especially political parties with a
strong ideological orientation) towards whom the agent and/or the
briber identify, or are altruistically inclined (15).
        Second and third-party enforcement mechanisms can also
guarantee an hidden order within the corrupt deal: accountability and
trustworthiness towards partners in corruption, opposite to the usual
meaning of accountability in the public agent’s activity.
       Second-party enforcement is based on the sanctions directly
administered by partners in the corrupt exchange, which often rely on
the transaction-specific expected advantages of a reiterated relationship.
In repeated interactions, in fact, the menace of termination of the

         (15) In the words of an Italian politician: ““I have been strongly and morally
helped by the awareness that I was using the bribes that I received in recent years in
the interests of the party. It has been decisive in the fact that I can still walk proudly
into the Milan headquarters of the party and I am known by collaborators,
functionaries and leaders as the one who decisively contributed, for such a long time,
to party life” (Mani Pulite: 23). Italian party cashiers were also selected by leaders
precisely for their high and undisputed and publicly recognized level of integrity in the
management of bribes (DELLA PORTA AND VANNUCCI 1999, 97-99).



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                               20
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



exchange relationship (as well as other forms of direct retaliation) in case
of cheating may under certain condition – long time horizon and high
frequency of interactions, low discount rate of future payoffs, etc –
discourage defection and cheating in the corrupt exchange. The
circulation of information about one’s previous actions within the
network of actors involved in corruption further on increases the
effectiveness of partner’s expected sanctions, since also reputational
assets enter into play.
      Third-party enforcement mechanisms may imply within networks
of corrupt and corrupting actors a widespread adhesion to informal rules
stating how to behave in hidden exchanges and how to punish those
who do not fulfil their prescriptions and proscriptions. In this opaque
universe agents’ cheating is individually enforced, within the circles of
participants to the “corruption game”, with social stigma and blame, but
also with marginalization and ostracism, i.e. through elimination from a
“market” where profitable opportunities could emerge.
      As the domain of corruption network extends, raising the costs of
the ex-ante gathering of information, identification of partners,
monitoring and sanctioning of deceitful partners, the demand for
protection increases. A specialized third-party enforcer, distinct from
actors involved in the deal, may also enter into the scene selling his
protective services. As we will see, individuals or collective actors
(organizations) can use different resources (influence over the public
authority; ideological rewards; violence, information and economic
resources, the power to assure or deny access to profitable opportunities)
to enforce rules and contracts, i.e. to protect the allocation of rights
emerging from the corrupt exchange:
      «the essence of enforcement power is in the enforcer's ability to
punish (i.e., to impose costs). Those costs can be imposed both by the
use of violence and by other means. (…). Different third parties impose
costs by different means. The state imposes costs through use of the
physical force of the police, and the Catholic church through
excommunication and the prospect of purgatory. As is evident from
these illustrations, the ability to impose costs does not necessitate the use
of physical force, nor does it require a formal organization” (Barzel 2002,
38-9)».




LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                  21
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



      Third-party enforcers of the informal constraints regulating corrupt
exchanges “reduce uncertainty by establishing a stable (but not
necessarily efficient) structure to human interaction” (North 1990, 6).
Either public (politicians, bureaucrats, etc.) or private (entrepreneurs,
brokers, etc.) actors may enter as individuals in the protection market,
using different means to sanction cheating or defecting partners. Certain
organizations can also become third-party enforcers in corrupt
exchanges: political parties, firms, mafia and other criminal groups,
private associations, Masonic lodges, trade-unions among them.
Enforcement provided by organization may be more or less effective
according to several factors, among them its nature, scope, stability,
internal structure (16). Political parties, for instance, can use their
influence over public decision-making processes – whose
implementation is guaranteed by the coercive authority of the state – to
impose costs on cheaters in corruption contracts, or vice versa to
promise future advantages to those who respect those informal rules.
They can, in fact, use as an enforcing mechanism their capability to rule
out cheaters from future profitable interactions with public bodies or
party structures: career perspectives for lower-level bureaucrats, support

