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Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1557727
CORRUPTION: DIAGNOSIS
AND TREATMENT
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
In recent years, anticorruption has become a major industry, with glo-
bal expenditures growing to an estimated one hundred million dollars
per year.1 To date, however, few successes have resulted from this in-
vestment. We clearly speak more about corruption than we used to and
spend more money combating it, but there is little evidence that all this
activity is accomplishing much. The handbook published by Transpar-
ency International (TI) cites as best practices the laws or institutions
adopted in various countries, but their effects have yet to be measured.2
The World Bank’s Anticorruption in Transition also discusses ongoing
programs rather than already demonstrated successes.3
Political corruption poses a serious threat to democracy and its con-
solidation.4 One year after the widely acclaimed Orange Revolution in
Ukraine, one could already buy, though not very cheaply, a seat in the
Ukrainian parliament. The lack of success in curbing corruption, com-
bined with ever more widespread discussion of the issue, renders voters
extremely cynical and threatens to subvert public trust in emerging
democracies.
Why do so many anticorruption initiatives fail? Can a more success-
ful approach be built based on the very few successes we have wit-
nessed in recent years? The argument I advance is that many anticorrup-
tion initiatives fail because they are nonpolitical in nature, while most
of the corruption in developing and postcommunist countries is inher-
ently political. In fact, what we label corruption in these countries is not
the same phenomenon as corruption in developed countries. In the lat-
ter, the term corruption usually designates individual cases of infringe-
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi is director of the Romanian Academic Society, a
think tank in Bucharest, and a consultant for Freedom House and the
United Nations Development Programme in the Balkans. She heads the
Coalition for a Clean Parliament, which led an anticorruption cam-
paign during Romania’s 2004 elections.
Journal of Democracy Volume 17, Number 3 July 2006
© 2006 National Endowment for Democracy and The Johns Hopkins University Press
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1557727
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi 87
ment of the norm of integrity. In the former, corruption actually means
“particularism”—a mode of social organization characterized by the
regular distribution of public goods on a nonuniversalistic basis that
mirrors the vicious distribution of power within such societies.5 Few
anticorruption campaigns dare to attack the roots of corruption in soci-
eties where particularism is the norm, as these roots lie in the distribu-
tion of power itself. Instead, anticorruption strategies are adopted and
implemented in cooperation with the very predators who control the
government and, in some cases, the anticorruption instruments them-
selves. Based on my personal experience as an initiator of a successful
anticorruption campaign in Romania (as well as a researcher of many
failed efforts), I believe that electoral revolutions can lead to consoli-
dated democracies only if they are followed by revolutions against par-
ticularism, and that nothing short of such a revolution will succeed in
curbing corruption in countries where particularism prevails.6
Old Particularism and New Corruption
The Oxford English Dictionary defines corruption as the “perversion
or destruction of integrity in the discharge of public duties by bribery
and favor.” This definition of corruption rests on the presumption that
the state operates under some norm of universalism and that public
integrity is understood as equal treatment of citizens, which may occa-
sionally be infringed by favoritism. Even a brief historical review,
however, shows that until modern times those societies in which the
private and the public spheres are clearly delineated and the goal of
government is the public welfare of equal citizens, have been scarce—
and they are still relatively few. Corruption can therefore only be
understood in conjunction with the stage of development of a particu-
lar state or society; it makes little sense to discuss corruption in relation
to a patrimonial or absolutist state, as the norm that applies within such
societies is certainly not universalism. Only after the modernization of
the West European state was completed—and government became firmly
based on the assumption that public goods (from law and order, to jobs
in the public sector) would be distributed equally and fairly as a norm—
can we meaningfully begin to discuss corruption in Europe. Authors
who ask why modernization and democratization seem to bring more
corruption, and then look for answers in the process of modernization
itself, miss the fact that prior to modernization, a universal delivery of
public goods by the state existed only exceptionally.
