(Assignment 2) Varun Murthy

Jueeli More (HS12H019)

In her post on the incidence of corruption in South Korea, there is mention of the organisation of domestic industries into “chaebols”. I believe that this concept could have been explained in more detail, particularly as she makes the point that it is the nexus between this organisational structure and the government that is the root cause of corruption in the country. While the paper suggests a “Tripartite Alliance”, only two elements are discussed. Another point, which is again made but not developed, is the difference in the meaning of corruption in Western societies and in South Korea. The power that these chaebols have is derived from an active state policy which promoted conglomeration of industries. This is in contrast to the anti-trust sentiments which tries to reduce monopoly power of industries elsewhere. The legitimacy of the chaebol system, and its undoubted contribution to the South Korean success story, seems to be undermined in her paper. Finally, the paper does not talk of any concrete instances of corruption in South Korea, choosing instead to speak in general terms and provide an overview of the nature of economic organisation.

Chandrasekhar Narayanaswamy (HS12H014)

The post gives three detailed accounts of corruption in the United States of America (USA). He uses the concept of discretionary powers to explain how the abuse of power occurs when there are issues of distribution of items of value such as contracts and mining leases. However, there does not seem to be any link to the concept of discretionary powers that he uses beyond the first example. The examples seem to be disjointed and I believe are not adequate indicators of the kinds of corruption one is likely to encounter in the US.

Sreedhar Vinayak (HS12H047)

This articles tracks the corruption trends in the Philippines. He uses the syndromes of corruption and categorizes corruption in the country as the corruption ensuing from a system of “Oligarchs and Clans”. The examples he provides are classic ones of aggregation of economic wealth in the hands of a few families or elite circles. The introduction into the state of Philippines is also appropriate, as are his remarks at the end stating that the narrow definition of corruption afforded by Michael Johnston are inadequate.