thesis statement for political corruption

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Political corruption and state crime.

Clayton Peoples Clayton Peoples Department of Social Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno
and James E. Sutton James E. Sutton Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.274
Published online: 26 April 2017

The state is responsible for maintaining law and order in society and protecting the people. Sometimes it fails to fulfill these responsibilities; in other cases, it actively harms people. There have been many instances of political corruption and state crime throughout history, with impacts that range from economic damage to physical injury to death—sometimes on a massive scale (e.g., economic recession, pollution/poisoning, genocide). The challenge for criminologists, however, is that defining political corruption and state crime can be thorny, as can identifying their perpetrators—who can often be collectives of individuals such as organizations and governments—and their victims. In turn, pinpointing appropriate avenues of controlling these crimes can be difficult. These challenges are exacerbated by power issues and the associated reality that the state is in a position to write or change laws and, in essence, regulate itself. One possible solution is to define political corruption and state crime—as well as their perpetrators and victims—as broadly as possible to include a variety of scenarios that may or may not exhibit violations of criminal law. Likewise, a resolution to the issue of social control would be to move beyond strictly institutional mechanisms of control. Criminological research should further elucidate these issues; it should also, however, move beyond conceptual dilemmas toward (a) better understanding the processes underlying political corruption/state crime and (b) illustrating the broader ramifications of these crimes.

political corruption
state crime
state-corporate crime
white collar crime
corporate crime
official deviance
organizational deviance

A Criminological Overview of Political Corruption and State Crime

In ideal conceptions of democracy and governance, the state represents and serves the people; it is a protector of people’s rights and freedoms. Unfortunately, the state does not always fulfill this role. Indeed, in some cases the state does the exact opposite and harms the very people it is supposed to protect—sometimes engaging in implicit or even explicit criminal activity in the process (see, e.g., Kramer & Michalowski, 1990 ). Criminal acts by the state tend to both reflect and result from abuses of power when they occur. Political corruption and crimes of the state are therefore often inextricably linked in complicated ways.

Although political corruption receives considerable scholarly attention in political science (see, e.g., Heidenheimer & Johnston, 2002 ; Philp, 1997 ; Rose-Ackerman, 1999 ), relatively little attention has been paid to political corruption in criminology. There have, however, been high-profile calls in criminology to examine the broader theme of state crime (see, e.g., Chambliss’s statements during his 1988 presidential address, documented in Criminology , 1989 ), and a sizable literature has emerged around that topic. This literature has primarily focused on conceptual issues related to state crime, but some studies have begun to branch out into other related areas. Overall, while state crime has received more attention than political corruption in criminology, both have received less emphasis than other topics within the white collar crime literature, which itself is small in comparison with the literature on street crime.

This article outlines a framework for a criminological understanding of political corruption and state crime—particularly in the context of the United States. The key conceptual question in the state crime literature is, put simply: What is the definition of state crime? A concomitant conceptual question for this article is: What is political corruption? Hence, this article provides overviews of attempts to address these questions for a criminology audience. Conceptual challenges and debates have often hindered the development of the literatures highlighted here beyond the conceptual stage (Zimring & Johnson, 2005 ). This article therefore focuses on issues pertaining to conceptual clarifications while ultimately foregrounding the interconnections between political corruption and state crime.

When assessing a specific type of crime, there are a number of important substantive considerations that extend beyond the conceptual realm. For instance, aside from defining what a particular crime is, criminologists and others will also want to know more about how it is perpetrated, its victimology, the social control mechanisms that it has elicited, and its broader impact on society. Accordingly, this article also presents sections on each of these substantive themes as they pertain to political corruption and crimes of the state. This article concludes by offering some ideas for future directions in this important and growing area of scholarship.

Literature Review

Criminological work on political corruption and state crime has roots in research on white collar and organized offending (Nelken & Levi, 1996 ). As such, this section begins with an overview of selected key works on white collar crime to provide a starting point for understanding political corruption and crimes of the state. It then addresses the key conceptual issues related to political corruption and state crime, with an emphasis on consensus or oft-cited definitions of key terms, where they exist, as well as influential typologies of these crimes.

Criminaloids and White Collar Crime

The lineage of scholarly attention to the crimes of powerful actors can be traced back to Edward A. Ross’s classic article “The Criminaloid.” Ross ( 1907 , p. 45) warned of pro-social offenders, or criminaloids, that are “guilty in the eyes of the law: but since they are not culpable in the eyes of the public and in their own eye, their spiritual attitude is not that of the criminal.” The examples Ross provided were of powerful offenders from more advantaged social positions who engaged in bribery and other forms of offending that are along the lines of what we focus on in this article.

Approximately 40 years later, Edwin Sutherland coined the term white collar crime , which he defined as “. . . a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation” (Sutherland, 1983 , p. 7). Sutherland’s groundbreaking work provided a systematic study of offending perpetrated by corporate offenders, and it set the stage for subsequent empirical work in this area. In turn, Clinard and Yeager ( 1980 ) conducted a study of corporate crime about 30 years later that updated and expanded upon the scope of Sutherland’s research. For instance, whereas Sutherland examined the offending of 70 corporations, Clinard and Yeager studied 582 corporations. Clinard and Yeager also further distinguished between occupational offenses that are perpetrated for the benefit of individuals and corporate offenses that are perpetrated to further the interests of the corporation, and their work remains the most comprehensive study of corporate offending to date. This article introduces other influential works as well in subsequent sections; it first, however, turns to corruption.

Corruption: Early Emphases

Although corruption—particularly political corruption—is a well-studied area in political science (see, e.g., Heidenheimer & Johnston, 2002 ; Philp, 1997 ; Rose-Ackerman, 1999 ), attention to corruption within criminology has been limited (Huisman & Vande Walle, 2010 ). This said, policing is one subfield in which notable works on corruption have been published.

Some of the best known books on police corruption were authored by Sherman ( 1974 ) and Goldstein ( 1974 ). Goldstein outlined the challenges associated with defining police corruption and put forth his own definition, in which he states that police corruption includes “. . . acts involving the misuse of authority by a police officer in a manner designed to produce personal gain for himself or for others” (Goldstein, 1974 , p. 3). Although Goldstein’s definition, and most of the examples outlined in his book, emphasized the personal, or occupational, nature of offending, Goldstein also presented examples of coordinated forms of corruption perpetrated by multiple actors within police organizations.

Another classic study of corruption from the 1970s is William Chambliss’s On the Take . Chambliss ( 1978 ) examined the intersections of organized crime and corruption among police and local governmental officials, and his work is especially notable for the ways in which it outlined dynamics of collusion, interplay, and exchange that occur on the local level. Chambliss’s research provides us with a fitting segue into organized crime, which is the primary context within which political corruption has been studied over the years by criminologists (Huisman & Vande Walle, 2010 ).

Corruption has most often been approached as a facilitator of organized crime. Similar to police corruption, there have also been definitional challenges associated with determining what actually constitutes organized crime and corruption (Beare, 1997 ). If we return to Sutherland’s definition of white collar crime, organized crime would differ in that the perpetrators would not be people “. . . of respectability and high social status in the course of [their] occupation” (Sutherland, 1983 , p. 7). With respect to corruption, Beare ( 1997 ) notes that common corruption categories within the context of organized crime include “bribes/kick-backs” and “election/campaign corruption,” which involve illegal payments to gain desired outcomes, as well as garnering influence by offering “protection.”

Political Corruption

Political corruption is certainly not a new phenomenon. The early great thinkers in philosophy (e.g., Aristotle, Plato) addressed the topic, and the Roman Empire—and its fall—serves as an important early case study (MacMullen, 1988 ). Despite this, the term “political corruption” has no agreed-upon definition. Although efforts have been made to advance conceptual frameworks of political corruption (e.g., Heidenheimer & Johnston, 2002 ; Philp, 1997 ), a consensus definition does not currently exist—particularly in the criminology literature.

Many definitional challenges—and, hence, debates within the study of crime—come down to issues of inclusivity, parsimony, and analytic precision. One possibility is to cast the net broadly and formulate a broad, inclusive definition. For instance, Sutherland ( 1945 ) thought of crime as going beyond state-defined violations of the criminal law to include acts that were civil law violations as well as those that were “socially injurious.” Scholars who focus on political corruption have made similar calls to go beyond legal definitions.

Passas ( 1998 , pp. 44–45) argues that political corruption comprises “public officials acting in the best interest of private concerns, regardless of, or against, the public interest. Therefore, corruption can be defined as the covert privatization of government functions.” Kaufmann and Vicente ( 2011 ) make a similar case and contend that corruption need not be exclusive to acts that are illegal.

Like Passas ( 1998 ) and Kaufmann and Vicente ( 2011 ), Douglas and Johnson ( 1977 , p. 4) also endorse a more inclusive definition. In fact, they argue that the term political corruption is itself limiting, and they propose that official deviance be used instead for two reasons: first, there is a wide range of officials performing governmental functions, including many who are not necessarily deemed to be “political” by others or themselves; second, corruption tends to connote “material” and monetary exchanges for desired outcomes, yet “most people are more concerned with usurpation of power by officials than with their material corruption.” To capture this sentiment, they therefore prefer the term deviance because it is more general and encompassing.

In contrast to definitions that extend beyond legal categories, Zimring and Johnson ( 2005 , p. 796) argue that embracing the legal component is crucial when conceptualizing political corruption, much as Tappan ( 1947 ) argued many decades ago with crime, more generally. They define corruption as “the illegal use of power for personal gain,” and they maintain that the legal threshold allows for clearer analytical specification. Zimring and Johnson ( 2005 ) further note that laws reflect local norms, which makes them the ideal dimension in which to examine corruption comparatively. Whereas Zimring and Johnson differ sharply from others on whether or not criminologists should focus on legal conceptualizations, they are similar in that most works in this area emphasize the misuse of power for personal gain.

State Crime

Chambliss ( 1989 , p. 184) defines state crime as “acts defined by law as criminal and committed by state officials in the pursuit of their job as representatives of the state,” and he adds that state crime does not include acts “that benefit only individual officeholders.” State crime is therefore something that involves the state or its actors, and it is done to benefit more than just the individuals who are connected to its perpetration.

One possible point of contention concerning the above definition, though, pertains to restricting state crime to only those acts that are defined by law as criminal. Others argue that state crime can also include actions that are “deviant, abusive, harmful . . . [or] wrongful” (Ross, 2015 , p. 499). Put directly, similar to political corruption, one can think of state crime as something that extends beyond legal definitions—particularly given that state actors have the power to define what is legal and illegal (discussed in more detail later). As such, a more inclusive definition might simply specify the prerequisite conditions that ought to be present to consider something a state crime—namely that (a) those committing the crimes are state actors or entities and (b) some kind of harm results from these actors’/entities’ actions (or inaction).

In conceptualizing state crime, one factor to consider is the role of the state in said criminal activity—is it explicitly involved or implicitly involved? Put differently, some state crimes may be state-initiated, while others are state-facilitated (Kramer & Michalowski, 1990 ). Another related factor is the nature of the state. Friedrichs ( 2010 ) identifies four different types of states that may be involved in state crimes: a criminal state, a repressive state, a corrupt state, or a negligent state. There is some overlap between these two typologies in that criminal or repressive states may be more likely to initiate crimes, whereas a negligent state, for instance, may tend to facilitate crimes.

The typology of Friedrichs ( 2010 ) is also useful in thinking about the connection between political corruption and state crime. State crime can be thought of as being connected to distinct from political corruption, depending on the circumstances. As noted above, Friedrichs identifies a corrupt state as one type of state that may be engaged in state crime; the other forms may not necessarily hinge on corruption as an element (e.g., a repressive state). But it is also easy to imagine scenarios in which political corruption can lead to state crime—or crimes that involve collusion between the state and other entities such as corporations.

State-Corporate Crime

Any consideration of state crime would be incomplete without mentioning state-corporate crime. A frequently cited definition asserts that state-corporate crimes are “illegal or socially injurious actions that result from a mutually reinforcing interaction between (1) policies and/or practices in pursuit of the goals of one or more institutions of political governance and (2) policies and/or practices in pursuit of the goals of one or more institutions of economic production and distribution” (Aulette & Michalowski, 1993 , p. 175). Note that here, much like with political corruption and state crime, it is not just legality that is a factor—socially injurious actions are also considered.

The state can play any number of roles in state-corporate crime. An insightful typology developed by Kauzlarich and colleagues ( 2003 ) outlines four possible roles for the state, along with examples of crimes/outcomes: omission-implicit (e.g., inequality), omission-explicit (e.g., regulatory failure), commission-implicit (funding unethical experiments), and commission-explicit (e.g., genocide).

The key element in all of the above roles, however, is the interaction between the state and economic entities, as in Aulette and Michalowski’s ( 1993 ) oft-cited definition. Put directly, things like political corruption and state crime do not exist in a vacuum. Just as political corruption can be linked with state crime, state crime can involve perpetrators within and outside the state, morphing into state-corporate crime.

Perpetrators

One of the key challenges in examining political corruption and state crime is determining who exactly the perpetrators are. With other types of crime (e.g., street crime), it is relatively obvious who the perpetrators are, in part because it is specific individuals who are committing a given crime. With political corruption and state crime, however, determining the perpetrators is not nearly so straightforward. This is due, in part, to the fact that entire organizations/entities can be involved in these crimes rather than just individuals.

