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Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
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The study of political influence in the West has for the most part focused on the process by which interest groups affect the content of legislation; hence, the input process has occupied the center of attention.
Students of politics in the new states of Africa and Asia who have adopted this perspective, however, have been struck by the relative weakness both of interest structures to organize demands and of institutionalized channels through which such demands, once organized, might be communicated to decisionmakers. The open clash of organized interests is often conspicuously absent during the formulation of legislation in these nations. To conclude from this, however, that the public has little or no effect on the eventual “output” of government would be completely unwarranted. Between the passage of legislation and its actual implementation lies an entirely different political arena that, in spite of its informality and particularism, has a great effect on the execution of policy.
Much of the expression of political interests in the new states has been disregarded because Western scholars, accustomed to their own politics, have been looking in the wrong place. A large portion of individual demands, and even group demands, in developing nations reach the political system, not before laws are passed, but rather at the enforcement stage.
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Footnotes
I am grateful to the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin for the summer research grant to prepare this study. In addition, I wish to thank Edward Freidman, Fred Hayward, Crawford Young and other collegues in an informed faculty seminar who offered their criticisms, Robert Seidman, Garry Brewer, Jim Guyot, Jean Grossholtz, Charles Tilly, Joel Aberbach, and Milton Esman all read an earlier draft and made valuable suggestions for revision.
References
1 This process of influence, the groups which are likely to benefit from it most, and related issues are treated in much greater detail in my “The Analysis of Corruption Developing Nations. “Comparative Studies in Society and History (June, 1969). While not all corruption occurs at the enforcement stage and not all “influence at the enforcement stage” is corrupt, the empirical referents of the two terms overlap considerably. A striking exception, of course, is the legitimate arena of “regulatory politics” that largely involves contending interpretations of statutes governing private sector activity.
2 Among others, see Wraith, Ronald and Simkins, Edgar, Corruption in Developing Countries (London, Allen and Unwin, 1963)Google Scholar; McMullan, M., “A Theory of Corruption,” The Sociological Review (Keele), 9 (07, 1961), 132–152 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wertheim, W. F., East-west Parallels: Sociological Approaches to Modern Asia (Chicago: Quadrangle Books 1965), pp. 103–131 Google Scholar; Nye, J. S., “Corruption and Political Development,” This Review, 61 (06, 1967), 417–427 Google Scholar; Greenstone, J. David, “Corruption and Self-interest in Kampala and Nairobi,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 7 (01, 1966), 199–210 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leys, Colin, “What is the Problem About Corruption?,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 3 (1965), 215–230 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Malaysia, for example, is an instance where one ethnic group, the Malays, is given explicit, constitutional preference in access to certain bureaucratic posts. Similarly, the harijan castes in India are accorded preferential treatment with respect to education and government employment.
4 “Pork-barrel” legislation catering to regional interests is an exception to this rule and is discussed at greater length below.
5 Some of the more successful efforts at careful description and analysis include: Key, V. O. Jr., The Techniques of Political Graft in the United States (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Libraries, 1936)Google Scholar; Mandelbaum, Seymour J., Boss Tweed's New York (New York: Wiley, 1965)Google Scholar; Banfield, Edward C. and Wilson, James A., City Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.
6 Banfield and Wilson, op. cit., p. 116.
7 This analogy was made by former Liberal Party President, José Avelino of the Philippines in the Manila Chronicle, Jan. 18, 1949. Quoted in Baterina, Virginia “A Study of Money in Elections in the Philippines.” Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review, XX (03, 1955), 39–86 Google Scholar.
8 Edelman, Murray, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), p. 118 Google Scholar.
9 See for example, Weiner, Myron, The Politics of Scarcity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 70–71 Google Scholar; Bretton, Henry L., The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah (New York: Praeger, 1966).Google Scholar, Feith, Herbert, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962)Google Scholar.
10 Zolberg, Aristide R., Creating Political Order: The Party States of West Africa (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966). p. 123 Google Scholar.
