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CO RR UP T IO N
A ND NO R M S
al Rules Matter
Why Inform
Edited by Ina Kubbe
and Annika Engelbert
POLITICAL
CORRUPTION
& GOVERNANCE
Political Corruption and Governance
Series Editors
Dan Hough
Centre for the Study of Corruption
University of Sussex
Brighton, UK
Paul M. Heywood
School of Politics and IR
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, UK
This series aims to analyse the nature and scope of, as well as possible rem-
edies for, political corruption. The rise to prominence over the last 20
years of corruption-related problems and of the ‘good governance’ agenda
as the principal means to tackle them has led to the development of a
plethora of (national and international) policy proposals, international
agreements and anti-corruption programmes and initiatives. National
governments, international organisations and NGOs all now claim to take
very seriously the need to tackle issues of corruption. It is thus unsurpris-
ing that over couple of decades, a significant body of work with a wide and
varied focus has been published in academic journals and in international
discussion papers This series seeks to provide a forum through which to
address this growing body of literature. It invites not just in-depth single
country analyses of corruption and attempts to combat it, but also com-
parative studies that explore the experiences of different states (or regions)
in dealing with different types of corruption. We also invite monographs
that take an overtly thematic focus, analysing trends and developments in
one type of corruption across either time or space, as well as theoretically
informed analysis of discrete events.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14545
Ina Kubbe • Annika Engelbert
Editors
Corruption and
Norms
Why Informal Rules Matter
Editors
Ina Kubbe Annika Engelbert
Department of Political Science Law Faculty
Tel Aviv University Ruhr University Bochum
Tel Aviv, Israel Bochum, Germany
Political Corruption and Governance

ISBN 978-3-319-66253-4 ISBN 978-3-319-66254-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66254-1
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Preface and Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of corruption. It

arose from the “Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network”
(https://www.icrnetwork.org/)—a network of young corruption
researchers from different disciplinary, national and cultural backgrounds.
We, the founding members—Annika Engelbert, Jessica Flakne, Steven
Gawthorpe, Oksana Huss, Nils Köbis, Ina Kubbe, Corinna Martin, Anna
Schwickerath, and Sofia Wickberg—believe that exchange and collabora-
tion is paramount to foster the understanding of the complex and socially
harmful phenomenon of corruption.
Our vision is to reconcile varying perspectives into a constructive outlet
for the progression of scientific research on corruption. Our objectives are
to cultivate underdeveloped perspectives and broaden the trajectory of
corruption discourse, expand collaborative opportunities across profes-
sional and disciplinary boundaries, maintain independence against institu-
tional constraints on membership eligibility, research, and policy priorities.
The overarching goal of our program is to enhance the quality of scientific
research on corruption, its sources and consequences as well as on good
governance with the ambition to boost its application in the policymaking
and implementation domains.
We are all very grateful to Palgrave Macmillan for supporting this book
project enthusiastically from the beginning, in particular the series editors
Dan Hough and Paul M. Heywood, who guided us through all stages of
the publication process. Moreover, we would like to thank our Advisory
Board including Jean Ensminger (California Institute of Technology),
Paul Heywood (University of Nottingham), Johann Graf Lambsdorff
v
vi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
(University of Passau), in particular Bo Rothstein (University of Oxford)—

who has accompanied us from the beginning—Luis de Sousa (University
of Lisbon), Matthew C. Stephenson (Harvard Law School), and Janine
Wedel (George Mason University) who are giving us meaningful support
on a regular basis.
Special thanks to Jessica Flakne, Stefanie Hinz, and Georg Plattner for
their helpful comments and thorough proofreading, Jennifer Rehrmann
and André Schmitz for their valuable assistance in formatting the manu-
script, and all the other people who supported us to get this book
published.
Tel Aviv, Israel Ina Kubbe

Bochum, Germany Annika Engelbert
Contents
Introduction 1
Ina Kubbe and Annika Engelbert
Part I How Social Norms Shape Our Understanding of

Corruption11
emocratic Norms, Political Money, and Corruption13

D
Michael Johnston
Social Psychological View on the Social Norms

A
of Corruption31
Nils C. Köbis, Daniel Iragorri-Carter, and Christopher Starke
icro-perspectives on the Gender–Corruption Link53

M
Amy C. Alexander
Religiosity and Corruption 69

Patty Zakaria
vii
viii CONTENTS
he Role of Mediated Scandals in the Definition

T
of Anti-corruption Norms 91
Sofia Wickberg
Part II Norms and Corruption from Country-Specific

Perspectives 113
aught Between Liberation and Liberalism 115

C
Thomas A. Koelble
nti-poverty Programs and Vote-Buying Strategies 133

A
Flávio Eiró
et’s Play: Bribery Games in the US and Germany 153

L
Ina Kubbe
Corruption, Social Norms and Everyday Life in Uzbekistan 187

Rustamjon Urinboyev and Måns Svensson
I ntegrity Building and Social Norms in Kosovo’s

Municipalities 211
David Jackson
Part III Norms and the Global Anti-corruption Framework 239
hat is the “Anti-corruption” Norm in Global Politics? 241

W
Ellen Gutterman and Mathis Lohaus
he Strengths and Weaknesses of Political Funding

T
Regulations 269
Vit Simral
CONTENTS
ix
he Culture Variable Vis-à-Vis Anti-bribery Law 291

T
Qingxiu Bu
he Art of Missing the Point: FIFA and the Control of

T
Corruption 329
Dan Hough and William R. Heaston
Case Study of an EU Procurement Process in an African

A
Country 347
Peter Stiernstedt and Mark Button
Index 367
List of Figures
Let’s Play: Bribery Games in the US and Germany

Fig. 1 The game tree 164
Integrity Building and Social Norms in Kosovo’s Municipalities
Fig. 1 Model of norms 216
What is the “Anti-corruption” Norm in Global Politics?
Fig. 1 State ratifications of anti-corruption agreements 249
The Strengths and Weaknesses of Political Funding Regulations
Fig. 1 Average number of articles in a new law on political parties in
EU States 274
Fig. 2 GRECO recommendations and their implementation as
of January 2017 279
xi
List of Tables
Democratic Norms, Political Money, and Corruption

Table 1 Survey results on fairness and exclusion 21
Micro-perspectives on the Gender–Corruption Link
Table 1 Country-level descriptives 61
Table 2 Explaining the importance of honest elections 64
Religiosity and Corruption
Table 1 Ordered logistic regression 2000–2004: interaction models 81
Table 2 Ordered logistic regression 2000–2004 85
Let’s Play: Bribery Games in the US and Germany
Table 1 Bribery by firms 167
Table 2 Acceptance of bribe by officials 168
Table 3 Amount of bribe 169
Table 4 Reasons for (non)-bribery 169
Table 5 Reasons for acceptance 171
Table 6 Punishment by citizen 172
Table 7 Amount of punishment by citizens 172
Table 8 Reasons for (non-)punishment 173
Integrity Building and Social Norms in Kosovo’s Municipalities
Table 1 Overview of responses to vignette scenarios 219
Table 2 Overview of individual responses to vignette scenarios 219
xiii
xiv LIST OF TABLES
The Strengths and Weaknesses of Political Funding Regulations

Table 1 Party regulations passed in EU Member States, 1945–2015 274
Table 2 Selected variables in the correlational analysis
shown in Table 3 277
Table 3 Correlational analysis of Table 2—selected results
(Pearson, Sig. (2-tailed)) 278
Table 4 Year of introduction of public funding for political parties
in selected countries 280
Table 5 Public funding around the world (in per cent and total
countries, as of 2016) 282
Table 6 Selected regulations on political finance (as of 2016) 283
A Case Study of an EU Procurement Process in an African Country
Table 1 Principal companies and actors in the corruption
case—‘Project Fortress’ 357
Introduction
Ina Kubbe and Annika Engelbert
The detrimental impact of corruption—generally understood as the abuse

of entrusted power for private gain—on all areas of human life suggests
that it is vital for the people’s well-being to understand why individuals
sometimes act corruptly and sometimes not, and how to prevent corrupt
practices. Previous research offers different theoretical–conceptual and
empirical approaches that have been translated into a number of—mostly
institutional—anti-corruption reforms at the national as well as the inter-
national level. In light of recent indications of persistent and, in some
contexts, worsening corruption trends,1 the efficacy of these policies has
been called into question by scholars and practitioners, some of whom
have termed it a policy failure. Understanding what works and what does
not work in the fight against corruption has thus become “the new fron-
tier for anti-corruption research” (Johnsøn and Søreide 2013). This cur-
rent turn of events, calling into question understandings of corruption
and common reform strategies, requires scholars to return to the causal
explanations for the emergence of corruption—ranging from institutional
settings and individual motives to culturally influenced norms or values.
I. Kubbe (*)
Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
A. Engelbert
Law Faculty, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
© The Author(s) 2018 1

I. Kubbe, A. Engelbert (eds.), Corruption and Norms,
Political Corruption and Governance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66254-1_1
2 I. KUBBE AND A. ENGELBERT
Theoretical and empirical state-of-the-art corruption research has pro-

duced two major findings: First, theoretical considerations based on ratio-
nal choice thinking, most prominently the principal–agent model and
Klitgaard’s famous corruption formula (Klitgaard 1988),2 have proven to
be very convincing in explaining factors that promote corruption, but less
so for identifying solutions to the problem. Second, as empirical evidence
suggests, it has turned out that a one-size-fits-all approach to implement-
ing national anti-corruption strategies has not been successful3 and, thus,
explanatory factors for the occurrence and combat of corruption have
been insufficient. In particular, studies from all over the world have dem-
onstrated that formal institutions, such as national anti-corruption agen-
cies, ombudsman offices or stringent laws, have been overrated in their
control of corruption (Charron et al. 2015; Mungiu-Pippidi 2011;
Rothstein 2018; SIDA 2006).4
Based on these results, this book advocates a less rationalistic and less
institutional approach to explain and fight against corruption by address-
ing specifically the role of informal norms as well as their interplay with
formal norms to describe and explain the underlying mechanisms of cor-
ruption. Thereby, the authors apply and test commonly used theories and
approaches related to corruption (theory testing) as well as generate con-
cepts and models (theory building).
The edited volume conceives corruption as a ubiquitous problem, or as
Alatas (1990, p. 304) termed it, a trans-systemic issue affecting all social
systems and classes, state organizations and situations, age groups and
sexes of populations, at all times, constructed by specific traditions, values,
norms and institutions. It focuses, in particular, on the role of informal
(social) and formal (institutional) norms in the description, explanation,
prediction and combatting of corruption. Social norms are cultural
products including values, customs and traditions, but also formal institu-
tions that shape an individual’s basic knowledge of what others do (descrip-
tive norms) and what others think they should do (injunctive norms).
They dictate the extent to which individuals engage and expect others to
engage in corruption. Cialdini et al. (1991) define descriptive norms as an
individual’s perceptions of what is commonly done in specific situations,
without assigning judgment, while an injunctive norm dictates how an
individual should behave.
However, while formal norms are directly observable, informal norms
are more difficult to capture empirically and to isolate from other influ-
ences. Nevertheless, they play a central role in explaining corruption and
require particular consideration. To detect patterns of corruption related
INTRODUCTION 3
to norms, the individual chapters of the present book concentrate on the