As Max Weber puts it, only in the modern state is public office no
longer considered a source of income to be exploited for rents
[I]n exchange for the rendering of certain services, as was normally the
case in the Middle Ages. . . . It is decisive for the modern loyalty of an
Journal of Democracy88
office that, in the pure type, it does not establish a relationship to a person,
like the vassal’s or disciple’s faith under feudal or patrimonial authority,
but rather is devoted to impersonal and functional purposes.7
Wherever the above does not apply, we encounter collectivistic and
hierarchical societies based on the organizational mode called par-
ticularism. It runs directly counter to universalism, the norm and practice
of individualistic societies, where equal treatment applies to everyone
regardless of the group to which one belongs. In the latter type of
society, individuals expect equal treatment from the state. In the former,
their treatment depends on their status or position in society, and people
do not even expect to be treated fairly by the state; what they expect is
similar treatment to everybody with the same status. Max Weber origi-
nally defined status societies, which are ruled by particularism, as
societies that are governed by convention rather than law, where cer-
tain groups monopolize the powers of domination and sources of
income. Status can best be understood in terms of the distribution of
power, as it reflects an individual’s distance from the groups or net-
works that hold power. In other words, the closer an individual is to the
source of power, be it a charismatic leader or a privileged group, the
better positioned he or she is to enjoy a superior status, and therefore
more influence. Individuals who enjoy this privilege are linked in sta-
tus-based groups such as castes, orders, or networks, and have much
greater access to public goods.
A culture of privilege reigns in societies based on particularism,
making unequal treatment the accepted norm in society. Individuals
struggle to belong to the privileged group rather than to change the
rules of the game. There is widespread infringement of the norms of
impartiality and fairness. Influence, not money, is the main currency,
and the benefits to an individual anywhere in the chain are hard to
measure: Favors are distributed or denied as part of a customary ex-
change with rules of its own, sometimes not involving direct personal
gain for the “gatekeeper.” Bribery often occurs as a means of circum-
venting inequality; for the many people with lower status, bribing an
official may be the only way to secure equal treatment.
Obviously, societies in the real world do not all neatly divide into
the categories of particularism and universalism, but can be placed on
an imaginary continuum between these two poles. To simplify, regimes
can be classified into three rough types using corruption as the main
variable (see Figure, horizontal axis). The left end of the horizontal axis
represents a monopoly of power and the right end represents liberal
democracy. Most contemporary societies, as well as most non-Euro-
pean societies over the past hundred years, fall somewhere between
these two extremes.
The first category includes patrimonial regimes and purely particu-
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi 89
laristic states. In these societies, rulers, their families, and their cliques
are unaccountable, and can seize the property of any of their subjects.
They must, however, also show some restraint so as not to push their
subjects to rebellion. Thus, although the spoils of corruption can be
large, traditional unlike modern autocrats tread carefully, and corrup-
tion remains limited, even in the absence of proper accountability.
The demise of traditional authority (or neotraditional authority, in
the case of communist countries) is seldom followed by liberal democ-
racy, but rather tends to lead to intermediate regimes. In these cases, the
monopoly of power gives way, but the ensuing competition for power
and spoils is not restricted by formal or informal constraints. Not only
are institutions of accountability missing, but the distribution of power
is unbalanced in favor of certain social or ethnic groups. The main prize
in the competition for power is the state and all of its resources: Who-
ever seizes the state, seizes the day.8
Even when formal democratic institutions are kept in place, as was
the case in many former British colonies in Africa, regimes developed
that were even less concerned with public welfare than the traditional
ones had been. The historian Barrington Moore, Jr., labeled rulers in
such regimes “predatory elites,” who, in the process of generating pros-
perity for themselves, produce a degree of poverty otherwise unwarranted
in that specific society.9
Where political change has occurred through revolution, we might
expect more accountability to follow, but this is often not the case.
Revolutions aim at rapid progress, and revolutionary leaders often gain
legitimacy through charisma. They are less concerned with building
institutions of accountability than with completing the takeover of the
state from the previous rulers (with the notable exception of the Ameri-
can Revolution).
