Introduction
Corruption is a worldwide problem. To restrict this lack of social control to the developing countries alone would be to take an unfittingly optimistic view of the pestilence. Hans-Ludwig Zachert, head of the German Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation, has likened corruption in his country to corrosion: initially it only crops up here and there and frequently makes inroads beneath the surface. “No matter how much government apologists may maintain otherwise,” he has stated, “corruption in the public service is not just a matter of 'a few black sheep' but an alarmingly everyday occurrence in Germany.”(1) According to Zachert, the cases uncovered to date already number in the thousands. The main profiteer is organized crime which, aided by civil servants on the take, seeks to gain massive influence over the authorities. “... practically no sector is spared corruption or quasi-corrupt practices. Hardly a day passes without new cases coming to light.”(2) If timely countermeasures are not set in motion, he fears, the canker will become so widespread as to subvert the very pillars of the system.
In July 1995 a German newsweekly reported that highly paid executives in the country's automotive industry were under suspicion of having enriched themselves by demanding and pocketing “commissions”, i.e. kickbacks. The magazine thought to discern signs of a “culture of corruption”(3) – this, be it noted, in the Federal and not some remote Banana Republic. Other instances of corruption in the Federal Republic of Germany have even been elaborated in the form of case studies. (4)
In emergent countries such as South Korea and Mexico former top officeholders have been arrested or are suspects in connection with corruption; likewise in France, Italy, Belgium and Japan. (5) American analyses see corruption as a problem for the United States too. (6) Further publications (7) in the same vein from the United Kingdom, Japan and The Netherlands, as well as a voluminous documentation on Italian tangentopoli (more than 1,300 top managers were arrested), point to the supposition that virtually every society on earth knows corruption in one guise or another. (8)
Transparency International, an organization established to combat corruption, publishes national listings that grade the intensity of corruption ascertained in a country on a scale going up to 5 points for the worst. No fewer than eight countries qualify for the maximum. In other words, no baksheesh no business.
The global dimension of corruption thus stands proved. But what is an apposite definition of the phenomenon?