Individual Versus Organizational Perpetrators

Although most research in criminology tends to study situations in which individuals are perpetrators, some scholars have argued that “organizations, not just individuals, commit deviant acts” (Ermann & Lundman, 1978 , p. 55). This is a very important insight, as it broadens the net in terms of who can be considered a perpetrator. This becomes especially important when looking at something like state crime.

Although the state is made up of myriad individuals serving in a variety of capacities, state decisions are normally collective in nature, and state actions are typically carried out by agencies with the authority to do so. For instance, policy is made by legislative bodies (e.g., Congress); laws are enforced by agencies (e.g., the DEA). As such, when decisions or actions of the state cross into corrupt and/or criminal territory, it may be collectivities—organizations, agencies, or even the state itself—who are the perpetrators.

The idea that collectivities engage in political corruption and/or state crime fits well with the typologies outlined in the literature review. For instance, in the complicity continuum of Kauzlarich, Mullins, and Matthews ( 2003 ), explicit omission might involve state agencies failing to perform their regulatory functions; explicit commission would involve the state itself engaging in crimes. This overlaps well with the typology of Friedrichs ( 2010 ), which identifies a number of state types that may engage in political corruption (e.g., a corrupt state) or state crime (e.g., a criminal state).

The Role of Networks and Exchange

Social networks and their associated exchanges help move political corruption and crimes of the state from the individual level to the organizational level. Take campaign contributions, for instance. Campaign contributions are typically given in person to a political candidate, which establishes a social tie (Clawson, Neustadtl, & Weller, 1998 ). Something of value—campaign money—has also been given in the process. If the candidate happens to win office, she or he may feel compelled to “return the favor” due to the principle of reciprocity (Cialdini, 2001 ). So, when a contributor requests help (e.g., a “yea” vote) on a future piece of legislation, the politician may feel obligated to do so. Research has shown that this happens with surprising regularity and involves large swaths of politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike (Peoples & Sutton, 2015 ). These exchanges, in aggregate, help shape legislation and tilt laws in favor of moneyed contributors rather than the public as a whole (Gilens & Page, 2014 ).

There are some interesting things to note about the example of campaign contributions influencing votes. First, it is not usually a quid pro quo exchange. Politicians typically do not make explicit promises to do things in exchange for contributions (there are exceptions, of course). Instead, they provide help in the future on a to-be-determined issue or bill. Given that there typically is not a quid pro quo exchange involved, these situations do not fit standard legal definitions of bribery. But in the words of Russell Long, “[t]he distinction between a campaign contribution and a bribe is almost a hairline’s difference” (Kaiser, 2009 , p. 18). More importantly, whether technically a bribe or not, campaign contributions can lead to corruption—both in the public’s perception and in reality.

Opinion polls consistently show that people believe money influences politics (NYT/CBS, 2015 ). These views can erode the public’s confidence in the state. This is evident in the abysmal approval ratings for Congress, which reached record lows of approximately 10% in recent years (Gallup, 2016 ). These views can also lead people to believe that political bodies such as Congress have become corrupt (see, e.g., a CNN poll in 2006 ). But have they become corrupt? Citing the “competing dependencies” that campaign contributions create, Lessig ( 2011 ) argues that institutions such as Congress have, in fact, become corrupt. This leads directly into the final item of note about campaign contributions influencing votes: it is ultimately at the institutional and/or organizational level where this plays out.

In the work of Peoples and Sutton ( 2015 ), it was not merely a handful of individual lawmakers (“a few bad apples”) who were influenced by their contributors—a statistically significant percentage of lawmakers were engaged in this behavior. Additionally, this happened within the context of social networks such that pairs of lawmakers would vote “yea” together on legislation based on their mutual ties to contributors. In other words, there was a culture of collusion and influence-peddling that permeated Congress—it had become a corrupt institution. And again, as noted earlier, the work of Gilens and Page ( 2014 ) suggests that the result of this is policy that favors elites over the rest of society.

The example of campaign contributions nicely demonstrates that offending is not limited to the individual level. Moreover, it also shows how it can be difficult in practice to determine who the perpetrators are when political corruption and crimes of the state occur. These complications ultimately underscore the importance of conceptualization, as an individualistic and purely legalistic view of crime would not apply to this kind of situation. Similar difficulties emerge when trying to identify the victims of these complex offenses.

Victimology

Victims are often afterthoughts in the study of crime, and this is particularly the case when it comes to white collar offending. This is also true of political corruption and crimes of the state, where victims have received scant attention. There are several reasons why.

From a conceptual standpoint, the lack of agreement on what constitutes an offense or perpetrator ultimately results in a lack of consensus on who is victimized. Moreover—and irrespective of how offenses might technically be defined—these acts may feature actors who derive mutual benefits from the arrangement. It is therefore highly unlikely that one of these actors will feel victimized and contact authorities (Zimring & Johnson, 2005 ).

Visibility is another consideration. Ross ( 1907 ) suggested that “criminaloids” take efforts to avoid targeting their own communities when offending. It may also be very difficult in some cases to identify victims or connect victimizations to the situations that caused them. The number of victims (or potential victims) can further complicate matters. It may be quite challenging to determine how many people are adversely impacted by a given policy or action and to what extent they are affected: it could be a relatively small number of people, it could be entire cultures or societies. Likewise, there may be significant lag time between these acts and their effects. Moreover, the complexities associated with organizational forms of offending might make it impossible to either detect harms that have been perpetrated or connect perpetrated harms to the actors that caused them. This is particularly likely when offenses transcend national or other jurisdictional borders. The disconnects between actors, actions, and consequences resulting from political corruption and crimes of the state likely result in these forms of victimization being less visible than the temporal and visceral victimizations that are characteristic of street crime.

An additional consideration for victimology surrounding political corruption and state crime is power. It was previously noted that corrupt exchanges are unlikely to result in the involved actors feeling victimized given that they each benefit from the transaction. However, it may be that more peripheral actors perceive themselves as victims but feel powerless in the situation. For instance, the previous section outlined what appears to be open corruption perpetrated by Congress. Zimring and Johnson ( 2005 , p. 804) argue that conspicuous offending serves as “. . . an advertisement of the corrupt actor’s power.” To the extent that this is the case with political corruption and crimes of the state, victims may feel helpless to seek voice for their experiences—especially when the very entities that are supposed to help them are the ones committing the offenses.

We can and should ask what the victimology of political corruption and state crime looks like. Unfortunately, the broader conceptual challenges that have previously been noted preclude us from coming to a definitive answer, though a few observations are instructive. First, the victimizations that stem from these forms of offending are often qualitatively different from the individual victimizations that commonly occur within the context of street crime. On a related note, the scale of victimization resulting from these acts is potentially far reaching given that these harms are often perpetrated by organizational actors. Lastly, the systematic, organizational, and structural forces that often render victims invisible and disempowered can ultimately prevent us from knowing much about them, furthering their invisibility.

Social Control Mechanisms

With most crimes, there are clear-cut sanctions in place to regulate/control their incidence. With political corruption and state crime, however, things are much blurrier. There are two likely reasons why this is the case: (1) as noted earlier, state crimes are complicated in that neither the perpetrators of these crimes nor their victims are readily identifiable, and (2) it is the state that is normally in a position to regulate/control crime, and, thus, it has a conflict of interest in regulating/controlling itself. Of course, this does not mean that there are no efforts to control state crime—there are (see, e.g., Ross, 2000 ). It does mean, however, that efforts to control state crime face a number of challenges.

Challenges Related to Perpetrators/Victims

The fact that there is gray area with regard to conceptualization, and therefore identification, of the perpetrators and victims of state crimes makes it difficult to control these offenses. This is due to both practical considerations and issues of power.

With regard to practical considerations, there are problems that emerge when it is unclear who the perpetrators or victims are with a given crime. When the perpetrators cannot be concretely identified, questions arise that are difficult to answer: Who should be prosecuted for the crime? What should the sanctions/penalties be? How should the penalties be applied? This is compounded by the fact that, as noted above, those who engage in state crime are often large organizations. How does one go about prosecuting an organization or an entire government? When the victims cannot be identified, again difficult questions come up: Who can make legitimate claims of harm? How should they (or their loved ones) be compensated?

With regard to power, it is well established that powerful entities in society escape prosecution—or receive more lenient sentences if they are prosecuted—than less powerful individuals. This is certainly true of white collar and corporate crime; it is likely true of state crime as well. A less-often-acknowledged reality, though, is that powerful entities can even tilt the laws in their favor (what Lukes, 1974 , refers to as the “second dimension of power”) to allow for activities that in most other contexts would be considered illegal.

This reality of powerful entities tilting the laws in their favor might partly explain why these powerful entities are not prosecuted for their crimes—their activities may not technically be illegal if they have succeeded in getting the laws changed to allow these activities. A great example from the corporate world is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (to be described again shortly), which repealed provisions of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act by allowing banks and investing firms to merge. In so doing, it allowed entities such as Citigroup to legally proceed as merged corporations—the 1999 Act is sometimes referred to in critical circles as “the Citigroup Relief Act”—even though their existence would have been illegal anytime in the 66 years preceding the Act.

When thinking about the state, the ability to shape and tilt laws is even more important. After all, state entities (e.g., legislatures) are literally the very bodies that craft and pass laws. They are therefore in the perfect position to tilt laws in their favor (or exempt themselves from laws that might typically apply to other individuals or entities). This is, however, a clear conflict of interest, as is self-regulation.

Conflicts of Interest in Lawmaking and Self-Regulation

As noted above, the state is responsible for writing and passing laws. It is also tasked with defining, regulating, and controlling criminal behavior. But what if the state or its entities are the ones engaging in crime—can the state be trusted to regulate itself?

Congress presents an interesting case study. Many of the organizations meant to limit congressional deviance are themselves controlled by Congress. For instance, internal ethics committees (e.g., the House Committee on Ethics) are responsible for addressing questionable activities among individual members of Congress. The Federal Election Commission (FEC), which is funded by Congress and whose members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, is responsible for monitoring and enforcing campaign finance laws. Even campaign finance laws—and other laws affecting Congress—are themselves written and enacted by Congress. Simply put, Congress gets to set the very rules by which it is governed and accordingly has significant power over how these rules are enforced.

Congress is just one example; there are many others one could explore. The common thread, however, is that state organizations and agencies often lack truly independent mechanisms of regulation. Granted, some might argue that even auditors and regulators are self-interested individuals who might be susceptible to bias (e.g., Rose-Ackerman, 1999 ), it is nonetheless true that the lack of external oversight means that these entities are charged with “regulating” themselves. Combined with the fact that some of them get to literally make their own rules (see, again, the example of Congress), this means that things such as corruption, deviance, and crime can go virtually unfettered. These organizations and agencies are above the law; the rules and norms of society do not apply to them. The end result is that they can offend with impunity and potentially harm the very individuals they are supposed to protect: the people.

Broader Societal Consequences

Although there are some who could cite Merton’s ( 1938 ) classic work on anomie to contend that deviance can occasionally carry positive functions for society, there is ample evidence that political corruption and state crimes have a largely adverse impact. As noted above, the number of people affected can vary: in some instances, it is a relatively small percentage of the population; in other cases, it is entire cultures or societies.

The Adverse Impact of Political Corruption

In terms of political corruption, there are a number of adverse impacts on society. As already noted, policy reflects the preferences of elites rather than the general public (Gilens & Page, 2014 ). This results in tax codes that benefit corporations (Clawson et al., 1998 ), sometimes to the detriment of the rest of society (e.g., cutting programs for the poor). Additionally, corporations with connections to politics seek out “government contracts, regulatory waivers, and government subsidies” (Godwin & Seldon, 2002 , p. 205), many of which they succeed in obtaining. For instance, Halliburton profited nicely from its connections to the presidential administration during the Iraq War, securing lucrative “no-bid” contracts (Rothe, 2006 ).

When corporations secure special benefits due to their campaign contributions and connections with politicians, the public can be adversely impacted. This was especially true in the lead-up to the housing crisis and the resultant Great Recession in 2007 . We now know that there were two key pieces of legislation passed in 1999 and 2000 that helped lead to the Great Recession (The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, respectively). They allowed banking and investing firms to merge and ensured a virtually unregulated market for risky investments such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Evidence is beginning to suggest that campaign contributions significantly influenced the passage of both bills (Peoples, 2012 ). Although some businesses and firms initially made handsome profits from the activities allowed by these bills, these same activities introduced so much structural risk that the integrity of the system itself became compromised and the economy collapsed. The result—trillions of dollars in losses, with millions of people losing their jobs and their homes.

The Adverse Impact of State (or State-Corporate) Crime

In terms of state crime, adverse impacts on society are similarly pronounced. Again, as noted at the beginning of this section and above, the number of people impacted can vary. Additionally, as noted in the typologies reviewed above, the involvement of the state (implicit versus explicit) can fluctuate depending on the situation. Nonetheless, the negative effects are significant and sometimes even result in death.

A number of examples can fit around the theme of regulatory failure resulting in harm or death. For instance, the Challenger space shuttle disaster likely stemmed, in part, from a breakdown in proper safety protocol (Kramer, 1992 ). This resulted in the loss of astronauts’ lives and a period of national shock and mourning.

