Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:20:17.174Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Corruption of a State*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

J. Patrick Dobel
J. Patrick Dobel*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Dearborn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents a theory of corruption which unifies the moral, political, economic and social causes and patterns of corruption in one theoretical framework. The theory is constructed from the scattered insights about the “corruption of the body politic,” building in particular upon the work of five theorists–Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli and Rousseau. Corruption is defined as the moral incapacity of citizens to make reasonably disinterested commitments to actions, symbols and institutions which benefit the substantive common welfare. This extensive demise of loyalty to the commonwealth comes from the interaction of human nature with systematic inequality of wealth, power and status. The corruption of the polity results in certain identifiable patterns of political conflict and competition. The central feature of these patterns is the emergence of quasi-governmental factions and an increasingly polarized class system. The politics of the factions leads to an undermining of the efficacy of the basic political structures of the society and the emergence of systematic corruption in all aspects of political life. The theory advanced in this article identifies several crucial prescriptions to stave off the tendency towards corruption. Among these are an extension of maximum substantive participation by all citizens in all aspects of political life and a stringent control over all sources of great or permanent inequality in the polity.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , September 1978 , pp. 958 - 973
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Political Science Association convention at Chicago in 1976. Since then, the paper has benefited immensely from the help of many individuals, notable among them ate Donald Anderson, Dennis Dutton, Jamieson Doig, Fritz Kratochwil, Arlene Saxonhouse, Lea Vaughn and Frank Wayman. I owe a special debt of gratitude to the anonymous referees whose invaluable help enabled me to rectify many of the original shortcomings. For the weaknesses that remain, the responsibility is mine.

References

Aristotle, (1962). Politics. Edited and translated by Barker, Ernest. New York: Oxford University Press: Galaxy Books.Google Scholar
Bailyn, Bernard (1967). The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Edelman, Murray (1964). Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolo (1965). The Art of War. In Gilbert, Allan (ed. and trans.), Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, Vol. 2. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, pp. 561–726.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolo (1965). Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius. Chief Works, Vol. 1, pp. 174–529.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolo (1965). The History of Florence. Chief Works, Vol. 3, pp. 1025–1435.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolo (1965). The Prince. Chief Works, Vol. 1, pp. 5–96.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary, Compact Edition. (1971). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pitkin, Hanna (1972). Wittgenstein and Justice. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Plato, (1957). The Republic. Translated by Lindsay, A. D.. New York: Dutton.Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A. (1973). Politics, Language and Time. New York: Atheneum, Studies in Political Theory.Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A. (1975). The Machiavellian Moment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1964). Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne. In Gagnebin, Bernard and Raymond, Marcel (eds.), Oeuvres complètes de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Vol. 3. Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, pp. 953–1041.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1964). Du control social. Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 3, pp. 349–470.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1964). Discours sur l'economie politique. Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 3, pp. 241–78.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1964). Discours sur l'origine et les fondemens de l'inégalité parmi les hommes. Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 3, pp. 111–223.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1964). Discours sur les sciences et les arts. Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 3, pp. 1–30.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1964). Projet de constitution pour la Corse. Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 3, pp. 901–39.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1966). Essay on the Origin of Language Which Treats of Melody and Musical Imitation. In Moran, John H. and Gode, Alexander (trans.), On the Origins of Language. New York: Ungar.Google Scholar
Royce, Josiah (1969). The Philosophy of Loyalty. In McDerraott, John J. (ed.), Basic Writings, Vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Thucydides, (1934). The Peloponnesian War. In Crawley, Robert (trans.), The Complete Works of Thucydides. New York: Random House, Modern Library.Google Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon S. (1960). Politics and Vision. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Wood, Gordon S. (1969). The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.