Putting corruption in perspective

Epilogue

Prof. Chris Blattman wrote one of the most nuanced and thoughtful articles in The Independent in 2012. Relying on many cross-country studies of corruption over the years, Blattman concluded that the alleged harmful effects of corruption are minor, and there may be little we can do to change it. He posited that if you think X (in our case corruption) is an issue you should give top priority, you need to believe two things: a) it matters a lot for development and b) there is something you can do about it.

I would take Blattman’s argument further and make an even more controversial proposition: that even if it were true corruption is harmful to economic development, perhaps it survives because it serves other roles. For instance, corruption might bring elites from different ethnic groups together around “loot” of public resources and, therefore, be politically integrative.

Vigorously fighting corruption, on the other hand – even though morally appealing, could be politically destabilising. It could make a leader lose power.

In this case, it is possible the political returns from corruption (national integration) may exceed its economic costs (slow growth) – and this may be the reason many poor countries remain mired in it.

Now I am aware this is a highly controversial proposition so I have a few caveats. First, we need to remember Tolstoy’s observation that all happy families are alike but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. All rich countries may be alike, but each poor country has its own social configurations. What works for Kenya may not work for Rwanda.

For example, I think the unique social-political configuration of Rwanda today makes corruption highly destabilizing and could be the more reason the government there fights it vigourously. But I suspect corruption may be the glue holding such ethnically diverse nations like Nigeria, DR Congo, Kenya, etc. together. Here is why.

The major feature of the postcolonial state in Africa is that nearly all these countries were crafted via colonial conquest from a hotchpotch of ethnic groups ignorant of each other or hostile to and jealous of one another. How post-colonial Africa’s leaders sought to build governing coalitions (and mold a new national consciousness) gives an insight into the role of corruption in nation building.

Two things define elites in Africa. Coming from different ethnic groups, they lack a shared national consciousness and often are more attached to their ethnic group is stronger than to the nation.

Second, elites in Africa lack an encompassing project of national transformation. We do not have a large bourgeoisie class united around a project of industrial and financial accumulation. Lacking a unifying project, the divided elite comes to the state in search of particularistic advantage – a public sector job or contract. The alternative to hostile stalemate in their relations is exchange of material favours otherwise called corruption.

Now, all governments need legitimacy. The founding fathers of African nations rode on the wave of national independence, relying on their role in the struggles against the colonial state for legitimacy. This could not last long because they had made promises that independence would deliver an array of public goods and services to everyone. The problem was that the state they inherited lacked the institutional capacity to serve that role. But more critically, it lacked sufficient revenues to finance the promises they had made.

So after independence they had to design new strategies of political survival and state consolidation. Nearly all of them came to rely on repression and patronage; the former to maintain order and the latter to secure elite consent. Repression and patronage were chosen because they were affordable and cost effective compared to service delivery.

Rich states can afford to rely on service delivery for legitimacy. For instance this year, the US government (federal budget plus state and city budgets minus federal grants) will spend $27,800 per person. Compare that to Uganda where, in the 2015/16 Budget, the government plans to spend $150 per person.

There is corruption and wastage in Uganda. But in the wider sense, our country is too poor to provide the array of public goods and services elites expect. I am inclined to believe it does not matter who is in power in Uganda; the structure of politics would be similar.  It is clear from any serious study of poor countries that they cannot depend largely on service delivery for legitimacy because they cannot financially afford it. So they add a big doze patronage to compensate for their institutional and fiscal incapacity.

There are poor countries that have succeeded in building state legitimacy largely on service delivery – Cuba, post-genocide Rwanda and the state of Kerala in India – but these are rare exceptions.

Lest we forget, the concept of governmental legitimacy based on the delivery of public goods and services in the West is a recent development, beginning in the late 19th century and consolidating after World War 11.

For most of Western history, the legitimacy of the state and its government was largely based on the divine right of kings to rule, the dispensation of patronage among elites, the charisma of individual rulers, and the ability to make war. One only needs to read European and North American history during their intense period of modernisation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to see many parallels with Africa today.

Africa, like Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century, is going through a period of intense social and economic change, producing new social forces – especially an educated middleclass. These are demanding new sources of state legitimacy. State reliance on corruption for legitimacy is being challenged.

However, many nations of Africa are still saddled with a large peasantry, holding onto primordial ties to identity. So the new political demands are colliding with old social practices. This is the creative tension that propels and restrains change, allowing society, as Edmond Burke reminded the revolutionary French, to change its traditions gradually so as not to recklessly upset social order. And as Burke said, tradition is the memory of a people; insanity is the loss of memory. Hence, as Africa’s institutional capacity grows, and as the reach of the state expands and government revenues increase, we are seeing a gradual shift from patronage to service delivery.

Post-genocide Rwanda has made the most dramatic transition from patronage to service delivery as the basis of governmental legitimacy in the blink of time, providing a lesson to the rest of Africa.

I am not sure many African countries can follow Rwanda’s exemplary performance. During the genocide, Rwanda underwent a process of social shredding that totally destroyed entrenched interests and old forms of social control.

This, coupled with 500 years of statehood, a deeply entrenched national consciousness, a shared history, language and culture, created an opportunity that Paul Kagame and the RPF took full advantage of to transform state-society relations from patronage to service delivery. For most of Africa, the transition from legitimation by corruption to legitimation by service delivery is likely to be gradual. It will also be frustrating in large part because it is not linear. Therefore those making the argument against corruption are not wrong. They represent what we need to work towards. And neither are the leaders who depend on corruption for legitimacy evil. They represent what is affordable in the circumstances. Both sides constitute the creative tension that will cause our nations to change politically and grow economically.

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amwenda@independent.co.ug