11 Weiner, op. cit., p. 71.
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13 Burnham, Walter Dean, “Party Systems and the Political Process,” pp. 277–307 Google Scholar, in Chambers, William Nisbet and Burnham, Walter Dean (eds.), The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development (New York: Oxford University Press. 1967), p. 287 Google Scholar.
14 The broad lines of this schema were suggested to me by an analysis of the use of money in elections contained in Heidenheimer, Arnold, “Comparative Party Finance: Notes on Practices and Toward a Theory,” pp. 790–811 Google Scholar in Rose, Richard and Heidenheimer, Arnold, eds., Comparative Studies in Political Finance: A Symposium, Journal of Politics, 25, 4 (11, 1963), especially pp. 808–809 Google Scholar. Changes in the nature of political ties greatly influence the degree to which monetary incentives are successful in electoral campaigns, and I have thus borrowed from that analysis for the broader purpose of this paper.
15 Traditional ties often allow some scope for bargaining and reciprocity; the ability of clients to flee to another jurisdiction and the economic and military need for a leader to attract and keep a sizable clientele provided subordinates with some leverage. The distinctions made here in the degree of reciprocity are relative, not absolute. See, for example, Phillips, Herbert P., Thai Peasant Personality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), p. 89 Google Scholar or Foster, George M., “The Dyadic Contract in Tzintzunzan, II: Patron Client Relationships,” American Anthropologist, 65: pp. 1280–1294 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 What appears to happen in the transitional situation is that the client is less “locked-in” to a single patron and the need for political support forces patrons to compete with one another to create larger clienteles. For a brilliant analysis of this pattern in Philippine politics see Landé, Carl H., Leaders Factions, and Parties—The Structure of Philippine Politics, Monograph No. 6 (New Haven: Yale University—Southeast Asia Studies, 1965), passim Google Scholar.
17 In this context, party labels are deceptive. The existence of parties proclaiming an ideology or class position are often found in rural areas where the labels have been appropriated in toto in a continuation of traditional feuds between powerful families and their respective clienteles. The key is the nature of loyalty patterns, not the name of the organization. See Levi, Carlo, Christ Stopped at Eboli (New York: Pocket Books, 1965)Google Scholar.
18 Charismatic ties naturally involve more symbolic inducements than do ties of traditional deference in which clients are generally assured a certain minimal level of material well-being (security) by their protector or patron in return for their loyalty.
19 Term borrowed from Baufield and Wilson, op. cit., p. 337.
20 The importance of one or another pattern can, in addition, be amplified or diminished by structural characteristics of the political system; in the U. S., federalism and local candidate selection tend to amplify geographical ties. See Lowi, Theodore J., “Party, Policy, and Constitution in America,” pp. 238–276 Google Scholar in Chambers and Nisbet, eds., op. cit.
21 Political systems vary significantly in the extent to which favors and patronage can be carried out within the law. In the United States., for example, the traditional use of postmaster-ships, ambassadorial posts, and a number of state jobs exempt from normal civil service requirements provides a pool of party spoils denied most Indian, Malaysian, or Nigerian politicians.
22 Walcott, Robert Jr., English Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 13 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The coincidence between the patterns Walcott describes and contemporary Philippine politics is discussed by Carl Landé, op.cit., pp. 101–107.
23 Wurfel, David, “The Philippines,” pp. 757–773 Google Scholar in Rose and Heidenheimer (eds.), op. cit., p. 771
24 Landé, op. cit., p. 43.
25 Ibid., p. 115.
26 Chambers, William Nisbet, “Party Development and the American Mainstream,” pp. 3–32 Google Scholar, in Chambers and Burnham (eds.), op. cit., p. 5.
27 Family loyalties are always of significance but in the typical machine case narrow family ties become a central factor in the evaluation of government action. Occupational, much less broad civic, sentiments play a marginal or even negligible role. Most immigrants to the U.S., for example, at first “took for granted that the political life of the individual would arise out of family needs…”: Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), p. 9 Google Scholar.