Within the intermediate category of regimes described above, which
I call “competitive particularism,” corruption explodes. But because
popular expectations change greatly once the traditional regime is gone,
social acceptance of corruption is no longer the norm. As it becomes
FIGURE—EVOLUTION OF CORRUPTION BY REGIME TYPE
CORRUPTION
UNIVERSALISM
COMPETITIVE
PARTICULARISM
PATRIMONIALISM
Journal of Democracy90
clear that free elections can bring about changes of government, albeit
changes that do not produce better governance, forces within society
start pushing for mechanisms to hold rulers accountable. Even in poor
illiterate societies people do not tolerate corruption among new leaders
as readily as they once tolerated abuses by traditional rulers. The de-
fense mechanisms against predatory elites vary greatly across “com-
petitive particularist” societies, which include Latin American
delegative democracies, African competitive anarchies, and
postcommunist electoral democracies. The differences among these re-
gimes, however, are outweighed by their main similarity—the combi-
nation of premodern and modern corruption, or rather of old particular-
ism and new corruption. Unlike in traditional societies, where only a
small group of people are above the law, in these regimes multiple
groups compete for this privileged position. Moreover, the unaccount-
able behavior of rulers legitimates unlawful behavior by citizens, and
the distance between formal institutions (rule of law) and informal ones
(real practices) grows. In such a situation, democracy risks being dis-
credited for good, and “captive states” are likely to result.
A special note should be made for the communist regimes of Eastern
Europe, which bred considerable corruption, though they had explicit
and extensive modernization goals. The essential contradiction embed-
ded in the communist power structure, which allowed status groups
such as the nomenklatura to enjoy political and economical monopo-
lies, subverted the regimes’ modernizing designs. The communist system
created a “politocracy,” as power was the main instrument of allocating
social rewards and political office was closely intertwined with social
status, generating what Andrew Janos called a “modern version of the
old tables of rank.”10 Examples of such status-holders during the com-
munist period ranged from the apparatchik, to the “director,” to the
party member, to the civil servant in charge of distributing resources,
always in short supply, to the members of any officially acknowledged
group, such as the Union of Writers and Journalists or even a sports
club. As other sources of wealth and forms of social stratification were
gradually annihilated by communist regimes, status became the sole
foundation of social hierarchy, justifying Ken Jowitt’s label of “neo-
traditionalism.”11 It is this original vicious distribution of influence,
not democratization, that is to blame for the corruption we encounter in
postcommunist societies.
In Western Europe and North America, the historical process of build-
ing accountable government and creating a politically neutral and pro-
fessional civil service was generally lengthy and time-consuming.12
Depending on the historical context, various actors, from Swedish aris-
tocrats to British financiers and American intellectuals, put forward
assertive demands for professional and accountable government. These
demands for accountability led to changes in both formal and informal
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi 91
institutions. Thus in the third type of regime, liberal democracy (see
Figure on p. 89), the opportunities for corruption decrease and it be-
comes less common. Once a balance of power has been achieved among
social groups through an organic and gradual process, universal rules
and norms serve as significant constraints on major actors and their
strategies within a given polity. Corruption does resurface, however,
when accountability becomes weak or nonexistent (see, for instance,
the international government of Kosovo or the UN Oil-for-Food
Programme).
Where the norm of universalism is not enforced and widely respected,
democracy does not take root, even if elections are held regularly; hence
the significant association between the Freedom House (FH) freedom
score and the TI corruption-perception index.13 In the 2000 World Val-
ues Survey, people who perceive more corruption within official ranks
and a weak rule of law in their respective countries are also the most
democratic, endorsing democracy as the best form of government de-
spite its imperfections. The dissatisfaction of these citizens with the
outcome of the democratic process seems therefore grounded in the
failure of their governments to provide, at a minimum, rule of law, and
at a maximum, fair policy making that does not favor certain groups
over others.14
Diagnosis, Not Just “Anatomy”
In recent years, it has become fashionable for governments to invite
international corruption-assessment missions and, at least rhetorically,
to proclaim their commitment to curb corruption. The problem is that
both the assessment instruments (which result in a descriptive “anatomy
of corruption”) and the resulting anticorruption strategies seem to be
simply replicated from one country to another. Donors gather in grand
anticorruption meetings, but they all result in the same stereotypical
strategies. Impressive efforts have been undertaken to formulate better
theories of corruption, to develop comprehensive strategies to battle it,
and to review anticorruption efforts around the world. Yet we still can-
not properly diagnose corruption. A proper diagnosis means that we
understand the causes of a malady in the context of a given organism.