          (16) Rules governing the corrupt exchange are enforced through sanctions,
whose administration is also governed by certain “procedures”. Third-party enforcers
can be self-constrained by second-order rules, or they can solve disputes more
arbitrarily – making the outcome of their enforcement activity less predictable,
therefore reducing the “quality” of their protection services. Third-party enforcers are
rarely neutral to the transacting parties, nor they necessarily do restrict themselves to
prescribing and impartially enforcing rules for compliance, as in the idealized rule-of-
law operations of the state. There are problems of reliability and incentive-
compatibility in the activities of actors and organizations involved as enforcers in the
market for corruption. In order to be credible, accepted and trusted by corrupt actors,
enforcers have to control and exhibit specific resources, whose use is costly –they
have to be compensated for their services. At the same time, protection has “public
good” attributes that makes it exploitable by free-riders, at least to a certain degree
(GAMBETTA 1993): when expectations converge towards a smooth functioning of the
rules of corruption, the demand for third-party enforcement declines. Specialized
enforcers must therefore police also their “extractive” activities, in order to motivate
and monitor payments of protection-money. On the other hand, since the essence of
protection consists in the power to impose costs, partners in corrupt transactions
must also be reassured that the guarantor will not use its power in order to seize
(instead of protect) assets exchanged.



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                              22
          A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



for publicly appointed positions or candidatures for elected politicians,
awards of public contracts or licenses to entrepreneurs, etc. They might
also appeal to common ideological values to obtain the compliance of
their corrupt members. Criminal organizations also have the power to
enforce illegal deals by using coercion, as well as their reputation as
“tough guys” able to adjudicate disputes. Cartels of contracting firms
may menace exclusion from profitable long-term relationships. In table 1
some of the main factors influencing organizations’ enforcement
capability are schematically represented. In general terms, the “quality”
of the governance mechanisms of corrupt transaction can be defined as:


     Table 1: Enforcement mechanisms within corrupt exchanges
Enforcement mechanism         Rules     Sanctions       Sanctioning
                              enforced                  agent

First-                     Moral      Interiori      Psychological Cheating
party                      benefit    zed            suffering and agent on
control                               ethical        guilt         himself
                                      values
                                      and
                                      beliefs
Second                     Hidden     Informal       Termination       Partners in
-party                     accountabi contract       of the            corrupt
control                    lity       ual            relationship;     exchanges
                                      obligatio      inflicting
                                      ns             costs
                                                     through
                                                     other means
                                                     (including
                                                     violence)
Third- Social              Hidden     Informal       Ostracism or      Other
party control              accountabi codes of       reputational      individual
contro                     lity       conduct        damage with       actors who
l                                     regulatin      a loss of         interact –
                                      g illegal      opportunities     with
                                      deals          for exchange;     different



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                         23
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



                                                   blame.            roles – in
                                                                     the network
                                                                     of
                                                                     corruption
          Individual Hidden      Informal          Exclusion         Specialized
          enforcement accountabi codes of          from future       individual
                      lity       conduct           opportunities     third-party
                                 regulatin         for exchange;     enforcers
                                 g illegal         violence, etc.    using private
                                 deals;                              resources or
                                 informal                            resources
                                 contract                            derived
                                 ual                                 from their
                                 obligatio                           position
                                 n                                   within a
                                                                     network of
                                                                     relationships
          Organizati Hidden      Informal          Exclusion         Specialized
          onal        accountabi codes of          from future       third-party
          enforcement lity       conduct           opportunities     enforcers
                                 regulatin         for exchange;     using
                                 g illegal         adverse           resource
                                 deals;            political         derived
                                 informal          influence;        from their
                                 contract          adverse           roles within
                                 ual               bureaucratic      an
                                 obligatio         decisions,        organization
                                 n                 ideological
                                                   “excommuni
                                                   cation”;
                                                   violence, etc..


