Corruption - and how it affects the political legitimacy of the state.

• Author: Cheema, G. Shabbir

There is quite clearly no one universally accepted definition of corruption. What is universally acknowledged is that man has been and continues to be the perpetrator of corruption and its victim throughout history, says G. Shabbir Cheema, Director of Management Development and Governance Division, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in his article, opposite.

Corruption is a form of social relationship. It is an act or series of acts that take place within a given culture under a specific set of circumstances. The cultural and environmental circumstances may differ from country to country. These differences make it almost impossible to come up with a generalized definition of what constitutes corrupt behaviour. Notwithstanding the differences in the perception of corruption, there is a central core element of corruption which is decried by most cultures, viz, most instances of bribery, fraud, extortion, embezzlement, venality, perversity, misuse or appropriation of public organization funds for private or personal use, and orally unsound or debased behaviour.

Corruption has enormous and varied adverse implications for society, and in particular for the central bureaucracy, which is the key link between the Government, as allocator of crucial and scarce resources and services, and the public and the ruling elite. Here, our particular concern is to look at the political legitimacy of the State and the implications of corruption for the central bureaucracy.

A corrupt administration is a direct abuse of the natural foundation of Government. Institutions designed to govern the relationships between the citizens and the State are used instead for personal enrichment of public officials and politicians and the provision of benefits to the corrupt. The adverse implications of this phenomenon include loss of revenue from the State to the individual, increased cost of doing government business, misallocation of public funds, social strife and political instability, and stifles economic growth. Corruption also stifles initiative and enterprise, and creates the problem of securing the loyalty of non-corrupt bureaucrats of contaminating the fresh and non-initiated corrupt bureacrats.

The United Nations General Assembly, concerned about the dysfunctional consequences of corruption, adopted a resolution on 28 January 1997 requesting that the Secretary-General assist Member States in designing strategies to prevent and control corruption. A...