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina famously opens with the observation that
happy families are all alike, while unhappy ones are each unhappy in
their own way. A family therapist therefore has to solve each riddle on
its own terms.
To reach a proper diagnosis of corruption in a given society I suggest
a qualitative strategy. Our goal is to understand whether corruption is
the exception or whether it is the norm. For each society, we must ask:
Are we dealing with modern corruption, where corruption is the excep-
tion to the norm of universalism? Or are we dealing with particularism
Journal of Democracy92
and a culture of privilege, where corruption itself is the norm? Or, as is
frequently the case in the postcolonial world where the modern state
was defectively implanted on a traditional society, are we dealing with
a combination of the two? If so, to what extent is the government guided
by universalist norms and to what extent is its main task to promote
patronage and cater to specific interest groups?
Direct and indirect indicators can be summoned to help answer these
questions. What are the chances of an excellent company winning a
contract under a program such as Oil for Food if it is not networked with
either the UN or the Iraqi government? What is the likelihood of a
contractor winning a bid for public works if the owner is not related to
anybody in the government distributing the funds? How many of such
companies have managed to win tenders in past years? Even when no
domestic watchdog monitors appointments to the public service or bids
for public money, an analysis of past contracts combined with minor
investigatory work can establish the facts.
As a rule, status groups are not hidden. In fact, they are rather con-
spicuous and easy to identify. Who owns the main TV networks? Who
are the most influential publishers? What positions do their sons and in-
laws hold? Are they, by chance, ministers or members of parliament?
Are the same names always present when goods are divided? A chart of
the most influential people and their connections is more telling than
ten surveys on bribery, and can help us understand if corruption is the
norm or the exception in a given society. Diagnosing particularism
requires only minimal anthropological skills. If the power brokers and
gatekeepers are always the same, regardless of a change of government,
they are probably well known, and local people will be able to identify
them. The amateur anthropologist would simply have to ask around to
discover who is the person to talk to in order to solve a problem in a
given area.
There are also several indirect indicators that can contribute to the
diagnosis of particularism:
• Persistence of widespread popular perceptions of government cor-
ruption despite changes in government;
• Influential jobs being held by the same individuals or groups re-
gardless of the outcome of elections;
• High political migration from opposition parties to the party in
government;
• A widespread perception that politicians are above the law;
• A situation in which access to nearly every resource is intermedi-
ated by oligarchic networks;
• Failure to take legal action against even the most notoriously cor-
rupt members of high-status groups.
Although regimes based on particularism have many similarities,
they also differ significantly from one another. Particularism is not to-
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi 93
talitarianism, and it can admit some degree of flexibility. Particularism’s
ability to survive comes directly from its capacity to keep open mini-
mal channels for upward mobility—such as marrying into the right
family or catering to the right patron—so
that social entrepreneurs are more tempted
to use those channels than to attempt to
overthrow the whole system.
After a diagnosis of particularism, it
is necessary to determine the degree to
which a system is closed or open. A closed
particularism will generate more frustra-
tion, and thus is more vulnerable to a se-
vere crisis that will shake the whole sys-
tem. A more open and flexible
particularism, in which challengers are
accommodated and socialized into the
rules of the game, is likely to be more re-
silient.
This brings us to the next important question: Are there regular
losers from corruption, and is there anybody to speak on their behalf?
Also, are there credible actors to denounce corruption?