28 Banfield and Wilson, op. cit., p. 340.
29 Merriam, Charles E., Chicago: A More Intimate View of Urban Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1929), pp. 68, 90 Google Scholar. Merriam's analysis is especially valuable as he was simultaneously political scientist and politician throughout the period he describes.
80 Seymour J. Mandelbaum, op. cit., p. 58. See also, Flynn, Edward J., You're the Boss (New York: Viking Press, 1947), p. 21 Google Scholar, for a 20th century account of New York City politics in which a similar argument is made.
31 Burnham, op. cit., p. 286.
32 Ibid. Merriam calls the precinct worker “something of a social worker not recognized by the profession,” op. cit., p. 173.
33 Banfield and Wilson, op. cit., p. 118.
34 For a more extended discussion of these attitudes and their origin, see my Political Ideology in Malaysia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), Chapter 6Google Scholar.
35 Wurfel, for example, claims that 10–20% of Filippino voters regularly sell their votes. Op. cit., p. 763. The differences between urban- and rural-based machines in the U.S. and less developed nations is an important subject that I hope to treat in a later article.
36 Filippino parties resembled machines well before independence due to the powers they exercised within the colonial system and a pattern of early electoral competition.
37 For single party states, the significance of material incentives has appeared to grow as the leader of the independence movement passed from the scene or as the charisma generated in that period diminished. What had been move- ments par excellence gradually became machine parties. Communist states in underdeveloped areas are, of course, exceptions.
38 Walcott, op. cit., p. 36.
39 Steffens, Lincoln, The Shame of the Cities. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1963), p. 147 Google Scholar. This was the case despite the fact that the Philadelphia machine made use of outright elector fraud as well.
40 Pollock, J. K., “The Cost of the Patronage System,” The Annals, 189 (1937, p. 29 Google Scholar, quoted in Key, V. O. Jr., Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups (New York: Crowell, 1966), p. 353 Google Scholar.
41 Carman, Harry J. and Luthin, Reinhard H., Lincoln and the Patronage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), p. 10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an account of patronage in the first few decades after independence, see Aronson, Sidney H., Status and Kinship in the Higher Civil Service: Standards of Selection in the Administrations of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Ibid., p. 331.
43 Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Matter of Pratap Singh Kairon (Das Commission) (New Delhi: Government Printer, 06 11, 1964), pp. 222, 224, 235 Google Scholar.
44 See, for example, the introduction to the “Santhanam Report,” Report of the Committee on Prevention of Corruption (New Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs, 1964)Google Scholar; Segal, Ronald, The Crisis of India (London: Johnathan Cape, 1965), Ch. 6Google Scholar; and Dwivedy, Surendranath and Bhargava, G. S., Political Corruption in India (Delhi: Popular Book Services, 1967)Google Scholar.
45 Feith, Herbert, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), pp. 478–479 Google Scholar. See also pp. 366–384 for a more general discussion.
46 The multi-party setting of Indonesia at this time resembles less a strong machine party in power than a situation where two or more potential machine parties are vying for power. While a solid machine often looks to its long run interest and limits patronage and graft to moderate levels, the situation where potential machines vie for power is inevitably more hectic and less restrained. In Indonesia, the smaller parties, having few long-term concerns, were the most ravenous.
47 Herbert Feith, op. cit., p. 557, emphasis in original.
48 See, for example, Riggs, Fred W., Thailand, , The Modernization of a Bureaucratic Polity (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1967), pp. 270–271 Google Scholar.
49 The narrower scope of patronage distribution in military regimes does not preclude its overall volume being greater. If military leaders need not generate broad support in order to rule, neither need they be as concerned about the public reaction at the polls to inordinate official misconduct.
