Real Politics and the Concept of Political Corruption

In the past, many scholars held a straightforward definition of political corruption. They

presupposed that good political behavior meant fulfilling one’s official duties, and they defined

political corruption as breach of official duties for purposes of private gain. This understanding

began to unravel during the second half of the 20th century. The accepted definition of political

corruption shifted from breach of duty to the misuse of public power for private gain, and scholars

began to emphasize the ambiguity inherent in the definition’s constituent terms, both ‘misuse of

power’ and ‘private gain’ – an ambiguity that became clear when scholars tried to apply the

definition to concrete cases (Andersson and Heywood, 2009; Buchan and Hill, 2014, pp. 2-7).

To deal with this conceptual challenge, in recent years, several political theorists have

sought to reframe our understanding of political corruption in terms of how people actually organize

their political lives. More specifically, new scholarship conceives of political corruption as attempts

to use public power to advance private gain while bypassing or subverting the political process

(Thompson, 2013; Williams, 1999, p. 509), or while damaging, subverting, or eroding what is

distinct to the political sphere (Offe, 2004; Philp, 1997). Following this reasoning, this scholarship

suggests that in applying the concept to specific situations, we must consider local norms (Philp,

2006, p. 47) and the assessments of real people (Thompson, 2002, pp. viii-ix; Warren, 2006, p.

170). This means interpreting political principles like impartiality in light of public opinion (Kurer,

2005, p. 233), and looking toward actual political processes (e.g., legislative deliberations) to

determine the meaning of a notion like the private interest (Johnston, 2014; Thompson, 1995).

In this paper, I use the term real politics to refer to any of the following: actual political

processes, local norms, public discussions, self-interpretations of agents, and public opinion.

Likewise, I regard scholars as connecting the conceptualization of political corruption to real

politics when they define political corruption in terms of subverting or harming the political

process, and/or using one or more of the features of real politics as the criterion for applying the

concept to concrete cases. The aim of this paper is to explore how scholars relate the
conceptualization of political corruption to real politics, and some of the challenges generated by

these conceptual suggestions.

I am not arguing here against any consideration of real politics in discussions about political

corruption. My position relates to the reliance on real politics in identifying the specific behaviors

that constitute political corruption, and in determining whether a particular act should be considered

corrupt. It should be noted in this respect that sensitivity to real politics has recently been claimed to

play a crucial role in political theorizing in general (Floyd and Stears, 2011; Freeden, 2013, pp. 55-

57; Geuss, 2008; Swift and White, 2008). The analysis that I suggest has largely deflationary

consequences for these claims. I contend that we do need to consider real politics in the study of

political corruption, but not in the manner or for the reasons suggested in much current scholarship.

Rather, I suggest that considerations of real politics – by examining what people think about

corruption, the boundary between the private and the public, and attempts to advance private gain

through political means – are important not because they can help us define or identify political

corruption, but because they can help us determine the form of any given case of political

corruption, and in particular, whether it is individual or structural in nature. The concept of political

corruption is about political injustice, which exists independently of political processes, public

attitudes, or norms of behavior. My hope is that the analysis that I offer here will encourage

scholars to pay more attention to moral considerations that are independent of agents' wills and

local norms, public opinion, and how societies regulate political behavior.

Before proceeding, a preliminary point is needed. It is not within the remit of this paper to

examine methodological difficulties that arise from the attempt to connect the concept of political

corruption to notions such as public opinion. For example, this paper does not deal with questions

such as what exactly is ‘the public’, how can we measure its opinion about political corruption, and

how should we go about identifying accepted norms in any political system. These are important

questions, but they are not germane to the theoretical issue that I deal with in this paper.

The paper has two parts. First, I examine three distinct arguments on which scholars who
conceptualize political corruption through the lens of real politics often rely. We can characterize

these arguments as based on (1) cultural differences and skepticism about practical reason; (2)

disagreements about the notions that constitute the concept of political corruption; and (3) the

nature of the political. I show that each of these arguments posits standards for the use of power on

the basis of naive or conservative assumptions about politics. In the second part of this paper, I

suggest an alternative approach to the role of real politics in the conceptualization of political

corruption, while retaining a concern for how the discourse around political corruption might

influence democratic politics and Western political thought.