There are other examples of regulatory failure at the nexus between corporations and their (lack of) regulation by the state. For example, stronger regulatory controls could have prevented the fire at the Imperial Foods chicken plant (Aulette & Michalowski, 1993 ) and the ValuJet crash in Florida (Matthews & Kauzlarich, 2000 ). These incidents resulted in 25 and 110 deaths, respectively.

Other examples can fit around the theme of the state itself acting as a criminal agent. These examples would fit under the explicit commission category of the complicity continuum (Kauzlarich et al., 2003 ) and would involve a repressive or criminal state (Friedrichs, 2010 ). The Holocaust stands out as perhaps the quintessential example of the state acting as a criminal agent. In the Holocaust, over 6 million Jews were killed at the hands of the Nazi government. Any situation, though, in which the state sanctions mistreatment and/or murder (e.g., displacement, slavery, mass executions, genocide) would fit here. It is not a stretch to say that in such cases the state has committed “crimes against humanity,” which have been prosecuted in international criminal courts (e.g., during the Nuremberg Trials). Of course, this ultimately takes us full circle and back to the conceptualization challenges introduced at the beginning of this article.

Conclusions and Future Directions

The state is supposed to protect the people. Sadly, it sometimes does just the opposite—it becomes corrupt and/or engages in criminal activity, thereby harming the people instead. Although political corruption and crimes of the state have historically been understudied by criminologists (much like with white collar and corporate crime), this is beginning to change. A distinct literature has more recently begun to coalesce around corruption and state crime, with high-profile calls for more work in this area (e.g., Chambliss, 1989 ).

The key debates and unresolved issues in this growing literature revolve around definitional and conceptual problems and, by extension, questions such as: What is political corruption, What is state crime, Who are the perpetrators, Who are the victims, and What are the implications for social control and broader society? The challenge of resolving these complex questions is further exacerbated by the fundamental nature of political corruption and state crime: not only are those who are committing these crimes powerful individuals or entities, they are also often literally in a position to define whether or not their activities are legal (and, by extension, how to regulate these activities, if at all).

The criminology literature is replete with debates over how crime should be defined. Much of the controversy has been centered on whether or not criminologists should adopt state definitions of crime. As noted earlier, Sutherland ( 1945 ) thought of crime as going beyond state- defined violations of the criminal law. Schwendinger and Schwendinger ( 1970 ) believed that state definitions of crime expressed and reinforced the interests of those with power, and toward this end they called for criminologists to use human rights violations rather than state definitions as the standard for what constitute crimes.

A possible solution to the difficulties of defining the parameters of political corruption and state crime is to follow the above-noted pioneers in thinking beyond the limited scenarios outlined in criminal law. In other words, we can perhaps include acts that are civil law violations, as Sutherland did, as well as those that are, to use his words, “socially injurious.” Future work in this area could continue with this more inclusive approach to what may be defined as political corruption and/or state crime.

A similar solution could be applied to the challenges of determining who perpetrators and victims are with political corruption and state crime: cast the net broadly to be as inclusive as possible. In the case of perpetrators, it is important to remind ourselves that “organizations, not just individuals, commit deviant [or corrupt/criminal] acts” (Ermann & Lundman, 1978 , p. 55). Researchers should therefore expand their parameters accordingly. In thinking about victims, casting the net widely can be very helpful as well. As with white collar and corporate crime, the cost of state crime to society in terms of economics, health, and even life are likely very great.

Lastly, in terms of the control of state crime, it is again the case that broader, more inclusive approaches are potentially warranted. As Ross ( 2015 ) notes, existing approaches include more typical institutional approaches (e.g., internal and external control mechanisms) plus alternative approaches (e.g., resistance by victims, activists, and oppositional groups). Given the unique positon of the state to write its own rules and regulate itself, the most effective approaches may well be those that do not rely on conventional institutional controls. Instead, alternative approaches involving the public may be more effective in the long run.

In reality, though, research on political corruption and state crime needs to move beyond definitional and conceptual issues and focus on the broader processes and ramifications of these crimes. In terms of processes, political corruption and crimes of the state are ultimately linked through exchange and relationships among actors. Social network analysis may therefore provide a methodological tool through which scholars can better trace the trajectories of these crimes and connect the individual to the organizational level (Peoples & Sutton, 2015 ).

In terms of ramifications, visibility is critical. With political corruption and state crime, the complexities and powerful actors associated with these acts can result in these offenses going unnoticed or being deliberately hidden. This is why it is critical to follow the call of Chambliss ( 1989 ) and conduct more criminological research on crimes of the state (and associated themes). More research on these topics—through both quantitative studies and, importantly, qualitative case studies (Kramer, Michalowski, & Kauzlarich, 2002 )—would further increase the visibility of these offenses and give voice to their many, sometimes invisible, victims.

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Essays on corruption, inequality, and economic growth

Majeed, Muhammad (2012) Essays on corruption, inequality, and economic growth. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

This thesis investigates novel and unique avenues of corruption in an attempt to reach a better understanding of the causes of corruption. In particular, the thesis theoretically and empirically examines the implication of the military in politics in breeding corruption and the importance of financial development in reducing corruption. The thesis also improves our understanding of cross-country variations in inequality and economic growth by providing a deeper analysis of growth-inequality relationship with a particular focus on the role of globalisation and domestic policy reforms.

To achieve this aim, the thesis contains four core chapters (essays) in addition to an introductory chapter, literature review chapter and a concluding chapter. The four core chapters can be viewed different from one another. The first two core chapters address the causes of corruption. In particular, the first of these two chapters assess the role of military in politics in determining corruption levels, and investigate how important financial development is for corruption. The other two core chapters provide deeper understanding of cross-country variations in inequality, poverty and economic growth.

Recent theoretical developments and case study evidence suggests a relationship between the military in politics and corruption. In the third chapter, this study contributes to this literature by analyzing theoretically and empirically the role of the military in politics and corruption for the first time. By drawing on a cross sectional and panel data set covering a large number of countries, over the period 1984-2007, and using a variety of econometric methods substantial empirical support is found for a positive relationship between the military in politics and corruption. In sum, our results reveal that a one standard deviation increase in the military in politics leads to a 0.22 unit increase in corruption index. This relationship is shown to be robust to a variety of specification changes, different econometric techniques, different sample sizes, alternative corruption indices and the exclusion of outliers. This study suggests that the explanatory power of the military in politics is at least as important as the conventionally accepted causes of corruption, such as economic development.

The importance of financial market reforms in combating corruption has been highlighted in the theoretical literature but has not been systemically tested empirically. In the fourth chapter, we provide a first pass at testing this relationship using both linear and non-monotonic forms of the relationship between corruption and financial intermediation. Our study finds a negative and statistically significant impact of financial intermediation on corruption. Specifically, the results imply that a one standard deviation increase in financial intermediation is associated with a decrease in corruption of 0.20 points, or 16 percent of the standard deviation in the corruption index and this relationship is shown to be robust to a variety of specification changes, including: (i) different sets of control variables; (ii) different econometrics techniques; (iii) different sample sizes; (iv) alternative corruption indices; (v) removal of outliers; (vi) different sets of panels; and (vii) allowing for cross country interdependence, contagion effects, of corruption.

In the fifth chapter, we examine the impact of globalisation on cross-country inequality and poverty using a panel data set for 65 developing counties, over the period 1970-2008. The role of globalisation in increasing inequality in economies with financial markets imperfections has been highlighted in the theoretical literature but has not been systemically tested empirically. We provide a first pass at testing this relationship between globalisation and inequality in the presence of underdeveloped financial markets. Our study finds a negative and statistically significant impact of globalisation on poverty in economies where financial systems are relatively developed, however, inequality-reducing effect of globalisation in these economies is limited. The other major findings of the study are five fold. First, a non-monotonic relationship between income distribution and the level of economic development holds in all samples of countries. Second, both openness to trade and FDI do not have a favourable effect on income distribution in all selected developing countries. Third, high financial liberalization exerts a negative and significant influence on income distribution in developing countries. Fourth, inflation seems to distort income distribution in all sets of countries. Finally, the government emerges as a major player in impacting income distribution in developing countries.

In the last core chapter, we analytically explore and empirically test the relationships between economic growth, inequality and trade. This study contributes in the existing literature by answering the question why growth effects of income inequality and trade are not definitely positive or negative. This study determines the positive effects of inequality and trade on growth both in the short run and long run. However, the growth effect of inequality is substantially influenced by the domestic context in terms of the prevalence of credit market imperfections. The study identifies credit market imperfections in low-income developing countries as the likely reason for a positive relationship between inequality and economic growth. Similarly, growth effect of trade is found to be negative in economies where inequalities are comparatively high. The results show that inequality does matter for economic growth, but in different ways for different regions at different levels of economic development. The inequality-growth nexus is significantly negative for the low-income group but strongly significantly positive for the high-income one. The findings of the study are robust to alternative econometric techniques, specifications, control of nonlinearity, inclusion of additional control variables, exclusion of outliers and sub-samples.

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Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Qualification Level:	Doctoral
Subjects:	>
Colleges/Schools:	> >
Supervisor's Name:	MacDonald, Professor Ronald and Angeles, Dr. Luis
Date of Award:	2012
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Unique ID:	glathesis:2012-3410
Copyright:	Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
Date Deposited:	30 May 2012
Last Modified:	21 Aug 2018 10:55
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Political corruption, public opinion and citizens' behaviour

This thesis involves the examination, using sophisticated statistical techniques, of whether political corruption measured at the national level, and individual level perceived corruption, can help explain a) levels and forms of political participation, and b) directions of partisanship and vote choice. It proposes that corruption creates conditions of distrust and disaffection towards political institutions and actors that has behavioural and partisan consequences. It finds that perceived...

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Behind anti-corruption, the transformations of society—investigation into the politicization of “illegal personal enrichment” in romania.

1 Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
2 LIER-FYT, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France

This article adopts a Durkheimian perspective and employs a socio-pragmatic method of inquiry, with a specific focus on analyzing “scandals” as critical junctures and the interpretations provided by social actors. The aim is to explore the development of corruption as a social issue in Romania over the past four decades. In contrast to two prevailing explanatory approaches in Romania, labeled here as fatalistic and voluntarist , we propose a more reflective approach. This perspective illustrates how the increasing division of labor and the subsequent rise in individualization within social relations have progressively influenced the tendencies and sensitivities of various social groups in Romanian society, particularly regarding what this study refers to as “illegal personal enrichment” (IPE). By focusing on discourse analysis of debates on corruption, this study analyses the evolution of the politicization of corruption—a subject still largely unexplored but highly prevalent in the public sphere—in conjunction with the structural changes in Romanian society. Consequently, three stages can be identified: IPE as a discursive tool for denouncing political adversaries, IEP as a generator of political conflicts, and IEP as a public issue.

1 Introduction

There are many discourses by scientists, politicians, and journalists that portray corruption as a Romanian cultural characteristic. It is believed to correspond to local norms in this country, which means that this phenomenon would be deeply rooted in social expectations, and that the actors would perceive it as self-evident. If this were the case, however, one wonders how to explain the increasing politicization of “corruption” over the last thirty years. This is the paradox that lies behind the present research.

A common explanation for this paradox lies in the hypothesis that the growing condemnation of corruption in contemporary Romania is the result of external pressure, primarily emanating from institutions and agents of the European Union, and therefore remains superficial. This article starts from a different perspective: the increase in intolerance toward corruption, far from resulting solely or primarily from exogenous pressures, originates from endogenous transformations within Romanian society – through which these exogenous pressures come to be more favorably received than they were before. Inspired by a Durkheimian perspective, and combining it with a socio-pragmatic investigative methodology (especially focused on the analysis of “scandals” and the interpretations given by the actors), this study demonstrates how the increase in the division of labor and consequently, the progression of individualization norms within social relationships, have gradually modified the predispositions and sensitivities of different social groups constituting Romanian society in regards to corruption. Thus, that the increase in anti-corruption receptivity in Romania over the past thirty years results from structural social transformations. However, it is not a matter of stating that the discourse of the European Union and adherence to international institutions have no effect on the fight against corruption. If they have an effect – which is easy to demonstrate – we will argue that it is mainly because there are internal transformations happening in Romania. This is manifested by the existence of social groups that share the values of the European Union.

Given the identified paradox outlined above, this investigation holds a dual purpose in addressing the research question. Conceptually, the aim is to demonstrate an interest in surpassing prevailing paradigms in the examination of corruption in Romania, succinctly termed as fatalistic and voluntaristic in this study. Aligned with the ongoing constructivist perspective, this study advocates for a socio-pragmatic approach intertwined with the Durkheimian tradition. This novel perspective on corruption prompts the adoption of an approach centered on endogenous transformations within Romania, allowing for an exploration of the increasing politicization of “corruption” by analyzing its meaning construction. By linking discourse analysis on the subject—acquired through public media, both national and international, as well as communist archives—to the social transformations occurring over the last four decades and the subsequent individualization of social norms, this study aims to illustrate that the heightened visibility of this public issue on the political and media agenda primarily stems from internal transformations occurring in Romania, manifested by the presence of social groups sharing similar concerns. Consequently, this paper presents an analytical model that paves the way for future research focusing on a nuanced understanding of the emergence of anti-corruption movements in Romania.

