(Assignment 2) Jyotika Minz

Corruption in Nigeria : by Nandini JB

Through this post, the author mainly puts forth the argument that how the very idea of “patron - clientelism” defines the basis of Nigerian political and economic standing. From the examples cited i.e regarding loss of public fund worth US$400 billion since independence, Governor of Delta state involved in money laundering, US company Kellogg guilty of paying US$180 million as bribe to NNPC- all these indicate at the asymmetric relation between political actors and voters, wherein voters trade political support for various outcomes of the public decision-making process. The author attempted to perceive corruption from the lens of social norms and structures in place.

I would like to bring it to the author’s attention that this country falls under the category of “Official Moguls” as stated by Michael Johnson in “Syndromes of Corruption”. This is because it exhibits features of a “rentier state”, where the driving force of governance is associated with allocation of resources which in turn strengthens the position of those in power. This indicates that due to weak institutional framework in place, there is very little they can do to prevent ambitious political figures as well as their clients from plundering the society.

Case- study of Political Corruption: North Korea - by Sreelakshmi R.

By drawing upon how Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has a strong dictator (Kim Jong-Un), who through the brutal use of military and police powers, monitors/censors the mass media - the author speaks of how the political system is infected by nepotism and how government actively has sponsored in illegal arms, drugs, human trafficking etc. She even touches upon the human rights violations.

Since the author didn’t mention any references, I would like to cite these readings which I thought were interesting: http://www2.law.columbia.edu/course_00S_L9436_001/North%20Korea%20materials/hwang%20jang3.html and http://www.8iacc.org/papers/yjkim.html. The former revolves around the various human rights violations a layman undergoes on a daily basis. While the later is a paper drawing a comparison in corruption witness in South and North Korea.

Case study - Politics and Corruption in USA : by Vishali Sairam

The author portrays the notion of institutional trust in context of elections in the United States of America as an excellent example of “influence market”, as defined by Michael Johnson in “Syndromes of corruption”. As mentioned how around 80-85% of campaign funding for both Democrat and Republican candidates comes from the Political Action Committees (PACs) - this raises critical institutional as well as participation issues. The example of how citizens trust more in Donald Trump now in elections because of his non- involvement with third party (PACS) is perfectly brings out the lack of collective trust from people’s end on the state, which is a huge challenge for the state machinery.

To conclude, I would say that these three write ups have a common underlying theme that can connect them i.e. the question of social capital. Social capital broadly refers to the relationships, institutions, norms that mold the quality of societal interactions. In case of Nigeria and North Korea, we see due to weak institutions and dictatorship respectively in place, neglection of active engagement of civil societies with state mechanisms. This signifies how voters here are at the mercy of the authoritarian political actor. But this does not hold true in the case of the US. Here we see that citizens actively are participating, for example by taking the Gallop Confidence poll, they are clearly indicating how their collective faith from political institutions is diminishing. This indirectly stresses on the need from the state’s side to deliberate and to present feasible solutions in order to comply with the mass opinion.