If you want to tackle corruption, then you have to start by defining it.
The ways in which corruption is defined can determine how it is tackled.
Original meaning of the word
There is no universally agreed upon definition of corruption.
However, the ways in which corruption has been defined over time have changed to an almost consensus definition.
In essence, the debates surrounding the definitions of corruption can be classified in four groups.
Public opinion centred definitions focus on the public’s understanding of corruption, thus turning public opinion into both the source and the judge of corruption.
Public interest definitions suggest that through corruption, the public’s interest is violated in favour of a small group.
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Definitions centered on public office focus on the distinction between public and private and the misuse of public power for private gain.
Definitions centered on legal conceptions focus on how corruption or acts of corruption are defined in legal statues.
Definitions on legal understandings
A legal approach defines corruption in terms of the criteria established by official statutes and judicial interpretation.
An act is corrupt if it is prohibited by laws and if it is not prohibited, it is not corrupt, even if it is unethical or abusive.
Reflection: Does this mean that whatever is legal is normatively acceptable and how do you compare states where laws are very different?
Legal scholars (and indeed lawyers more broadly) start with the law. They end up assuming that corruption has to be against the law.
If it is not, then they assume (even if they make that assumption uneasily) that the act is not corrupt.
Problems with legal definitions
Legal conceptions of corruption do not cover political systems that are "corrupt" in that they systematically serve the interests of special groups or sectors. A given regime may be biased or repressive. It may consistently favour the interests, for example, of big business, a single ethnic group, or a single region while it represses other demands.
But it is not ipso facto corrupt unless these ends are accomplished by breaching the formal norms of office.
The limitations built into the statutory or legalistic definition have led some scholars to focus on the effects of an act rather than on its legal status.
Simply stated, this definition says if an act is harmful to the public interest, it is corrupt, even if it is legal.
If it is beneficial to the public, it is not corrupt even if it violates the law. This is the public interest definition of corruption. Definitions that centre on an abuse of entrusted power
Harvard political scientist Joseph S. Nye (1967), said corruption is behaviour which deviates from the formal duties of a public role because of private regarding pecuniary or status gains.
Limitations
From this definition, corruption only involves the behaviour of an official in his or her public role.
This definition covers situations where money winds up in the pockets of the official or a relative, but it does not cover situations where the goal of the abuse is to benefit the official's political party, ethnic group and other interests, rather than the official or the official's family.
A second very important limitation comes from Nye's requirement that the behaviour deviates from normal duties or violates rules. As will be seen later, this part of the definition leads to major variations in what different nations see as corruption.
Some governments do not have formal rules about official conduct, and in some nations it may be taken for granted that elected officials and bureaucrats will mix their official duties and their private business affairs.
In other words, the ‘normal duties’ of an official in one country may include accepting ‘gifts’ or making a decision even if it involves a conflict of interest.
Almost consensus
Today, most international organisations, governments, and others’ definition of corruption stem from Nye’s thinking.
The World Bank uses very similar language: ‘The abuse of public office for private gain’ (World Bank, 1997).
The IMF (following Nye) considers corruption to be ‘the abuse of public office for private gains’ (IMF, 1998). Transparency International, talks of ‘the abuse of entrusted power for private gain’ (TI, 2016).
Traits must be present
No corruption is ever accidental. Corruption is also not the same as being ineffective or inefficient. Those traits may go hand in hand with corruption, but in, and of, themselves they are different things.
Corruption is about an abuse of position. It is about someone going over and beyond what they are formally allowed to do.
It is about abusing a position of entrusted power.
Corrupt actors have the (in some way, shape or form) power at their disposal.
If they do not have power they cannot be corrupt.
Finally, it is about private gain - either the person engaging in corrupt practice or his friends/relatives/colleagues will gain something that they would not otherwise have had.
Democratic conception of corruption
There are scholars who argue that defining corruption as the abuse of public office for private gain is too simplistic.
They state that there may exist instances that deserve to be labelled as corruption but do not involve the abuse of public office per-se. In this regard, they propose a definition of corruption rooted in the theory of democracy.
They argue that although defining corruption as the abuse of public office for private gain remains relevant, it has outgrown modern democracies.
Therefore, they provide a democratic conception of corruption defined as follows: Corruption occurs when there is a violation of the principles of equal inclusion of all affected by the exclusion (corrupt act).
Regional anti-corruption treaties
The Southern African Development Community Protocol Against Corruption (Sadc Protocol against Corruption) has attempted to extend the definition of corruption to include corruption within both the public and private sectors.
The protocol does not provide a definition of corruption per-se, but rather outlines acts or conducts which are viewed as corruption.
According to the Sadc Protocol against Corruption, corruption is defined as “… including bribery or any other behaviour in relation to persons entrusted with responsibilities in the public and private sectors, which violates their duties as public officials, private employees, independent agents or other relationships of that kind and aimed at obtaining undue advantage of any kind for themselves or others”, (Article 1 of the Sadc Protocol Against Corruption).
Like the Sadc Protocol against Corruption, the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption does not provide a concise definition of corruption, but rather states that “corruption” means the acts and practices including related offences proscribed in this Convention”.
The acts and practices are listed in Article 4 of the Convention.
Corruption cannot be divorced from politics. Corruption is political. Your understanding of what corruption is will have a lot to do with what you understand politics to be and how you think it should work.
When you begin questioning some of the assumptions that underpin the classic definitions, then defining corruption gets harder. Context matters.
But that is not an excuse to claim that corruption is undefinable. But sensitivity to context is always required.
Conclusion
Because ‘corruption’ comprises many forms and practices across the public and private sectors, no single tool can account for the full scope of the problem.
As each tool provides limited information, multiple sources are needed to construct a more comprehensive picture of the corruption challenges, hence it is important not to look at them in isolation.
- Tshabangu is head programmes at Transparency International Zimbabwe.