This paper is organized as follows: in the first section, we address the theoretical background while providing a comprehensive presentation of an innovative methodological approach to understanding the politicization of corruption and its underlying conceptual origins, while comparing it to other dominant approaches of the matter. The second section addresses the methodological perspectives and conceptual framework, advocating for the use of a more impartial term, such as “illegal enrichment practices,” to describe corrupt activities in order to reach a better understanding of the phenomenon. The subsequent section is dedicated to delving into our empirical data, examining how Romanian society elucidates the nature of “corruption” and its evolution over time. As a result, three stages can be identified: IPE as a tool for denouncing political adversaries, IEP as a source of political conflicts, and IEP as a public concern. Lastly, we draw conclusions regarding the applicability of our analytical model and its relevance.

2 Literature overview

First order of questions: how social science researchers themselves go about explaining the nature of the phenomenon and its persistence? Indeed, as we will see, in Romania, and also in ex-communist societies, the works of social scientists and experts are often mobilized by “laypeople” in the social struggles they engage in, regarding the utility of combating “corruption” and how to go about it. If such mobilizations take place, it is also because a certain number of interpretative patterns and normative judgments are spontaneously shared between some researchers and non-researchers. That is why, in the following lines, we offer a brief overview of the approaches available within the scientific and expert literature regarding the anti-corruption struggle in former communist countries and in Romania in particular. Two major bodies of work, as we have already mentioned, will emerge: those we will group under the label of “fatalistic” approaches, and those we will group under the label of “voluntarist” approaches. We will argue for the possibility of a third type of approach, in our view, properly sociological, whose characteristics and requirements we will attempt to determine.

2.1 Essentialism and culturalism: fatalistic approaches and their limits

The approaches developed in this section are part of the first group- that this research refers to as “fatalistic”- and they emphasize culturalist and essentialist understandings of the phenomenon of corruption in Romania. This perspective is generally reflected in conceiving corruption as a cultural trait, meaning it corresponds to societal norms, something accepted and even morally mandatory.

The questioning of the existence of a historical discourse of essentialist nature, which holds the past (recent or more distant) responsible for the widespread practices of corruption present within the political elite, is analyzed by a plurality of social scientists– historians, linguists, sociologists, and political scientists – in Central and Eastern Europe. According to this approach, more distant periods – specifically the Phanariote or communist eras – are deemed to have permeated the country with practices that persist to the present day and would serve as an explanation for the current situation of underdevelopment.

Following their logic, Gallagher (2005 , p. 2) emphasizes the heavy influence of the communist legacy on political practices in the new democratic configuration. “In terms of exploitation, incompetence, and mismanagement of national resources, the communist regime (1946–1989) was the worst Romania has experienced. But many elements indicate that it intensified negative political behaviors that already existed and created new ones”. Developing a sociology of transition, Sandu (1996 , p.21) underscores the influence that the former communist regime had on the current “political culture” and corrupt practices, through the development of an underground black market that gave rise to a new type of interpersonal relationships.

However, this approach is not specific to Romania. On the contrary, this discourse, attributing the widespread presence of corrupt practices to the Ottoman and communist past, can also be found in other societies in the Balkan region. Looking near the country’s Southern border, specifically in Bulgaria, studies like those of Gehl and Roth (2013) or Schüler (2013) show that informal practices have been and continue to be an integral part of everyday culture in Southeastern Europe, as an extension of its political culture. Thus, the Ottomans and communists have contributed to the creation of a community of people divided between “us” and “them,” the powerless and the victims against those in power, generally perceived as “maskari”. 1 This type of essentialist studies reaches the conclusion that “Bulgaria entered the post-socialist period with a double historical legacy, that of the Ottoman era and half a century of communist rule, a legacy that has a lasting impact on the construction of society itself and the resulting social relations” ( Gehl and Roth, 2013 , p. 202). To summarize this approach, Iancu and Todorov (2018) identifies what we have just outlined as dominant approaches, recalling two categories of sources of corruption. On the one hand, the communist legacy is always considered as the “culprit in service,” (p. 15) and on the other hand, there is talk of the “notorious baksheesh Europe” (p. 15).

Having outlined this background, it is now appropriate to explain the limits of this approach from a sociological perspective and the relevance of using the label “fatalistic” to summarize it. We believe that the fatalistic approach perceives corruption as an element of democratic lag. Consequently, following Rubi Casals (2014) , this article does not focus on presenting political corruption as an “inherent element of developing regimes or the deceptive North–South divide,” a source of division between Western European countries and the new democracies of Eastern Europe. Furthermore, we believe that understanding and explaining the presence of corruption in a culturalist manner specific to the Balkan region does not align with sociological thinking, as it proves highly deterministic, portraying this phenomenon as inevitable, and suggesting that these societies can never emancipate themselves from it.

2.2 Legalism and the rejection of local particularities: voluntarist approaches and their limits

Let us now consider the second dominant approach in Romania, which we refer to as “voluntarist.” This type of scientific discourse explains the construction of corruption as a public problem through the norm of “good governance experts,” to use the words of Blundo (2012) , who emphasizes Western norms and values in this regard, through international institutions, and especially the European Union. This approach assumes a transfer of “good practices,” considered to be the foundation of the anti-corruption establishment in countries with a longer democratic tradition. It involves imposing frameworks and tools from “abroad” that would help address an existing “democratic lag.” For proponents of the voluntarist approach, putting forward the thesis of external conditionality ( Bratu, 2016 ; Văduva, 2016 ) specifically that of the European Union, would explain the development of a legal and social framework for anti-corruption, the construction of the phenomenon as a public issue, as well as the local resistance to these efforts.

Nevertheless, there are voices that indicate it is not easy to fight the widespread corruption because certain constraints within Romanian society make anti-corruption efforts challenging. Michael Hein, among others, highlighted in 2015 how the progress in recent years in anti-corruption – following Romania’s accession to the European Union – is reflected only at the level of norms but not in actual practices. According to him, this is mainly explained “by political culture, persistent patrimonial networks, historical heritage, weak economic capabilities, and strong economic inequalities” ( Hein, 2015 , p.772).

In the end, we can observe that, according to the voluntarist approach, it is always the imposition of an external norm that will ultimately lead to the change in the indigenous norm regarding anti-corruption. The continuation of campaigns in this direction would be the key to success, ensuring the complete adaptation of local legal norms to European ones, which would then lead to a gradual change in behavior. Taking into account the moment of Romania’s accession to international structures, in attempting to trace the process of constructing the phenomenon of corruption as a public issue, is undoubtedly useful and cannot be ignored. However, this research diverges from this approach to try to demonstrate that the change in the local norm does not occur exclusively and primarily in relation to external pressure from international actors, as the desire to change the norm in this regard and adhere to the European one cannot be solely explained by the act of accession itself.

2.3 The sociological perspective: between social necessity and denaturalization

The ambition of this article is to go further and suggest a more reflective approach than the one proposed by fatalistic and voluntarist perspectives. The aim is to break away from essentialist logic and attempt to outline the relationship established between corruption and the new Romanian democracy after the fall of communism, without denying, of course, the importance of historical legacies and cultural factors. This entails asserting that there is a kind of “social imperative for corruption,” which would account for its widespread presence without, however, treating this imperative as inherent. Sociology, avoiding naturalization, aims to elucidate these social imperatives, revealing how the institution of corruption is sustained in social practices. Acknowledging a dynamic of change, this social imperative is neither predetermined nor everlasting.

Hence, the approach advocated by this study embodies a third perspective, which resonates with the constructivist view of phenomena ( Dreyfus, 2002 ; Marton and Monier, 2017 ; Engels et al., 2018 ), as inferred by the reader. Additionally, other research such as that undertaken by Rothstein and Uslaner (2005) employs cross-national statistical data to introduce the idea of “social trust,” as an explanatory concept, demonstrating how corruption thrives amidst economic inequality, low trust, and inadequate government performance.

Compared to the constructivist perspective, without denying its merits, the approach proposed by this study, inspired by pragmatic sociology and the Durkheimian thought, aims to be more reflective. Here’s the explanation: by advocating for a non-mechanical holism proposed by Durkheim (1960) , we consider that individuals’ reasoning can only be analyzed in relation to the community or society to which they wish to belong ( Karsenti and Lemieux, 2017 ). Thus, by placing less emphasis on economic explanations, without ignoring their importance, this perspective aims to denaturalize the social order, proposing an analytical model that takes into account local specificities. Firstly, the Durkheimian tradition directs our attention toward the political and moral consequences of the growing division of labor. Secondly, pragmatic sociology encourages us to “follow the actors,” meaning to understand how they interpret phenomena related to corruption and discuss these matters among themselves. We will elaborate extensively on these two aspects of our approach and discuss their conceptual and methodological implications for our investigation.

Prior to embarking on this endeavor of theoretical grounding, it is imperative to state that our research embraces a Durkheimian perspective of “corruption,” wherein it is viewed as a social phenomenon characterized by a certain regularity, thereby implying a sense of “normalcy.”( Durkheim, 1960 , pp. 65–72). Then, the Durkheimian tradition ( Durkheim, 1960 ; Durkheim, 2013 ) will first lead us to prioritize a morphological approach to Romanian society and its evolution. In other words, we need to take into account the changes that have occurred in the structure of society. Secondly, we are led to consider how the proliferation of division of labor gives rise to new moral values and ideals or prompts their reevaluation and adaptation. More precisely, how can one explain the relationship that is established between the position occupied by a profession within the general division of labor and the predilection of its members for certain worldviews and ideologies? In this context, we need to delve into the process of “ideation” that has unfolded in Romania over the past five decades, driven by politicians and intellectuals. This ideation serves to rationalize the anti-corruption fight and link it to a particular vision of society. Additionally, we must examine how this ideation and its resonance among segments of the population are influenced by shifts in the division of labor. This approach will entail examining the socio-professional groups within society that actively oppose corruption and those that exhibit less or no interest. In accordance with Durkheimian thought, the increased division of social labor within Romanian society post-communism fosters the development of individualistic norms. Thus, the proliferation of social groups during the transition to democracy results in elevated individualism present in political engagements, individual accountability, and personal autonomy and therefore a heightened sensitivity to injustices stemming from corruption. Consequently, we believe this approach offers explanatory power and enhances predictability. Moreover, such reasoning can help to elucidate a non-contingent and non-random dynamic, highlighting the argument of society’s endogenous transformation. Thus, as society becomes more entrenched in norms of individualization, there is greater responsiveness to the issue of corruption, and consequently, the injustices it engenders.

The second theoretical standpoint which belongs to pragmatic sociology, urges us to capture how social actors interpret phenomena associated with IPEs and engage in discussions about them. Thus, the concept of politicization – understood as the production of descriptive and interpretive narratives, as well as the search for solutions ( Cefaï, 1996 , p. 48) – proves its analytical utility. As a consequence, adopting this a socio-historical approach allows a better understanding of how corruption has increasingly become a significant concern within Romanian society since the 1990s.

In practice, this analytical framework enables the examination of the operations through which participants in the public debate either normalize or denormalize corruption. Therefore, this approach not only has the ambition of putting forward the specificities of the anti-corruption fight in post-communist societies but it can also offer an endogenous model of analysis of the phenomenon in societies with a longer democratic tradition.

3 Aims and methodology

From a methodological perspective, it’s imperative to emphasize the importance of applying the principle of symmetry ( Lemieux, 2018a , b ) in all these analyses. This entails granting equal status to both social actors who perceive corruption as a concern for the new democratic regime and those who do not prioritize this matter, without prejudging the superiority of one over the other in practice or principle. This approach enables the examination of the relation established between the two of them. Therefore, we need to study in detail and without preconceptions how actors (activists, media, politicians, etc.) demonstrate to each other the existence of corruption and denounce it or not.

Without this principle of symmetry, the sociological perspective, as presented above, would be a compromised because instead of focusing on describing and understanding social actions, the focus becomes to criticize them. Hence, during the development of this research, we found it crucial to reflect on the appropriateness of the term “corruption.”

This term is broad and polysemic. Legally, it has a narrow definition, while its common usage is more expansive and varied. Consequently, comprehensive definitions of corruption beyond the legal perspective have been scarce. According to Mark Philip (2015) , this is due to the inherently normative nature of “corruption” and the emotionally charged perceptions surrounding it.

Given the concerns and negative connotations associated with the term “corruption,” we question its appropriateness for a symmetrical analysis of two modernizing projects. Despite the formal existence of the term in Romanian during Nicolae Ceaușescu’s era, Party propaganda portrayed corruption as an exogenous concept, leading to its limited use by social actors. This highlights the need for a more neutral and empirical term to describe these practices during both the communist period and the post-Revolution era. We propose “illegal personal enrichments” (IPE) as a more flexible and relevant label for the Romanian context. This term also captures the persistent inequality among citizens from the communist era to the transition to democracy, providing insight into societal tolerance for this disparity.

To show the evolution of IPE as a public issue in post-communist Romania, we opted for a qualitative methodology, more precisely discourse analysis of mainly the media debates. Considering the long period of time investigated, the discourse analysis of public media will focus on critical junctures. Due to the absence of digitalized Romanian journals, the research involved examining the newspapers issue by issue to identify the relevant articles. In this perspective, being guided by the idea that corruption scandals “reveal the vulnerability of the normative order” ( De Blic and Lemieux, 2005 , p. 11) as moments when actors will test their common sense of right and wrong this article focuses on the study of four major scandals that occurred over the past forty years. Various inclusion and exclusion criteria led to the selection of four focal points, among many others existing “corruption scandals” during the post-communist Romanian history.

