| Publication |
2007.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This paper provides a bottom-up view of national corruption in India and presents a framework of corruption involving three actors: bureaucrat, politician and legitimate claimant. The paper then focuses on the public service provision of social security in an Indian village and the role of elites in perpetuating the corrupt practices to access this public provision. This study is based on an extensive fieldwork and uses network data. First, I show that the political elite bridges the 'structural hole' between the institutions of state and society, have the advantage of information, referrals and are the main beneficiary of local corrupt practices. Second, factional politics is carried out through the use of corruption and it results in exclusion of the poor persons from the welfare rights to which they are entitled. The paper also explores how the local processes of corruption interact with state-level processes and shows how protest against corruption is silenced.
|