The Changing Face of Corruption in the Asia Pacific: Current Perspectives and Future Challenges

By Chris Rowley and Marie dela Rama

The Changing Face of Corruption in the Asia Pacific: Current Perspectives and Future Challenges is a contemporary analysis of corruption in the Asia-Pacific region. Bringing academicians and practitioners together, contributors to this book discuss the current perspectives of corruption’s challenges in both theory and practice, and what the future challenges will be in addressing corruption’s proliferation in the region.

• Includes viewpoints from both practitioners and academic contributors on corruption in the Asia Pacific region
• Offers a strong theoretical background together with the practical experience of contributors
• Explores what the future challenges will be in addressing corruption’s proliferation in the region
• Aimed at both the academic and professional audience

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: May 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9780081012307

Chris Rowley

Professor Chris Rowley has affiliations at IHCR, Korea University, Korea and IBAS, Griffith University, Australia as well as IAPS, Nottingham University, UK and Cass Business School, City University, London, UK and has been a Korea Foundation Research Fellow. He is Editor of the journals Asia Pacific Business Review and Journal of Chinese Human Resource Management and also Series Editor of the Working in Asia and Asian Studies book series. He has given a range of talks and lectures to universities and companies internationally, with research and consultancy experience with unions, business and government. He has published widely in the area of Human Resource Management and Asian business, with over 500 articles, books and chapters and practitioner pieces as well as being interviewed and quoted in a range of practitioner reports and magazines, radio and newspapers globally.

Book preview

2016.

1

The changing face of corruption in the Asia-Pacific Region

Its discontents, current perspectives, and future challenges*

Marie dela Rama¹ and Chris Rowley²,    ¹Management Discipline Group, UTS Business School, Ultimo, NSW, Australia,    ²City University, London, United Kingdom; Griffith University, Australia

Abstract

This chapter introduces the volume of work concerning corruption and anti-corruption theory and practice in the Asia-Pacific region: its changing faces, its disconnects, current perspectives and future challenges.

Keywords

Corruption; anti-corruption; theory; practice; Asia-Pacific

1.1 Introduction

This book brings together a diverse group of academicians, practitioners, and contributors and their knowledge of, and/or experience of, corruption in the Asia-Pacific Region. Hand in hand, the theoreticians inform, while the practitioners enlighten. This complementary group and their collective wisdom demonstrate the ills and ramifications of corruption and how breathtaking it is in its depth. They note the different changes that have occurred in the region from the latter half of the 20th century to the early decades of the 21st century as it emerged an economic powerhouse: the Asian Centurya is here.

Corruption’s costs have not gone away: plus ça change, plus ça meme chose. They have, instead, been modified and appear (and in some cases, persist) in different forms. The names of the people and the organizations involved may have changed, but specialists in the area can still denote the behavioral characteristics that define petty and grand forms of corruption. Our book provides plenty of examples of both. Indeed, this book’s very publication is, perhaps, testament to a current willingness to discuss an issue that is a source of political, economic and sociological angst and that, even only a generation ago, was marked by a clear reluctance to engage in public discussion, especially by those from within institutions.

Corruption, derived from the Latin word "corrumpere," signifies to rot or rottenness.b Corruption’s decomposition is analogous to cancer affecting and attacking a healthy body. Left untouched, it grows malignant and takes over, rendering the healthy functions undermined. Corruption is also the, sometimes, unspoken dark underbelly of organizations. Ignored or left without light, it creates a culture where ethical norms of a civilized society are discarded, allowing power to reside in those most likely to abuse it. It is timely to recall one of corruption’s maxims, written by Lord Acton, that Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.c Without checks and balances to inhibit corrupted power, once healthy societies become infected and ill, rotting from within. Appealing to a person’s selfish atavistic base becomes the order of the day. Corruption is the biblical scarlet thread … that rot good intentions and retard progressive policies (Nye, 1967, p. 417). It is the profane to democracy’s sacred.

This book seeks to explore the changing face corruption in the Asia Pacific, its discontents, current perspectives, and future challenges in its full, debased glory. In his role as U.S. Supreme Court Justice in the early 20th century, Brandeis (1914) suggested that Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman. In this form, sic luceat lux, our book shines light on many of the facets of corruption.

Corruption’s reach is far and wide, deep and profound. Our book will help increase awareness of its different forms in the region and the reader may gain significant understanding and knowledge so that preventative actions may be taken in future. Our contributors make several suggestions for such actions: recognizing and correcting corrupt behavior, constant vigilance, and anticorruption practices, amongst many other ways, can stop corruption’s terminal hold. It will be effective implementation and the adoption of best practice that will yield the most beneficial results.

To paraphrase the Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz’s (2002) book on globalization and its discontents, our book discusses the content of corruption across three themes—the theories of corruption, corruption’s impact on different countries, and the future challenges contributors have pinpointed as sources of concerns in the future. A tabular summary of our coverage is provided to allow readers a quick grasps and overview of the content and structure of our book. This is in terms of themes and county and methods coverage as well as findings and implications. As can be seen, our book is structured in three main parts, covering theory, country cases, and future challenges. The geographical coverage of our book takes in countries that are both more commonly covered, such as Australia, New Zealand, China, India, and South Korea and less so, such as Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea (PNG) (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1

Overview and summary of coverage and content

1.2 Part 1: Theoretical discourse on corruption

In the first part of our book, academic contributors discuss the theoretical ideas underpinning an analysis of corruption in the region. From political corruption to petty corruption, countries in the region have been subject to and continue to experience the gamut of this negative externality. Ufen’s chapter on political corruption in the region shines light on the negative aspects resulting from dysfunctional relationships between business and politics in some of the countries. He also dissects the commercial elements of the political party structure of several countries and the expenditure required to rise to power, seize, and/or hold on to power. However, he sees hope with new technologies and stronger civil society groups challenging the status quo, as shown by his point:

Political corruption is often an effect of the failed regulation of political finance and is manifested by clientelistic exchange, patronage, vote buying, and the increasing power of business elites in politics. Movements in opposition to the deeply ingrained behavioral patterns of lax regulations and law enforcement are still weak, but are challenged by some innovative practices invented by civil society groups.

For democracy to flourish in a meaningful form in the region, removing the clientelistic networks that proliferate in the political system remains a major obstacle. Indeed, when business mixes with politics, the outcome is rarely satisfactory for the ordinary citizen. Ufen’s chapter also provides additional context to instances of political corruption described in several of the country case studies found in Part 2 of our book.

Canare’s chapter formalizes the link between foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and corruption in the region. The region is recipient of nearly a US$1 trillion worth of inward investment or around 45% of the world’s FDI flows (UNCTAD, 2015), while the prospects for inter and intraregional business are staggering. In general, FDI benefits regions by bringing in capital, physical, and intellectual flows and the region is an important destination for FDI. The Asian century, with China core to this engine of growth, is materializing. With investment, comes increased scrutiny of business practices. So, the region is booming; however, in his chapter, Canare points out that the effects of corruption are wholly negative for a country—there is a macroeconomic discount to a country with a perceived high rate of corruption. Corruption is a significant cost to investors and it is the additional uncertainty of its cost that deters them. Canare’s study divided the sample of countries and found that for low-to-middle-income countries, corruption had little influence on FDI outcomes. It is China and other developed countries in the region that continue to receive higher rates of FDI despite, or in spite of, perceptions of corruption. Success in reforming the business environment or lessening corruption is a strong motivator for investors. Indeed, Canare points out