relationship between corruption and social (descriptive and injunctive
norms) as well as legal norms, and provide comparative perspectives from
different academic disciplines such as political science, social psychology
or economics, theoretical and methodological backgrounds, across vari-
ous regions or countries. Due to the nature of social norms that are
embedded in personal, local and organizational contexts, the contribu-
tions in the book focus, in particular, on the individual and institutional
level of analysis (micro- and meso-mechanisms).
The book is divided into three parts. Part I focuses on how social norms
shape our understanding of corruption and aims to find answers to the
following questions: What are social norms? How do social norms influ-
ence corrupt behavior and the other way around? Based on five chapters,
it presents theoretical-conceptual, empirical cross-country and experimen-
tal findings on the influence of social norms on the occurrence of corrup-
tion, such as fairness, gender equality, religiosity, interpersonal trust,
reputation and reciprocity, and on the role of the media in the perception
of corruption and norms.
Firstly, Michael Johnston’s chapter on “Democratic Norms, Political
Money, and Corruption: The Deeper Roots of Political Malaise” argues
that previous debates over definitions of corruption have been as inconclu-
sive as they have been extensive. He suggests that democratic norms—
fundamental and relatively enduring values and principles by which a
regime justifies its claims upon the loyalty of its citizens—can help us build
better classifications of behavior. When democratic norms such as the
inclusion of citizens and respect for their interests are disregarded, the
result can be a widespread sense that democratic politics has been
corrupted. Johnston shows that democratic norms add to, rather than
supplant, other standards, but can also help us understand the political
malaise now on display in many democracies.
From a social psychological perspective, Nils C. Köbis, Daniel Iragorri-
Carter and Christopher Starke ask why, in the same societal or organiza-
tional context, some people abuse power for their private gains while
others do not? The authors identify social norms as a key factor to explain
psychological justification processes of corrupt behavior. They present
novel data sets and look at the interplay of descriptive and injunctive
norms in the emergence of corrupt behavior in Kazakhstan and the
Netherlands. Their results indicate that both norms are largely interlinked,
as many emerging and promising anti-corruption tools seem to target
inherently social norms.
Amy C. Alexander’s contribution takes a closer look at the correlation of

higher levels of gender equality and lower levels of corruption. Her chapter
works with global public opinion on the importance attributed to honest
elections from the most recent wave of the World Values Surveys
(2011–2014) to further test theories behind the gender–corruption link. In
particular, she focuses on individual-level processes that may underlie the
link between gender role socialization and gender equality as a socialization
agent, and on contextual factors that may be conditional for the impact of
those processes: Welfare state expansion and gender egalitarian culture.
Exploring the relationship between religion and personal-level toler-
ance for corruption, Patty Zakaria looks specifically at how religiosity and
religious teachings (karma, harsh punishment, the perception of God and
hell) can contribute to individual acceptance or rejection of corruption
within society. Building upon the existing literature on corruption and
religion, the relationship is assessed with regard to contextual factors, spe-
cifically economic instability, and socialization of religious norms and
beliefs. The study utilizes data from the World Values Survey of 41 coun-
tries to test the various hypotheses.
In the last chapter of the first part of the book, Sofia Wickberg is inter-
ested in the politics of anti-corruption and, more specifically, in the role of
mediated scandals in the evolution of anti-corruption norms. Scandals, as
governance failures made visible, represent critical conjunctures where
policy-makers are pushed to regulate themselves. The external shock of
the corruption scandal and the public demands that it generates create an
opportunity to introduce new mechanisms to control the behavior of
political representatives that would have been unlikely outside of these
circumstances. The chapter takes a closer look at the evolution of French
elected officials’ financial disclosure obligations to examine the impact of
specific events on anti-corruption norms.
Part II highlights the relationship between norms and corruption from
country-specific perspectives. It is dedicated to country case studies from
all over the world such as South Africa, Brazil, Uzbekistan and Kosovo that
illustrate the impact of informal norms on political and bureaucratic cor-
ruption and anti-corruption strategies. This part is complemented by an
experimental case study on social norms and corrupt behavior in Germany
and the USA in a comparative perspective. This part of the book addresses
the role of norms by taking a special focus on the specific (regional) condi-
tions affecting when, how and why social norms come into play. That is
why the individual chapters do not only focus on highly corrupt countries
INTRODUCTION 5
such as Brazil or Kosovo, but also on societies that are comparatively less
affected by corruption such as Germany or the USA. The main goal of
these analyses is to find similarities and differences between the investi-
gated country cases—also in order to identify new theoretical and concep-
tual models and approaches that could be used for future analyses.
Thomas Koelble’s chapter focuses on the widespread corruption in post-
apartheid South Africa. He argues that the South African discourse over cor-
ruption reveals a philosophical and practical contradiction between a liberal
conceptualization of constitutional democracy entailing a neutral state and a
liberation movement’s vision of the democratic state as an instrument to
bring about fundamental economic and social transformation. According to
the African National Congress’ leadership, the democratic state should func-
tion as a means to an end—namely, bringing about the end of white minority
economic, social and cultural power. The state and its various entities, rang-
ing from governmental departments to large state-owned enterprises, are to
be used as a mechanism to bring about black economic empowerment and
the subsequent enrichment of African National Congress-connected indi-
viduals and groups is justifiable as part of that transformation process.
Moving from party politics towards “personalist politics” where per-
sonal relations predominantly structure political life, Flávio Eiró analyzes
the use of anti-poverty programs for vote-buying purposes in Northeast
Brazil. Due to the legal fragility of these programs and practices of public
officials that contradict formal rules, uncertainty about the continuity of
entitlements makes beneficiaries vulnerable to corruption. Based on an
ethnographic fieldwork spread over three years (2013–2015), he describes
the mobilization of a political machine directly involving anti-poverty pro-
grams during election times, especially through the cooptation of social
workers and the use of their formal attributions to increase vote-buying
effectiveness among the poorest.
Ina Kubbe’s study focuses on behavioral differences across cultures in
an experimental bribery game that contributes to cross-country compari-
sons. To answer the question “What affects an individual’s propensity to
engage in and punish corrupt actions?”, she has run bribery games with
over 700 students, comparing individual decision-making in the USA and
Germany—two well-established democracies that show low levels of cor-
ruption. Contrary to widespread assumptions, the results indicate large
differences in both countries. She explains her results by discrepancies in
the level of individualism and by “a cultural transmission of corruption”
that should be used to build anti-corruption norms in societies.
Rustamjon Urinboyev and Måns Svensson analyze corruption, social

norms and everyday life in Uzbekistan. They explore the multifaceted
role, logic and morality of informal transactions in order to understand
better the socio-legal context informing the meaning of corruption. They
show how informal or illegal practices not only mirror kleptocracy, indi-
vidual greed, economic interests or survival strategies, but also reflect
social norms generated through kinship, social status, hierarchies, affec-
tion, reciprocity and reputation. Based on extensive ethnographic field-
work between 2009 and 2016, they argue that any anti-corruption strategy
should be built on a deep knowledge of social norms and local context
that determine the “rights” and “wrongs” of everyday social behavior.
David Jackson aims to answer the question “Why do ‘integrity-building’
interventions in development settings rarely induce governance practices
that are consistent with the standards set out in the formal state?” He
explains the seemingly poor outcomes of integrity-building approaches by
going beyond an assessment of the institutions, introduced rules or organi-
zational processes involved in their implementation, to focus on a key—but
often overlooked—dimension of integrity-building: the response and
agency of ordinary citizens. The chapter considers, in particular, how
underlying norms within society shape choices about whether to engage in
integrity-supporting or undermining practices. The empirical focus is on
the norms that may explain the persistence of integrity-undermining prac-
tices, such as vote swapping, string pulling and collusion, at the municipal
level in Kosovo. The research demonstrates not just the complexity of
integrity building, but also how the process can be held back by interdepen-
dent behaviors that require a whole set of different interventions to address.
Part III turns toward the question of how global anti-corruption norms
are constructed, interpreted and transformed by local culture, conflicting
legal norms, and political and private sector interests. Corruption is a
global phenomenon that occurs beyond domestic jurisdictions. It is,
therefore, necessary to establish a set of international and national anti-
corruption norms that provide a framework for transnational cooperation
and prosecution—a norm-building process heavily influenced by political,
economic and individual interests as well as context-specific informal
norms. The theoretical and empirical contributions in the last part of the
book present findings on the effectiveness of legal anti-corruption norms:
When are international norms implemented successfully at the national
level? When do they produce the intended effect on underlying anti-
corruption principles such as transparency? When and why are they con-
tested at the national, international and organizational level, and what is
INTRODUCTION 7
the role of cultural norms in that process? What are the strengths and
challenges of legal transplants brought from the Western world to devel-
oping countries?
Ellen Gutterman and Mathis Lohaus investigate the anti-corruption
norm in global politics. In their analysis, they address the robustness of the
norm and instances of contestation. Judging by the United Nations
Convention against Corruption’s wide ratification, public opinion and the
spread of anti-corruption laws, the norm is very robust. However, low
levels of compliance and mixed reactions to norm violations raise some
doubts. Anti-corruption is particularly contested in three dimensions: First,
it clashes with notions of sovereignty. Second, developing states, in particu-
lar, engage in applicatory contestation: They criticize corruption measure-
ments and conflicts with local norms. Peer review in the United Nations
also raises concerns. As a third point of contestation, the chapter addresses
the future evolution of anti-corruption, now that activists seek to broaden
the norm beyond its relatively narrow, transactional focus on bribery.
Vit Simral’s contribution on “The Strengths and Weaknesses of Political
Funding Regulations” concentrates on the relationship between legal
norms, specifically political finance regulations and the anti-corruption
fight. New data sets covering finances used for election campaigns and
party funding are presented and analyzed. The chapter examines various
regulatory and policy approaches concerning political funding in selected
regions. The author discusses the issues of transparency and robustness of
political competition and their value as practical goals within the frame-
work of the anti-corruption agenda.
From a cultural perspective, Qingxiu Bu explains in his study on “The
Culture Variable vis-à-vis Anti-Bribery Law” that corruption in China is per-
ceived to be more prevalent than in the West, given its embedded place in
Chinese culture. Yet, cultural assumptions undermine the global anti-bribery
regime and compromise potential collaborative anti-bribery efforts across
jurisdictions in a rapidly globalizing world. Chinese culture does not neces-
sarily impede China’s criminalization of paying bribes to foreign officials.
Thus, the author argues that the cultural role should not be overestimated;
otherwise, the hazard of ethnocentric engagement with Chinese culture
would affect the ability of multinational corporations to integrate their
global compliance programs. He concludes that multinationals can only
mitigate their exposure to criminal liability globally, provided that they com-
ply robustly with anti-bribery laws of both home and host jurisdictions.
The chapter of Dan Hough and William R. Heaston entitled “The Art of
Missing the Point: FIFA and the Control of Corruption” investigates why
the FIFA—the football’s world governing body—found it so hard not just

to reform its internal processes. From a neo-institutionalist approach, they
demonstrate that for far too long, the organizational norms within FIFA
prompted logics of behavior that can be viewed as at best inappropriate and
at worst corrupt. They use documentary analysis to illustrate the gap
between official rhetoric and practical consequences. Thus, only when these
logics of appropriateness within FIFA are changed will the organization
really be able to convince the outside world that it takes the corruption chal-
lenge seriously.
Finally, Peter Stiernstedt’s and Mark Button’s case study of an EU pro-
curement process in an African country explores the role of morality in
corruption. They examine corruption in procurement processes using a
somewhat uncommonly applied axiological lens. It will establish the aspir-
ing diction of the EU in terms of corruption as an expression of a moral
high ground on how to intellectually deal with the phenomenon. Problems
arise when rhetoric is translated into reality, illustrated by delineating the
EU moral stance on corruption and looking at how this relates to a case
study of corruption in the procurement process. It is argued that universal
moral laws do exist; however, they must be dealt with differently in the
highly varied cultural context of the world—as long as one remembers,
acknowledges and takes into considerations those laws.
Notes
1. This is, in particular, the case where the pioneering anti-corruption strate-
gies of the 1990s were first implemented in Eastern European states. For
instance, Hungary’s score on corruption has gradually worsened over the
past decade, and Poland continues to face a deeply entrenched problem of
corruption and scores the worst in this category of all categories evaluated
by Freedom House’s Nations in Transit (Freedom House 2015).
2. Klitgaard’s corruption formula is based on Becker’s groundbreaking work
on crime and punishment (1968). His classical economic approach consid-
ers criminal behavior as a positive cost-benefit analysis of expected gains,
that is, the output of the criminal activity, and expected costs—the potential
punishment for the criminal activity. According to the theory, a rational
actor would opt for criminal—thus, corrupt—behavior once the expected
benefits exceed the expected costs.
3. The most prominent example is Hong Kong’s overly successful anti-corrup-
tion agency that has been used as an institutional blueprint for developing
countries without producing comparable results (Lawson 2009).
INTRODUCTION 9
4. Based on panel data for 130–189 countries, Mungiu-Pippidi (2011) shows

that the existence of an anti-corruption agency or an ombudsman office has
no statistical impact on control of corruption.
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Ina Kubbe, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political Science, Tel