Cultural Differences and Skepticism about Practical Reason

Beginning in the 1960s, many scholars became sensitive to the possibility that they were imposing

Western standards in their study of political corruption in the developing world. To avoid this, some

of these scholars sought to define political corruption as 'behavior of public officials which deviates

from accepted norms in order to serve private ends' (Huntington, 1968, p. 59). Others suggested

considering local norms when applying the concept of political corruption to concrete cases (Scott,

1969). More recently, the use of local norms in the conceptualization of political corruption also has

come to reflect what Korsgaard (1986) called ‘skepticism about practical reason’. That is,

prominent theorists presuppose, usually not explicitly, that reason alone is insufficient to determine

whether a given act counts as ‘misuse of public power’, and reason cannot motivate political agents

not to misuse their public power. Thus, they assert that whether or not an act is corrupt must

consider local norms or the views of the public about political principles.

According to Kurer, for example, political corruption involves violations of specific non-

discrimination norms governing access to the political process and allocation of resources. He

underscores that 'prevailing norms determine when a particular non-discrimination rule is broken

and a corrupt act has occurred' (Kurer, 2005, p. 233). Similarly, Philp (2006, p. 47) suggests that

'any definition of corruption must retain as a core component that the agent's action be, in some

way, “illicit” – where the grounds for identifying it as illicit is that it violates the rules, norms or
public expectations of office s/he occupies'. These norms cannot be 'wholly external to a given

political culture and society'. Philp stresses that 'to classify as corrupt, behavior that conforms to

public office norms that are widely approved and endorsed does not make any sense' (ibid, ibid). To

put the idea in positive terms, the subjective and intersubjective dimensions of the values that

constitute the concept of political corruption ‘are what render them potent and capable of

motivating behavior’ (Bukovansky, 2006, p. 199).

Indeed, concerns about Western arrogance are an important defense against the danger that

our perceptions about political corruption 'will be dulled, our intellects constricted, and our

sympathies narrowed by the overlearned and overvalued acceptances of our own society' (Geertz,

1984, p. 265). Such concerns are also crucial if we are to avoid being overly judgmental towards

others. Of course, whether foreign NGOs, global warriors, or other agents with governmental power

are justified in implementing policies against what they conceive as political corruption depends on

whether the policy has been endorsed through legitimate political processes (De Sousa, Larmour,

and Hindess, 2008). However, these are not sufficient reasons for conceptualizing political

corruption via real politics.

Justification for accepting a political conception (in our case, an understanding of political

corruption) depends on whether there are good reasons for doing so, regardless of the real

motivations of agents, political processes, etc. (Mason, 2010, p. 665). But the theoretical questions

(i.e., how we should define political corruption, and whether a given act should be considered

corrupt) are independent of practical concerns, such as what we should do about it. How we define

political corruption, and whether or not we should intervene in another’s wrongdoing, are two

different things. Moreover, sometimes there are good reasons why the state might choose not to use

its power to address corruption in society. For example, the recent Supreme Court ruling that the

American Congress lacks authority to impose aggregate limits on campaign spending does not

imply an answer to the question of whether unlimited campaign spending is corrupt or corrupting.

That is, it is crucial to distinguish between anti-corruption policies, on the one hand, and how we
define political corruption and apply the definition to concrete cases, on the other. We may classify

an act or practice as corrupt even if, for the moment at least, we do not see how to address the

problem without causing more harm to ourselves or to others.

Disagreements about the Notions that Constitute the Concept of Political Corruption

Another argument put forward in the literature for conceptualizing political corruption via real

politics is that the notions which constitute the concept of political corruption, i.e., ‘private interest’

and ‘abuse of power’, have been a matter of dispute in many societies. From this alleged fact, some

scholars conclude that “a vibrant political process is also critical to defining political corruption in

ways that are legitimate and meaningful in real situations” (Johnston, 1996, p. 321; Johnston, 2014,

pp. 8-9; Williams, 1999, pp. 509-510). To illustrate this point, Johnston (2010, p. 16) mentions the

Lewinski scandal, suggesting that the boundaries between public and private were redrawn through

public contention. Likewise, Thompson (1995, p. 28, p. 201) asserts that citizens disagree about the

public interest, but they agree about the importance of the democratic process. It is the democratic

process that determines the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate attempts to advance

private interests. Political corruption can be defined as an attempt to advance private interests in a

way that bypasses the political process, or that disregards political decisions which regulate the

advancement of such interests.

