A broader picture, a clearer frame

A lot of time and paper has been spent describing and arguing about harmfulness of corruption for political system, economy, moral foundations of society, citizens... Corruption is often singled out as a problem and moved to the forefront, blurring the broader picture – the goal which should be aspired to – namely good governance.

The relationship between corruption and good governance could be succinctly described in the following way: „Corruption is a characteristic of bad governance, but governance can also be bad without corruption.“

Governance can be defined, for example, as „procedure of decision-making and implementation (or lack of implementation) of decisions.“ There are numerous definitions of „good governance.“  The World Bank, which has dealt with the issue of good governance a lot, implies the following elements when it speaks about good governance: 1) good management, i.e. achievement of the goals of efficiency, effectiveness and thriftiness; 2) public accountability; 3) exchange and free flow of information (transparency, openness); 4) legal framework conducible for development (fairness, observance of human rights and freedoms).

In other definitions and descriptions, apart from the aforementioned elements (which are assigned smaller or greater relevance), other elements can be also found – for example „legitimacy“ (that a government enjoys the consent of those whom it governs), media freedom (as a part of a system of public accountability), competitiveness (effective creation of the policy of enforcement of adopted policies and delivery of services), „participatory manner of governance,“ a manner of governance which assures „material welfare of society and sustainable development with social justice“ etc.

Participativeness, one of the elements of good governance, is ensured either directly or by way of freely elected civic representatives. The precondition for participativeness is equality of rights, freedom of association and expression. For participativeness to take full effect, citizens have to be well-informed and participatory dimension of politics has to be well-organized. This element of good governance can represent a bulwark against corruption, even when it is not particularly visible.

A typical example is legislative public hearings. If they are organized, citizens, associations and economic subjects are afforded a possibility to point a finger at potentially corruptive provisions in legislation and propose norms which reduce the risk of emergence of corruption. Whether participativeness will be truly realized, depends on knowledge and will of potential participants to make their contribution, but also on the readiness of the authorities to carefully consider each proposal that has been put forward. By the way, it is worth noting that in Serbia there are many problems with public hearings – legal guarantees of their quality are not sufficient. In case a public hearing is not held, even though it is legally mandatory, there is no possibility to challenge the said piece of legislation brought without previously held public hearing for the breach of procedure before the Constitutional Court.  

Participativeness which is achieved through participation in elections is faced with numerous limitations and challenges. Citizens, media and politicians often say that some party or individual has „betrayed the will of citizens“ by entering a coalition, voting for a law or making some other concrete move. It is not just a legal-political problem (the impossibility to simultaneously ensure freedom of tenure and make members of parliament accountable to their voters), but mostly an essential question is also raised – what the will of voters has been at all? Namely, programs and promises which are put forward before citizens on the election day are rarely concrete and are never comprehensive. In such situations one can hardly talk about „an informed choice“ as a precondition for participativeness.

The rule of law and the forms it takes, which are considered to be elements of good governance, are quintessential for achieving anti-corruption ideals. The legal framework has to be both clear and fair. The rules which exist should be applied without bias. The establishment of the rule of law is the task of the independent judiciary...

TRANSPARENTLY AND ACCOUNTABLY

Out of all element of good governance, of great importance for the fight against corruption, are transparency and public accountability. Transparency implies obligation of public officials to make available information they possess at the disposal of everyone requesting it (except in exceptional, legally envisaged situations). This principle is increasingly exercised so that government bodies are mandated to publish the most important information (e.g. on budget, services, organizational structure, public procurements...) in advance, before any specific requests. In Serbia the basic obligation of this type is specified by the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, which obliges government bodies to publish bulletins about their work on their web pages and provide monthly updates. In reality, these documents are incomplete and most often not updated. The next step, which is also easy to make, if there is a will, is to publish data in a searchable and easily readable form.

Accountability and responsibility can be displayed in various ways – by challenging first-instance decisions before higher instances, by discussing reports on their work in the Parliament, by exercising control by bodies with expertise in certain areas (e.g. Ombudsman, State Audit Institution), political, disciplinary or criminal liability...

On the other hand, corruption is also defined in many ways. We will cite three such definitions or descriptions:

„Corruption exists if there is a deliberate violation of the principle of impartiality in decision-making in order to acquire some benefit.“ (Vito Tanci).

„Corruption is equal to monopoly  multiplied by discretion and subtracted from existence of public accountability. Whether the activity is occurring in a public, private or a non-profit sector and whether it is occurring in Ouagadougou or in Washington, corruption is prone to appear when an individual or an organization have a monopoly over a good or a service, when they can in their own free will to determine who will obtain that good or service and in what quantity and when they are accountable to no-one for it“ (Robert Klitgaard).

„For the purposes of this Convention, ’corruption’ means requesting, offering, giving or accepting, directly or indirectly, a bribe or any other undue advantage or prospect thereof, which distorts the proper performance of any duty or behavior required of the recipient of the bribe, the undue advantage or the prospect thereof“ (Civil Law Convention on Corruption, Council of Europe).

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BAD GOVERNANCE AND CORRUPTION

As has been said at the beginning of the text, governance can be bad even without corruption. The success in „curbing corruption“ is used as one of the indicators of „good governance.“

If a minister, a mayor or a director of a public enterprise concludes a harmful agreement, it can be a consequence of corruption. But, the very fact that the agreement is harmful does not mean that the public official has been corrupt. This minister, mayor or a director of a public enterprise may have erroneously believed that the agreement he was signing was favorable – for example, because he has been advised so by bad advisors or because a political leader he has unreserved trust in had said so or because a representatives of the other party to the agreement had made an excellent impression on him... Such an official can and should be accountable for „bad governance,“ because he had breached the procedure, because he had not chosen his advisors well, because he had not opened a possibility for experts and citizens to warn him about the harmfulness of the agreement and the like, but cannot be accountable for corruption. At the same time, a situation is possible that a decision-maker is not corrupt, that he disposes with all necessary information, but is simply not capable of distinguishing between the important and the unimportant and to bring the best decision (popularly speaking, he would not be corrupt, but simply dumb).

That any corrupt government is bad does not necessarily mean that a corrupt government is necessarily the worse government (although very often it is). For example, if a corrupt government has established a system in which it somehow manages to ensure economic growth and to satisfy some needs of citizens, it can in end effect be shown to have been more successful than some other, less corrupt government.

It is very often avoided, especially among international organizations, to explicitly mention corruption or fight against corruption and instead the talk is about „good governance.“ The officials do that in order to avoid creating an unpleasant atmosphere by mentioning corruption (especially in countries where the corruption of the authorities is not even allowed to be openly discussed). When it is said that the goal is to „improve governance“ or „improve good governance,“ it is much easier to place at the agenda some important issue (e.g. enactment of a law on public procurement or construction permits). It is another problem whether such strategies finally really bring better results than an open discussion about the problem visible to everyone.

Nemanja Nenadić

Program Director of Transparency Serbia

for Vreme weekly