Aviv University. She specializes in methodology and comparative research on
empirical corruption, democracy and governance research as well as political psy-
chology, and has published several books and articles in these fields. Ina is a found-
ing member of the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network and is currently
researching on the norms of values of the Israeli and Palestinian society related to
the conflict.
Annika Engelbert, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Law Faculty, Ruhr University,

Bochum. Annika works at the intersection of law and social sciences on human
rights and administrative law issues in developing countries. She has published
several books and articles on corruption in public administration in sub-Saharan
Africa, most recently on the anti-corruption effects of public procurement law in
East Africa. She is a founding member of the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research
Network and currently researches human rights-based approaches to social health
protection.
PART I
How Social Norms Shape Our

Understanding of Corruption
Democratic Norms, Political Money,
and Corruption
The Deeper Roots of Political Malaise
Michael Johnston
1 I Know It When I See It

The overwhelming majority of Americans see political money as corrupt-
ing day-to-day political processes, and as debasing democratic values and
principles in fundamental ways. Paradoxically, however, nearly all such
money is raised, contributed, spent and publicly reported within the law—
or, at least, not illegally. It may be that solid and lasting majorities of the
American people are simply in error about the actual political clout of
money, or do not understand the meaning of “corruption”. But the
breadth, persistence, and intensity of those popular sentiments suggest
that we should not dismiss them lightly. Might such public outlooks point
to important gaps in our definitions of corruption and, if so, how might
we address them?
Debates over definitions of corruption, over the years, have been as
inconclusive as they have been extensive. We have often gotten hung up
on two issues: what standards to apply, and—less widely seen as a problem,
M. Johnston (*)
Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66254-1_2
14 M. JOHNSTON
but arguably equally complex—what to apply them to. Most answers to

the question of “what is corruption?” have attempted to classify specific
actions or transactions as corrupt or non-corrupt by applying the law, pub-
lic opinion and perceptions, or longer-standing cultural standards to draw
relatively precise distinctions. The legal approach has been the most widely
supported, but public opinion and perceptions (particularly when it comes
to ranking countries on corruption indices) and cultural standards (par-
ticularly among scholars seeking to make, or to discourage, comparisons
across significantly different social settings) also have their defenders.
Joseph Nye’s definition is still the most widely used:
[Corruption is] behavior which deviates from the formal duties of a public
role because of private–regarding (close family, personal, private clique)
pecuniary or status gains; or violates rules against the exercise of certain
types of private–regarding influence. (Nye 1967, p. 417)
But the long-running and inconclusive nature of the definitions debate

suggests that gaps and disagreements remain. Laws, at least as standards
for classifying behavior as corrupt or non-corrupt, may capture a number
of core examples such as outright bribery, extortion, kickback schemes,
and the like, but at times the law can seem incomplete, contradictory, or
deficient in terms of some higher morality. The Rev. Martin Luther King,
Jr. captured an important truth in his letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
when he argued that, since Alabama’s laws were enacted by a racially seg-
regated, unjustly elected legislature, situations will arise when we not only
have the right, but indeed the duty, to defy those laws and the regime that
created them. Similarly, Nichols (2015), discussing the bribes paid by
Oskar Schindler to save the lives of Jews in Nazi Germany, argues that pay-
ments made with the intent of avoiding, defying, or subverting an authori-
tarian regime may be justified as “good bribes” (although he hastens to
apply a strict conception of “authoritarian”: it cannot merely mean offi-
cials or policies we do not like). On the obverse, numerous public figures
ranging from Richard Nixon to the defenders of the late Joe Paterno to,
quite possibly, a prominent orange-haired politician of recent note have
highlighted another problem with sole reliance upon the letter of the law
by arguing, in effect, “I have done nothing wrong—show me what law I
have broken”. It may be tempting, out of a misplaced sense of neatness, to
dismiss controversial cases as peripheral because they do not easily fit core
conceptions of corruption. But to do so would be a mistake: such cases
DEMOCRATIC NORMS, POLITICAL MONEY, AND CORRUPTION 15
can be among the most politically significant precisely because they are
hotly contested. They may tell us a great deal about how public expecta-
tions of government—and key relationships between wealth and power—
are changing or coming under stress.
Adding Norms to the Mix

This is a chapter about democratic norms as a neglected aspect of defining
corruption. I can scarcely settle the definitions debate once and for all, and
make no claim of doing so. The goal, instead, is to ask how a focus on such
norms might help us fill some gaps in current definitions. Further, it is to
suggest that democratic norms point to some sources of the political mal-
aise so apparent in many contemporary democracies.
We begin with two basic arguments. One is that corruption is not best
conceptualized as an attribute of an action, transaction, or person, but
rather as a continuing societal dilemma of justice—notably, of specifying
and maintaining acceptable limits upon official power, relationships between
wealth and power, and the roles and rights of both citizens and elites. The
second is that the boundaries and principles defining such relationships are
inherently controversial, changeable, often ambiguous, and reflective of a
number of not-always-consistent standards—among them, the law, along
with social values, but also basic democratic norms. Looked at this way, cor-
ruption is a contentious and unsettled concept precisely because of the
clashing interests, norms, and values that give it importance (those argu-
ments are developed in more detail in Johnston 2014, Chs. 1, 2).
Definitions of democracy are at least as numerous as definitions of cor-
ruption, and little more agreed upon (Collier and Levitsky 1997). For
purposes of this discussion, I will simply use “democracy” and “demo-
cratic” to refer to regimes and systems of order that can plausibly claim to
derive their powers, legitimacy, or at least their immediate mandates from
the governed. Thus, France qualifies as a democracy, while the Democratic
People's Republic of (North) Korea emphatically does not. The United
Kingdom, in which the power to govern is said to reside in the Crown in
Parliament, rather than flowing from the people themselves, nonetheless
governs through a democratically elected parliamentary government.
Democracies vary markedly among themselves, and over time, in terms of
the actual quality of government (Rothstein 2011), whatever we take
“quality of government” to mean, and by the consistency and equality of
the ways they treat citizens. The key issue, however, remains the norms,
16 M. JOHNSTON
guarantees, and principles defining relationships between regimes and citi-

zens. That there can be yawning gaps between promises and perfor-
mance—and between the promises citizens think they ought to enjoy,
versus those they believe they do enjoy—is not so much a problem of defi-
nitions as the very issue on which I hope to focus. If citizens believe a
democratic system promises certain rights and guarantees, but fails to
honor those principles, I suggest that a popular sense of exclusion, and of
the abuse of power, is a likely result.
By democratic norms, I mean the fundamental and relatively enduring
values and principles by which a regime justifies its claims upon the loyalty
of its citizens (for a classical treatment of that theme see Dobel 1978), and
acknowledges the sources and limits of its own powers. Such norms are
usually uncodified for the most part, and are not always clear-cut or inter-
nally consistent. But they are critical aspects of democracy, nonetheless—
in effect, the main principles of a broad and fundamental political
agreement among citizens and elites. What guarantees and promises—if
any—are extended to citizens? In some societies, there is a written enu-
meration of rights and limits upon official power. In addition to codified
principles, there are usually other longstanding expectations—for exam-
ple, that citizens are entitled to have a voice in decisions affecting their
lives, to have their dignity respected, and their views and interests taken
seriously. Where such norms have broken down, or where they are so
clearly at odds with reality that they are losing credibility, a would-be
democracy is in serious trouble.
Those norms are by no means identical across all democracies. Liberal
democracy in the United States, for example, asks relatively little of citi-
zens, and guarantees little in terms of outcomes, particularly in material
terms. But it does promise—or, is widely expected to promise—fairness
and a degree of equality. Other democracies—notably, social democra-
cies—may demand, and promise to provide, more. Illiberal democracies
(Zakaria 1997; see also Gandhi 2008) may employ some of the institu-
tional procedures of democracy—notably, regular elections—but because
(as Zakaria argues) they do not uphold norms of openness and constitu-
tional liberalism, their citizens are poorly governed and can scarcely be
said to be free. Undemocratic regimes, of course, make claims of their
own: the old Soviet-style systems, for example, mobilized citizens in
extensive and coercive ways but justified those obligations and limitations
by promising an eventual utopia and, in the meantime, protection from
threats from without. Still other systems may (or may not) provide various
services but, beyond empty rhetorical flourishes, make little or no pretense

of upholding any democratic norms.
In the coming sections, however, my focus is on democratic systems
and norms, and specifically on promises, even though imperfectly realized,
that citizens are important, their beliefs and outlooks valued, and their
well-being worthy of protection. In no way do those sorts of norms inform
a wholly new and satisfying definition of corruption, but I suggest that
they fill important gaps left by other standards—notably, the law, the
“public interest”, or social and cultural values. Filling in those gaps can, in
turn, shed light on a number of contemporary political issues, including
the so-called populist discontents on view in many democracies; how wid-
ening inequalities of wealth and income do and do not play into current
politics; and the significance and complexities of “money politics” as an
unsettling issue in American politics.
2 Majorities, Silent and Otherwise

Solid and lasting majorities of Americans see political money—funds raised
for and spent on political campaigning, broadly defined—as corrupting
and harmful to democracy. Yet, as noted above the overwhelming majority
of those funds are raised, spent, and disclosed within the law—or, at least,
not illegally. While it is a premise of this chapter that legality alone will not
suffice to identify corruption, it remains striking that activities that are for
the most part legal—and even desirable, looked at from some perspectives
on political participation—are so widely seen as harmful. How pervasive
are those sentiments, and what might account for them?
My focus on American politics is in no way meant to imply that that the
United States is a more important case than any other, nor that American
politics is either exceptionally corrupt or unusually clean (in truth, we have
no way of knowing). Rather, it reflects the comparatively long history
(since the early to mid-1970s) the country has had with efforts to reform
the financing of federal and state election campaigns, and to build public
trust in the process via transparency. That those policies often seem to
have the reverse effect—persuading many citizens that American politics is
awash in money, and that contributors call the tune in Washington and
state capitals—is not an issue I will address here directly,1 although it
remains an important part of the context of this chapter. My American
focus also is driven by the wide gap between the general claims Americans
often make for their democratic processes on the global stage and the
18 M. JOHNSTON
decidedly jaundiced views they seem to hold about day-to-day policy-

making, campaigning, contributors, and politicians.
Outright law-breaking corruption via election contributions does not
rage out of control in America, overall, although in some states (Dinçer
and Johnston 2017) and localities things might differ. In and of them-
selves contributing to a favored candidate’s campaign, and lobbying for a
particular line of public policy, are legitimate, even praiseworthy aspects of
liberal democracy. Indeed, in the United States, they enjoy constitutional
protection. So what is it about democracy that money politics
undermines?
Who Listens to People Like Me?