“The Wine Affair,” dating back to 1978, holds the interest of immersing us in the communist era and allows us to question not only the existence, in Ceaucescu’s Romania, of forms of illegal personal enrichment, but it also is one of the rare moments when IPE take a visible and publicly recognizable form under the communist regime. More specifically, it allows us to observe the transformations in the discourse of relativizing IPE, particularly the adjustments made at the boundary between what is considered “normal” and “abnormal” practice, before and after the fall of the Ceausescu regime.

In the 1990s, Bancorex is analyzed as the first “big corruption scandal” to break out in the media, initiating a series of subsequent scandals as a result of the privatization process. On one hand, this case serves as a pretext to understand the relationship with the former communist regime and the perpetuation of its elites through the FSN (The National Salvation Front) power. On the other hand, it also marks the first political instrumentalization of IPE – in the context of the initial alternation of power, with the electoral victory of the Romanian Democratic Convention (CDR) – highlighting the relationship between Bancorex and the Văcăroiu government (PSDR).

After Traian Băsescu’s victory in the 2004 presidential elections, driven by an anti-corruption agenda, the main political divide in post-revolutionary Romania, previously centered on ties to the Old Regime, began to shift. With no clear right–left ideological distinction, the focus turned to corruption allegations against political rivals. Băsescu’s campaign targeted the legacy of the preceding four-year social-democratic government, led by Adrian Năstase, which the media often equated with “governmental corruption.” This justifies the analysis of three cases involving Năstase.

In the Zambaccian scandal (2004), prosecutors accused Năstase of receiving $630,000 in bribes from Irina Jianu to secure her position as chief inspector of the State Building Inspection ( Năstase, 2005 , p.5). In June 2006, the Aunt Tamara scandal saw Năstase facing new bribery charges. On July 9, 2008, the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) launched the Trofeul Calității case against him, accusing him of illicitly financing his electoral campaign and abusing his political office and party position. Năstase’s subsequent conviction made him the highest-ranking official imprisoned for corruption in Romania, a development that resonated significantly in the national press and within the European Union.

On October 30, 2015, the Colectiv nightclub fire, which killed 64 and injured 147, ignited protests under the slogan “Corruption Kills.” This marked a shift in public attitude, as civil society blamed officials for allowing unsafe conditions. The fire catalyzed the anti-corruption movement, peaking in early 2017 with the #rezist protests against the social-democratic government’s attempts to weaken anti-corruption laws. To investigate the politicization of IPE in the Romanian society, we primarily rely on press archives. For the communist period, two categories of press archives are analyzed. On one hand, there is the national communist press, available in print at the Central University Library of Bucharest. This involves the study of two publications from that time: Scânteia (The Spark) – the most widely circulated national daily at the time, exclusively dedicated to political issues, and Flacăra (The Flame) – a weekly magazine covering artistic, literary, and social themes. On the other hand, this research uses international press, centralized by the archives of Sciences Po Paris. Specifically, it involves the press file titled “La vie politique en Roumanie de 1945 à 1981,” (The Romanian political life between 1945 and 1981) which consists of 5 digitized volumes (see Appendix Table A1 ).

As for the period starting from 1989, three national publications have been chosen: Romania Libera (Free Romania)- appearing as early as December 22, the daily newspaper immediately becomes the bearer of a strong anti-communist message, Evenimentul Zilei (The event of the day)- a newly introduced tabloid in 1992, initially taking an anti-communist position, and Adevărul (The Truth) – the successor to the Scânteia newspaper (the official press outlet of the Communist Party) this newspaper supports the FSN and presents a critical discourse toward anti-communist forces. All publications are available in print at the Central University Library of Bucharest. This corpus allows for an examination of the variation in media discourse based on each publication of the time, as well as its connection to power, given that the politicization of the media was a significant issue during this period ( Gross, 2015 ). The limit of this research has been the lack of digitization of Romanian press archives, preventing a quantitative and more systematic investigation that could provide a very useful overview.

The press discourse is complemented by official texts, legal documents, information bulletins, and meetings of the Ministry of the Interior condemning certain illicit practices, available in the archives of the National Council for the Study of the Security Archives ( Appendix Table A2 ).

The Durkheimian tradition will lead us, first and foremost, to prioritize a morphological approach to Romanian society and its evolution in order to link it to the politicization of the phenomenon of IPE. In other words, we will need to analyze the changes that have occurred in the structure of society. To do this, we will make use of statistical data that allows us to identify general trends, presented with the aim of demonstrating the employment dynamics by sector of activity, both for the communist and democratic periods. The data used for this purpose is provided by secondary sources such as the Central Electoral Bureau, the National Agency for Workforce Occupation, and the National Institute of Statistics as well as other sociological researches.

To clarify, our approach is not to conduct thorough historical research, which would require extensive archival consultation and a reconstruction of society’s overall state during each scandal. Instead, our goal is to trace the general evolution and identify key milestones that have shaped the rise of anti-corruption awareness in Romanian society over the past four decades. Therefore, the interest is in selecting historically significant moments—particularly highly publicized and impactful “corruption scandals”—and utilizing press archives related to these cases to search for signs of social actors’ reflexivity on the issue. By analyzing these focal points, three stages of politicization of IPEs can be identified: IPE as a discursive tool for denouncing political adversaries, IEP as a generator of political conflicts, and IEP as a public issue.

4.1 “Illegal personal enrichment” as a discursive tool for denouncing political adversaries

Using the term “corruption” to describe illicit practices during Nicolae Ceaușescu’s era might appear surprising to a Romanian who lived through the communist regime. Despite its formal inclusion in dictionaries, this word wasn’t commonly used in everyday language before 1989. Moreover, reading the official party publication, Scânteia , often shows endeavors not to use the term to describe everyday realities in Romania. Nevertheless, the newspaper’s articles primarily employ the term to depict issues related to foreign political life. Thus, sections such as “The world of capital in its true light” or “International life” repeatedly report on the existence of business affairs and corruption scandals shaking the Western world. In this regard, behaviors associated with corruption are described as an integral part of the daily life of capitalist societies, carriers of illusions, intrinsically decadent, and imbued with mafia-like elements. Thus, the term “corruption” was mostly associated with “Western” matters and customs officers’ dealings, making it a somewhat technical concept within police jargon. However, the purpose of this section was to demonstrate that practices similar to what we now label as “corruption” existed within socialist society, even though they were not explicitly labelled as such. Examining these practices, which we have grouped under the label of “illegal personal enrichments,” revealed how publicly and officially denouncing such exchanges during Ceaușescu’s rule served to reaffirm the existence and fundamental legitimacy of socialist property that needed protection from foreign and corrupting influences. This comes as a result of the communist society being ideologically rooted in a fundamental contradiction between individual monopolization of goods and socialist ethics.

Consequently, while illegal personal enrichments were criticized in both propaganda discourse and the law ( Law no. 3, 20 April 1972, chapter 6, art. 71 ), they were not explicitly referred to as “corruption.” Nevertheless, the presence of foreign media discourse exposing systemic corruption in Romania (Poulet, Le matin ,1982; Fejtő, 1981 ) forced Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime to respond. Therefore, starting from the 1970s, addressing this issue became a priority and an active concern for the Romanian state, leading to the criminalization and denunciation of so-called “antisocial” practices such as bribery, tipping, speculation, and social parasitism as the Executive board meetings of the leadership council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs show (1981).

As Holstein and Miller (1990) rightly emphasize, establishing a direct link between a social problem and a category of victims contributes to its prominence in the public sphere. This leads to what Barthe (2017) calls a “causality policy,” which encompasses all actions aimed at establishing direct connections between the facts behind the problem and the resulting harm. Having that in mind, the main identified victim of “illegal personal enrichments” is the communist state itself, specifically the “socialist property,” and implicitly, all “honest” citizens. “Illegal personal enrichments “primarily lead to higher prices, shortages, and repercussions on service quality and fair wage principles.

“There are a significant number of services whose prices are set by the state for the welfare of citizens, where the practice of "bribery" causes prices to increase. […] People don't realize that they themselves are the victims, that they are mistaken, and that they contribute to deceiving others through such actions.” ( Radu, 1971 , p. 5)

Communist society thus faces two dangers: an internal one rooted in the past—the Phanariot and bourgeois era—that still exists in individuals who persist in seeking privileges, and an external one, the ideological enemy, the “bourgeoise” element developing within society ( Scânteia , 4 April 1981, p. 2). This element is an enthusiast of corrupt practices typical of capitalist societies, based on individual enrichment and resource monopolization. Victims of such behavior are predominantly found in urban areas, among socio-professional categories that allow for a degree of autonomy, often due to contact with Western norms ( Editorial office of Scânteia, 1974 , p.5).

“The wine scandal” is a relevant case from this perspective. In the 1970s, the name of Gheorghe Ștefănescu was well-known in Bucharest, especially among the people in the city center. To begin with, he was the manager of the warehouse for wine and spirits sales to the public at 325 Calea Griviței, in the 8th district of the capital, where he sold bulk wine. Among his regular customers were high-ranking politicians and members of the Securitate (the Romanian secret police); that’s how popular and appreciated this wine store was. Paradoxically, it was precisely here that a major case of bootleg alcohol took place, which later became known as “the largest affair of the Nicolae Ceaușescu era” ( Stănilă, 2019 ). In March 1984, this story inspired the script for a propaganda film titled “The Secret of Bacchus,” a humorous production directed by the renowned screenwriter Titus Popovici, who was close to Nicolae Ceaușescu. The film featured a very popular cast at the time and remains well-known and widely broadcast in Romania to this day. Hence, “The wine scandal” was one of the rare moments when the communist press openly discussed what we can now refer to as both big and petty corruption.

The case of Gheorghe Ștefănescu serves as an example of how the regime used this situation to point out the presence of “parasitic elements” 2 within society, which were believed to be undermining the national economy. Despite being minoritarian, these individuals were considered a significant factor in the widespread shortages that afflicted Romania in the late 1970s. The media and cinema portrayed individuals like Ștefănescu as outsiders, associating their corrupt behavior with capitalist societies marked by social inequality and the accumulation of wealth at the expense of others ( Cristache, 1978 ).

“The communists in the department, along with honest workers, are right to question this exceptional case. Ștefănescu is truly a swindler, a bandit. His four previous convictions speak volumes about him: he wanted to steal, deceive; he was apprehended and placed among the ranks of swindlers. However, this case highlights the issue of others, those who—consciously or by omission—facilitated the actions of the bandits and allowed the unfolding of this illicit activity.” (Florescu, Scânteia , 1978).

By turning the “wine affair” into a political issue, the Romanian state shaped a public discourse that encompassed both small daily instances of illegal enrichment and more extensive clientelist networks. The regime’s goal was to address the problem of “illegal personal enrichment” without directly challenging the core issue criticized by international media – the privileges of the elite and the nomenklatura. Nevertheless, the Party used this scandal to reveal certain deviant cases within the ruling “new class,” notably through Tudor Bălătică, the First Secretary of the Communist Party Committee in the 8th district and a central figure in Ștefănescu’s network ( Florescu, 1978 ). Despite the press directly addressing the political associates of the accused, the supposed uniqueness of the situation failed to provide evidence of the injustices stemming from certain privileges held by the nomenklatura.

Thus, our argument is that, discursively, “illegal personal enrichments” were criticized during Ceaușescu’s era as well as after the regime’s fall. However, there is a fundamental difference between the articulation of public discourse under communism and that in a liberal democracy. Before 1989, the regime sought to monopolize both the description and critique of these practices. Starting from the 1990s, which marked the opening of public discourse to various actors, the phenomenon began to be politicized differently, in a pluralistic manner, encompassing multiple competing discourses. Therefore, we consider that analyzing the last decades of communism enables us to identify a historical shift in a dual process. The official discourse on illegal personal enrichments during the communist period suggests that this phenomenon was the result of “abnormal” individuals. This discursive dynamic underwent a complete transformation after 1989. What was once presented as an isolated, pathological, and relatively manageable issue in Ceaușescu’s Romania—because it concerned socialist goods and was in every citizen’s interest to correct their behavior—later emerged as a systemic, widespread phenomenon in which individuals had little power to act. This implies a different relationship with political elites, which were now considered the main source of “corruption,” with every individual seen as a victim.

In conclusion, IPE becomes a discursive tool for denouncing political adversaries, manipulated by both the communists and liberal democracies. “The reality” of corruption acts varies depending on the interests of the actors manipulating this label. Thus, as stated by Petr Kupka and Naxera (2023) for the Czech case “beyond existing knowledge on corruption, we could say that corruption has become one of the primary lenses through which the negative effects of the post-communist transition are interpreted. In this respect, corruption can be read as a historical discourse.” (p. 24).

4.2 “Illegal personal enrichment” as a political conflict generator

Faced with constant and growing criticism from the liberal modernization model, practices associated with illegal enrichment emerge in communist propaganda discourse as behaviors isolated to individuals who fail to integrate professional norms, ethics, and socialist morals. However, unintentionally, through a discourse on illegal enrichment linked to social parasitism, the state proceeds to de-individualize misfortune and thus contributes to an initial attempt at politicizing illegal enrichment. Now, it is necessary to take a further step to understand what has become of this denunciation of illegal enrichment after the fall of communism and how this legacy is instrumentalized in relation to the fight against corruption, starting from 1990.

