How can corruption be addressed when the notion itself lacks a clear-cut definition, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed An important measure of the seriousness of a reform movement in any society is the willingness of its authorities to combat corruption and the concrete steps they take to overcome a modern scourge that has become endemic in many societies, both developed and underdeveloped. First, of course, the nerve centres of institutionalised corruption must be identified and a regulatory and control framework based on strict criteria set in place. This is a formidable undertaking, not only because the beneficiaries of corruption will defend their interests ferociously but also because corruption itself lacks any clear-cut definition. In a paper presented to the colloquium on corruption recently organised in Beirut by the Centre for Arab Unity Studies, Dr Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed, head of Cairo University's Centre for Developing Countries Studies, noted that corruption is defined in a variety of ways and from different perspectives. There are three main approaches to the issue, one from the perspective of public interest, another from a political-economic angle and the third as a behavioural phenomenon. The first defines corruption as the use of an official post to achieve personal gain; the second as the charging of a price for the provision of a public service in excess of the official tariff; the third as engaging in activities deemed illegal by society. Actually, the term corruption in its modern sense covers such a vast and growing assortment of activities that it cannot be reduced to a single definition. These activities include, but are not limited to, drugs trafficking, money laundering, corporate crime, arms sales, the sex trade, art and antique fraud, human trafficking, capital flight and the financing of terrorist networks. The only common denominator linking these activities together is that they are all undertaken outside the legality of the system. Globalisation and the information revolution have turned the phenomenon of corruption from what used to be a cottage industry into a vast global organised crime network transcending national borders and defying all attempts to address it as a single, well- defined aberration from the norm. It is worth noting that all the definitions of corruption carry a contradiction within them, branding corruption as a form of unethical behaviour deemed unacceptable by society as a whole when corruption has become so widespread that in many societies it is no longer considered an exception but the rule. The rise of corruption in any society is a direct result of the absence of adequate checks and balances in the system. It is this that allows the emergence of a parallel system in which aberrant forms of behaviour take root. The lack of healthy channels encourages people to resort to unhealthy channels outside the system and to openly challenge the rules of legality. Like capitalism, corruption is driven by the profit motive. But unlike capitalism, it does not operate within the legal framework governing the capitalist system. It would thus be wrong to imagine that corruption is exclusive to capitalist societies. It is a feature widespread in all underdeveloped societies, including societies that attribute themselves to socialism. The Yugoslav theoretician Djilas developed the theory of the emergence of a "new class" in socialist societies, which emanated from the ranks of the apparachnik, who offered themselves privileges which, in the final analysis, had many traits in common with capitalist profit. Djilas, once a leading political figure, was harshly persecuted under Tito for his ideas. In any case, corruption tends to spread in societies that do not observe the rules of democracy and where dealings are not subjected to accountability and transparency. Thus socialism without democracy is exposed to distortions and deviations, exactly as is the case with capitalism. On the other hand, there is no reason to assume that capitalism inevitably breeds corruption. For example, there is minimal corruption in the Scandinavian nations, although most of them belong ideologically to Social-democracy, which is closer to capitalism than to socialism. It thus appears that corruption is a phenomenon difficult to measure. At the same time, it is imperative that it should be vigorously combated as one of the most harmful phenomena of the age, its devastating social consequences threatening the safety and security of peoples, states and democratic institutions. What makes matters worse is that rigorous criteria for measuring corruption are not available. In the absence of reliable indicators as to the true scale of corruption, on what grounds can we assert that a given society is more corrupt than another? How to use quantitative criteria to qualitatively assess different situations? How to factor into the equation all the elements that distinguish one society from another? When the countries to be compared have particularly similar traits -- and these are the interesting cases -- the danger of mistake is particularly high. When two societies are to be compared and one is assessed to have a corruption rating of, say, 749 while, for the other, it is estimated to be 747, the margin of error is under 1 over 300! Another difficulty in the way of accurately measuring corruption is that not all corrupt activities can be neatly lumped together. Some of these activities fall in the category of what is described as petty corruption, others as major corruption. For example, while both the bribe paid by a motorist to a policeman to avoid a parking ticket and the bribe paid by a business to a high-ranking official to obtain preferential treatment is a venture with far-reaching effects on society qualify as instances of corruption, the latter is far more serious than the former. Unfortunately, graft has become a grave problem in most developing countries, in many instances the only way to get anything done in the torpid bureaucracies weighing down the machinery of government. This is just one of the many facets of corruption that needs to be addressed by any reform programme. Corruption may be difficult to measure with any degree of accuracy, but that does not mean it cannot be overcome. No country can afford to be held hostage by corruption, which subverts political processes, endangers economic stability, undermines honest enterprise and erodes the moral fibre of society. Given that the propagation of corruption in any society is in inverse proportion to the consolidation of democracy in that society, an effective anti-corruption campaign can only be conducted in a climate of genuine democracy, transparency and accountability.
