Role of Oil in Perpetuating Political Corruption in the Middle East - Research Paper Example

Name Institution Course Instructor’s name Date of submission Abstract This paper investigates the role of oil in perpetuating political corruption in the Middle East. It utilizes both primary sources of data inform of interviews and secondary sources in form of reports. The paper assumes corruption levels to be the dependent variable while dependent variables are government size, coded levels of democracy, availability, and economic reliance on oil exports. Semi structured interviews on former government officials will be used to collect data. Literature review Political corruption is one of the many forms of corruption. A number of authors agree that there exists a problem in the definition of political corruption (Johnston and Heidenheimer 18; Harris 10; Thompson 2). Johnston and Heidenheimer however present the general definition presented by social and political scientists as the misuse of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Thompson also comes close to this definition and says that political corruption is “condition in which private interests distort public purposes by influencing the government without the warrant of the democratic process” (2) Lambsdorff and Lambsdorff argue that corruption is a “symptom of inadequate state intervention” (2) hence widely related to economic theories of the role of the state in an economic system. They therefore argue that, corruption in best manifested in capitalist economies which argue for minimal state intervention in the running of the economy. From this perspective then, communism is the best policy in fighting political corruption or any form of corruption for that matter. Away from economic systems, Lanza cites Samuel P. Huntington who alleges that “…in terms of economic growth, the only thing worse than a society with a rigid, over-centralized, dishonest bureaucracy is one with a rigid, over-centralized and honest bureaucracy” (1). From this perspective, a small degree of corruption is beneficial to a country in that it circumvents the problem presented by red tape bureaucracy through political bribes and kickbacks. Shapiro (268) on the other hand argues from the agent-principal theory perspective and says that political corruption plays important roles in pursuing political interests both for personal and public gains. The agency theory stipulates that principals, who happen to be senior government officials in a hierarchal order, tend to influence their subordinates in the best way they know and perceive to bring out the best results for the public. Why is this so? Shapiro (272) argues that senior government officials such as the president and the cabinet may threaten their subordinates with employment termination of withdrawal of funding on certain projects in order to make them perform. These subordinates, described as agents in this theory will however seek to put in the least effort that will allow them to keep their jobs and please their seniors. On the other hand, there is a moral inclination on the subordinates to perform well in order to live to the expectations of the principals. Lambsdorff and Lambsdorff (82) argue that political corruption emanates from the principals limited capacity to control the agent. Consequently, there is distortions and loss of welfare to the public. Control must therefore be enforced bearing the interest of the public in mind. Failure to put the public first, then it becomes impossible to tell whether the limitations are beneficial or not beneficial to the principal. A situation where the principals are corrupt implies that the limited control of the principals over the agents might be beneficial to the public. On the other hand, where the agents are very loyal to their principals, then it implies that the benefits to the public are eroded as the agents seek to meet the demands of their corrupt principals. The number of principals who influence government officials thus is directly related to the chances of political corruption Lambsdoff and Lambsdorff (84) argue that minimising the size of government might be a direct solution for fighting political corruption by reducing the level of possible distortion of public interests. However, they warn that a smaller government might lead to bureaucratic regime where the public fails to benefit if the small regime cannot commit itself to honesty. Harris (16) opposes this claim by arguing that corrupt principals cannot operate corruptly on their own as they need numbers and agents to carry out their dirty work. He says that political corruption thrives best where principals have developed client systems through government and non-government institutions to push forwards their interests. He notes that some political parties and governmental and non-governmental bodies are creations of the political elite meant to campaign for and ‘legitimise’ their selfish goals. Gerring and Thacker take particular interest in analysing the contribution of government bodies in perpetuating and facilitating political corruption. They study the relationships between basic-level institutions and political corruption in an empirical, cross-national setting where they group political corruption into three: societal and historical factors, geography and mineral wealth. they confirm that mineral wealth and societal and historical factors in the Middle East perpetuate political corruption. Makris takes an interesting stand by connecting Islamism and national resources with political corruption. He says …..we can still maintain that that economic stagnation and political corruption are contributing to the popularity of Islamism in its current form, but only in so far as the movement in all its local forms portrays foreign occupation, corruption, cronyism, absolutism, and state sponsored terrorism as non-Islamic vices, which in a sense, they are in the same way they are un-Christian and non-democratic (202). Makris (202) adds that the distorted western view of the non-western world as used a wrong approach in blaming Islamism for rampant political corruption in oil rich countries in the middles instead of Islamism being a response to rampant political corruption in such states and unequal distribution of wealth. Harris (8) looks at political corruption as an entity by itself in the running of government that is far removed from politics. He says that political systems are basically governed and dictated upon by rules and regulations that are drafted by the political class. He therefore argues that bending of the law in itself cannot be argued to be political corruption as the law itself might be corrupt and hence acting contrary to the law might be the right thing indeed. In