Following the downfall of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s communist regime, in the absence of a clear ideological divide between the “left” and the “right,” the focal point of political discourse—especially within partisan and media circles—lies in the relationships of new political actors with the Old Regime. Thus, shortly after the Revolution, “anticommunism” takes on an ideological value, embodied in this case by the so-called “historical” political parties. Regarding this initial complexity of the post-revolutionary Romanian political scene, Radu, A. (2010) suggests that it would be legitimate to speak of a “Romanian specificity of the communist-anticommunist divide,” a division that did not exist before 1989 and was subsequently manifested by the opposition between “the neo-communist revolutionaries of the FSN and the historical parties.”

In this context, one could ask what was the socio-economic and demographic profile of the individuals who endorsed the anti-communist agenda? A study published in 2011, analyzing the political orientation of Romanians from 1990 to 2009 – based on data centralized by the Central Electoral Bureau, the National Agency for Workforce Occupation and the National Institute of Statistics ( Boamfă, 2011 ) yields relevant conclusions for our research. Taking into account elements such as age, ethnicity, religion, and profession of the population, the education of the interviewees, their occupation, income, and their willingness to actively engage in public demonstrations following the revolutionary moment, the mentioned study outlines the median profile of individuals more inclined to support the “anti-communist” project and those who did not conceived the presence of former communist elite in the new democratic configuration as a problem. It appears that the latter category was formed by rural population engaged in the primary sector, those most profoundly impacted by the socio-economic changes triggered by communism’s collapse, guided by Orthodox Christian morality. Starting from 1992, this includes those who are unemployed and have difficulty finding employment. Conversely, the “anti-communist” agenda garners favor among urban population working in the secondary and tertiary sectors. This is an educated population – mostly with higher education – with an above-average standard of living, generally working in non-agrarian sectors. Additionally, the Hungarian minority, characterized by values related to Catholic and Calvinist morality, is concentrated in the eastern part of Transylvania ( Boamfă, 2011 ).

In this political context of the transition period, as our observations reveal from the press analysis, illegal personal enrichments were regarded as an “ordinary social fact” ( Hurezeanu, 1996 ), a characteristic of both the era and the region. It is worth emphasizing that this type of condemning IPE implies corruption among the elite. Through examples of banking system scandals- directly linked to the privatization of the banking system- we aim to demonstrate how this theme was manipulated during the democratization, highlighting the rising influence of a third actor, the press.

“The phenomenon of corruption is perceived in today's Romania as a kind of unavoidable alternative to normality. It is most often seen as a multi-faceted manifestation of the abrupt and erratic transition from a planned economy and a police state to a market economy and an open society. In some reflections, especially in the press, it appears as a related occupation of parliamentarians, bankers, capitalists, politicians from the ruling party, ministers, politicians from coalition parties- resembling the ‘Directorate of the sixth year after Ceaușescu.’" ( Hurezeanu, 1996 )

This press fragment should be understood in the context of the emerging scandals within the banking system, which have shed light on various aspects of Romania’s political landscape that were previously overlooked. Their exposure has sparked extensive media discussions regarding the connections between the PDSR (Party of Social Democracy in Romania) – heir of FSN- and corrupt activities, especially within the banking sector. Additionally, these scandals’ historical origins, which are linked to the former Communist Party, have become subjects of debate. This discourse is further complicated by the change in political leadership. It wasn’t until the 1996 election campaign that IPE started to gain more prominence in public discourse, eventually becoming a key government concern. The press played a crucial role in uncovering these “corruption cases,” subsequently turning them into significant scandals, which effectively placed the issue of illegal enrichment practices on the political agenda, especially after the change in government. This period of transition and the 1996 election campaign (won by Emil Constantinescu and the Democratic Convention – an anti-communist political alliance) represent the first successful exploitation of “corruption scandals” for political gain, although they still remained secondary in significance compared to the central cleavage between anti-communism and neo-communism.

Additionally, these scandals emphasize the significant problem of privatizing state-owned assets, which is viewed as the main source of IPE ( Tismăneanu, 2007 ). As a result, an exclusively economic understanding of IPE emerges during the period being examined, a perspective that evolves after the 2000s. This realization prompts a wider conversation about defining the limit between the public and private sectors within a democratic framework. Ultimately, the primary focus of the discussion shifts toward “institutional corruption,” which erodes public trust in state institutions.

In conclusion, it can be asserted that the anti-communist project instrumentalizes the theme of “corruption” to secure electoral victories, aligning with Western norms and employing a narrative that portrays IPEs as systemic among former communist elites who have transitioned into capitalists. What’s noteworthy is that, following these scandals, a new perspective on how “corruption” is conceived and defined has emerged. Notably, from the 2000s onward, this issue gained more prominence and became increasingly visible.

“Ongoing legal proceedings against prominent figures in corruption suggest a shift in the justice system. This marks a notable political commitment to address Romania's crucial issue. But, the government's failure to confront Romanian oligarchs highlights the widespread nature of this problem. These major corrupt figures are like inoperable tumors in our ailing society: the doctor opens the patient, looks, whistles in amazement, stitches them up, and sends them home.” ( Cartarescu, 2005 ).

As one can see from reading this press fragment, the normalization of illegal enrichment as a defining feature of the transition period has gradually changed. Thus, despite the prevailing fatalism associated with the normalization of this phenomenon, we perceive a form of reflection emerging around the issue of illegal enrichment. This helps us underscore the central hypothesis of our research, which posits that the growing intolerance toward IPE is not solely or primarily a result of external pressures from the European Union but rather originates from internal transformations within Romanian society, making it more receptive to these external pressures.

Through an analysis of the “corruption scandals” related to former Prime Minister Adrian Năstase and the interpretations put forth by various actors, we aim to demonstrate how the increasing division of labor and the subsequent evolution of norms related to individualization within social dynamics have gradually influenced the attitudes and sensitivities of different social groups comprising Romanian society regarding “the illegal personal enrichments.” More precisely, the confrontation between the former social-democratic Prime Minister, Adrian Năstase, involved in three “corruption scandals” (from 2004 to 2008) and Traian Basescu (president of Romania from 2004 to 2014 and champion of the anti-corruption fight) leads to a dynamic relevant to our research. This conflict must be placed in the socio-economic context of Romania in the 2000s, with the increasingly visible rise of an urban, educated, and private-sector-active middle class. The 2004 elections, as indicated by Cistelecan (2014) , mark the first electoral moment when social issues take a backseat in discursive terms, being replaced by the ideas of transparency and good governance. This discourse primarily tackles a social actor who is gaining more and more influence, which is what makes this shift feasible: a growing middle class that occupies an increasingly significant part of the electorate.

“Băsescu succeeded in convincing the urban, young, dynamic, and change-seeking electorate that he can represent their interests and free them from the stagnation of the Năstase government” ( Clucer, 2004 ). This actually represents the foundations of the anti-corruption modernization project: the opposition between the individual and the system, portrayed as corrupt and distant from society.

“Of all the parties that parade on the political stage, only one consistently defends its corrupt members: THE PSD. As the biological offspring of the odious FSN, the party inherited and led by Ion Iliescu continues to provide evidence of its solidarity with criminals.” ( Cartianu, 2012 )

For this electorate, the illegal personal enrichments became a form of injustice rather than a norm, specific to the region and the transition period. From an ideological standpoint, we can say that the era of Traian Băsescu laid the groundwork for Romanian neoliberalism, which resonated strongly with this middle class that identifies with Western values ( Radulescu, 2008 , p. 8).

In the face of this issue, the supporters of Adrian Năstase, contrast social concerns and the living conditions of Romanians. Consequently, it primarily addresses the working-class population, those without means, who have been neglected by the state. For them, moral issues related to illegal enrichment practices and good governance are not a priority, as no connection is made between these issues and the precarious living. So, in the words of Năstase (2006 , p.143):

“Romania has fewer cases of extreme poverty than Brazil, but if we continue to focus solely on the wealthiest three hundred individuals and not on the one million poorest Romanians, we will witness the breakdown of bridges, the emergence of exclusion, and, implicitly, violence. In our country, the analysis of such a serious issue occurs, at most, in academic circles or within civil society. The current government has not initiated any studies and clearly lacks a strategy in this regard. In fact, for the current political leadership, this issue doesn't even register. They consistently wave the flag of European integration, understood solely as a bundle of paperwork on which bureaucrats in Bucharest or Brussels place their focus.”

As shown above, IPE can be understood as a conflict generator- heir of the anti-communist – neo-communist cleavage- that, since the 2000s, has oversimplified the depiction of the social landscape.

4.3 “Illegal personal enrichment” as a public issue

It is now time to explore the politicization of IPE starting from 2012. We’ve pinpointed this year as a turning point when the theme of “anti-corruption” gains momentum and becomes increasingly prominent in the public discourse. From this moment on, Romania has experienced a series of popular protests. In 2012, Romanians took to the streets to protest against austerity measures taken by the government. Between September 2013 and February 2014, new demonstrations occurred against the PSD government of Victor Ponta, who, despite his electoral promises, gave green light to mining and shale gas extraction at Roșia Montană, Romania’s largest gold mine, by a Canadian corporation. This decision was seen as detrimental to the environment and the national economy. At the end of 2015, a fire at the Colectiv nightclub led to a major political scandal, ultimately resulting in the fall of the Victor Ponta government. “Deprived of emergency exits, spectators found themselves trapped in the concert hall. The tragedy claimed 27 lives and left nearly 150 injured, with 35 succumbing to their injuries in the following weeks in the capital’s overloaded and severely underequipped hospitals. This incident highlighted the state of decay in the country and its hospitals, where, for instance, diluted disinfectant was used to cut costs” ( Roux, 2022 ) wrote the international press. On February 13, 2017, Romanians took to the streets once again, this time against a new PSD government, led by Sorin Grindeanu, following the government’s attempt to pass Ordonanța 13 (Governmental ordinance no. 13) . This was an executive decision to amend the Penal Code, with the most contested amendment by civil society being related to public office abuse, which would no longer have been considered a criminal offense unless the damage exceeded 200,000 lei. This timeline of protest movements culminated in the “great gathering of the diaspora” (France 24, 2018) on August 10, 2018, when a large number of Romanian expatriates came to claim “Justice, not corruption!” These movements were suppressed by the military police in a highly violent manner, using tear gas, a level of violence deemed unprecedented in Romania’s post-communist history.

Following Mărgărit’s (2019) perspective, all these protests, while initially rooted in specific issues, eventually turned into movements with anti-government and anti-corruption narratives and demands. As a result, the public started seeing these isolated problems as signs of deeper structural issues within Romanian society, which political leaders had failed to address.

Taken separately, we believe that the Colectiv fire scandal plays a very significant role in the local construction of “corruption” as a public issue because it sparks a comprehensive debate about the challenges raised by the systemic presence of this phenomenon and thus serves as an actual illustration of the price paid by citizens. A study conducted by Gubernat and Rammelt (2021) attest who are the Romanians who have rallied against the injustices created by a perceived corrupt and flawed political system.

“Since 2012, people aged between twenty-five and forty, though previously seeming to be discouraged from civic involvement, strongly contributed to the waves of mobilization Romania has witnessed in the past few years. A new generation of protesters seemed to populate the public sphere. When assessing the sociodemographic profile of the protesters, it was found that they mainly belong to the age cohort twenty-two to forty-five, are highly educated, and their unconventional political engagement is characterized by a strong continuity over this period, with participation in prior protests. (…) Romanian analysists assert that the protests have been taken over by the ‘right-leaning middle-class,’ being the culmination of a wave of ‘middle-class activism’ prior to 2017.”

As we can see, those citizens preoccupied by issues related to IPE in 2015 are the same urban, young, dynamic, and change-seeking middle class that has been gaining more influence and autonomy since the era of Traian Băsescu. The empowerment of this middle class and its increasingly significant weight is proven by the emergence of a new “anti-corruption” political party, Uniunea Salvați România (Save Romania Union) founded in 2016, which attempts to represent its interests. “In Romania, the USR should be considered as adapting to the populist environment by recombining salient issues of anticommunism and the fight against corruption in a general anti-elitist approach” ( Dragoman, 2020 , p. 2). This aspect becomes even more visible when considering that party members have actively took part in social movements such as Colectiv.

Despite this citizen mobilization, opinions are not unanimous when it comes to assigning responsibility for this tragedy. Victor Ponta, the Prime Minister at that time, did not miss the opportunity to denounce a real witch hunt that has been triggered by this national tragedy, which, in itself, hinders the desire for justice. Here is the message he posted on Facebook:

“We all know that the Colectiv tragedy was exploited for political purposes to replace a government (…). That's why no one cared about seeking the truth or achieving justice! We all know that Mayor Piedone is absolutely not guilty (if Colectiv tragedy was to happen in Sibiu or Cluj, I don't think the mayor would be in prison). We all know that people are still burning in hospitals today without anyone being held accountable. We all know that concerts are still being held in basements and wholly inadequate venues. We all know we didn't want to hear about Colectiv anymore to avoid remembering the manipulation and the cynical way in which the lost lives were used. We all know that today, 'corruption no longer kills,' just like lies, stupidity, incompetence, and insensitivity. We've imprisoned Piedone and the club owners, and we carry on as if nothing happened. It's extremely sad!" ( Ponta, 2022 ).