While we cannot have every policy or decision we want, American citizens
(like their counterparts in many other democracies) expect a fair chance to
have a voice in the processes by which decisions are made, and to have
their interests and values respected. They quickly become resentful when
the powerful seem to push them aside. Those fundamental expectations
are socialized into many citizens from an early age. Most Americans can
recite much of the following:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure
these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed…
...even though many might have to think back to elementary school in

order to recall the source (the second paragraph of the Declaration of
Independence). At an even younger age they are taught, via the Pledge of
Allegiance, that the American flag—the country’s most important unify-
ing symbol—stands for “liberty and justice for all”.2
American history and political culture echo with many such proclama-
tions—some pro forma, some cynical, others heartfelt—regarding the dig-
nity and importance of everyday citizens. On the battlefield at Gettysburg
in 1863, Lincoln invoked the spirit of “government of the people, by the
people, for the people”. Franklin Roosevelt, in 1932, borrowed a phrase
from William Graham Sumner when he spoke of “the forgotten man”
(Gage 2016), and saw it become a powerful campaign slogan. In 1934
Huey Pierce Long, the colorful (or demagogic) Governor of Louisiana,

made his slogan “Every Man a King” (along with a song with the same
title) nationally popular (Byrd 1994). The filmmaker Frank Capra, always
attuned to American social mythology (Howard 1997), exalted ordinary
citizens in Meet John Doe (1941), in which a fictitious newspaper article
about a man about to kill himself out of despair for mistreatment of his fel-
low citizens attracts much attention; a man hired to impersonate him
touches off a mass political movement (aided, perhaps, by the fact that he
bore a strong resemblance to Gary Cooper). An equally powerful variation
on such themes is on view in Capra’s Mister Smith Goes to Washington
(1939), in which an everyman appointed by manipulative political bosses to
fill a vacant Senate seat unmasks corruption and brings the Senate to a halt
with a dramatic filibuster. Never mind that a real Senator with such inclina-
tions would be an ineffective legislator; Capra’s theme of honest everyday
citizens at odds with cynical, corrupt elites resonated then and continues to
do so now.3 As a number of critics (Plattner 2010) have observed, populism
can significantly disrupt liberal democracy. Celebrations of the common
man need not necessarily serve noble democratic aims: Richard Nixon
repeatedly invoked his “silent majority” to divide the electorate, and to
advance a political agenda unfriendly in many ways to workers, the poor,
and (even more so) minority groups. Among the many and disparate state-
ments of the current American president, rhetorical flourishes pitting ordi-
nary citizens against “the elite” are a running theme. “Honest Abe” Lincoln
may have been portrayed as a humble rail-splitter from downstate Illinois,
but, as a lawyer, he was an effective advocate of the interests of major rail-
roads. Today’s candidates, even when they come from privileged back-
grounds, routinely portray themselves as “outsiders” of humble origins—viz.
former Senator, Secretary of State, and Yale Law School graduate Hillary
Clinton relishing a shot-and-a-beer during a 2008 campaign stop in Crown
Point, Indiana (Bacon 2008)—evidently in hopes of both encouraging vot-
ers to identify with them and of symbolizing upward mobility.
We should not read epochal significance into any of these examples, nor
should we impose artificial coherence upon them. Still, expectations that
ordinary citizens have a place at the political table—perhaps even a special
place—and are entitled to expect respect and fair treatment are a key part
of American political norms. Nowhere are they enshrined in law, nor is
their practical meaning a matter of consensus, but despite (or perhaps
because of) their diffuse nature, they are among the standards by which
citizens judge the quality and integrity of democratic politics. They are a
20 M. JOHNSTON
core justification for any political process that claims to uphold equality
and to govern by broad consent, yet (like any other system of mass democ-
racy) confers significant power and privileges upon a few.
3 The Best Politics Money Can Buy

Polling data strongly suggest that significant majorities of Americans
believe they are left out of the process of governing. A 10,000-adult exit
poll taken among those who had already voted on Election Day in 2016
found 68 percent agreement with the statement, “Traditional parties and
politicians don’t care about people like me”.4 It is worth noting that, to
the extent that respondents were truthful about having voted, the data
reflect the views of those who were not sufficiently estranged from politics
to abstain from voting, and are generally consistent with survey findings
reported over many years. Political money is a central issue in that pessi-
mistic view of democratic processes. A 2015 New York Times-CBS News
poll5 asked, “Thinking about United States elections, do you think all
Americans have an equal chance to influence the elections process, or do
you think wealthy Americans have more of a chance to influence the elec-
tions process than other Americans?” While 31 percent said all have an
equal chance, 66 percent (and 55 percent of Republicans) said the wealthy
have an advantage. The same survey asked, “How often do you think can-
didates who win public office promote policies that directly help the peo-
ple and groups who donated money to their campaigns—most of the
time, sometimes, rarely or never?” Fifty-five percent said “most of the
time”, and 30 percent responded “sometimes”; only 9 percent said
“rarely”, and 4 percent chose “never”. When asked “Thinking about the
role of money in American political campaigns today, do you think money
has too much influence, too little influence, or is it about right?”, 84 per-
cent said “too much”, just 5 percent chose “too little”, and 10 percent
said “about right”. These views are strikingly persistent (similar data from
a decade ago appear in Johnston 2005, Ch. 4). Whether or not citizen
perceptions of money’s political clout are factually accurate is, in a way,
beside the point: if large and lasting majorities believe money has under-
mined democratic norms and practices, the system has a real problem.
And, in fact, many citizens do apparently see themselves being crowded
out of their rightful place in politics and society by political contributors, and
by candidates overly focused on raising money. Consider these results from
a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll of 843 adult respondents in New Jersey6 (Table 1):
Table 1 Survey results on fairness and exclusion

Strongly Somewhat Neither agree/ Somewhat Strongly DK
agree agree disagree disagree disagree
When it comes to 54.8 24.3 3.3 8.7 4.1 4.8

politics, people like
me get overruled by
the big campaign
contributors.
More and more there 56.7 19.6 3.3 8.7 9.3 2.5
is one set of rules for
the rich, and another
for the rest of us.
Today’s economy 12.2 24.8 4.3 24.9 32.9 0.9
offers most people a
fair chance to get
ahead.
Today’s young 25.6 21.9 5.1 21.4 25.3 0.8
people have a good
chance of doing
better in life than
their parents did.
The sense of exclusion from political processes parallels outlooks on the

economy: among those who strongly agreed that “people like me get
overruled”, 42.1 percent strongly disagreed with the statement that
“today’s economy offers most people a fair chance”, and another 23.2
percent said they somewhat disagree.
These sorts of discontents have been widely noted in recent years. Are
they really corruption issues?
In light of the above discussion about the central role of ordinary citi-
zen and fairness in American political mythology, a strong case can be
made that, when we disregard those fundamental norms and expectations,
we are corrupting the system. With respect to the full meaning and impli-
cation of “corruption” in a democracy, Mark Warren has argued that
the robust conceptual link between democratic theory and corruption can
be found in the fact that corruption is always a form of duplicitous and
harmful exclusion of those who have a claim to inclusion in collective deci-
sions and actions. Corruption involves a specific kind of unjustifiable disem-
powerment. (Warren 2004, p. 329)
22 M. JOHNSTON
Similar ideas drive Acemoglu and Robinson’s (2012) distinction

between “extractive” and “inclusive” regimes.
Contrary to strictly legalistic conceptions of corruption, such disem-
powerment may be entirely legal, as Lessig (2011, 2013) argues in his
analysis of “institutional corruption”:
Institutional corruption is manifest when there is a systemic and strategic

influence which is legal, or even currently ethical, that undermines the insti-
tution’s effectiveness by diverting it from its purpose or weakening its ability
to achieve its purpose, including, to the extent relevant to its purpose, weak-
ening either the public’s trust in that institution or the institution’s inherent
trustworthiness. (Lessig 2013, p. 2)
Lessig’s emphasis upon public trust is critical for any discussion of dem-
ocratic norms and practice: “having a fair say” in decisions usually involves
entrusting power to, and expressing our views through, others whom we
expect to act in our name. It is similarly important in other domains too:
pharmaceutical companies that finance favorable research findings, and
scientists they pay to testify in support of their products, abuse the public’s
trust in science and expertise—trust that in many respects is already under
considerable strain. Explicit quid pro quo deals may be scarce (or at least
seldom revealed in detail), but candidates and officials who accept only
legal contributions may still be systematically “deflected” (Lessig 2011) to
favor those providing the funds. “Revolving door” practices by which leg-
islators are promised future employment (overtly or in a nudge-nudge/
wink-wink manner) by businesses or lobby groups—a privilege unlikely to
be available to most economically pressed Americans—also qualify as insti-
tutional corruption.
Utopian norms or expectations are not the issue here. As noted above,
American-style democracy asks relatively little of citizens and, in return,
offers few promises. Most Americans expect the system to offer opportu-
nities, not things, and take a dim view of people who seem to expect the
latter—even though the overwhelming majority benefit from one sort of
government benefit or another (Morin et al. 2012; Thompson 2012).7
What they do see as a democratic birthright touches directly upon Warren’s
argument: inclusion, having a voice in decisions that affect their lives, hav-
ing their views and values taken seriously, and having a fair chance in life
for themselves and their families. Neither American citizens nor their
political outlooks are in any sense unique. Some of the values sketched out
above are part of the social democratic ethos too, and many of them
embody widely held aspirations in democratizing and authoritarian societ-
ies. Instead, the point is that there are principles, expectations, and deeply
rooted norms in the political system transcending the material gains and
losses—and formal roles and rules—that figure into most conceptions of
corruption.
4 Democratic Distemper?

The argument on offer in this chapter is that significant democratic norms
can help us better define corruption, and understand the sources and sig-
nificance of related issues, in the United States. Those norms are not
nearly as formal as laws, although, of course, many laws are enacted with
normative justifications, but they are considerably more specific than pub-
lic opinions about corruption and conceptions of the public interest. In a
way, it is tempting to refer to such norms simply as political culture, but
they are a distinct subset of such values. Citizens are arguably more con-
scious of democratic norms, and of occasions when such values and expec-
tations are stretched or broken, than they are about many other elements
of political culture. Other liberal democracies have their systems of norms
too, overlapping in some ways and differing from those of the United
States in others; still other types of systems, save those shaped solely by the
whims and wishes of a few top figures, presumably have their own distinc-
tive norms, and a great deal more work is needed in order to specify the
full range of democratic norms even as regards the specific issue of
corruption.
Still, if this argument holds any validity, it may have implications of
three major sorts: for the ways we define corruption, for understanding
the current bundle of “populist” political discontents on view in many
democracies, and for the ways growing inequalities in wealth and income
do, and do not, feed into everyday politics.
The definitions issue has been discussed here already; essentially, it is
that while most nominal definitions of corruption rely upon the law and
other formal rules, social–cultural values, or the public interest to identify
actions that are corrupt, those definitions are still unsatisfying. Notions (or
allegations) of corruption do not always center around specific actions;
there is also a widely-understood (if, again, diffuse) sense that corruption
may reside in more general political or economic relationships and situa-
tions—as witness the popular sense that “money politics” undermines
24 M. JOHNSTON
democracy. (For an argument that classifying specific actions as corrupt, or