The assumed existence of disagreements, however, is weak justification for using political

processes to define political corruption, to distinguish between public and private, or to apply the

concept of corruption to concrete cases. First and foremost, it is far from clear that the concept of

political corruption is indeed contested in any society (Alatas, 1990). At the very least, it remains to

be proved that disputes about the meaning of political corruption and its applicability to concrete

cases are prevalent and pervasive. Second, even if there are such conceptual disagreements, the

political process cannot resolve them. For example, it is not the law or the political process that

distinguishes between a gift and a bribe, but rather the intention of the giver and the receiver’s

awareness of that intention. The law can only define what types of exchanges are to be considered
prohibited (or even criminal). To take another example, political processes cannot determine

whether or not a particular act reflects a conflict of interest. Whether a conflict of interest is present

depends on an empirical fact, namely whether a given set of interests holds the potential to distort

the power holder’s judgment and capacity to serve. To borrow from Machiavelli, we can defend our

towns with embankments and dikes, but we cannot change the course or flow of the river.

Moreover, there is good reason to question the quality of political decisions about what counts as

bribery, private gain, conflicts of interest, and political corruption more generally. This is because

political decisions, at least in part, generally reflect concerns of the legislature, as well as practical

issues (such as what is known about the likelihood of compliance) that are not necessarily

consistent with the requirements of political justice (see also Estlund, 2011, especially p. 226).

Finally, consideration of disagreements about the corruptness of behavior incurs the risk of

omitting from the corruption roster cases where disputes are not sincere, but rather reflect efforts by

the corrupt agent to deflect criticism. That is, conceptualizations of corruption based on real politics

may serve, unintendedly, the interests of the corrupt agent.

The Nature of the Political

The last argument in favor of considering real politics in order to determine how to define and apply

the concept of political corruption incorporates semantics and conceptual history, but also a position

in favor of the autonomy of the political, especially from Kantian morality. The argument goes as

follows: 'The root meaning of the term ‘corruption’ is a decay in the basic nature or character of a

thing, so that x-corruption is just the corruption of the basic nature or character of x' (Philp, 2006, p.

48). This argument has encouraged scholars to consider political processes and other aspects of

political reality in the conceptualization of political corruption in several distinct ways, some of

which resemble the argument based on contestability of the concept described above.

First, some scholars argue that political corruption is the corruption of politics in its sound,

healthy, and uncorrupted condition (Buchan and Hill, 2014, pp. 6-7; Hindess, 2012, p. 3; Philp,

1997; Shumer, 1979). Yet – the argument continues – politics in its sound condition is an
essentially contested concept. Therefore, any conceptualization of political corruption based on

politics in its sound condition, or any application of that concept to concrete cases, is inherently also

contested. The best way to resolve this problem is through politics – that is, by measuring the

contested act against accepted norms about how politics should be practiced (Newey, 2010; Philp,

2012, p. 635). Or as Thompson (2013) argued, while bribery is easily recognized as a form of

corruption, in other cases, which he calls 'institutional corruption', the contested act must be viewed

in light of political procedures. As he put it, 'A large part of the project of combating institutional

corruption consists in formulating rules and procedures that actually determine what is to count as

corrupt', and in this sense this form of political corruption is 'politically constructed' (pp. 5-6).

Others suggest that the concept of political corruption derives from the theory of the good

political order – that is, democracy (Warren, 2004, p. 332). According to this argument, it is

unimportant whether or not there is a ‘best democratic model’. Rather, it is for the people to decide

on the best model of democracy for themselves. The consequence is that the people must decide,

indirectly, what constitutes political corruption (Hellman, 2013, pp. 1407-1408). A slightly different

version of this idea asserts that the chief criterion for what constitutes harm to the democratic

process is not substantive (e.g., inequality), but rather whether an act impairs an agent’s capacity to

deliberate, or even simply whether the agent attempts to advance his or her interests through

democratic procedures or by bypassing them. In either case, the scholar determines the content of

democratic norms and principles according to the decisions of the people actually affected, and not

according to some idealistic theory (Thompson, 2008, p. 504; Warren, 2006, p. 170 n. 10).