5. Some conclusive remarks.
      An inclination towards corruption or towards integrity is not etched
in the genetic heritage or cultural roots of a society. Corruption, akin in
this to good governance, is the outcome of a multitude of individual and



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                       24
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



collective choices, supported and discouraged by the institutional matrix,
social relationships and circles of recognition, the structure of social
values and cultural norms. The combination of these elements creates
expectations, habits, beliefs, preferences, ways of thinking and judging the
sense of one’s own – as well as others’ – actions, which direct its
evolution over time and change public opinion towards corruption and its
diffusion throughout the state, markets and civil society. An effective
anticorruption policy addresses such change discouraging individual
involvement in illicit deals through material disincentives, societal
recognition of the value of integrity, moral barriers.
      A major challenge in anticorruption is how to accomplish with
policy measures a difficult exit from systemic or widespread corruption.
In general terms, anti-corruption policies are effective when they diminish
opportunities for and increase societal and normative barriers against
corruption. But any reform which influences macro-variables may have
only a remote connection – in both spatial and temporal terms – with the
factual conditions and informal constraints influencing the activities of a
specific subset of actors who can accept or offer a bribe, while the script
which regulates their transactions remains substantially unaltered (17)
There is no simple or univocal recipe to deal with anti-bribery measures,
since corruption is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, influenced
by a multitude of interrelated variables which affect both the anticipated
benefits, the expectations and the socially recognized values which allow
for such calculations to take place in the first place. Such conditions can
explain the difficulties encountered in their implementation: “the history
of anti-corruption campaigns around the world is not propitious. At the
national and local levels, in ministries and in agencies such as the police,
even highly publicized efforts to reduce corruption have tended to lush,
lapse, and, ultimately, disappoint” (Klitgaard et al. 2000: 11).
        A point emerge from previous analysis: reforms aimed at
dismantling systemic corruption have to be finely tuned against its
hidden governance structures, i.e. its internal regulation of exchanges and
relationships. The hidden accountability of corrupt deals, in fact, is a


         (17) According to the script approach, any crime can be identified and
classified according to the routine steps followed by its actors, using this identification
to find crime prevention measures (CORNISH 1994).



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                               25
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



powerful force lowering the effectiveness of both legal and societal
mechanisms of control and enforcement.
        Moreover, in the absence of countervailing forces external to the
corrupt environment – such as the entry of “honesty-promoting”
competitors in the political arena, a strong anticorruption movement
from below, channeling the pressure towards integrity of the public
opinion, etc. – a vicious circle may emerge: the more an anti-corruption
policy is needed, because corruption is systemic and “centripetal”, i.e.
enforced by effective third-parties, the less probable its formulation and
implementation. In this case, in fact, most policy makers will also be
involved – as participants in illegal deals, therefore liable to be
blackmailed, or indirect beneficiary of rents collected through
corruption. In this context even apparently robust policy measures – the
institution of an anti-corruption authority, for instance – can easily be
reversed into yet another corruptible or useless public agency, not
executing or financing its operations.
      Only when official rules are complemented by coherent informal
institutions they tend to produce the expected outcomes. The fertile
ground of any anticorruption regulatory reform lies therefore in a
simultaneous set in motion of bottom-up initiatives, empowering societal
actors, allowing them to become really influential towards those political
entrepreneurs having the authority to change the formal “rules of the
game”, making anticorruption regulation more effective. The
involvement of civil society and local community participation in anti-
corruption policies may represent a potential preliminary spark to set in
motion any conceivable positive feedback interplay between actors’ interests
towards integrity and optimistic expectations that an exit from systemic
corruption can be found. Recognizing the importance of “appropriate
cultural resources” in the promotion and maintenance of integrity, anti-
corruption projects should adapt to the social values prevailing in each
country (Newell 2011).
      In recent years social movements denouncing kleptocratic
practices, corrupt politicians and entrepreneurs, have developed a
radically different explanatory framework. Consequently, also the policy
toolkit enlarged. The fight against corruption is a basic constituent of a
wider effort of citizens to oppose the deterioration of the quality of
democratic processes. In order to raise resistance against corruption it is



