Asia Graduate School of Theology Course: Cultural Issues of Education Professor: Grace Shangkuan Koo, Ph.D.

Student: uel !. Cha"e# $anuary %&, %''(

eaction Pa)er * % The Personality of Corru)tion: A +ational ,e"el Analysis

Summary Connelly and Ones identify their research problem as the lack of knowledge, which explains the relationship between national personality and corruption. They examined the independent, combined, and unique effects of national personality and the four cultural dimensions on national corruption. They recei!ed direction in their research from literature, which speaks of relationship of corruption to culture, indi!idual personality, and national personality. Connelly and Ones made use of "ofstede#s four cultural dimensions $indi!idualism%collecti!ism, masculinity%femininity, power distance, and

uncertainty&a!oidance ' in their discussion of the relationship between culture and corruption. They summari(ed their findings as follows) *ower distance was the strongest cultural predictor of corruption. Collecti!ism had also strong relation to corruption but disappeared after controlling for wealth. +oth masculinity and uncertainty&a!oidance had modest correlation with corruption. The researchers employed the ,i!e&,actor -odel of personality $neuroticism, extra!ersion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness ' in their discussion of the relationship between indi!idual personality and corruption. They utili(ed this ,i!e&,actor -odel to in!estigate its relationship with counterproducti!e

work beha!iors $C/+#s'

such as organi(ational de!iance

and interpersonal

de!iance. They presented four studies focusing on mid 0 to lower le!el employees, white 0 collar offenders, and whistle 0blowers. The third type of literature centers on the relationship between national personality and corruption. 1nder this section, Connelly and Ones combined the insights from both four cultural dimensions and ,i!e&,actor -odel and applied them on national le!el to disco!er the relationship of national personality to corruption.

2ssessment and 3esponse 4 find the material difficult to follow due to the technicalities, which 4 assume are familiar only to those who are trained in ad!anced statistics. 2mong the many ideas, presented by the researchers, 4 would like to focus my reaction on two ideas) meaning of corruption and the correlation of national wealth and religion to corruption. Connelly and Ones simply adopted the common definition of corruption as the misuse of public power for pri!ate benefit $p. 567'. +ello $8997' ga!e a different rendering) corruption as the misuse of public resources by a public agent for pri!ate gains $p. 8:8'. +oth definitions understand power and resources beyond economic but embrace e!en political control. Connelly and Ones did not confine the meaning of corruption to go!ernment officials but applied it e!en to the misuse of public power held by industry and communities. "owe!er, their perception of corruption falls short of +ello#s proposal to broaden our perception of corruption. +ello did not limit the meaning of corruption ;ust to an indi!idual public official or politician but included a specific social class, which in the case of *hilippine society, are the country#s ruling elites who 0 by !irtue of their control

o!er economic and political resources 0 often determine who gets to sit in public offices $ibid.'. /ith this expansionist definition of corruption, +ello qualifies the kind of democracy in the land as elitist, which is the consequence of 2merican colonialism. <uoting "utchcroft, +ello asserts The legacy of 1S colonialism=was oligarchy 0 building, not state building $8:6'. ,or +ello, this explains the economic stagnancy of the land. The second idea that 4 would like to respond to is about the connection of wealth and religion to corruption. Connelly and Ones referring to national wealth and religion state These two !ariables ha!e pre!iously been strongly linked to corruption, with nations with more wealth and higher percentages of *rotestants ha!ing less corruption $p. 56>'. 4n page 5??, the researchers identified three religions) 3oman Catholicism, *rotestantism, and 4slam. The authors further describe These three religions ha!e been most commonly studied and discussed in con;unction with corruption, with *rotestantism typically being negati!ely correlated with corruption. The first quotation suggests that non&*rotestant countries with less wealth are more corrupt than rich and *rotestant countries. The second quotation confirms that *rotestant countries ha!e negati!e correlation with corruption whereas 3oman Catholic and -oslem countries ha!e positi!e correlation to corruption. Series of questions come to my mind. /hat is the correlation between religion and corruption, between less wealth $po!erty' and corruption, and between less wealth $po!erty' and religion@ Ao the findings suggest that both 4slam and 3oman Catholicism do not ha!e the ability to lower corruption whereas *rotestantism possesses such power@ +asing on +ello#s argument, the relation between corruption and less wealth $po!erty' can be explained in terms of cause and effect, pro!ided that the

meaning of corruption is not confined among indi!idual go!ernment officials or politicians but referring primarily to the ruling elites of the land, whose existence in return could be traced back to the legacy of a *rotestant country. 4n fact, Constantino $.>?B' claimed that both corruption and less wealth $po!erty' are una!oidable consequences of a neo&colonial society. "ow about the relationship between less wealth $po!erty' and religion@ Ao the teachings of both 3oman Catholicism and 4slam foster attitudes, which are closely connected to po!erty while the teachings of *rotestant promote !alues and attitudes, which promote increase in wealth@

eferences +ello, /. $8997'. The anti-development state: The political economy of permanent crisis in the Philippines. Ailiman, <ue(on City) 1ni!ersity of the *hilippines. Constantino, 3. $.>?B'. Filipino in the Philippines. <ue(on City, *hilippines) -alaya +ooks 4nc.