Lawrence Lessig's notion of ‘dependence corruption’ leads to politics in another ascertainable

way, though Lessig's aim was not to politicize the conceptualization of political corruption.

According to Lessig, dependence corruption exists when an individual or institution has developed

an ‘improper dependence’ – for instance, when elected lawmakers are dependent upon a small class

of moneyed donors (Lessig, 2011). The criterion for distinguishing between proper and improper

dependence, however, is not substantive but formalistic, based on whether the dependence was
intended by those who established the process or institution concerned (e.g., the Framers of the

Constitution; Lessig, 2013a, pp. 7-8). Thus, as Lessig (2013b) put it, 'one could well describe the

institutional corruption of the church as of the Mafia' (p. 554). That is, one need not be engaged in

normative evaluation in order to tell whether or not institutional corruption exists.

Finally, a fourth version of this argument holds that the answer to the question of how we

understand the nature of politics is dependent on how we answer the question of what makes the

political distinct as a human activity – i.e., how we can distinguish between good politics and, say,

morality or economy. Mark Philp, for example, conceives of authority as the distinguishing feature

of politics. For Claus Offe (2004, p. 78) it is legality, and thus political corruption is 'the voluntary

violation of legal norms (and beyond that social norms)'. Whatever the distinguishing feature of

politics, it is related to the need to achieve a non-violent order against the background of concrete

conflicts. That is, the political is inherently related to real politics through notions such as conflict,

authority, legality, and the fragility of the political order.

The reasoning behind these conceptions, with all its appeal, is somewhat misleading. Let me

start by pointing out that there is no normative reason to confine the notion of political corruption to

corruption of what makes politics distinct. It is not only the distinguishing features of politics that

we must be concerned with. We also want to ensure that public power will not be used in a way that

subverts the rights or legitimate interests of the people. Put differently, political corruption can be

understood as a form of corruption conducted through the use of politics – e.g., through the immoral

use of public power to achieve private gain. Likewise, the immorality or wrongness of political

conduct cannot always be determined by examining whether it accords with public opinion or

adheres to a particular political process. Sometimes wrongness or rightness is a function of whether

the government has the capacity to ensure that some citizens are not dominated by others, or even

whether the government is itself becoming an oppressive element. Similarly, attempts to promote

private gain do not automatically become moral, right, or legitimate just because they are formally

legal, or because they have the seal of public approval. For example, the American Supreme Court
has declared independent expenditures by corporations during election campaigns to be legal, yet

this declaration does not in itself make the practice of independent expenditures not corrupt.

Members of the judiciary, even Supreme Court Justices, may fail to fully grasp the effects of a

practice such as independent expenditures on the legislature’s capacity to serve the public, or may

understand these effects but not regard them as relevant.

Even apart from the notion of what makes politics a distinct human activity, the idea that we

should derive our understanding of political corruption from our understanding of the good political

order is problematic. In brief, the question of how to define or conceptualize the good political order

is not only an object of dispute among reasonable people, but its answer depends, to a large extent,

on practical considerations. This means that if we begin with the good political order, we run the

risk of not finding any broadly acceptable answer to the question of how to define or conceptualize

political corruption. Worse, any answer we do come up with will be a lowest-common-denominator

solution, reflecting crude and perhaps even tainted standards (Estlund, 2011).