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                 26
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



therefore necessary to restore or discover new accountability and
transparency mechanisms that will permit a more effective control of
citizens on the rulers. This implies the revitalization of a conception of
politics intended not as a technique, but as a contribution to a realization
of the common good. Experiences and experiments that increase the
citizens’ opportunities to participate in public policies, in the
formulation, decision-making and implementation phases, increase
information available to the public, spreading a broad awareness and
knowledge that in the “technocratic” conception of politics are instead –
for ideological beliefs or “wilful misconduct” – kept jealously hidden
(della Porta et al., 2014).




LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                 27
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



      Bibliographic references:
Alam, M.S. (1990) Some Economic Costs of Corruption in LDCs. The
       Journal of Development Studies, 27(1), 85-97.
Allen, D.W. (1991) What Are Transaction Costs? Research in Law and
       Economics, 14(3), 1-18.
Banfield, E.C., and Wilson, J.Q. (1967) City Politics. Cambridge:
       Cambridge University Press
Banfield, E.C. (1975) Corruption as a feature of governmental
       organisation. The Journal of Law and Economics, 18(3), 587-605.
Barzel, Y. (1989) Economic Analysis of Property Rights. Cambridge:
       Cambridge University Press.
Barzel, Y. (2002) A Theory of the State. Economic Rights, Legal Rights, and the
       Scope of the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Benson, B.L. (1990), The Enterprise of Law. Justice Without the State. San
       Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy.
Benson, B.L. and Baden, J. (1985) The Political Economy of
       Governmental Corruption: the Logic of Underground
       Government. Journal of Legal Studies, 14(2), 391-410.
Coleman, J.S. (1990) Foundations of Social Theory, Cambridge (Mass)-
       London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Coleman, J. W. (1987) Toward an Integrated Theory of white Collar
       Crime. American Journal of Sociology, 93(2), 406-439.
Cornish, D. (1994) Crime as Scripts, in Proceedings of the International
       Seminar on Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis, edited by D.
       Zahm, and P. Cromwell. Coral Gables, University of Miami, 30-
       45.
Cox, G., McCubbin, M. (2001), Structure and policy: The institutional
       determinants of policy outcomes, in S. Haggard, M. Mc Cubbins (eds.)
       The structure of fiscal and regulatory policy, Wahington, World bank,
       Policy research..
Crouch, C. (2011), The Strange Non-death of Neo-liberalism, Malden, Polity.
della Porta, D. (1992) Lo scambio occulto. Bologna: Il Mulino.
della Porta, D. (2013) Can Democracy be Saved?. Oxford: Polity.
Della Porta, D., J. Font and Y. Syntomer (eds), 2014. Participatory
       democracy in Southern Europe, Rowman and Littlefield.
della Porta, D., Vannucci, A. (1999), Corrupt Exchanges, New York,
       Aldine de Gruyter.



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                    28
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