5 Conclusion

Establishing IPE as a public issue will continue beyond this study, extending past our analysis of the Colectiv incident. However, this research has shown how the increasing division of labor and rise in individualization within social relations have progressively shaped the tendencies and sensitivities of various social groups in Romanian society, especially concerning “illegal personal enrichment.”

Firstly, approaching “corruption” in a flexible manner and seeking to reconstruct the social dynamics behind the increasing denunciation of the illegal personal enrichments allowed us to identify the evolution of their politicization within the Romanian society, over the las forty years. Consequently, three dominant approaches emerged. During the last years of Nicolae Ceausescu’s communist regime and the early stages of transitioning to democracy, the issue of IPE was used as a means to discredit political opponents. In the absence of a clear left–right political divide, the exposure of illegal personal enrichment sparked conflicts, stemming from the historical cleavage between anti-communists and neo-communists. This eventually led to its recognition as a significant public issue, particularly evident from 2012 onwards.

A second outcome of this research involves an attempt to identify the social actors that align with “anti-corruption project” as it garners increasing momentum. This approach moves away from general and caricatured discourses on Romanian society, which either portray it as entirely supportive of corrupt practices or entirely opposed. This reveals that the denunciation of IPE within the social structure is not random or contingent; nor it is a product of chance. This observation reinforces the argument that the increased sensitivity to anti-corruption in Romania is primarily a result of an endogenous transformation within society. More precisely, it arises from the development of urban and intellectual middle-class layers that appear to be a more inclined to consider IPE a significant issue. These individuals belong to a middle class relatively isolated from material necessity, emancipated from rural and traditional integration communities, and oriented toward norms linked to normative individualism. This is reflected in their commitment to egalitarianism and the idea of justice. This educated middle class, sometimes educated abroad, is more likely to aspire to European standards of transparency and view Western liberal values as morally desirable and a key to successful governance in democratic regimes. Conversely, the fight against corruption appears to be less of a priority less-educated Romanians, mainly from the lower socio-economic classes, particularly rural areas, who often live in difficult conditions and occasionally within underprivileged social environments. Economically less autonomous and less inclined toward normative individualism in its liberal form, these individuals aspire to modernization in their living conditions without undermining the forms of solidarity and mutual assistance they benefit from.

A third and final outcome of this paper pertains to shedding light on how the relative political weight of supporters of “the anti-corruption fight” is influenced by changes in social structure. Thus, an educated middle class has gained increasing visibility in recent years in Romania and, by growing in number, has led to anti-corruption issues occupying a more prominent place on the political agenda, event for its opponents, which, in reaction, are now forced to justify practices that did not particularly need justification before. There is an explanatory aspect and a predictive aspect to this argument. The explanatory aspect is that the rise in anti-corruption sensitivity in Romania in recent decades as primarily resulting from the numerical growth of urban intellectual middle classes and their increasing interdependence with other segments of society. The aspect that is predictive is the forecast that if the division of labor further increases in Romania in the future, there is a likelihood that intolerance toward illegal personal enrichment phenomena will also increase.

In this regard, we believe that this research offers an analytical model that could be tested in other contexts and with additional empirical data. To study the denunciation of IPEs both during the communist regime and in the post-communist era, it would be valuable to shed light on more local dynamics outside the capital and especially in rural areas. For the present work, we predominantly focused on analyzing the phenomenon by examining major scandals that involved the so called “big corruption,” and that had national significance. Additionally, citizen mobilizations against IPE primarily occurred in Romania’s major cities. It is also in these urban centers that associations dedicated to anti-corruption work emerged. This observation is consistent with the idea that an anti-corruption sensitivity is mainly driven by urban intellectual middle classes. However, it is undoubtedly necessary, precisely for this reason, to investigate further into the situation at the other end of the social spectrum, particularly among lower rural classes. Moreover, additional ethnographic studies could provide data via interviews and observations, potentially proving highly valuable in validating this analytical model.

Similarly, a comparative study among several countries in the region would be useful to test the analytical model. Specifically, comparing with the Bulgarian case could provide a good space for discussion. Besides the shared experience of communism in the past, events from the recent history of both countries would justify the interest in this comparison. In 2004, Romania and Bulgaria were supposed to join the European Union alongside ten other Central and Eastern European countries. However, following monitoring reports, the accession was postponed for three years, until 2007. Among the reasons cited at the time, those recurrently found in both cases relate to “corruption” and flaws in the judicial system. In this regard, the two countries have long been regarded in the literature as the most similar in terms of deficient political representation. Furthermore, the recent years have been marked, in both countries, by protests against “the corruption” of political elites. Despite the differing scale of anti-corruption social movements, the issue of “corruption” remains significant in both cases. As Todorov (2018) points out, “in Romania, these citizen mobilizations have become recurrent; in Bulgaria, to a lesser extent, civil society has also been mobilized against corruption.”

In this context, we will conclude expressing the desire to transcend both the fatalistic approaches of IPE and the voluntarist ones- articulated by scientists and think tanks, and still dominant in Romania. When it comes to the latter, we believe that a sociological approach helps us understand the limitations of the rules advocated by organizations like Transparency International, the EU, the World Bank, or certain Western governments. It’s not that these rules are necessarily bad, but if an analysis is solely based on political and legal reasoning, it overlooks the factors within the society that either enable or hinder the adoption of these rules.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

AO: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: corruption scandals, anti-corruption, Romania, post-communist societies, politicization, morphological explanation

Citation: Oprea A (2024) Behind anti-corruption, the transformations of society—investigation into the politicization of “illegal personal enrichment” in Romania. Front. Polit. Sci . 6:1393060. doi: 10.3389/fpos.2024.1393060

Received: 28 February 2024; Accepted: 30 July 2024; Published: 15 August 2024.

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Copyright © 2024 Oprea. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Alexandra Oprea, [email protected]

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A thesis on corruption

Even if only half of the allegations against her turn out to be true, Janet Lim-Napoles, the supposed brain behind the mind-boggling pork barrel scam that is the subject of ongoing Inquirer reports, would easily qualify as the country’s foremost expert on corruption. The elaborate scheme attributed to her presumes an intimate grasp of the workings of the political system that no Filipino scholar has ever fully documented. Napoles appears to have explored the weakest links of government and seen the vulnerabilities of officials at various levels. But, instead of writing a doctoral thesis or book on the topic, she has used this knowledge to build a lucrative business.

Should she ever land in prison and need a benign intellectual pursuit to keep her active mind at work, I would recommend that she consider writing a participant-observer account of the social system of corruption. I would be happy to offer advice on the theoretical framework. A working title for her thesis might be: “Politics and the function of corruption: How the pork barrel works.” The aim of the study would be to bring out the background assumptions implicit in the way the JLN group of companies navigated the murky waters of government. Such research would help transitional societies like ours find effective antidotes to the scourge of corruption in public service.

I would begin with the hypothesis that the pork barrel, which goes by the pretentious name Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), is really nothing more than a bribe to the legislators who hold the power to approve the national budget. This concession can take many forms and go by other names like “congressional initiatives.” But the basic idea is the same: to provide congressmen and senators the means to cater to the specific needs of their constituencies, and, if they wish, to recoup part of what they spend during elections.

This seemingly irrational feature of the political system proceeds from the recognition that in a society where material deprivation and lack of access to services continue to be the lot of the many, legislators find themselves having to attend to the personal needs of their constituents. This is not their function yet it is what makes running for office very costly. The lack of differentiation between government and politics per se precisely casts them in the role of overall patrons, well beyond the function of lawmaking. Lawmaking becomes, for many of them, no more than a peripheral chore. In such settings, one might as well replace Congress with a small commission of full-time professional experts on policy and law to work on legislation. But that would go against the tenets of representative democracy.

As I have previously said in this column, voters, in general, are not averse to the idea of giving their representatives the right to identify pet or priority projects. What they object to is the waste and misappropriation of public funds that typically result from the exercise of this power. The pork barrel scam to which the Napoles network is linked shows that corruption thrives where discretion is broad and no clear assignment of accountability exists.

As expected, legislators who were among the clients of the JLN group of companies deny any responsibility for the implementation and monitoring of the projects they identified for funding. The implementing agencies, on the other hand, claim they are only the channel for the release of the funds and point to the local governments as the answerable units. The latter, in turn, assert that the responsibility lies with the NGOs who are commissioned to deliver the goods and services. For their part, the NGOs claim they delivered the goods to the listed beneficiaries, but it is not their fault if these are fictitious.

One can imagine how much grease money is dispensed at every point in this chain of corruption. Yet, no one can easily be held accountable, except the lowest clerks in the totem pole of government who received the project proposals. The profitable business model that Napoles has explicitly designed for this environment is easy to replicate, but developing the key contacts in every office may take more time. It is thus not a surprise that it was the Napoles associates—Benhur K. Luy and Merlina P. Suñas—who emerged as the whistle-blowers in this case. Napoles says that they turned against her after she stopped them from striking out on their own.

Obviously, this problem will not go away with the elimination of one syndicate. It’s almost certain there are other operators out there that are lying low for now, waiting for the issue to die down. Their modus operandi is woven around the same assumptions about our political system, namely: that there is big money to be made from government, that every public official has a price, that everyone is on the take or complicit, and that even as investigations are launched to placate public anger, no one actually goes to jail unless they pose a political threat.

The main argument of this imaginary thesis would be that a political system like ours incorporates corruption into its operations as a condition for its maintenance. In short, corruption is functional to the system. The system’s default is to reproduce itself. Nothing will compel it to change except persistent pressure from outside the system. If the other institutional systems—the mass media, the Church, the economic system, the law, etc.—can generate enough noise and irritation over its performance, the political system will have no choice but to pause, reflect and reform.

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From jail, drug lord ‘El Mayo’ Zambada tells wild story of corruption and murder

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The reclusive drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was famous for staying out of the public eye, ruling a multibillion-dollar narcotics trafficking empire from remote mountain hideouts and speaking to the press just once over the course of his decades-long criminal career.

But on Saturday, Zambada thrust himself into the spotlight, issuing a remarkable statement from jail in the United States, where he is being detained after an alleged betrayal by another cartel trafficker seeking to cut a deal with authorities.

In a two-page document in English sent to The Times by his attorney, Frank Perez, the Sinaloa cartel leader said he was kidnapped by the son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, flown to a small airport near El Paso and handed over to authorities. He claimed that a prominent politician in Sinaloa was killed in the process.

Zambada, 76, the cartel’s co-founder, was long believed to have police, soldiers and political leaders in his pocket. But the new statement includes unprecedented admissions of those ties. He described how a state police official served as his personal bodyguard and said he had agreed to leave his hideout at the request of 38-year-old Joaquín Guzmán López to “help resolve differences” between two feuding politicians.

Those politicians, he said, were Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya and Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda, a former mayor of the state capital, Culiacán.

Zambada said Cuén Ojeda was shot dead at the meeting. That’s a different version of events than one shared by Sinaloa law enforcement authorities, who said they believed Cuén Ojeda had been killed in an attempted carjacking.

“I am aware that the official version being told by Sinaloa state authorities is that Héctor Cuen was shot in the evening of July 25th at a gas station by two men on a motorcycle who wanted to rob his pick-up truck,” Zambada said. “That is not what happened. He was killed at the same time, and in the same place, where I was kidnapped.”

Perez said he released Zambada’s statement “to set the record straight and counter the false narratives.”

Zambada said the two Sinaloa politicians were locked in a dispute “over who should lead” the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, where Cuén Ojeda, a onetime candidate for governor, had once been the rector.

At a news conference Saturday, Rocha forcefully denied any knowledge of the meeting described by Zambada, saying he was not in the state on the day it allegedly occurred. “We have not been complicit with anyone,” he said.

Zambada has pleaded not guilty to federal charges in El Paso. The Justice Department is expected to transfer his case to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he also faces charges, to the same court that hosted the trial of El Chapo, his longtime partner who is serving a life sentence in the U.S. after a 2019 conviction.

View of the front pages of Mexican newspapers showing the news of the capture of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, in Mexico City, Mexico on July 26, 2024. Mexican authorities reported that they had no participation in the arrest of Ismael "Mayo" Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, and of a son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, carried out on July 25 in Texas by US authorities. (Photo by Rodrigo Oropeza / AFP) (Photo by RODRIGO OROPEZA/AFP via Getty Images)

World & Nation

The secretive life — and stunning downfall — of Sinaloa cartel boss ‘El Mayo’ Zambada

There is growing evidence to suggest Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada was hauled against his will from Mexico to El Paso in an effort by El Chapo’s son to curry favor with U.S. authorities.

Aug. 1, 2024

El Chapo’s son, Guzmán López, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges in Chicago, where he and his younger brother Ovidio are accused of leading a cartel faction, Los Chapitos, known for manufacturing and exporting illicit fentanyl. Their lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday and has previously denied that the elder Guzmán López sibling had struck a deal to cooperate with U.S. authorities.

In his statement, Zambada said he arrived early for a meeting scheduled for 11 a.m. at a ranch and event center called Huertos del Pedregal, just outside Culiacán. He said he also expected to see Iván Guzmán Salazar, an older half-brother of Guzmán López who remains a fugitive in Mexico, wanted for co-leading Los Chapitos.