The focus on the political process in general, and on deliberation in particular, imposes

another set of problems. It encourages a reification of political processes, as if the process were the

most important thing in politics, and not values and the public good. Such a focus thus distracts our

attention from the question of the capacity of the government to deliver public goods, such as

security and environmental protection (Issacharoff, 2010, p. 127). In addition, it generates the

mistaken impression that there exist procedural standards which can provide definitive answers as

to what is right and what is wrong in politics, and that there is no need to be concerned about the

motivations and values of agents. But the truth is that we cannot point to institutions and processes

that make values redundant, and the idea of political corruption cannot be captured solely by

institutional and procedural elements (Lowenstein, 2004, p. 132). Likewise, deliberative theorists

work under the presumption that deliberation makes decision making more just and beneficial for

the people, whereas in fact, deliberation often serves the powerful at the expense of the rest of

society. The upshot of all this is that any attempt to conceptualize political corruption by referring
to real politics serves those who benefit most from the political reality: the incumbents, the wealthy,

the big corporations, etc. – but not the rest of us.

In sum, it is one thing to be sensitive to the political process when setting out to study abuse

of power; it is another to try to extrapolate the conception of political corruption and its application

to concrete cases from the democratic process, local norms, public opinion, and the political order.

We must conclude, I think, that attempts to justify linking the conceptualization of political

corruption to real politics fare no better when based on the nature of politics than when based on

cultural sensitivity, skepticism about practical reason, and disputes about the content of notions

such as private interests.

The Role of Real Politics Revisited

It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a full-blown conceptualization of political corruption.

Nevertheless, I would like to clarify my criticism against current conceptualizations of political

corruption with few remarks about a possible conceptual alternative that is no less political.

I suggest as a starting point that we focus not on the sound condition of politics, but on uses of

public power for private gain that lead directly or indirectly to injustice and domination. The crucial

point is that the meaning of injustice and domination does not necessarily require previous

knowledge about what constitutes justice or the good political order (Bohman, 2012, pp. 98-99).

For example, while we may not be able to describe in detail what a good political process might

look like, it is clear that it does not look like one in which a small number of wealthy people hold

outsized influence over decision making. Indeed, our ideas about politics are more likely to be

shaped through analysis of corruption in concrete cases than the other way round. No less

important, I see no reason for a political theorist or researcher to believe that we can produce a

definition of political corruption that makes practical judgments unnecessary (Lowenstein, 2004, p.

132). This does not mean that scholars should abandon such judgments; rather, it means that

scholars should abandon the search for a way of classifying practices that will be beyond dispute.

I suggest, in short, that considering political processes and power relations cannot help us
define the concept of political corruption or apply it to concrete cases. However, such

considerations can serve another purpose entirely: namely, helping us determine the form and

cause of any given instance of political corruption, and specifically, whether it reflects only bad

behavior by an individual agent, or a structural or institutional problem. In addition, as I

mentioned above, real views, norms, political processes, institutional context, and other features of

‘the political ground’ can play a crucial role in designing anti-corruption policies. To take an

example, if politicians routinely act in a way that places their duty to serve the citizenry as a whole

in conflict with their interest in satisfying a moneyed donor class, we should not simply say ‘this is

how the system works’. Rather, we should recognize that the system is corrupt (Lowenstein, 1989,

p. 335), and engage the political process so as to do something about it. More generally, in such

cases we should not speak only of individuals as agents of corruption (pace Thompson, 2013), but

also about structures, institutions and ideologies as causes of corruption.

Importantly, an ability to identify structural corruption where it exists requires that we retain

the right to make substantive judgments – for example, judgments about the social and political

goals aimed for and achieved by the system, and about the integrity of political agents and their

willingness to serve the public. We cannot define structural corruption in any meaningful way in

terms that are "institution-agnostic" (pace Lessig, 2013b, p. 554). To illustrate this point, consider

President Lincoln’s offers of reelection support, concessions on unrelated legislation, and

patronage in exchange for favorable votes on the antislavery amendment. These acts constitute

political corruption when viewed through the lens of conceptualizations that focus on the

democratic process. By one argument, Lincoln clearly bypassed or even subverted the political

process in order to accomplish his goal; the merits of that goal are irrelevant (along the lines of

Thompson, 1993, p. 372). Alternatively, it could be argued that Lincoln engaged in political

corruption because he excluded slave owners from the decision making process, and he did so in a

duplicitous way (along the lines of Warren, 2004). By a third line of reasoning, Lincoln’s acts

were corrupt because they made the legislature dependent on the president and not on the people
alone (Lessig, 2013). On the other hand, Lowenstein (1986, p. 1498) rejects these accusations,

pointing out that "compromise on legislation is generally regarded not as corrupt but as necessary

in our system if legislative business is to be accomplished at all", and that "patronage was a much

more widely accepted practice in Lincoln's time".