della Porta, D. and Vannucci, A. (2005) The Moral (and Immoral) Costs of
       Corruption, in Dimensionen politischer Korruption, edited by U. von
       Alemann Wiesbaden: Vs. Verlag, 109-134.
della Porta, D., Vannucci, A. (2007), Mani impunite, Roma, Laterza.
della Porta, D., Vannucci, A. (2012), The Hidden Order of Corruption,
       Farnham, Ashgate.
della Porta, D., Vannucci, A. (2014) Centripetal versus centrifugal corruption:
       A framework for the analysis of corrupt exchange and hidden governance
       structures, Anticorrp project, European Commission, D1.1, in
       http://anticorrp.eu/wp-
       content/uploads/2014/12/D1.1_Part6_Centripedal-versus-
       centrifugal-corruption.pdf, December 11.
Dobel, J. P. (1978), “The Corruption of a State”, The American Political
       Science Review, 72 (3), 958-973.
Ellickson, R.C. (1991) Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes.
       Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press.
Elster, J. (1989), Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences,. Cambridge:
       Cambridge University Press.
Friedrich, C. J., (1972) The Pathology of Politics, New York, Harper and
       Row.
Gambetta, D. (1993) The Sicilian Mafia. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard
       University Press.
Gambetta, D. (2000) Can We Trust Trust?, in Gambetta, D. (ed.) Trust:
       Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, electronic edition,
       Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, chapter 13, pp.
       213-237, <http://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/papers/gambetta213-
       237.pdf>
Gambetta, D. (2002) Corruption: An Analytical Map, in Political Corruption of
       Transition: A Skeptic’s Handbook, S. Kotkin and A. Sajo (eds.),
       Budapest: Central European University Press, 33-56.
Hirschman, A. (1982) Shifting Involvements. Princeton: Princeton
       University Press.
Holzner, B. (1972) Reality Construction in Society. Cambridge (Mass.):
       Schenkman.
Husted, B. (1994) Honor among thieves: A transaction-cost
       interpretation of corruption in the third world. Business Ethics
       Quarterly. 4(1),17-27.



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                    29
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



Klitgaard, R. (1988) Controlling Corruption. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
         University of California Press.
Klitgaard, R. (1998) “International Cooperation Against Corruption”,
         Finance & Development, 35 (1), 3–6.
Klitgaard, R., MacLea-Abroa, R. and Parris, H. L. (2000) Corrupt cities.
         Washington: World Bank.
Lambsdorff, J. (2002) Making Corrupt Deals: Contracting in the Shadow
         of the Law. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 48(3), 221-
         41.
Lambsdorff, J. (2007) Institutional economics of corruption and reform.
         Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
La Porta, R., F. Lopez-de-Silanes, A. Shleifer, R.W. Vishny (1997) Trust
         in Large Organizations. American Economic Review, 87(2), 333-338.
La Porta, R., F. Lopez-de-Silanes, A. Shleifer, R.W. Vishny (1999) The
         Quality of Government. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization,
         15(1), 222-279.
Mani Pulite (1992) Supplement to Panorama, October.
Mény, Y. (2000). La corruption de la Republique. Paris. Editions de Sciences
         Po.Paldam, M. 2001. Corruption and Religion. Adding to the
         Economic Model. Kyklos, 54(2-3), 383-413.
Newell, J. (2011) Where crime and politics meet: ‘It’s the culture, stupid!’,
         in Usual and unusual organising criminals in Europe and beyond, Liber
         Amicorum Petrus van Duyne. Apeldoorn: Maklu, 151-172
North, D. C., (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic
         Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pierson, P. (2004) Politics in time. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pizzorno, A. (1992) La corruzione nel sistema politico , in Lo scambio occulto, D.
         della Porta, Bologna: Il Mulino, 13-74.
Pizzorno, A. (2007) Il velo della diversità. Milano, Feltrinelli.
Reuter P. (1983) Disorganized Crime. Cambridge (Mass.)-London: The
         MIT Press.
Rose Ackerman, S. (1978) Corruption. A Study in Political Economy. New
         York: Academic Press.
Soreide, T. (2014), Drivers of corruption , Washington, World Bank.
Stiglitz, J. E. (2012) The Price of Inequality. New York: Norton and Co.
Teorell, J. (2007) Corruption as an institution, Gotenburg: QoG Working
         Paper series n.5.



LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                                       30
        A.VANNUCCI, Three paradigms for the analysis of corruption



Vannucci, A. (2012) Atlante della corruzione, Torino, Edizioni Gruppo
     Abele.




LLI, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2015                                             31