It is equally important to identify the nature of what is being cor-
rupted. Do we find distortions of the universal pattern that the state
should follow when treating its citizens? Do some companies benefit
from more tax exemptions than others? Do specific individuals enjoy
privileges that are granted by the government? Is the will of the voters
being thwarted, or are public funds being diverted for private ends?
A related and important question is: What are the main spoils of
corruption? Public influence is always a currency, but is it the main
currency? Are the state and everything in it, from offices to public works,
“privatized” informally by status groups and corrupted networks? In
postcommunist societies, the state entered the transition as the over-
whelmingly dominant actor in all realms of society. Therefore, the state
is often the principal agent of corruption in these countries, and the
private sector is a fiction that predatory elites create in order to move to
a more refined stage of public-asset exploitation.
In postcolonial societies, where the state is only one of the actors
competing for control of the territory or the economy, the principal
actor may be found elsewhere, perhaps in the rebellious society, in for-
eign business firms, or in neighboring countries. There is an important
qualitative difference between a state bribed by a firm to provide a tax
break and a state whose executives are also its main businesspeople and
gradually transform public assets into their private property (as is found
in some post-Soviet states). In the first case, police work might help. In
the second, those who direct the police are themselves the guardians of
There is a difference
between a state bribed
to provide a tax break
and a state whose
executives are also its
main businesspeople
and gradually trans-
form public assets into
their own private
property.
Journal of Democracy94
TABLE 1—A TYPOLOGY OF CORRUPTION
the corrupt system. In these cases, the system is also very likely to be
organized hierarchically, much like a criminal group, with those at the
bottom collecting bribes that feed the upper levels of the government.
In examining the nature of the spoils, one also must look at electoral
corruption. The will of the voters can be manipulated in many ways. In
traditional systems in poor rural societies, resources are released by
gatekeepers in exchange for votes. In these societies, the voters have no
choice. Their vote is a commodity that they trade for their food, heating,
or land. In more modern societies, voters can exercise an autonomous
will, and the choice rests with them. Campaign funds are needed to
make a case to voters in an open game of persuasion, but higher spend-
ing does not guarantee electoral success. American-style campaign-fi-
nance legislation, which mostly regulates and exposes private contribu-
tions to campaigns, is grossly irrelevant to countries where voters are
illiterate and own no TVs. In these countries, the main funding for po-
litical parties is public, and the chief commodity of the campaign is not
private money (still controlled by the state by various means) but rather
administrative resources of every kind. Electoral corruption varies greatly
from Kazakhstan to Nigeria to the United States. It is a gross and fre-
quent error to think that the same solution might apply everywhere.
A systematic typology of corruption will roughly follow the catego-
ries laid out in column I of Table 1. Freedom House scores offer some
initial indication of whether a country is at the stage of competitive
particularism or liberal democracy. The distribution of power (column
II) can be deduced from electoral history as well as other events such as
the sanctioning of a powerful and influential individual by a court. Power
is highly centralized in purely particularist societies, disputed among
groups vying for status in competitive particularist ones, and distributed
relatively equally in societies guided by the norms of universalism.
Determining “ownership” of the state is also helpful in diagnosing
corruption (column III). The World Bank has developed an instrument
to measure “state capture” versus state autonomy. But because it is
based on surveys of businesses, it does not tell us all that we need to
Patrimonialism/
Pure
particularism
Competitive
particularism
Universalism
Unfair but
predictable
Unfair and
unpredictable
Fair and
predictable
Moderate
Low
Very low
One or few
owners
Contested
Autonomous
Monopoly
Uneven and
disputed
Relatively
equal
I.
REGIME
II.
POWER
DISTRIBUTION
III.
“OWNERSHIP”
OF THE STATE
IV.
DISTRIBUTION
OF PUBLIC
GOODS
V.
SOCIAL
ACCEPTABILITY
OF C ORRUPTION
VI.
PUBLIC/
PRIVATE
DISTINCTION
No
Poor
Sharp
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi 95
know about the nature of the state. We need to trace networks of power
and privilege, to establish the extent to which public goods are distrib-
uted through them (column IV), and to determine how thick, how closed,
and how influential they are.