50 LaPalombara, Joseph, Interest Groups in Italian Politics (Princeton: University Press, 1964), p. 344, emphasis mineCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
51 For an example of how the most traditional areas are able to resist machine blandishments, see Nash, Manning, “Tradition and Tension in Kelantan,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, I (06, 1966), 310–314 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 Road-building in Malaysia illustrates this pattern. The present road system is adequate for some time to come and planners have urged a lower priority for this activity. The almost unique capacity of a large road construction program to reach many rural areas with pork-barrel and patronage benefits, however, has led the ruling party to continue to pave its way throughout rural Malaysia at much the same rate as in the past. Similar calculations lie behind road programs in other new nations—and in portions of the U.S. as well.
53 Some readers may object to the use of the term “conservative” to cover the effects described. If so, each of the separate effects may be considered separately as the term itself is not central to the argument.
54 Both Joseph Nye, op. cit., and Bayley, David H., “The Effects of Corruption in a Developing Nation,” Western Political Quarterly, XIX (12, 1966), 719–732 CrossRefGoogle Scholar appear occasionally to treat much corruption as if it were “machine corruption” without specifying the distinction.
55 Key, The Techniques of Political Graft in the United States, op. cit. p. 394.
56 For an imaginative effort to deal quantitatively with the Congress Party's cooptation of former opponents in Orissā as its majority was threatened, see Baily, op. cit., Ch. 9. The process of cooptation of conservative leaders changed the social base of the party and forced abandonment of much of its original legislative program.
57 Virginia F. Baterina, op. cit., p. 81.
58 Seymour Mandelbaum, op. cit., p. 106.
59 Myron Weiner, op. cit., pp. 71–72.
60 Boss Tweed, in four years, raised New York City's indebtedness by a multiple of three while leaving both the tax rate and assessments untouched. Mandelbaum, op. cit., p. 77.
61 Where business secures freedom from restrictions via its ties with the machine, economic growth may be speeded but it appears, in most cases, that businesses seek favored, or monopolistic positions free from competitive rigors. See, for example, the Santhanam Report, op. cit., passim.
62 Non-machine rulers often make use of similar income-producing tactics (e.g., Thailand) but, in the case of the machine, its needs are typically greater and its resources are usually destined for wider distribution as well as personal gain of office holders.
63 Landé, op. cit., p. 48.
64 Among those new nations where ruling parties possess notable machine characteristics, one might include India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and especially Lebanon. In the Ivory Coast and India the ruling parties still retain some of the “mass movement” ideological features that marked their earlier history.
65 In William Nisbet Chambers, op. cit., p. 305. To my knowledge, no actual empirical tests of hypotheses advanced for the rise or decline of machine politics have been attempted. It would be instructive, for example, to plot the increases and decreases of machine style politics over time in a number of American cities against possible explanatory variables such as rates of in-migration, changes in per-capita income, changes in income distribution, changes in welfare measures, rates of education, and so forth. I am grateful to Garry Brewer for suggesting this general line of inquiry.
66 Ibid., p. 121.
67 In an otherwise perceptive article, Edward Feit. characterizes, I think mistakenly, Nkrumah's CPP before the military coup as a political machine. He distinguishes between a political party which “aggregates demands and converts them into legislative policy” and a political machine which “exists almost exclusively to stay in power.” The problem, of course, is that many regimes are motivated almost solely to stay in power—e.g., the Thai military, Haiti's Duvalier—but the term machine should be reserved for civilian regimes which rest on a popular base. The CPP, until about 1960, might profitably be seen as a machine party, but thereafter coercion and symbolic goals dominated. “Military Coups and Political Development: Some Lessons from Ghana and Nigeria,” World Politics, XX (01, 1968), 179–193 Google Scholar.
68 For an excellent discussion of ethnic configurations and their political implications, see Geertz, Clifford (ed.), Old Societies and New States (New York: Free Press, 1963)Google Scholar.
69 This fact may indicate that machine politics is not a stable form of rule.
70 Aristide R. Zolberg, op. cit., p. 149.
71 Herbert Feith, op. cit., p. 572.
72 I am indebted to Professor Henry Hart for suggesting this.
73 To stretch a point, one might link them with the forces in American politics that felt strongest about Sunday laws, prohibition, and so forth.
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