not corrupt, is a fundamentally incomplete and misleading approach to
defining corruption, see Johnston 2014, Ch. 1). That, in turn, along with
Lessig’s conception of “institutional corruption”, reminds us that corrup-
tion—at least as citizens understand it in a democratic context—need not
always be illegal (for state-by-state evidence on that point, see Dinçer and
Johnston 2017). In such situations, important norms and expectations are
still being transgressed, even if the law is not. When it comes to essential
levels of trust and the legitimacy of those who govern, norms of inclusion
in democratic life are no less important for being informal. To add such
normative dimensions to our analysis, we need not rewrite our definitions
altogether; rather, we should remember that the “abuse” of roles and
resources, for example, can be recognized in terms of democratic norms as
well as legal and cultural transgressions. Such broadened conceptions in
turn help us understand the apparent riddle of why mass perceptions of
corruption in, or flowing from, legal political financing is not merely a
popular misunderstanding, but rather an important signal of a corruption
problem.
When it comes to contemporary “populism”, we are dealing with a
term that is used in several different, and not always informative, ways.
The issues driving such movements, particularly as they are manifested at
the polls, can include economic deprivation, or a sense that accustomed
opportunities and advantages are being lost; a sense that one’s identity and
culture are under threat; resentment of newly arrived populations, of the
benefits they are believed (not always accurately) to be receiving and of
threats they are perceived as posing in job markets; a sense of being left
out, denigrated, and used by politically and economically powerful people
and organizations (as noted above); diffuse but powerful nostalgia for
good (and orderly) times that may or may not ever really have happened;
and other factors. In practice, it can be difficult to distinguish between an
actual upwelling of populism from below and other sorts of resentments
fomented from, and put to self-serving uses by, figures at the top.
Recent years have, however, seen election results that surprised many
observers, such as the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European
Union and the outcome of the 2016 American presidential election. Early
gains by anti-system parties in the Netherlands, France, Denmark, and
Austria did not translate into mandates to govern, but certainly raised
considerable concern among mainstream parties and news outlets. While
the eventual victors in the 2017 French presidential and parliamentary
elections were a self-styled centrist and his new party, they too capital-
ized upon strong resentments of established parties, elites and ways of
governing. Orientations toward politics and beliefs about one’s own
role in the process vary considerably among democracies; among other
things, Americans have a weaker sense of nation, and differing sets of
unifying symbols and myths, than do many Europeans, and a stronger
sense of the state as the framework for common identity. But a sense of
what Warren termed “duplicitous exclusion”—the corruption issue at
the core of this analysis—seems to be widely shared among citizens of
numerous democracies, even though that sense may attach itself to con-
trasting policy and social issues, and to differing kinds of leaders.
Economic issues are often among the most powerful populist con-
cerns—for example, among citizens sensing a long, slow (or not-so-slow)
decline in their standards of living and future prospects, and in their neigh-
borhoods and communities, while others seem to prosper. Here, the sorts
of democratic norms that have been my focus can help us understand how
growing inequalities in wealth and income do and do not play into poli-
tics. One might expect those issues to translate more or less directly into
strong demand for redistributive policies and material aid, but in the
United States at least, matters are more complex. As noted earlier, most
Americans do not expect government to give them things; indeed, many
believe they do not receive such help, and complain about aid and benefits
that seem to flow to others, even when the facts say otherwise on both
counts. But in their relatively individualistic worldview, they do see them-
selves as entitled to a fair chance to get ahead, to be respected, and to have
a voice. In that sense, more than in material ways, normative beliefs that
“all men (sic) are created equal” retain considerable power.
In the wake of the 2016 presidential result in the United States, many
commentators expressed surprise that so many voters seemed to feel eco-
nomically threatened at a time when unemployment was low (and falling),
returns on stocks and other investments were high, and the overall national
economy was generally in strong condition. Similar puzzlement was
expressed over the way the President-elect’s claims of sweeping crime
waves likewise conflicted with the best evidence available. But those obser-
vations missed the mark in at least two ways—one fairly obvious and the
other more subtle. As for the first, prosperity and economic growth were
strong on aggregate, but strikingly unevenly distributed: many who
responded to accounts of economic distress could look out their windows
and see the evidence of community decline for themselves. So too with
26 M. JOHNSTON
crime—if we think of it as a political issue of threats to order, and to social

boundaries and established relationships, rather than as verifiable trends in
law-breaking (which are largely unknowable in any event). For both issues,
national-level data may not tell us much.
The deeper issue there is (again) what has been the main concern of this
chapter: a strong sense of being left behind, disregarded and disrespected,
and of believing that key promises are being broken or becoming
meaningless. Those promises—one’s rights as a citizen, what one gets in
return for hard work and following the rules, the notion of being “just as
good as anyone else”—are key democratic norms. Perceived threats to
those promises, or evidence that they have been broken, are aspects of
inequality too, in ways that long-term ameliorative policies may not reach.
Most Americans have a standard of living and day-to-day freedoms that
citizens in other parts of the world can only envy. But if, as is arguably the
case, those expectations are perceived as under threat, people apparently
can and do respond to promises to restore those advantages, and to would-
be leaders (however improbable) who seem to channel popular discon-
tents. Looked at in those ways, the 2016 election result, and the sorts of
communities and localities that drove it, are much less puzzling than they
may have seemed.
Those points, in turn, have significant implications for anyone con-
cerned about how to respond to populism, broadly defined, and how to
defend democratic values and institutions against it. Even well-calibrated
redistributive policy responses (assuming they could ever be enacted) are
unlikely to suffice, by themselves; not only will they be difficult to design
and finance, but their effects are also likely to take years to become visible.
Moreover, if recent elections have shown us anything, it is that many citi-
zens will support leaders and parties whose policies run directly contrary to
their economic interests (Frank 2004) when those polices are packaged in
normatively powerful symbolic appeals (Edelman 1967). Candidates and
officials who have little real concern for the wellbeing of ordinary citizens
seem to do well by appearing to champion “the common man” and to
challenge “the elites” who, as Charles Tilly (1998) has put it, are “hoard-
ing opportunities”. In all of this, facts may matter less than symbolic
appeals: the 2016 Republican nominee and eventual winner was a multi-
billionaire who advocates policies likely to harm many in his base of elec-
toral support, yet remains popular in many economically struggling regions.
He is also anything but a feminist; still, he received the votes of 61 percent
of white women lacking college degrees (Phillips 2017). Paradoxically, his
opponent Hillary Clinton—wealthy in her own right, to be sure, but hardly

on the scale of the new President—seemed to embody for a significant
minority of the electorate the powerful and privileged “elites” who neglect
their fellow citizens. From a corruption standpoint, it was not just because
of her controversial email server that many of those citizens were all too
happy to refer to her as “Crooked Hillary” (a full account of Clinton’s
image problems can be found in Parnes and Allen 2017).
The challenge of coping with populism, looked at in that light, is not
only to pursue policies that promise greater fairness, for it will likely take
considerable effort to persuade many citizens that they and their wellbeing
really do count for something in politics and government. It is also to be
seen to uphold widely understood democratic norms, to take popular
grievances seriously, to practice consistently and visibly inclusive politics
(and not just in carefully staged campaign stops at NASCAR races and
working-class bars), and to honor long-standing norms and expectations
of equality and inclusion. How to do such things in ways that are honest,
non-demagogic, and yet widely persuasive is a complicated issue, and one
that will take much refinement and many repetitions in order to take hold.
For a time, it may be that campaigning and making policy in truly inclusive
fashion may only persuade some populists that they are just hearing more
of the same things they have heard for years. But successful efforts in those
directions may eventually not just pay off in terms of votes and reduced
political distrust. They may, in the long run, help revive and redeem some
of the central promises and norms of democracy itself.
Notes
1. With Bertram J. Levine I have elsewhere analyzed some of those ironic
implications of transparency, and advocated changes that would make the
sources of most or all political contributions unverifiable. See Levine and
Johnston (2016).
2. However, your author was quite confused, at that age, by the wording “…
and to the republic for Richard Stans”, and had to ask who that exalted
gentleman might be.
3. In a less overtly political vein, Capra’s 1947 film It’s a Wonderful Life, which
did not meet with great immediate acclaim but has subsequently become a
Christmas-season classic, exalts the ordinary guy who stays home while oth-
ers realize his dream of traveling the world, serves his country, marries his
high-school sweetheart, and helps many humble neighbors succeed in a
small town otherwise dominated by a wealthy and deliciously evil banker,
and who emerges from a deep crisis as a local hero exalted by all.
28 M. JOHNSTON
4. Reuters/IPSOS online poll of adults reporting that they had voted in that
day’s election (November 8, 2016). Online at http://www.reuters.com/
article/us-usa-election-poll-mood-idUSKBN1332NC (Viewed June 13,
2017).
5. “The nationwide telephone poll was conducted on landlines and cellphones
May 28–31 [2015] with 1022 adults and has a margin of sampling error of
plus or minus three percentage points.” Source: The New York Times, June
2, 2015; online at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/02/
us/politics/money-in-politics-poll.html?_r=0 (Viewed March 30, 2016).
6. Rutgers-Eagleton Poll of 843 New Jersey adults, conducted by telephone
between November 30 and December 6, 2015. Margin of error (95% con-
fidence interval) for the weighted adult sample is ±3.8 percentage points.
7. The aid programs included in the Pew study were Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, public assistance to poor households, unemployment benefits,
and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as
food stamps); the 86 percent figure also includes veterans’ programs and
college assistance. If we include the federal tax deduction for home mort-
gage insurance, that figure might be marginally higher, and if we examined
shared benefits from infrastructure, law enforcement, education, and the
like, the estimate would approach 100 percent.
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Random House/Crown Business.
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Cambridge University Press.
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Accessed 13 June 2017.
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———. 2013. ‘Institutional Corruption’ Defined. Journal of Law, Medicine, and
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Parnes, Amie, and Jonathan Allen. 2017. Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s
Doomed Campaign. New York: Crown.
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Michael Johnston is Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science Emeritus at

Colgate University, having retired from active teaching in 2015. Michael has stud-
ied questions of corruption, democratization and reform since the 1970s, and has
served as an expert to organizations such as the World Bank, United Nations,
Organization of American States, and the US Agency for International
Development. His most recent book, Corruption, Contention, Reform: The Power
of Deep Democratization, deals with the need to build social and political founda-
tions for reform in contrasting societies. His book Syndromes of Corruption:
Wealth, Power, and Democracy won the 2009 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas
Improving World Order.
A Social Psychological View on the Social
Norms of Corruption
Nils C. Köbis, Daniel Iragorri-Carter,

and Christopher Starke
1 Introduction
It is one of the big questions of corruption research: Why is it that some
people abuse power for their private gain while others do not; some bend
the rules while others adhere to them; some instigate bribe payments
while others do not even think of it? A growing body of literature has
studied the social, situational, and individual factors of the “dark side of
human behavior”, like cheating, lying, and corruption. One of the main
insights from behavioral ethics research is that social norms and justifica-
tions matter a great deal (Shalvi et al. 2015a, b). The intuitive logic is
both compelling and simple: If you consider a certain behavior to be
N.C. Köbis (*)

Faculty of Economics and Business, Section Microeconomics, University of
Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
D. Iragorri-Carter
Department of Work and Social Psychology, University of Maastricht,
Maastricht, Netherlands
C. Starke
Department of Communication, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66254-1_3
32 N.C. KÖBIS ET AL.
normal, you are likely to do it as well. When corruption becomes “the

normal thing to do”, justifying it is easy—both to oneself and others.
Yet, what does “normal” actually mean? Explaining when and how cor-
rupt behavior is regarded as normal requires a closer look at the conceptu-
alization of social norms. According to prominent definitions, social norms
are “shared understandings about actions that are obligatory, permitted,
or forbidden within a society” (Ostrom 2000, pp. 143–144); and, even
closer to a specific situation, “the standards of behavior that are based on
widely shared beliefs of how individual group members ought to behave
in a given situation” (Fehr and Fischbacher 2004, p. 185). Since humans
are equipped with a universal propensity to learn social norms (Pinker
1994), it is not surprising that social norms have been a popular subject in
social science, in general (Darley and Latane 1968; Elster 1989; Fehr and
Fischbacher 2004), and have also been linked to corruption, in particular
(Bicchieri and Rovelli 1995; Köbis et al. 2015). Social norms can thus be
understood as informal rules that guide human behavior, including cor-
ruption. To zero-in on the link between these mostly unwritten rules and
corrupt behavior from a psychological perspective, we employ a common
distinction between two main types of social norms stemming from sociol-
ogy (Goffman 1963) and philosophy (Paprzycka 1999): First, what one
ought to do and, second, what one expects others to do.
The first type of social norms refers to the acceptability of a specific
behavior and describes whether a specific course of action is approved by
others in a given social context. In short, they indicate whether a behavior
is moral—that is, what one “ought to do”. While economists typically
refer to these mental representations as normative expectations (Bicchieri
2005), social psychologists call them injunctive norms (Cialdini et al.
1990). The second type of social norms deals with the expected frequency
and thus indicates how likely others are to follow the specific course of
action. A person might ask oneself whether a respective behavior is com-
mon. How many other people in the same situation would act in this
specific way? These beliefs about the prevalence of a given behavior are
labeled empirical expectations among economists (Bicchieri 2005), and
descriptive norms among social psychologists (Reno et al. 1993). To avoid
confusion, we use labels of injunctive and descriptive norms put forth in
social psychology.
To illustrate the difference between the two types of social norms, we use
specific situations as the basic unit of analysis. Take the following corruption
scenario that we use as a guiding example throughout this chapter: Imagine
A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW ON THE SOCIAL NORMS OF CORRUPTION 33
you are driving in your car. All of a sudden, you are stopped by the police.
The police officer asks you to roll down your window, claims that you
crossed a red light, which will result in a fine, and asks to see your driver’s
license. You hesitate. What would you do? Would you consider solving this
issue with a bribe—for example, by slipping a note in your driver’s license?
What are the factors that would increase the chances that you would do so
and, consequently, might even consider it to be “normal”?
We seek to answer these questions on multiple levels. The first part
focuses on the role of descriptive norms by introducing a basic macro-level
distinction between high corruption and low corruption contexts. This
section illustrates how the frequency of corruption in the society deter-
mines the persisting descriptive norms. Then, we zoom in on the micro-
level and show that, in a specific situation, the perception of descriptive
norms plays a crucial role for people’s (corrupt) behavior. We then turn to
injunctive norms and illustrate that the acceptability of a given corrupt act
is shaped by evolutionary psychological mechanisms such as in-group
favoritism and direct reciprocity. Against the backbone of this brief review
on the origins of injunctive norms, we describe the relationship between
injunctive and descriptive norms—why they are at times aligned with one
another and at times opposed. Given that behavioral research analyzing
corrupt behavior in a specific situation can provide answers to these ques-
tions, we review the few studies that have done so, as well as present novel
data on the subject. To dig deeper into the understanding of social norms
on the micro-level, we give a brief account of how both forms are acquired
over the life span of an individual. Finally, we discuss how social norms of
corruption can be changed—this time, zooming out from individual-
based interventions to a broader approach that seeks to change norms via
(mass) media.
2 Societal Level of Corruption as a Determinant