Polls can usually be trusted to determine the social acceptability of
corruption. For example, do people indicate in surveys that politicians,
judges, and policemen stand above the law? As column V in Table 1
indicates, we will find moderate acceptance of corruption where par-
ticularism is the norm, low social acceptance in the phase of competitive
particularism, and very low acceptance in universalist societies.
Measuring the distinction between the public and private spheres
(column VI) is more subtle, but indicators can be easily found to deter-
mine whether there is no distinction (pure particularism), a poor
distinction (competitive particularism), or a sharp distinction (univer-
salism). Do executives in the public sector hire their relatives? Are
subordinates in the public sector used to help with the domestic affairs
of their bosses?
A diagnosis of corruption needs to include both qualitative and quan-
titative elements. Qualitative instruments such as representative surveys,
however, are more reliable for an analysis of the causes of corrupt be-
havior than for providing precise figures on its extent. For example,
Table 2 details an analysis, based on a European Union survey con-
ducted in the Balkans, which suggests that particularism is the rule of
the game. The analysis is based on cross-tabulating the strategies that
citizens employ to obtain a range of public services and their level of
satisfaction with these services. The results show that only those who
have some important personal connection get satisfactory service. Those
who lack such connections and are not related to the right groups have
to give bribes to get the needed resources, but this leaves them only
moderately satisfied. The great majority of people, who have no con-
nections, must amass all of their resources for one indispensable extra
payment (for instance to obtain surgery), and can afford to pay it only
once, or not at all.15 We must therefore determine whether corruption
provides the means by which those who are low on influence and con-
nections can buy access by means of a supra-tax. Do individuals wind
up paying more than others for normal treatment, or do they actually
buy privilege? These are critical distinctions, as in the former case build-
TABLE 2—STRATEGIES TO MAKE THE ADMINISTRATION
WORK FOR YOU
*Percentage varies across countries.
Uses connections
Uses regular bribes
Uses occasional or no bribes
STRATEGY SATISFACTION
WITH SERVICE
High
Fair
Low or none
Personalize service
Increase efficiency of service
Get some service
OBJECTIVE
20–25%
10–20%
Greater than 50%
PERCENT OF
POPULATION*
Journal of Democracy96
ing an anticorruption strategy based on a judicial enforcement is cer-
tain to fail, while in the latter case it is indispensable.
Fighting Corruption Outside Courts
It is often said that corruption is universal, that it has existed at all
times and in every society, and that it will persist as long as human nature
does not change. This view blurs the crucial distinction between corrup-
tion as a mode of social organization—particularism—and the occasional
individual corruption, that can indeed be found nearly everywhere. Elec-
toral democracies cannot afford to blur this distinction, however, as par-
ticularism can prevent consolidation into robust democracies. Most West-
ern countries fought the battle against particularism centuries ago, and
they won. The case of U.S. lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was convicted in
2006 of conspiracy to corrupt public officials, is illustrative: While it
shows that political and economic development does not bring about
spectacular improvements in human nature, it is proof that the system
works and that culprits often do get caught regardless of their political
connections. The challenge is to ensure that emerging democracies suc-
ceed in doing what the Swedes managed to do at the end of eighteenth
century, and the British a century later: Build a government that is both
accountable and fair, and construct societies that embrace universalism
as the supreme principle governing relations between the people and
government, and among the people themselves.
The overall message of the anticorruption industry is that corrupt
countries should replicate the institutions of clean countries. Many
countries, however, have adopted various Western institutions without
affecting the core elements of particularism. The ombudsman, for ex-
ample, which is a Scandinavian institution that has been reproduced in
many emerging democracies, has been largely unsuccessful, as the his-
torical process that promoted universalism at the expense of particular-
ism in the Scandinavian countries has not been replicated as well.
