IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/polsoc/v36y2008i1p35-59.html

The Integrity of Corrupt States: Graft as an Informal State Institution

Author

Listed:
  • Keith Darden

    (Yale University, keith.darden@yale.edu)

Abstract

This article argues that corrupt practices such as bribery and embezzlement, which scholars have previously assumed to be evidence of the breakdown of the state, may reinforce the state's administrative hierarchies under certain conditions. Drawing on a cross-national analysis of 132 countries and a detailed examination of the informal institutions of official graft in Ukraine, the article finds that where graft is systematically tracked, monitored, and granted by state leaders as an informal payment in exchange for compliance, it provides both an added incentive to obey leaders' directives and the potent sanction of criminal prosecution in the event of disobedience. Where graft is informally institutionalized in this way, it provides the basis for state organizations that are effective at collecting taxes, maintaining public order, and repressing political opposition but that may undermine the development of liberal politics.

Suggested Citation

  • Keith Darden, 2008. "The Integrity of Corrupt States: Graft as an Informal State Institution," Politics & Society, , vol. 36(1), pages 35-59, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:36:y:2008:i:1:p:35-59
    DOI: 10.1177/0032329207312183
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329207312183
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0032329207312183?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scott, James C., 1969. "Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(4), pages 1142-1158, December.
    2. Pranab Bardhan, 1997. "Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1320-1346, September.
    3. Varese, Federico, 2001. "The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198297369.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Suzuki, Taku & Mizobata, Satoshi, 2019. "Social Confusion and Corruption: Investigating the Causes and Effects of a Breakdown of Ethics," Discussion Paper Series 690_v2, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    2. Diana Suhardiman & Peter P. Mollinga, 2017. "Institutionalized corruption in Indonesian irrigation: An analysis of the upeti system," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35, pages 140-159, October.
    3. Abby Innes, 2014. "JCMS Special Issue 2014: Eastern Enlargement Ten Years On: Transcending the East-West Divide? Guest Editors: Rachel A. Epstein and Wade Jacoby," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 88-104, January.
    4. Jordan Gans-Morse & Alexander S. Kalgin & Andrei V. Klimenko & Andrei A. Yakovlev, 2017. "Motivations for Public Service in Corrupt States: Evidence from Post-Soviet Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 13/PSP/2017, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    5. Günther G. Schulze & Nikita Zakharov, 2018. "Corruption in Russia - Historic Legacy and Systemic Nature," CESifo Working Paper Series 6864, CESifo.
    6. Serguei MIKHAILITCHENKO, 2017. "Economic structure of educational process and its implications for the higher education reform," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(1(610), S), pages 69-82, Spring.
    7. Serguei MIKHAILITCHENKO, 2017. "Economic structure of educational process and its implications for the higher education reform," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(1(610), S), pages 69-82, Spring.
    8. Osipian, Ararat, 2008. "Corruption of the Politicized University: Lessons from the Orange Revolution in Ukraine," MPRA Paper 11312, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bo Rothstein, 2011. "Can markets be expected to prevent themselves from self‐destruction?," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(4), pages 387-404, December.
    2. Ethan Bueno De Mesquita & Catherine Hafer, 2008. "Public Protection Or Private Extortion?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 1-32, March.
    3. Olayinka Akanle & J.O. Adesina, 2015. "Corruption and the Nigerian Development Quagmire," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 31(4), pages 421-446, December.
    4. Diana Suhardiman & Peter P. Mollinga, 2017. "Institutionalized corruption in Indonesian irrigation: An analysis of the upeti system," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35, pages 140-159, October.
    5. Aaron Soans & Masato Abe, 2015. "Bribery, Corruption and Bureaucratic Hassle: Evidence from Myanmar," ARTNeT Working Papers 152, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    6. Antonio Acconcia & Marcello D'Amato & Riccardo Martina, 2003. "Corruption and Tax Evasion with Competitive Bribes," CSEF Working Papers 112, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    7. Blackburn, Keith & Forgues-Puccio, Gonzalo F., 2009. "Why is corruption less harmful in some countries than in others?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 797-810, December.
    8. Colin C. Williams, 2023. "A Modern Guide to the Informal Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 18668.
    9. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Sabirianova Peter, Klara, 2007. "Public sector pay and corruption: Measuring bribery from micro data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 963-991, June.
    10. Rania Missaoui & Aymen Ajina, 2026. "Firm dynamics in corrupt environments: the case of the BRICS countries," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 1-38, February.
    11. Maria Kravtsova & Aleksey Oshchepkov, 2019. "Market And Network Corruption," HSE Working papers WP BRP 209/EC/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    12. Hunt, Jennifer, 2004. "Trust and Bribery: The Role of the Quid Pro Quo and the Link With Crime," CEPR Discussion Papers 4567, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    13. Shaukat, Badiea & Zhu, Qigui & Khan, M. Ijaz, 2019. "Real interest rate and economic growth: A statistical exploration for transitory economies," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 534(C).
    14. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Hochreiter, Eduard, 2009. "Growing apart? A tale of two republics: Estonia and Georgia," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 355-370, September.
    15. Gani, Azmat & Scrimgeour, Frank, 2014. "Modeling governance and water pollution using the institutional ecological economic framework," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 363-372.
    16. Veron, Rene & Williams, Glyn & Corbridge, Stuart & Srivastava, Manoj, 2006. "Decentralized Corruption or Corrupt Decentralization? Community Monitoring of Poverty-Alleviation Schemes in Eastern India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 1922-1941, November.
    17. Marjit, Sugata & Mukherjee, Vivekananda & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2000. "Harassment, corruption and tax policy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 75-94, March.
    18. Shrabani Saha & Kunal Sen, 2019. "The corruption-growth relationship: Do political institutions matter?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-65, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Ghulam Shabbir & Mumtaz Anwar & Shahid Adil, 2016. "Corruption, Political Stability and Economic Growth," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 689-702.
    20. Seung Yoo, 2008. "Petty corruption," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 37(2), pages 267-280, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:36:y:2008:i:1:p:35-59. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.