of Descriptive Norms
One of the first things you might ask yourself when hearing the descrip-
tion of the exemplary situation above is: Which country does this situation
occur in? Is it a country in which such forms of petty corruption are the
rule or, rather, the exception? The country and the respective level of cor-
ruption likely serve as important markers because: (a) vast inter-country
differences in the frequency of petty corruption exist; and (b) the decision
whether to offer a bribe, as well as the perception of normality, is largely
Another random document with
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de ces conversions à la Dostoïewsky et abandonnant les erreurs
qu’il croyait vérités, sinon la vérité qu’il croit erreur, en un
foudroiement final… Nulle part, certes, les vicissitudes du pouvoir
(arbitral, tyrannique, renversé), — les superstitions qui
accompagnent le doute, — d’un côté les soubresauts de la
conscience populaire, d’un autre l’anxiété d’attendre, — les
désespoirs et leurs blasphèmes, — l’espérance, jusqu’au dernier
souffle, vivace, — la brutalité aveugle du fait réveilleur — que sais-
je !… ne peuvent se condenser et éclater avec autant de force que
dans cette première situation, de nos jours méconnue…
L’enthousiaste sympathie que la France a ressentie durant la moitié
de ce siècle pour la Pologne, celle qu’elle a manifestée, en tant de
circonstances, à l’Écosse, puis à l’Irlande, trouveraient ici leur
expression tragique ; le cri d’humanité avec lequel ce prêtre, au
massacre de Fourmies, a rallié à l’Église une fraction de la France
révolutionnaire, — le culte des morts, cette dernière, primitive et la
plus indestructible forme du sentiment religieux, — l’agonie, drame
qui nous attend tous, l’agonie se traînant vers un coin d’ombre
comme une bête forcée, — et ce profondément humilié désir de
l’homme qu’un meurtre a privé de ce qu’il avait de plus cher,
supplication misérable, à deux genoux, qui fit pleurer même, en sa
sauvage rancune, le dur Achille et lui fit oublier son serment, — eh
quoi ! toutes ces fortes émotions, d’autres encore, sont dans cette
situation première, elles ne sont pleinement que là, — et notre art
oublie cette situation…
II e SITUATION
Le Sauveur
(Techniquement : Infortuné — Menaçant — Sauveur)
… La réciproque, en quelque sorte de la Ire, où le faible se

réfugiait auprès d’une puissance indécise, tandis que c’est, à
présent, au-devant du faible, sans espoir, le Protecteur inattendu qui,
de lui-même, se dresse subitement.
A — Condamné, voir apparaître un sauveur
chevaleresque : — Andromèdes de Sophocle, d’Euripide et de
Corneille. Ex. fragm. : 1er acte de Lohengrin, 3e acte du Tancrède de
Voltaire, rôle du patron généreux dans Boislaurier (M. Richard, 1884.
Ce dernier exemple et le suivant montrent particulièrement l’honneur
du faible en jeu). Ex. hist. : Daniel et Suzanne ; divers exploits de la
chevalerie. Ex. ord. : l’assistance judiciaire. Le dénouement de
Barbe-Bleue (la parenté s’y ajoute, sous la condition la plus normale,
celle de frères défendant leur sœur, et grandit le pathétique par un
moyen des plus simples, mais oublié des dramaturges).
B 1 — Être remis sur le trône par ses enfants (voir la
donnée « Retrouver ») : — Égée et Pélée de Sophocle, Antiope
d’Euripide. Ces enfants ont été jadis abandonnés dans : Athamas I
et Tyro de Sophocle aussi (ce goût du futur auteur d’Œdipe à Colone
pour les fables où l’Enfant joue ainsi un rôle de sauveur et de
justicier ne forme-t-il pas un assez amer contraste avec le sort qui
attendait le poète dans son ultime vieillesse ?).
2 — Être secouru par des amis ou des étrangers
recueillis : — Œnée, Iolas, Phinée de Sophocle. Ex. fragm. : 2e
partie d’Alceste d’Euripide. — Être protégé par l’hôte qui donna
asile : — Dictys d’Euripide.
Rien qu’à parcourir ces subdivisions, on aperçoit ce que nos
écrivains auraient dû tirer de la IIe des données. Elle doit être,
franchement, quelque peu attrayante, pour qu’une fois de plus
l’humanité l’ait choisie, cette histoire du Sauveur, il y a deux mille
ans bientôt, et depuis lors ait tant souffert, aimé, pleuré, à chacun
des souvenirs qui lui en reviennent. Cette Situation, c’est aussi la
Chevalerie, l’héroïsme si original et individuel du moyen-âge ; — et
c’est la Révolution française devant les peuples ! Malgré cela, l’art, si
l’on excepte l’aristophanerie de Cervantès et l’éblouissant et unique
éclair jailli de l’armure d’argent de Lohengrin, l’art, à peine encore, y
songea…
III e SITUATION
La Vengeance poursuivant le crime.
(Techniquement : Vengeur — Coupable)
La vengeance est une joie divine, dit l’Arabe ; et elle fut celle plus
d’une fois, en effet, du Tout-Puissant d’Israël. Les deux poèmes
homériques se dénouent chacun par une enivrante vengeance, de
même que la légende des Pandavas, à l’orient des littératures ; pour
les races latine et espagnole, c’est le plus satisfaisant spectacle
toujours que celui de l’individu capable de se faire justice légitime,
encore qu’illégale. Tant il est vrai que vingt siècles de christianisme,
après cinq siècles de socratie, n’ont pu substituer à cette base de
l’honneur le pardon. Et ce dernier, même sincère (chose rare !),
qu’est-il, — sinon la subtile quintessence de la vengeance, sur terre,
en même temps que la réclamation d’une espèce de wergeld, vis-à-
vis du ciel ?
A 1 — Venger un ascendant assassiné : — La Chanteuse
(drame chinois anonyme), la Tunique confrontée (de la courtisane
Tchang-koué-pin), les Argiens et les Épigones d’Eschyle, Alétès et
Érigone de Sophocle, les deux Foscari de Byron, Attila de Werner, le
Crime de Maisons-Alfort (M. Cœdès, 1881. La vengeance en ces
deux derniers cas, ainsi que pour le sujet suivant, s’accomplit par la
fille et non le fils). — Ex. romanesque et ordinaire : Colomba de
Mérimée ; la plupart des vendette. Dans le Prêtre (M. Buet, 1881), la
lutte psychologique entre le pardon et la vengeance est
spécialement représentée.
2 — Venger un descendant assassiné : — Nauplius de
Sophocle. La fin de l’Hécube d’Euripide. Ex. épique : Neptune
poursuivant Ulysse à cause de la cécité de Polyphème.
3 — Venger un descendant déshonoré : — Le meilleur
alcade, c’est le Roi (Lope de Véga), l’Alcade de Zalaméa (Calderon).
Ex. hist. : la mort de Lucrèce.
4 — Venger épouse ou époux assassiné : — Pompée de
Corneille. Ex. contemporain : les tentatives de Mme Vve Barrême.
5 — Venger épouse déshonorée ou que l’on tenta de
déshonorer : — Ixions d’Eschyle, de Sophocle et d’Euripide ; les
Perrhœbides d’Eschyle. Ex. historique : le lévite d’Ephraïm. —
Même cas, où l’épouse n’a été qu’insultée : — la Chevelure
renouée de Bhatta Naragma, les fils de Pandou outragés de
Radjasekhara. Ex. ord. : un bon nombre de duels.
6 — Venger sa maîtresse assassinée : — Aimer après la mort
(Calderon), Amhra (M. Grangeneuve, 1882), Simon l’enfant trouvé
(M. Jonathan, 1882).
7 — Venger son ami assassiné, tué : — Les Néréides,
d’Eschyle. Ex. contemporain : Ravachol. — Cette vengeance est
perpétrée sur la maîtresse du vengeur : — La Casserole (M.
Méténier, 1889).
8 — Venger sa sœur séduite : — Clavijo de Gœthe, les
Bouchers (Icres, 1888), la Casquette au père Bugeaud (M. Marot,
1886). Ex. romanesques : la Kermesse rouge dans le recueil de M.
Eekhoud, la fin du Disciple de M. Bourget.
B 1 — Se venger d’avoir été dépouillé sciemment : — La
Tempête de Shakespeare (et l’opéra qui en est issu en 1889). Ex.
contemp. : Bismarck dans sa retraite de Varzin.
2 — Se venger d’avoir été dépouillé parce que disparu : —
Les Joueurs d’osselets et Pénélope d’Eschyle, le Repas des
Achéens de Sophocle.
3 — Se venger d’avoir été assassiné : — Le ressentiment de
Te-oun-go par Kouan-han-king. Même cas et sauver, à la fois, un
être aimé d’une erreur judiciaire : La Cellule no 7 (M. Zaccone,
1881).
4 — Se venger d’une fausse accusation : — Les Phrixus de
Sophocle et d’Euripide, Monte-Cristo de Dumas, la Déclassée (M.
Delahaye, 1883), Roger-la-Honte (M. Mary, 1881).
5 — Se venger d’un viol : — Térée de Sophocle, les Cenci de
Shelley (parricide pour punir et faire cesser l’inceste).
6 — Se venger d’avoir été dépouillé des siens : — Le
Marchand de Venise, un peu Guillaume Tell, et (en rentrant dans
l’« Adultère ») le triomphe de M. Armingaud.
7 — Trompé, se venger sur tout un sexe : — Jack
l’Éventreur (MM. Bertrand et Clairian, 1889) ; héroïnes fatales des
romans et pièces « second Empire » : l’Étrangère, etc. Cas
symétrique appartenant à la nuance A : — le mobile, peu
vraisemblable, de la corruptrice du Possédé de Lemonnier.
Elle offre une première apparition ici du personnage grimaçant
qui forma clef de voûte au drame noir et extraordinaire, — du
« traître ». Dès le début de notre troisième donnée, nous aurions pu
les évoquer à chaque pas, ce traître et sa politique profonde qui fait
parfois sourire : don Salluste présidant à Ruy-Blas, Iago à Othello,
Guanhumara aux Burgraves, Homodei à Angelo, Mahomet à la
tragédie de ce nom, Léontine à Héraclius, Maxime à la Tragédie de
Valentinien, et à celle d’Aétius, Émire à Siroès, Ulysse aux
Palamèdes grecs.
Si remaniée qu’ait été de nos jours la IIIe Situation, maint cas
ancien attend son rajeunissement ; et surtout d’innombrables
lacunes persistent : en effet, parmi les liens qui peuvent unir le
« Vengeur » à la « Victime », plus d’un degré de parenté fut omis,
ainsi que la majorité des attaches sociales ou contractuelles ; la liste
des torts qui peuvent provoquer ces représailles est bien loin d’être
épuisée, comme on s’en assurera en énumérant les variétés de
délits possibles contre les personnes et les propriétés, les nuances
d’opinions et de partis, et les diverses manières dont s’accommode
une insulte ; enfin combien et quelles sortes de relations existent,
d’autre part, entre le « Vengeur » et le « Coupable » ! Et il ne s’agit
jusqu’à présent que des prémisses de l’action.
Que l’on y mette, maintenant, toutes les allures, lentes ou
foudroyantes, tortueuses ou directes, sûres ou éperdues, que va
prendre le châtiment, les mille ressources dont il dispose (car, recuit
en son désir concentré, il se choisit les plus chatoyants effets), puis
les points qu’il peut viser, de sa meurtrière ; ensuite les obstacles qui
surgiront du hasard ou de la défensive… Introduisez les figures
secondaires, allant chacune à son but, comme dans la vie, s’entre-
croisant, et croisant le drame…
J’estime assez le lecteur pour ne pas développer davantage.
IV e SITUATION
Venger proche sur proche
(Souvenir de parent victime — Parent vengeur — Parent