Thus it is important to identify the institutional triggers of such his-
torical processes. In this light “best practices” should include not only
anticorruption legislation, but also anticorruption initiatives with mea-
surable results. This is where we should look for inspiration. If courts
and legal battles against corruption are conspicuously missing in this
analysis, it is because in the countries I am concerned with courts are
not autonomous from status groups, and legislation is frequently not
implemented. Moreover, infringements of the law are so widespread
that solving corruption through the courts under conditions of com-
petitive particularism is simply impossible. Legal mechanisms can be
effective only after the essentials of particularism have been dismantled.
Who and what can stimulate change in the face of institutionalized
particularism? The answer is not obvious. Particularism cannot be fought
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi 97
by government—that is a contradiction in terms. Historically, it has
been the political opposition, civil society, or even enlightened des-
pots who have promoted the greatest strides forward. Populist parties,
by contrast, have typically competed for power with anticorruption slo-
gans, only to end up as corrupt as their predecessors. In many new
democracies, as well as in some older ones (the classic case is Italy), one
can find status groups spanning the boundaries of political parties and
agreeing to divide the public sector among themselves. The term
partitocrazia was coined precisely to describe this situation.
The first step toward exiting the vicious cycle of particularism is to
organize the losers in this system against the status groups and the
predatory elites—in other words, to build an insurrectional army. This
alliance should include not only idealists from civil society, but groups
who stand to lose the most by corruption. If churches and unions join
NGOs and independent media, an effective alliance can be formed. At
least one political party should be lured into cooperation, creating in-
centives for other parties to compete in proving who is cleaner. If
democrats and civil society activists fail to embrace this cause,
nondemocrats, from right-wing populists to Islamists, will do so.
The second step is to institute the norms of universalism. The coali-
tion should agree on some minimal criteria for fairness and integrity in
public life, and make them part of a full political program. These crite-
ria must be negotiated and widely debated across parties and with the
government. Whether or not these criteria are incorporated into new
legislation, they should be used to monitor top public servants and
politicians, and the results should be made public. If one or more politi-
cal parties adopt the criteria and promise to screen their members to
comply with them, an important step forward will have been made, and
they should be given credit for their efforts.
The third step—and here international assistance is crucial—is to
push for the adoption of some “institutional weapons” that an anticor-
ruption coalition or isolated anticorruption entrepreneurs can use. This
goal cannot be achieved without the cooperation of the government,
but its implementation cannot be ensured without the active involve-
ment of civil society. Besides transparency legislation, the arsenal of
“institutional weapons” includes the compulsory disclosure of wealth
by politicians, civil servants, and magistrates.
The final step is to create incentives for actors to “go clean.” These
incentives are provided by vigorous public monitoring and disclosure,
especially under circumstances such as elections, which create a sort of
market mechanism that maximizes incentives for politicians to avoid cor-
rupt behavior. Using the institutional weapons at hand, the “army” should
try to unseat the status groups in politics or the professions by waging
disclosure campaigns and trying to end their monopoly of influence.
When are circumstances ripe for such insurrections against particular-
Journal of Democracy98
ism? In situations where most people are content with existing arrange-
ments and do not feel that they personally have anything to lose by
corruption, you simply cannot fight particularism. Thus it is best to at-
tack such systems during economic crises or other periods of societal
stress. Great political turning points can also provide a favorable envi-
ronment. An example is the case of postcommunist countries joining the
European Union, where groups are able to invoke EU conditionality in
the fight against particularism. In any case, civil society is a more effec-
tive auditor and a more credible ombudsman than public institutions in
such societies, and it should be supported financially so that it may per-
form these functions until the state becomes mature enough to take over.
There are also longer-term desiderata, including a mix of domestic
and international action, that can help to facilitate the success of anti-
corruption efforts:
• The international community should maintain strong external pres-
sure for more accountability and transparency.
• The dependence of citizens on the state should be addressed and
gradually reduced by having fewer employees on the public payroll,
fewer resources directly controlled by the state, and so on.
• Mechanisms of free and fair competition should be built in each
and every sector.