essence, political corruption cannot not only be judge through criminal law as it also exists in the flawed laws. Andvig et al (10) share this view and says “Political corruption is furthermore when policy formulation and legislation are tailored to benefit politicians and legislators.” Fjelde supports Makris and says “government’s economic autonomy in the context of an oil economy provides ample opportunities to buy off parliamentarians, military officers, ethnic leaders or other political entrepreneurs who could mobilize groups to challenge government authority” (203). Aidt, Dutta and Sena (1) develop a complex model that indicates that political corruption is regime specific. This way, they show that political corruption has a negative impact on the economy where political institutions are strong but has no impact where political institutions are weak. Fjelde (203) confirms this by noting that resource endowed countries in the Middle East result to government opposition through Islamism in response to weak institutions that have little concern over political corruption as majority of persons in government are beneficiaries of the system. Polterovich, Popov and Tonis cite Ross (2001) who carried out a study of 113 states and found out that it was hardest to enforce democracy in countries with oil wealth. Fjelde (203) adds to these findings and argues that a dictatorial regime is a precursor for political and grand corruption. They again cite Egorov, Guriev and Sonin (2006) and say that resource abundance increases incentives of a dictator to stay in power so that the success of economic policies turns out to be comparatively less important. Therefore, as their model shows, the dictator is less interested to control efforts of her subordinates, and consequently less interested in free mass media. The absence of free media hampers civil society development, which is the main prerequisite for democratization (3) Scholarly consensus An assessment of these sources reveals a biased opinion in that Islamism and oil reverse already ignite a negative perception from the western world. The Islamist culture dictates what is perceived as morally right or morally wrong beyond constitutional interpretation. Majority of these sources fail to consider Islam as a guiding culture but rather perceive Islamism as political activism with a bias towards violence and terrorism. Subjective indexes of perceived corruption from empirical observation in number of studies involving the citizenry are highly interrelated with a variety of factors that are normally understood to be the foundations of political corruption. Supposed political corruption, as deliberated through such indexes, is lower in politically stable, economically developed, democratic countries which show a relatively higher women participation in running the government through occupation of public offices (e.g. Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and UAE). On the other hand, political corruption is higher in countries that depend over rely on fuel exports or have intrusive business regulations and unpredictable inflation. The above mentioned examples in the middles eats have diversified their economy to include tourism and relevant business regulations that attract foreign investors. Countries such as Iran have intrusive regulations and little exposure to international trade. In the principal-agent relationship, minimizing the size of government reduces the number of agents and hence directly reduces the cost of the agents to the principals. The higher the number of agents in government, the higher the potential points of bribery and corruption in the delivery of services to the public. For instance, a new business that in search of authorization may be forced to bribe in every office visited. Therefore, the higher the number of departments visited, the higher the chances of political corruption and vice versa. The agency approach is the most dominant theory in explaining political corruption as it explores the interrelationships between the different levels of authority in the government. It is useful in studying interaction of sovereignty and government. Oil reserves cause political corruption but the absence of stable government accelerates the incidence and frequency of political corruption. Government stability is thus a facilitating factor to political corruption. Research question Main question A number of states in the Middles East such as Iran, Iraq (under the Saddam Hussein regime) and Syria have often been termed a rogue states. Their mode of governance and democracy has often been questioned. Despite their expansive oil reserves which basically support their economies through exports, they remain relatively lowly developed, accused of poor governance and rampant political corruption. This research seeks to find out how do oil reserves influence governance to bring about political corruption in majority of Middle Eastern countries? Guiding questions 1. How are political institutions organized to manage and run the economy? 2. Do countries with oil reserve follow a particular form of governance that is prone to political corruption? 3. How have expansive oil exports not been transformed to economic and political development in the middles east? 4. How does Islam as a religion and culture influence governance in the Middle East? 5. How has the western world perception of the Middle East affected governance in the region? Hypotheses H0 =oil reserves encourage political corruption H0≠ oil reserves encourage political corruption H1= unequal distribution encourages corruption H1≠ unequal distribution encourages corruption H2= poor democratic values accelerate corruption H2≠ poor democratic values accelerate corruption Key concepts to measure The first consideration will be the size of government in terms of the number ministries and the members of the cabinet. From the literature review, it is apparent that large governments tend to display higher levels of political corruption. Therefore, the levels of government must be considered. Gender participation in governments is also a valid indicator of the extent or corruption and openness in government policies. Governments with a relative high number of women in government have a likelihood of low corruption levels. Unfortunately, Islam as a religion and way of life heavily influences women’s participation in government in Islamic states. The second factor to be measured will be the relative availability of natural resources which are mainly oil and natural gas. From the review, countries with whose economies basically rely on oil exports appeared to be predisposed to political instability and war. Comparative external influence by other states. Middle Eastern