coupable)
Au moyen de l’énergie âpre de la situation qui précède,

augmenter l’horreur de la XVIIe (« Découvrir le déshonneur des
siens »), c’est créer l’action présente, — laquelle s’enferme dans la
vie privée, devenue un enfer pire que le cachot du Puits et du
Pendule d’Edgar Poe. L’atrocité en est telle que la foule, terrifiée,
n’ose intervenir ; elle semble assister, de loin, à quelque scène
démoniaque, se silhouettant dans une maison en flammes.
… Et la foule des dramaturges semble ne pas oser, non plus,
intervenir pour modifier une fois la tragédie grecque, telle quelle
depuis trente siècles d’épouvante…
A nous il est facile, du haut de la « plateforme » retrouvée après
le mot de Gozzi, de supputer les variations infinies à écrire, — en
multipliant les combinaisons que nous venons de voir pour la IIIe
donnée par celles que nous produira la XVIIe.
Mais d’autres germes de fécondité nous arrivent à leur tour avec
les circonstances qui auront déterminé le justicier à agir ; ce serait
un désir spontané chez lui (motif le plus simple) ; — la volonté de la
victime agonisante ou du mort mystérieusement apparu ; — un
serment imprudent ; — le devoir professionnel (quand le Vengeur est
magistrat, etc.) ; — la nécessité de sauver d’autres parents, un être
aimé (c’est ainsi que Talien a vengé les Dantonistes) ou ses
concitoyens ; — l’ignorance de la parenté qui rattache le « Vengeur »
au « Coupable »… Il y aurait encore le cas où cet acte du Vengeur
frapperait le Proche criminel, sans que le Vengeur le reconnût (dans
une salle sombre, je suppose). Il y aurait le cas où ce prétendu acte
de vengeance ne serait que le résultat d’une erreur : le Parent dit
coupable serait découvert innocent, et le pseudo-Exécuteur, trop
stoïque, apprendrait qu’il n’est qu’un criminel détestable. Il y aurait…
On a traité :
A 1 — Venger son père sur sa mère : — Les Choéphores
d’Eschyle, les Électres de Sophocle, d’Euripide, d’Attilius, de Q.
Cicéron, de Pradon, de Longepierre, de Crébillon, de Rochefort, de
Chénier et l’opéra de Guillard, les Orestes de Voltaire et d’Alfieri ;
puis les Épigones de Sophocle, les Eriphyles de Sophocle et de
Voltaire ; et enfin Hamlet, où se reconnaît si bien la méthode
constante dont le poète rajeunissait ses sujets : par un changement
presque antithétique des caractères et du milieu.
2 — Venger sa mère sur son père : — Zoé Chien-Chien (M.
Matthey, 1881), où le parricide s’équilibre d’une passion incestueuse
et se perpètre par la fille au lieu du fils. Saluons, en passant, cet
unique effort original de notre drame devant la Situation IV.
B — Venger ses frères sur son fils (mais sans
préméditation et presque en tombant dans la donnée
« Imprudence ») : — Atalante d’Eschyle et Méléagre de Sophocle.
Sur 20 œuvres, 18 donc de la même nuance, 17 de la même
sous-nuance, 13 sur le même sujet. Deux nuances et une sous-
nuance en tout d’employées. Amusons-nous seulement à compter
celles qu’on oublia :
Le père du justicier sera vengé par celui-ci sur son propre frère.
Sur sa sœur. Sur sa maîtresse (ou sur son amant, car chacun des
cas ci-énumérés se dédouble, selon le sexe du vengeur). Sur sa
femme (ou son mari). Sur le propre fils du justicier. Sur sa fille. Sur
son oncle paternel. Sur son oncle maternel. Sur sa tante paternelle.
Sur sa tante maternelle. Sur son grand’père paternel, ou maternel ;
sur sa grand’mère paternelle, ou maternelle. Sur son frère utérin, sur
sa sœur utérine, etc. Sur tel allié de la famille (beau-frère, belle-
sœur, etc.) ou collatéral. — Cette cinquantaine de variations dont
une vingtaine au moins sont pathétiques se répétera
successivement pour chacun des cas : venger un frère, une sœur,
un époux, un fils, un aïeul, et ainsi de suite.
On fera, pour changer, assouvir ces vindictes, non sur la
personne du coupable, mais sur un être qui lui soit cher (c’est de
cette manière que Médée et Atrée frappèrent Jason et Thyeste sur
les enfants de ceux-ci) ; des objets insensibles, quelquefois, tiennent
aussi lieu de victimes.
V e SITUATION
Traqué
(Châtiment — Fugitif)
La IIe situation était la réciproque de la Ire ; la situation traqué

représente aussi une transposition au passif des IIIe et IVe et de
toutes celles, en somme, où un danger poursuit une tête. Pourtant
une démarcation reste creusée : dans Traqué l’élément sévisseur
se tient au second plan ou n’en n’occupe, voire, aucun, pouvant être
invisible, abstrait… Seul, le Fugitif nous intéresse, parfois innocent,
toujours excusable ; car la faute, — s’il y en eut une — ainsi reculée
dans le vague antérieur, apparaît fatale, acquise ; nous ne la
discutons plus ni ne la reprenons, ce serait oiseux, mais
sympathiquement nous en subissons les conséquences avec notre
héros, qui n’est plus, quel qu’il soit, qu’un Homme en danger, c’est-
à-dire un de notre parti, de notre bande, un moi. On se souvient de
la vérité jetée à la face des hypocrisies par Wolfgang Gœthe :
qu’ayant chacun en nous, à l’état de puissance, tous les crimes qui
se commirent jamais, il ne s’en produit pas un qu’il ne nous soit
loisible d’imaginer, très bien, accompli par nous-mêmes. Nous nous
sentons, on dirait, complices des pires attentats. Ce qui s’explique
d’ailleurs en pensant que nous en avons de bien autres parmi la
ligne de nos hérédités ; et la valeur d’une vertu consisterait, peut-
être, dans ce blasement d’instruite devant les fautes qui lui font
antithèse ; auquel cas, hérédité et milieu, loin d’être des fatalités
oppressives, deviendraient les germes de la sagesse qui, la satiété
venue, en triomphe : voilà pourquoi le génie (non plus une névrose,
mais l’inattendue victoire sur les névroses) naîtrait surtout dans des
familles qui lui transmirent l’expérience de la folie ou parmi des
malheureux qui lui en montrèrent, dans leur destruction mentale,
l’anatomie entière. C’est à acquérir d’une façon moins coûteuse
cette expérience de l’erreur et des catastrophes, c’est à en évoquer
vivement pour mieux dire les innombrables souvenirs qui dormaient
dans notre sang, afin d’en purifier à force de répétitions et y
accoutumer nos âmes ombrageuses, que paraît correspondre le
besoin d’une littérature à personnages et à émotions ; comme la
musique, elle finit, exorcisme divin, par « adoucir les mœurs » et
nous douer de cette force dans le sang-froid, base de toute vertu…
— Le caractère d’isolement, propre à la situation V donne une
singulière unité à l’action et un champ très net pour l’observation
psychologique ; la variété des décors et le romanesque des
évènements n’y font non plus défaut.
A — Traqué par la justice pour brigandage, politique,
etc. : — Louis Pérez de Galice et la Dévotion à la Croix de
Calderon, les Brigands de Schiller. Ex. historique : les
conventionnels proscrits ; la duchesse de Berry. Ex. roman. :
Rocambole, romans de Gaboriau. Ex. ord. : histoires de police.
B — Poursuivi pour une faute d’amour : — Très injustement :
Indigne ! (M. Barbier, 1884) ; — d’une façon plus juste : Don Juan de
Molière et Le Festin de Pierre de Th. Corneille (sans parler des
œuvres de Tirso de Molina, Tellez, Villiers, Sadwell, Zamora,
Goldoni, Grabbe, Zorilla, Dumas père, etc.) ; — pour des raisons très
justes : Ajax Locrien de Sophocle. Ex. ordinaires : depuis les
mariages imposés aux séducteurs jusqu’aux rafles policières sur les
trottoirs.
C — Héros en lutte contre une puissance : — C’est le
Prométhée enchaîné d’Eschyle, le Laocoon de Sophocle ; puis le
rôle de Porus dans les Alexandres de Racine et de Métastase,
Nicomède, Gœtz de Berlinchingen, en partie Egmont, Caton de
Métastase, Adelghis de Manzoni et un côté de son Comte de
Carmagnola, la mort d’Hector au fond de ce Troïlus et Cressida, où
Shakespeare se posait déjà, d’une attitude si significative, en contre-
pied d’Homère ; c’est de nos temps Nana-Sahib de Richepin (1883),
Édith (M. G. Bois, 1885), et la tétralogie des Nibelungen ; c’est
l’Ennemi du Peuple.
D — Un pseudo-fou en lutte contre un aliéniste
iagique [6] : — La Vicomtesse Alice (M. Second, 1882).
[6] Tiré de Iago ; néologisme qui me paraît utile.
VI e SITUATION
Désastre
(Ennemi vainqueur ou Messager — Puissant frappé)
La Peur même, l’inattendu et la catastrophe, et le grand

