Interrogating Corruption: Lessons From South Africa

Öz

Government, the private sector, and society at large need to appreciate the war on an insidious and cancerous phenomenon that requires concerted, strategic and comprehensive arrangements and initiatives to be implemented if we are to actually arrest and then reverse its current proliferation: Corruption. This cannot occur if government and society do not move beyond the various one and two dimensional approaches that are advocated by various anti-corruption proponents. Hence, a sociological dissection of corruption needs to establish the reasons that lead to an environment becoming characterised by loss of ethical standards, the compelling need for individuals to satisfy their own personal financial and material interests, the opportunities to do so, and the absence of sufficient deterrents not to do so. These processes are instrumental in raising the levels of corrupt behaviour to a point where a broad culture of corruption develops, or to the severe detriment of an entire country. A sociological analysis of corruption will be instrumental in showing how corruption can reach proportions that have a significantly negative bearing on a country’s wellbeing, in terms of its impact on the national economy and development prospects, the political institutions and the public administration. The paper illustrates that without the utilisation of sociological imagination and its well researched empirical manifestations, the efforts to eliminate corruption are in danger of been in vain. The case of South Africa will provide the empirical dimension of the phenomenon in question.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Corruption, Sociological analysis, Economic development, South Africa

Kaynakça

1. ACCERUS Newsletter 2013, Corruption as a national threat, No1, August 2013.
2. Alatas, S H 1990, The Sociology of Corruption, Singapore: Times Book.
3. Basson, A 2012, Zuma Exposed, Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers.
4. Berger, J 1972, G.: A Novel, New York: Viking Press.
5. Bronner, I 2011, Intimate Masculinities in the Work of Paul Emmanuel, unpublished MA
6. Thesis, Rhodes University, South Africa. Burawoy, M 2005, American Sociological Association Presidential Address: For Public
7. Sociology, American Sociological Review, 70, pp. 4-28. Chin, S 2007, Poem for the People, in A Olson (ed.), Words Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution, CA: Seal Press.
8. Chipkin, I 2012, The Politics of Corruption: Two Competing Definitions, Long Essay, No3, Public Affairs Research Institute, Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand. http://www.pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/PARI-L.E.3-The-Politics-of-Corruption-Two- Competing-Definitions-Oct-20121.pdf

9. CITY PRESS 2013, The ANC ‘naughty’ Executive, 13 January 2013.
10. Connor, J M 2008, Global Price Fixing, Heidelberg: Springer.
11. Dalal, F 1998, Taking the Group Seriously, London: Jessica Kingsley.
12. Dépelteau, F & Powell C 2013, Conceptualizing Relational Sociology: Ontological and Theoretical Issues, New York: Palgrave-MacMillan.
13. Dick, A R 2008, Cartels. The Concise Encyclopaedia of Economics, Library of Economics and Liberty.http://www.econlib.org/library
14. Dube, B X 2014, The black middle class has not stepped up to the plate and taken its place as leaders of society, The Mercury, 1 April 2014.
15. Dube, N 2013, Media statement on the process in regard to the Manase Report, 4 June 2014.
16. Fanon, F 1976, The Wretched of the Earth, London: Penguin.
17. Feinstein, A 2007, After the Party, Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers.
18. Flyvbjerg, B 2001, Making Social Science Matter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19. Foucault, M 1977, Nietzsche, Genealogy, History, in D. Bouchard (ed.), Language, Counter Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
20. Freyer, T A 2006, Antitrust and global capitalism 1930–2004, New York: Cambridge University Press.
21. Garfinkel, H 2002, Ethnomethodology's Program: Working Out Durkheim's Aphorism, New nYork: Rowman and Littlefield.
22. Gire, J T 1999, A psychological analysis of corruption in Nigeria, Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa, 1(2), pp. 1-15.
23. Haimes, E 2002, What Can the Social Sciences Contribute to the Study of Ethics?, Bioethics, , pp. 89-113.
24. Holden, P 2008, The Arms Deal In Your Pocket, Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers.
25. Holden, P & van Vuuren, H 2011, The Devil in the Detail – How the Arms Deal Changed Everything, Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers.
26. Holzner, B & Holzner, L 2002, The Transparency Syndrome in Global Change: A Sociological Concept Paper, EKISTICS: The Problems and Science of Human Settlements, , pp. 152-162.
27. Johnson, M 1986, Political consequences of Corruption: A Re-assessment, Comparative Politics, 18(4), pp. 459-477.
28. Khan, M H 1996, A Typology of Corrupt Transactions in Developing Countries, IDS Bulletin, 27(2), pp. 12-21.
29. Lawal, G 2007, Corruption and Development in Africa, Humanity & Social Sciences Journal, (1), pp. 1-7.
30. Lawal, O O & Tobi, A A 2001, Bureaucratic Corruption, Good Governance and Development: The Challenges and prospects of institution Building in Nigeria, paper presented at the IPSA RC4 mid-term International Conference, Abuja, Nigeria.
31. Loewe, M 2013, Corruption is the biggest threat to success of NDP, Daily Dispatch, 12 March 2013.
32. MAIL AND GUARDIAN 2013a, Confessions shock Gauteng department, 28 June 2013.
33. MAIL AND GUARDIAN 2013b, Construction cartel under more pressure, 4 June 2013.
34. MAIL AND GUARDIAN 2014, How much will building cartel have to pay?, 16 March
35. Mantzaris, E & Pillay, P 2013, Towards a Conceptualisation of a Marxist Theory of Corruption: A South African Case Study, ACCERUS, SPL, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.
36. Mantzaris, E 2014, The black middle class: Food for thought on goodness and greed, in B. Ngcaweni (ed.), Liberation Diaries, Johannesburg: Jacana Media.
37. Matshiqi, A 2012, Reflections on the relationship between the State and the Party, FOCUS, , pp. 4-9.
38. Mills, C W 1959, The Sociological Imagination, New York: Oxford University Press.
39. Nussbaum, M 1990, Love's Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
40. Okri, B 2012, Ben Okri Honours Steve Biko, Cape Times, 13 September 2012.
41. Plaut, M & Holden, P 2012, Who Rules South Africa? Pulling the Strings in the Battle for Power, Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers.
42. Policy Forum 1997, Corruption and Development in Africa, GCA/PF/No2/11/1997.
43. Rawls, A W 2001, Durkheim's treatment of practice, Journal of Classical Sociology, 1(1), pp. 68.
44. Rawls, A W 2002, Editor’s Introduction, in Garfinkel, H 2002, Ethnomethodology's Program: Working out Durkheim's Aphorism, New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
45. Rose-Ackerman, S 1999, Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences and Reform, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
46. Sergeant, B 2012, The Kebble Collusion: 10 Fateful Days in a R26 Billion Fraud, Johannesburg: Jacana Media.
47. Tsekeris, C & Lydaki, A 2011, The micro-macro dilemma in sociology: perplexities and perspectives, Sociologija, 53(1), pp. 67-82.
48. Woods, G & Mantzaris, E 2012, Anti-Corruption Reader, ACCERUS, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.