countries have often pointed to the west for the existing political instability in the region especially the creation of the state of Israel as a sovereign republic after the Second World War. Data analysis Data to be collected in this research in qualitative in nature. Qualitative data as in this case is very extensive and tends to draw its strength from details rather than sample size as the number of interviews conducted are limited by a number of resources. Much of the data from the interviews will be collected in the form of narratives pertaining to political corruption records fro certain regimes. Therefore a link ahs to be created between the different narratives and pattern or model developed. These links have to be supported by secondary data where the stories must correspond in order to strengthen the findings or disagree. The use of narratives bestows the researcher will a lot of work in interpreting the information collected through interviews. Bu use of hard copy, a researcher might be able to draw or underline areas of the interview transcripts that correspond and assist in developing a model and conclusions. This information will also be compared to information from secondary sources. Data validity The researcher is aware that this research is qualitative and based on interpretivism. Therefore, the researcher strives not to relate the interviewee’s personal feelings, interest or motivation to the answers of the questions. Furthermore, the research will use more sources to seek evidence and will not claim that the results of the research can be generalized. Practical and ethical issues Time poses a potential risk in that it might not be possible to gather all necessary information and process it within a time frame that affords relevance due to the expanse of the region. Elements subjected to the researcher might not contain the necessary true- and correct information during the semi-structured interviews with government officials and political watchdogs. Given that, the research subject could be sensitive to the political class, a certain code of conduct, in the form of privacy, confidential- and classified information, can be subject to the interviewee or and interview. The researcher must also understands the perceptions, experiences, and feelings of the interviewees in their different perspectives to the world as a complex unity of human social actors towards their countries and governments Potential data sources Books and scholarly articles provide a theoretical framework which guides this study. The theories and models on political corruption provided by these authors help in shaping the research questions, developing hypothesis and also providing helpful ideas on how to carry out such a research and the best methods of collecting data. The scope of this research does not cover the audit of government reports and state activities. Therefore the research will greatly rely on reports on corruption mostly from international bodies such as the IMF, Transparency International and the World Bank among others. A number of scholarly articles and reports by audit firms also contain relevant information. It would be expected that government sources from case study countries cannot provide information that substantiates any form of political corruption. As such, government sources are unreliable in this study. Interviews with prominent persons in government or watchdogs could provide the best information and data on the ground. Persons who have served in particular governments and more so those considered as enemies of such rogue states such as Iran who live in exile could provide inside information that could useful in shedding light on some accusation of political corruption on given countries. However, government sources will be useful in assessing the how governments perceive external influence, presence of it, its intensity and its influence of the political process in the country. Build on previous research Existing research in this field of political science assumes that individuals are rational and self-interested utility maximizers prone to opportunism. This assumption falls short in that the state as a communally owned entity is assumed to be passive in the whole process. This research attempts to explore the larger macroeconomic elements that influence individuals to enact policies on assumed protection of the state from external influence and also protect wealth of a country and in the process, these ‘inventors’ of such policies pay themselves for their services through their own defined terms of payment Works cited Andvig, Jens, Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge. Amundsen, Inge, Sissener, Tone and Soreide, Tina. “Corruption A Review of Contemporary Research.” Chr. Michelsen Institute Development Studies and Human Rights report. 2001 Aidt, Toke, Dutta, Jayasri and Sena Vania. “Governance regimes, corruption and growth: Theory and evidence” Journal of Comparative Economics 36 (2) (2008) 195–220. Fjelde, Hanne. “Buying Peace? Oil Wealth, Corruption and Civil War” Journal of Peace Research 2009; 46; 199 Gerring, John and Thacker, Strom. “Political Institutions and Corruption: The Role of Unitarism and Parliamentarism.” British Journal of Political Science, 34, 295–330 Harris, Robert. Political corruption: in and beyond the nation state. London: Routledge, 2003 Lambsdorff, Graf and Lambsdorff, Johann. Johnston, Michael and Heidenheimer, A. Political corruption: concepts and contexts. New York: Transaction Publishers, 2001. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007 Lanza Steven. “The Economics of Ethics: The Cost of Political Corruption.: The Connecticut Economy Quarterly. Winter 2004 Issue: February 24, 2004 Makris, G. Islam in the Middle East: a living tradition. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007 Polterovich, Victor, Popov, Vladimir and Tonis, Alexander. Resource Abundance, Political Corruption, and Instability of Democracy. 2007.< ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/19154.html> Rothstein, Bo “Political Corruption and Social Trust – An Experimental Approach Rothstein, Bo and Teorell, Jan. “What Is Quality of Government? A Theory of Impartial Government Institutions.” International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 21, No. 2, April 2008 (pp. 165–190). Shapiro, Susan. “Agency theory” Annual Review of Sociology 31:263–84 2005 Shively, Phillips. The Craft of Political Research 7th ed. London: Prentice Hall, 2008 Thompson, Dennis. Two Concepts of Corruption. Conference on Corruption and Democracy University of British Columbia June 8-9 2007 Triesman, Daniel. What have we learned about the causes of corruption from ten years of crossnational empirical research? 2006. Read More