renversement des rôles, le puissant est jeté bas et le faible exalté !
Refrain des livres bibliques et immortelle clameur de la chute d’Ilios,
dont nous pâlissons comme d’un pressentiment.
A 1 — Subir une défaite : — Les Myrmidons et les Perses
d’Eschyle ; les Pasteurs de Sophocle. Roman : la Débâcle de Zola.
L’histoire n’est faite que de récits de ce genre.
2 — La patrie détruite : — Les Xoanéphores de Sophocle,
Sardanapale de Byron (se confond avec B et rappelle aussi vers le
dénouement la Ve). Histoire : la Pologne, les grandes Invasions.
B — Un roi renversé (réciproque passive de la VIIIe) — Henri
VI et Richard II de Shakespeare — Histoire : Charles Ier, Louis XVI,
Napoléon, etc. ; et en leur substituant un puissant quelconque :
Colomb, Lesseps et tous les ministres disgrâciés. Romans : fin de
Tartarin, l’Argent, César Birotteau.
C 1 — Subir l’ingratitude. — De toutes les attaques du
Malheur, naturellement la plus poignante : Archélaüs d’Euripide (sauf
le dénouement où l’action se renverse), Timon d’Athènes et le roi
Lear de Shakespeare, début de son Coriolan, Marino Faliero de
Byron, un côté du Comte de Carmagnola de Manzoni. M. de
Bismarck renvoyé par M. de Hohenzollern fils. Les martyres, les
dévouements méconnus par la stupide vanité de ceux qui après
avoir bénéficié de ces sacrifices s’y croient supérieurs, les trépas les
plus magnanimes se sont dessinés sur ce triste fond : la mort de
Socrate et la Passion n’en sont que les exemples les plus célèbres.
2 — Subir un injuste ressentiment. — (Se confond avec
l’« Erreur judiciaire ») : les Salaminiennes d’Eschyle, Teucer de
Sophocle, etc.
3 — Subir un outrage : — Ier acte du Cid, Ier acte de Lucrèce
Borgia. Le point d’honneur offre mieux que ces simples épisodes : le
roman russe de l’Esprit Souterrain l’a comme pressenti. Qu’on
imagine après sa bastonnade un Voltaire plus sensible encore, plus
« hermine » et réduit à l’impuissance, jusqu’à mourir de désespoir.
D 1 — Être abandonné par son amant ou son époux : —
Faust, Ariane de Th. Corneille, début des Médées.
2 — Enfants perdus par leurs parents : — Le Petit Poucet.
Mais si les nuances tout individuelles B, C et D n’ont pas été
développées de beaucoup autant qu’il était facile de le faire, que dire
des cas de Désastres Sociaux (comme la nuance A) ? Shakespeare
n’a pu aller assez loin dans cette voie grandiose. Chez les Grecs
seuls, une telle œuvre édifiée présenta du même coup cette
conception des événements humains, grande, fatale et poétique,
avec laquelle Hérodote devait un jour créer l’histoire.
VII e SITUATION
En Proie
(Maître ou Malheur — Faible)
Ici se voit qu’il n’y a aucune limite dans l’infinie douleur : au fond
de la détresse en apparence la pire, s’en ouvrira une plus affreuse.
Point de pitié dans les cieux qui au-dessus de nos nuées sont
démontrés complètement noirs et vides. On dirait un dépècement
savant et féroce du cœur que cette VIIe situation, celle du
pessimisme par excellence.
A — L’innocence victime d’ambitieuses intrigues : — La
Princesse Maleine ; La Fille naturelle de Gœthe, les Deux Jumeaux
de Hugo.
B — Dépouillée par ceux qui devaient la protéger : — Les
Convives et le début des Joueurs d’Osselets d’Eschyle (au premier
frémissement du grand arc aux mains du Mendiant inconnu, quel
souffle d’espérance devait s’élever, enfin !), les Corbeaux de
Becque.
C 1 — La puissance dépossédée et misérable : — Débuts des
Pélées de Sophocle et d’Euripide, du Prométhée enchaîné, de Job ;
Laërte dans son jardin.
2 — Favori ou familier se voit oublié : — En détresse (M.
Fèvre, 1890.)
D — Des malheureux sont dépouillés de leur seul espoir :
— Les Aveugles de Maeterlinck.
Et que de cas encore ! les Juifs en captivité, la Case de l’oncle
Tom, les horreurs de la guerre de cent ans, les ghettos envahis,
l’appareil qui attire la foule aux reproductions du bagne et des
scènes de l’Inquisition, l’attrait des Prisons de Pellico, de l’Enfer du
Dante, l’amertume enivrante du Gautama, de l’Ecclésiaste, de
Schopenhauer.
VIII e SITUATION
Révolte
(Tyran — Conspirateur)
Réciproque partielle, comme j’ai dit, de B de la VIe.

L’intrigue, si chère au public de ces trois derniers siècles, est du
moins fournie par la nature propre du sujet que nous abordons.
Mais, par un étrange hasard, on l’a presque toujours traité, au
contraire, avec la plus grande candeur. Une ou deux péripéties,
quelques surprises vraiment trop faciles à prévoir et étendues
uniformément à tous les personnages de la pièce, voilà les
agréments presque invariables qu’on a attachés à cette action, — si
propice pourtant aux doutes, à l’équivoque, l’« entre chien et loup »,
crépuscule dont la vague incertitude ne prépare que mieux l’aurore
de la révolte et de la liberté !
A 1 — Conspiration d’un individu surtout : — La Conjuration
de Fiesque de Schiller, Cinna de Corneille, un peu du Catilina de
Voltaire (cette tragédie appartient à « Ambition », XXXe), Thermidor ;
la Conspiration du général Malet (M. Augé de Lassus, 1889).
2 — Conspiration de plusieurs : — La Conspiration des Pazzi,
d’Alfieri ; le Roman d’une Conspiration (d’après le roman de M.
Ranc, par MM. Fournier et Carré, 1890).
B — Révolte. 1, d’un individu qui entraîne les autres : —
Egmont de Gœthe (et avec ce drame l’espèce de parodie qui en fut
jouée naguère à Paris sous l’euphémisme bien connu d’adaptation),
Jacques Bonhomme (M. Maujan, 1886), la Mission de Jeanne d’Arc
(M. Dallière, 1888). Roman : Salammbô. Histoire : Solon feignant la
folie.
2, de plusieurs : — Fontovéjune de Lope de Véga ; Guillaume
Tell de Schiller, Germinal de Zola, les Tisserands de Silésie de M.
Hauptmann (drame interdit en 1893 avec l’approbation d’un
Parlement peu après dissous), et l’Automne de MM. Paul Adam et
Gabriel Mourey (drame interdit en 1893 avec l’approbation d’un
autre Parlement dès avant dissolu). — Roman : partie de la Fortune
des Rougon de Zola. Histoire : la prise de la Bastille et les
nombreuses émeutes de ce siècle.
Particulier, comme on voit, aux scènes modernes, ce genre
d’action a donné de beaux drames virils à l’Angleterre, à l’Espagne,
à l’Italie et à l’Allemagne, d’un caractère autoritaire et violent dans
les deux premiers pays, généreux et jeune dans les deux derniers.
La France, à coup sûr, mieux qu’aucune est faite pour comprendre
et rendre de telles émotions.
Mais… Thermidor fut interdit « de peur » qu’il ne froissât des
amis, centenaires apparemment, de Maximilien ; le Pater « de peur »
qu’il ne déplût à des communistes ; Germinal de Zola, l’Automne
d’Adam et de Mourey (deux tableaux peints en nuances quelque peu
différentes, les titres l’indiquent assez) furent arrêtés « de peur »
d’insurger quelques conservateurs ; l’Argent d’autrui de M. Hennique
le fut un certain temps de « peur » de choquer des gens de finance,
actuellement sous les verrous ; Lohengrin (sujet celtique), longtemps
de « peur » d’irriter six chauvins français illettrés ; un nombre infini de
drames « de peur » de fâcher l’Allemagne, ou nos diplomates de
salon qui en parlent… D’autres encore « de peur » de vexer le Grand
Turc [7] !
[7] Historique. Qu’on se rappelle l’aventure du
Mahomet de M. de Bornier, qu’a fait interdire dans notre
république « franco-russe et libre-penseuse » un individu
que nos lois jugeraient digne des travaux forcés à
perpétuité.
Et pourtant y a-t-il un exemple d’une pièce de théâtre amenant

une calamité nationale, comme on nous en menace ?
Ce prétexte n’est vraiment pas plus sincère que ceux allégués,
par exemple, pour répudier du théâtre toute peinture nette de
l’amour. Il suffirait en effet à nos pudibonds de faire refuser aux
contrôles les enfants (qui d’ailleurs s’y présentent bien rarement
sans être accompagnés). Est-ce donc qu’elle trouve plus dangereux,
notre Bourgeoisie éprise du seul roman, d’écouter en public que de
lire, seule, d’une main, comme disait le XVIIIe siècle ?… Car à notre
art dramatique, demeuré, notez-le, malgré son épuisement, le grand
moyen de propagande, sans rival quoique envié, de la langue et de
la pensée françaises dans l’Europe, — voici qu’on interdit, peu à
peu, de toucher directement : à la théologie (notre libre originalité
depuis le XIIe jusqu’au XVIIIe siècle), — à la politique, — à la
sociologie, — au langage de la Foule pour laquelle il est fait et qui y
assiste, refoulée et tassée de par l’architecture néo-
louisquatorzième, dans l’obscurité étouffante de l’amphithéâtre, —
aux personnes, — aux mœurs criminelles, sauf (pourquoi ? oui,
dites-moi pourquoi ?) à l’adultère, — dont vit, ce qui était fatal, notre
personnel théâtral, au moins deux jours sur trois.
… Les anciens disaient que l’homme en esclavage perd la moitié
de son âme : un dramaturge est un homme.

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Corruption and Norms: Why Informal

Rules Matter 1st Edition Ina Kubbe

More information about this series at

Political Corruption and Governance

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955215

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover illustration: pastorscott

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

This book is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of corruption. It

(University of Passau), in particular Bo Rothstein (University of Oxford)—

Tel Aviv, Israel Ina Kubbe

Part I How Social Norms Shape Our Understanding of

 emocratic Norms, Political Money, and Corruption13

 Social Psychological View on the Social Norms

 icro-perspectives on the Gender–Corruption Link53

Religiosity and Corruption 69

 he Role of Mediated Scandals in the Definition

Part II Norms and Corruption from Country-Specific

 aught Between Liberation and Liberalism 115

 nti-poverty Programs and Vote-Buying Strategies 133

 et’s Play: Bribery Games in the US and Germany 153

Corruption, Social Norms and Everyday Life in Uzbekistan 187

I ntegrity Building and Social Norms in Kosovo’s

Part III Norms and the Global Anti-corruption Framework 239

 hat is the “Anti-corruption” Norm in Global Politics? 241

 he Strengths and Weaknesses of Political Funding

 he Culture Variable Vis-à-Vis Anti-bribery Law 291

 he Art of Missing the Point: FIFA and the Control of

 Case Study of an EU Procurement Process in an African

Let’s Play: Bribery Games in the US and Germany

Democratic Norms, Political Money, and Corruption

The Strengths and Weaknesses of Political Funding Regulations

Ina Kubbe and Annika Engelbert

The detrimental impact of corruption—generally understood as the abuse

© The Author(s) 2018 1

Theoretical and empirical state-of-the-art corruption research has pro-

to norms, the individual chapters of the present book concentrate on the

Amy C. Alexander’s contribution takes a closer look at the correlation of

Rustamjon Urinboyev and Måns Svensson analyze corruption, social

the FIFA—the football’s world governing body—found it so hard not just

4. Based on panel data for 130–189 countries, Mungiu-Pippidi (2011) shows

Ina Kubbe, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political Science, Tel

Annika Engelbert, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Law Faculty, Ruhr University,

How Social Norms Shape Our

1 I Know It When I See It

© The Author(s) 2018 13

but arguably equally complex—what to apply them to. Most answers to

But the long-running and inconclusive nature of the definitions debate

Adding Norms to the Mix

guarantees, and principles defining relationships between regimes and citi-

services but, beyond empty rhetorical flourishes, make little or no pretense

2 Majorities, Silent and Otherwise

decidedly jaundiced views they seem to hold about day-to-day policy-­

Who Listens to People Like Me?

...even though many might have to think back to elementary school in

Huey Pierce Long, the colorful (or demagogic) Governor of Louisiana,

3 The Best Politics Money Can Buy

Table 1 Survey results on fairness and exclusion

When it comes to 54.8 24.3 3.3 8.7 4.1 4.8

The sense of exclusion from political processes parallels outlooks on the

Similar ideas drive Acemoglu and Robinson’s (2012) distinction

Institutional corruption is manifest when there is a systemic and strategic

Tel Aviv, Israel Ina Kubbe

Part I How Social Norms Shape Our Understanding of

emocratic Norms, Political Money, and Corruption13

Social Psychological View on the Social Norms

icro-perspectives on the Gender–Corruption Link53

Religiosity and Corruption 69

he Role of Mediated Scandals in the Definition

Part II Norms and Corruption from Country-Specific

aught Between Liberation and Liberalism 115

nti-poverty Programs and Vote-Buying Strategies 133

et’s Play: Bribery Games in the US and Germany 153

Corruption, Social Norms and Everyday Life in Uzbekistan 187

I ntegrity Building and Social Norms in Kosovo’s

Part III Norms and the Global Anti-corruption Framework 239

hat is the “Anti-corruption” Norm in Global Politics? 241

he Strengths and Weaknesses of Political Funding

he Culture Variable Vis-à-Vis Anti-bribery Law 291

he Art of Missing the Point: FIFA and the Control of

Case Study of an EU Procurement Process in an African

decidedly jaundiced views they seem to hold about day-to-day policy-