Corruption Networks, Transaction Security and Illegal Social Exchange
| Author | Jean Cartier-Bresson |
| Published date | 01 August 1997 |
| Date | 01 August 1997 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.00091 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Corruption Networks, Transaction Security
and Illegal Social Exchange
JEAN CARTIER-BRESSON
Introduction
Ever since the publication of Ban®eld's seminal article,1economists have
traditionally observed that corruption becomes possible as soon as threetypes of
economic parties exist: an agent, a principal, and, lastly, a third party whose
gains and losses depend upon the agent. In this literature, the agent is corruptible
to the extent that he has, a priori, the ability to conceal his corruption from his
principal. An agent becomes corrupt when he sacri®ces the interests of his
principal to his own bene®t, and in so doing, breaks the law. According to this
de®nition, then, corruption is merely a particular model of agency relationship.
According to Ban®eld, three types of measures would be likely to reduce
corruption, which is hypothetically endemic given human opportunism:
.inducing loyalty through salary policies;2
.using the threat of sanctions to make the consequences of exposure more
serious;3
.monitoring agents' activities by systematic audit policies in order to
increase the likelihood of detection.
According to the standard work on the economy of corruption,4one should
also add the following to these anti-corruption policies:
.rules which reinforce competition between politicians, provided that
political challengers are pushed into denouncing corruption, that pressure
groups establish themselves legally and openly, and also that voters stay
vigilant and interested in the results of public policies;
.measures aimed at improving both the precision of public demands made
by decision makers (politicians) and competition between ®rms seeking
public contracts;
.steps which would maintain competition between the administrative
departments implementing political decisions.
The hypothesis is that the consolidation of such types of competition will
improve the quality of information at the disposal of the principals and the
#Political Studies Association 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 CowleyRoad, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
1E. C. Ban®eld, `Corruption as a feature of governmental organisation', Journal of Law and
Economics, 18/3 (1975).
2G. S. Becker and G. Stigler, `Law enforcement, malfeasance and compensation of enforcers',
Journal of Legal Studies, 3/1 (1974).
3G. S. Becker, `Crime and punishment: an economic approach', Journal of Political Economy,76
(1968).
4S. Rose-Ackerman, Corruption: a Study in Political Economy (New York, Academic, 1978).
Political Studies (1997), XLV, 463±476
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