These nonexhaustive guidelines, inspired by a handful of successes
on the ground, are not meant to cast aside the vast arsenal of anticorrup-
tion tools that technical-assistance programs can provide.16 Rather, they
are meant to warn against reliance on the wrong instruments for certain
environments. An anticorruption agency might work well in democratic
Australia, with its tradition of an independent judiciary, but the same
kind of institution would fail to indict or arrest anybody who is “some-
body” in the former Soviet Union. The cooperation of governments is
ideal if one can get it, but particularism cannot be fought by relying on
governments. There are no “win-win” anticorruption campaigns. Some-
body stands to lose, and in the societies we are most concerned with,
those who stand to lose are on top. The fight against particularism in
such societies is an intrinsic part of the greater modernization and de-
mocratization process. It may at times look like civil war, but as the
history of democracy shows, civil wars are sometimes needed to ad-
vance the cause of accountable government.
NOTES
1. See Michael Bryane, “The Rapid Rise of the Anticorruption Industry: To-
ward Second Generation Anticorruption Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe?”
Local Governance Brief (Spring 2004): 17–25. http://lgi.osi.hu/publications/2004/
254/LGB_spring_2004.pdf.
2. Transparency International’s Corruption Handbook: National Integrity Sys-
tems in Practice, available at http://ww1.transparency.org/ach/index.html.
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi 99
3. World Bank, Anticorruption in Transition: A Contribution to the Policy
Debate (Washington: World Bank, 2000).
4. See Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 92.
5. See Guillermo O’Donnell, “Illusions about Consolidation,” in Larry Dia-
mond, Marc F. Plattner, Yun-han Chu, and Hung-mao Tien, eds., Consolidating
the Third Wave Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997),
46–47.
6. See Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, “The Story of the Romanian Coalition for a Clean
Parliament,” Journal of Democracy 16 (April 2005): 154–55. For a full case study
see www.sar.org.ro/Romanian%20Coalition_for%20a%20Clean%20Parliament.pdf.
7. Max Weber, Economy and Society III (New York: Bedminster, 1969): 159.
8. The phrase “Seize the state, seize the day,” belongs to Joel Hellman. The
model is described at length in Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States:
State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1998).
9. See Barrington Moore, Jr., Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and
Revolt (White Plains, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1978).
10. Andrew Janos, East Central Europe in the Modern World (Palo Alto: Stanford
University Press, 2000), 357.
11. Kenneth Jowitt, New World Disorder or the Leninist Extinction (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1992).
12. Haile K. Asmerom and Elisa P. Reis, eds., Democratization and Bureau-
cratic Neutrality (New York: St. Martin’s, 1996).
13. Regression models conducted with democracy (FH score) as a dependent
variable, and corruption (TI score), and development (World Bank GNI) as inde-
pendent variables (2004 data), then with corruption as dependent and democracy
as independent, controlling for development. The number of countries (191) is the
total number of countries for which a TI corruption index is computed.
14. Based on a World Values Survey conducted by the European Values Study
Group and World Values Survey Association. (Inter-university Consortium for
Political and Social Research [distributors], 2005). WVS models with subjective
corruption (perception of how many officials are corrupted) as the dependent
variable, and the endorsement of the democratic regime, the satisfaction with the
present outcome of democracy, the satisfaction with performance of law and order
agencies, and basic social status controls, as the independents.
15. Based on an EU survey conducted in five Balkan countries. See Alina Mungiu-
Pippidi, “Deconstructing Balkan Particularism: The Ambiguous Social Capital of
Southeastern Europe,” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 5 (January 2005):
49–68.
16. This review is based on three very recent evaluations, including both suc-
cess stories and failures: Bertram I. Spector, ed., Fighting Corruption in Developing
Countries: Strategies and Analysis (Bloomfield, Conn.: Kumarian Press, 2005);
Martin Tisne and Daniel Smilov, From the Ground Up: Assessing the Record of
Anticorruption Assistance in Southeast Europe (Budapest: Central European Uni-
versity Press, 2004); and Romanian Coalition for a Clean Parliament 2005: A
Quest for Political Integrity (Iasi, Romania: Polirom, 2005).
