Topics in the Contemporary Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012. xvi, 188 pp. (Tables.) US$49.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-3514-9.
Interpreting Corruption is an exacting and exhaustive survey of research on corruption in the Pacific Islands, covering most states and territories in Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. The author, a political scientist, brings his four decades of experience with public institutions in the Pacific (including a stint as an official in the Lands Department of the Solomon Islands during the 1970s) into conversation with data from a multi-year study conducted by Transparency International, of which he is a member. An insider of the anti-corruption movement, Larmour nevertheless takes a compassionate, relativistic stance on this morally and politically charged topic.
Pointing out that “[c]oncern with corruption is in many ways a foundational one for constitutional democracy—how can we design things to stop leaders abusing their power over us?” (3), Larmour engages with the question of why Pacific Island nations seem to be such hotbeds for “talk about corruption.” Is it because there is objectively more of it, whatever “it” might be? Do cultural factors, including an apocalyptic Christian “Gothic” worldview and fears about the decline of traditional custom, amplify citizens’ concerns about governance? Is there something about the structure of Pacific societies—for example, their relatively small scale and the maintenance of kinship links between elite and rural social strata—that creates more opportunities for corrupt dealings? Or, is it simply that economic dependency and hunger for development have created conditions in which those in power can get away with exploiting their positions?
Larmour addresses these questions and others through seven chapters in which he carefully splits, defines and clarifies the phenomena described as corruption as well as the various strategies proposed to correct them. Chapter 2 lists the types of vernacular Pacific discourses through which talk about corruption is articulated, including gossip, satire, radio, news media, sermons, policy and law. Chapters 3 and 4, in asking “[w]hat is all this talk (and silence) about?” (42), demonstrate the multiple purposes to which corruption talk is used, and the many “diagnoses and cures” implied by different representations of corruption. Chapter 5 examines the rise of corruption indicators and the production of international statistics about corruption, and the problems of measurement and generalization that competing indicators create. How should we interpret the fact that, in the Pacific, perceptions of corruption are often much more extreme than individual experiences might warrant? Why must developing nations bear the stigma of corruption rankings, when the biggest malefactors (for example, timber company executives and investment fraudsters) are so often based in the First World? Larmour emphasizes the importance of carefully critiquing of these indexes, considering their potential use as “a basis for withholding aid…, as arguments for economic reform, or as justifications for military coups” (96). Chapter 6 helpfully identifies twenty-five subtypes of corruption, grouping them into seven categories: general administrative corruption, vulnerable branches of government, distributions of cash, corruption within anti-corruption agencies (among which Larmour includes court systems, police and armed forces), political corruption, corruption outside government, and sovereignty sales. The book’s many meticulous lists and charts can occasionally overwhelm the reader, though they are ultimately helpful deconstructions of the heterogeneous phenomena categorized as corruption.
The seventh chapter, “Culture and Corruption,” begins with a discussion of the vagueness of the culture concept, but eventually narrows its focus to an element of culture that Pacific Island societies have preserved from pre-colonial times: institutions of gift exchange and reciprocity. At what point does a respectful, sincere gift to an official, voter, or landowner become a bribe? In such an exchange, who is the corrupt party: the giver or the recipient? Larmour points out that resources obtained through corrupt means may later be redistributed in ways that transform them into positive, ethical acts, highlighting the importance of studying corrupt transactions in the context of larger cycles of accumulation and exchange. He suggests that when it comes to corruption, culture matters most in constructing a willingness or unwillingness to accuse, ostracize, punish, or forgive perpetrators. Furthermore, in multicultural contexts—as most Pacific Islands are—corruption accusations can be used as a way of distinguishing in- and out-groups. The production of Asians as moral and cultural outsiders (and fonts of corruption) in Melanesia, he suggests, is an example of this trend.
As “politics” is widely identified as the most “corrupt” aspect of life in contemporary Pacific nations, Larmour’s final analytical chapter focuses on “Politics and Corruption,” discussing what local ideas about corruption can tell us about theories of political life more generally. There are perils to the “anti-politics” hiding within anti-corruption discourse, Larmour suggests—potentially giving license to “coup rhetoric and the ‘cleanup campaigns’ that coup leaders launch against their enemies” (150). Even anti-corruption measures can themselves be corrupted, as when privatization schemes, intended to reduce political interference in bureaucracies, lead to insider deals in procurement and outsourcing (111). Larmour identifies a deeper ambivalence about anti-corruption discourses that is belied by popular expressions of outrage: people may outwardly rail against corruption while also supporting industries or politicians who promise them development (143).
Ultimately, Larmour concludes that all this fuzziness, ambivalence and uncertainty is part of the nature of corruption: as the illegitimate use of legitimate institutions, it almost always involves “decisions that turn on fine differences” (160)—the difference between a gift and a bribe, after all, is a difference of context and of degree. While this book does not provide answers, it does suggest avenues for further inquiry, and would be a valuable resource for students and scholars interested in developing new research projects on corruption in the Pacific Islands and beyond.
Barbara Andersen
New York University, New York, USA
pp. 404-406