I suggest, with Lowenstein (1986), that Lincoln’s actions were not corrupt – but not for the

same reasons. In my view, Lincoln cannot be exonerated simply because his behavior was accepted

within the political system, for that system might itself be corrupt. Would Lincoln be innocent of

wrongdoing if he knowingly acted in keeping with corrupt norms simply because those norms

represented the way things were done? No: It is rather that Lincoln’s actions were not corrupt

because the cause in which he acted was the abrogation of injustice. The crucial point is that when

agents’ actions are motivated by the duty or the desire to reduce injustice, these actions do not

constitute political corruption, even if they bypass the political process or exclude citizens from

decision making in duplicitous ways.

Conclusion

Recent conceptualizations of political corruption based on real politics have dramatically

increased sensitivity to the political nature of the discourse on political corruption. But this

endeavor cannot escape the charge of conservatism as long as it commits itself so strongly to

political processes and institutional settings that enable order and peace. Scholars should defend

democratic politics and should be aware of the fragility of the democratic order, but should reject

the idealization of politicians and the ‘in defense of politics’ ethos that characterizes at least part

of the scholarship (Johnston, 2010). If we relate the notion of political corruption to real politics

in the ways suggested in the literature, we run the risk of not condemning practices and

institutions which may be detrimental to individual rights or to the fulfillment of other political

goals. In studying political corruption we must maintain a perspective that is independent of

political agents and their political decisions, and we must consider real politics only for the

purposes of clarification mentioned above, or for the stage of policy design.

 One possible implication of this study is that we should rethink debates about the meaning

of political corruption and the application of the concept to concrete case. We should pay more

attention to both the pervasiveness of these disputes and the identities of the disputants, as well

as the positions being propounded – and we should assess those positions against both political

principles and what we know (from history and reason) about the consequences of particular

practices. So-called ‘ideology’ is no excuse for holding views consistent with private interests,

favoritism, and the misuse of power. On the other hand, disagreements in good faith do not

necessarily relate to politics in its sound condition, and so we should not conclude that the basis

of reasonable disagreements is what politics in its sound condition is. A related implication of

this paper is that scholars should play a more active role in defining political corruption and

applying the concept to concrete cases. This means that scholars should be willing to propose

conceptualizations that are disputable, and to apply the concept in ways that contradict accepted

criteria.

One other possible implication of this paper stands out. This is that it sharpens the

distinction between the question of how to define and apply the concept of political corruption,

on the one hand, and what is to be done to combat political corruption on the other. Of course,

one might ask, why should scholars care whether or not an act is corrupt if there is no recourse –

i.e., good anti-corruption policy – at hand? The answer is that corruption, like all moral wrongs,

ought to be exposed. Ultimately, the aim is to trigger public discourse that might lead individual

agents to rethink their engagement in a corrupt practice, or to start a process that will end in an

enforceable policy against it. That is, scholars can help the goal of reducing corruption by

illuminating the political mechanisms that underlie public debate about corruption, and can

suggest strategies to combat corrupt practices. An assertive approach to the conceptualization of

political corruption would thus not be another attempt to displace politics by philosophy, but

would rather represent a laudable way of participating in politics, while being faithful to our

vocation. We owe such participation not only to each other but also to ourselves – as citizens and
as scholars who are engaged in political theory (Swift and White, 2008).

Whatever the merits of my claim, the project in which I am engaged immediately confronts

the dilemma of who is the audience in the study of political corruption and the study of politics

more generally. What should we do, for example, if our audience rejects our conclusions because

of their own corruption or ignorance? A full answer to this question is beyond the scope of this

paper, but I shall say, very briefly, that we must attempt to create an audience for our

conceptualizations. And to do that, as Plato already knew, always requires more than pure

rationality and good argumentation. It demands political imagination and a capacity to translate

ideas to different audiences (Flinders, 2013). This is probably the most important role that real

politics can play in the conceptualization of political corruption.

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