“I saw a large number of armed men wearing green military uniforms who I assumed were gunmen for Joaquín Guzmán and his brothers,” Zambada said.

Zambada said he brought his own bodyguards, including José Rosario Heras López, a commander in the State Judicial Police of Sinaloa, and Rodolfo Chaidez, whom he described as “a longtime member of my security team.”

“While walking toward the meeting area, I saw Héctor Cuen and one of his aides. I greeted them briefly before proceeding inside to a room that had a table filled with fruit,” Zambada said. “I saw Joaquín Guzmán Lopez, whom I have known since he was a young boy, and he gestured for me to follow him. Trusting the nature of the meeting and the people involved, I followed without hesitation. I was led into another room which was dark.”

Zambada continued: “As soon as I set foot inside of that room, I was ambushed. A group of men assaulted me, knocked me to the ground, and placed a dark-colored hood over my head. They tied me up and handcuffed me, then forced me into the bed of a pickup truck.”

Zambada said he was “subjected to physical abuse, resulting in significant injuries to my back, knee and wrists,” and driven to a landing strip “about 20 or 25 minutes away, where I was forced onto a private plane.”

He said that once on board the airplane, Guzmán López removed the hood and “bound me with zip ties to the seat.”

Photos taken by U.S. news media inside the plane after it landed showed a bag from the Mexican gas station chain Oxxo containing zip ties, along with cookies and snacks.

Zambada said the two bodyguards who were with him, including the state police official, have been missing since the ambush. The statement said Cuén Ojeda was killed at the scene and that his body was taken away.

“The notion that I surrendered or cooperated voluntarily is completely and unequivocally false,” Zambada said. “I was brought to this country forcibly and under duress, without my consent and against my will.”

Mexican officials have said the Guzmán López brothers reached an agreement to cooperate with U.S. authorities in hopes of receiving leniency in their cases, which could carry long prison sentences.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday morning.

Zambada, should he choose to cooperate with U.S. authorities, could spill more than 40 years of secrets about whom he and his cartel have corrupted in Mexico. Twice during criminal trials in the United States, allegations have surfaced that the Sinaloa cartel made payments to an early and unsuccessful presidential campaign by Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2006. The president, who was elected when he ran again in 2018, has vehemently denied any links to drug traffickers.

With a president-elect from his own party, Claudia Sheinbaum, poised to replace him in October, López Obrador called this week for Zambada and Guzmán López to reveal whatever they might know about political corruption in Mexico to U.S. investigators.

“If they can tell how much support was given to authorities, if they can inform on who was protecting them, all of that will help a lot, and also their agreements with the U.S. agencies. … Make it all transparent. That would help a lot,” the president said at a news conference.

López Obrador and Sheinbaum were scheduled to appear Saturday in Sinaloa at the opening of a hospital. The president and president-elect are from the same political party as Rocha, the Sinaloa governor.

State authorities in Sinaloa have said Cuén Ojeda was declared dead by doctors at a private clinic in central Culiacán on the night of July 25. An autopsy showed he died from the impact of four bullets, one of which hit a major artery on his right leg.

Sinaloa Atty. Gen. Sara Bruna Quiñonez Estrada said in a statement last week that police are investigating “all possible causes” in Cuén Ojeda’s case.

‘El Mayo’ Zambada’s lawyer says his client was ‘forcibly kidnapped’ by son of ‘El Chapo’

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada’s lawyer denies that his client was merely tricked into boarding an aircraft to the U.S., saying the captured drug kingpin was “forcibly kidnapped.”

July 28, 2024

“The State Attorney General’s Office does not rule out any line of investigation … and continues to carry out all relevant investigative acts to clarify the facts and bring those responsible to justice,” Bruna said.

Zambada called for “the truth to come out” about the events of July 25.

“I call on the governments of Mexico and the United States to be transparent and provide the truth about my abduction to the United States and about the deaths of Héctor Cuen, Rosario Heras, Rodolfo Chaidez, and anyone else who may have lost their life that day,” he said. “I also call on the people of Sinaloa to use restraint and maintain peace in our state. Nothing can be solved by violence. We have been down that road before, and everyone loses.”

BREAKING: Statement released by El Mayo Zambada through his lawyer says he was ambushed when expecting to meet Rubén Rocha Moya, the governor of Sinaloa, and Héctor Melesio Cuen Ojeda, politician who was killed on the days of the arrests. pic.twitter.com/iXLq6EC3AD — Keegan Hamilton (@keegan_hamilton) August 10, 2024

Sinaloa authorities said the man who brought Cuén Ojeda to the Culiacán clinic reported that the shooting had occurred in a failed carjacking attempt at a gas station.

The witness reportedly said a gas station attendant was fueling Cuén Ojeda’s truck when two men on a motorcycle ordered him out of the vehicle. After Cuén Ojeda refused to comply, officials said, the men shot him and sped off.

Two gas station employees interviewed by journalists for the local news site Ríodoce said that they did not see a motorcycle approach the vehicle or see an altercation.

Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, released a statement Friday that said Guzmán López surrendered to U.S. authorities voluntarily and that “the evidence at the moment indicates El Mayo was brought against his will.”

Salazar said no U.S. resources were used in the “rendition” of Zambada: “It was not our plane, not our pilot, and not our people.”

Salazar said U.S. authorities did not receive a flight plan for the plane in advance, and that the plane took off somewhere in Sinaloa, contradicting previous statements from Mexican officials that said the craft disembarked from Hermosillo in the neighboring state of Sonora.

A prominent figure in Sinaloa, where his leadership of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa earned him the affectionate nickname “El Maestro,” Cuén Ojeda pivoted from an academic career to politics in 2010, later forming his own party. He also ran for Senate and served as state secretary of health until 2022.

A statement released by Cuén Ojeda’s family remembered “his tireless commitment to work, his hand always outstretched to help others and the big heart that he always had open to those around him.”

The family’s statement made “a firm and respectful call” for the case to be investigated “free of any speculation to provide the justice that his work and legacy have left us in his time in this life and that he rightly deserves.”

Former federal prosecutors have told The Times that even if it’s true that Zambada was kidnapped and other crimes occurred as he was brought to the United States, it’s unlikely that the charges against him will be dismissed due to a violation of Mexico’s extradition treaty or for other procedural reasons.

In 2019, the Mexican government forced the return of Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, a former defense secretary who had been arrested that year on narco-corruption charges by the Drug Enforcement Administration while traveling to the U.S. with his family.

López Obrador was furious about the general’s arrest, arguing that the country’s sovereignty had been violated. The Justice Department ultimately dropped all charges and allowed Cienfuegos to return home. Mexican authorities later released evidence from the case and maintained the general was innocent.

There is some evidence to support Zambada’s claims that he was in league with corrupt Mexican officials. During the trial of El Chapo in Brooklyn in 2019, Zambada’s eldest son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, testified that the cartel paid an estimated $1 million per month in “salaries” to officials at all levels of government. Zambada Niebla testified that a commander of the state judicial police, the agency his father mentioned in his statement Saturday, would receive around $50,000 per month.

State police commanders were given the nickname “Yankee,” Zambada Niebla testified, and his father liked to hand-deliver the bribes.

“My dad is the kind of person who liked to see the Yankees or commanders personally,” he said.

Zambada Niebla also detailed payments on his father’s behalf to a military general, federal police officials, and agents from the Mexican attorney general’s office tasked with investigating organized crime.

Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador listens to Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez (out of frame) during his usual morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City on July 26, 2024. Mexican authorities did not participate in the arrest of Ismael "Mayo" Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, and a son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, carried out on July 25 in Texas by US authorities, the Mexican Security Secretary announced on Friday. (Photo by Alfredo ESTRELLA / AFP) (Photo by ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images)

Why Mexico was in the dark about the arrest of top Sinaloa cartel leaders

Amid eroding trust between the U.S. and Mexico on security issues, Mexican officials were caught off guard by the arrest of Sinaloa cartel leaders Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López.

Tim Sloan, former head of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Mexico, noted that López Obrador was once photographed shaking hands with El Chapo’s mother in Sinaloa, a gesture that did little to quiet speculation about the president’s sympathies.

Pushing to return Zambada, Sloan said, would be untenable: “It would be really bad politically for Mexico to go out on a limb for this guy who has been one of America’s most wanted for decades.”

Hamilton reported from San Francisco and Linthicum from Mexico City. Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City contributed to this report.

‘Once-in-a-lifetime caper’: How did the U.S. catch ‘El Mayo,’ the Sinaloa cartel’s top boss?

July 26, 2024

Soldiers patrol the surroundings of the government palace in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, Mexico, on October 18, 2019. - Mexico's president faced a firestorm of criticism Friday as his security forces confirmed they arrested kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's son, then released him when his cartel responded with an all-out gun battle. (Photo by ALFREDO ESTRELLA / AFP) (Photo by ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images)

Mexican cartel leader known as “El Mayo” pleads not guilty in federal court

July 25, 2024

Man sentenced to life in prison for four cartel-related murders in Orange County

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Keegan Hamilton is the criminal justice editor at the Los Angeles Times. He is a former editor and correspondent at Vice News, where he covered federal law enforcement, drug policy and organized crime.

thesis statement for political corruption

Kate Linthicum is a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times based in Mexico City.

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Fact-Checking Claims About Tim Walz’s Record

Republicans have leveled inaccurate or misleading attacks on Mr. Walz’s response to protests in the summer of 2020, his positions on immigration and his role in the redesign of Minnesota’s flag.

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Flowers, candles, and various items placed on the street. A big black and white mural of George Floyd is seen in the background.

By Linda Qiu

Since Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was announced as the Democratic nominee for vice president, the Trump campaign and its allies have gone on the attack.

Mr. Walz, a former teacher and football coach from Nebraska who served in the National Guard, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 and then as Minnesota’s governor in 2018. His branding of former President Donald J. Trump as “weird” this year caught on among Democrats and helped catapult him into the national spotlight and to the top of Vice President Kamala Harris’s list of potential running mates.

The Republican accusations, which include questions over his military service , seem intended at undercutting a re-energized campaign after President Biden stepped aside and Ms. Harris emerged as his replacement at the top of the ticket. Mr. Trump and his allies have criticized, sometimes inaccurately, Mr. Walz’s handling of protests in his state, his immigration policies, his comments about a ladder factory and the redesign of his state’s flag.

Here’s a fact check of some claims.

What Was Said

“Because if we remember the rioting in the summer of 2020, Tim Walz was the guy who let rioters burn down Minneapolis.” — Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican nominee for vice president, during a rally on Wednesday in Philadelphia

This is exaggerated. Mr. Walz has faced criticism for not quickly activating the National Guard to quell civil unrest in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. But claims that he did not respond at all, or that the city burned down, are hyperbolic.

Mr. Floyd was murdered on May 25, 2020, and demonstrators took to the streets the next day . The protests intensified, with some vandalizing vehicles and setting fires. More than 700 state troopers and officers with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ mobile response team were deployed on May 26 to help the city’s police officers, according to a 2022 independent assessment by the state’s Department of Public Safety of the response to the unrest.

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COMMENTS

PDF The Causes and Consequences of Corruption
Focusing on the influence of political institutions on corruption, the thesis then provides evidence that a high level of political interest helps to reduce corruption within a society, while the effect of democracy upon corruption depends on property rights protection and income distribution.
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This thesis aims to provide insight into why corruption exists in government and how to prevent it from happening. Corruption, bribery, and the slew of illicit activities that accompany abuse of public office is a central problem that has negative political, economic, and social consequences. This research investigates several key aspects of how
Understanding Corruption: Why Corruption Exists and The Institutional
This thesis aims to provide insight into why corruption exists in government and how to prevent it from happening. Corruption, bribery, and the slew of illicit activities that accompany abuse of public office is a central problem that has negative political, economic, and social consequences. This research investigates several key aspects of how corruption presents itself in government and how ...
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corruption and social norms: explaining corruption's persistence in the face of moral condemnation adissertation submitted to the department of political science and the committee on graduate studies of stanford university in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy nan zhang july 2014
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TOPIC GUIDE. by the Anti-Corruption HelpdeskTransparency International is a global movement with one vision: a world in which government, business, civil society and the daily lives. f people are free of corruption. Through more than 100 chapters worldwide and an international secretariat in Berlin, we are leading the fight against corruption.
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The thesis on corruption, for instance, devoted 15-page chapters each to the definition of corruption, the spread of corruption, its impact on democracy, and examination of a case study. ... a project statement; At least a one-paragraph discussion of your methodology. This paragraph should specify three points: ... (i.e., relevance to political ...
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grand corruption, an in-depth analysis of the government's handling of allegations of corruption in the Strategic Defense Procurement Package or "arms deal." The findings of the thesis are mixed: I argue that democracy is a necessary albeit insufficient condition for effectively fighting corruption. Although South Africa has
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the country might be because of many factors of which corruption will be dominant. The table below shows that 69.9 percent of respondents says that governance in Nigeria is bad, while 18.3 percent of respondents says gove. 5.2.3 Nigerians' perception on the impact of corruption on democratic governanceT.
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Jordan Gans-Morse is Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. He conducts research on corruption, the rule of law, and property rights, with a focus on the former Soviet Union. His book, Property Rights in Post-Soviet Russia: Violence, Corruption, and the Demand for Law, examines how firms that once depended on mafia rackets or corrupt public officials to secure ...
Frontiers
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