Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

and Freedom and Civilization (1947), among other works, found world esteem as one of the most influential scholars in establishing the functional approach in cultural anthropology.

BETWEEN POST-WAR YEARS AND THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM, 1949–1989

The history of Polish sociology in this period has yet to be written. Among the best attempts to characterize Polish sociology under communism are Wladyslaw Kwasniewicz’s articles: ‘‘Dialectics of Systemic Constraint and Academic Freedom: Polish Sociology under Socialist Regime,’’ and ‘‘Between Universal and Native: The Case of Polish Sociology’’ (Kwasniewicz 1993, 1994). It was a time when sociology underwent severe criticism (including condemnation in the period 1949–1956), a time of a great shift toward Marxist orientation, but also a time of continuation of traditional lines of theorizing and of implementing in Polish sociology several novelties emerging in Western sociology (especially after 1956, when Polish sociology was brought back to life). The revival and development of Polish sociology was possible at that time thanks to the following outstanding intellectuals of the older generation: Jozef Chalasinski (1904– 1979), who wrote Young Generation of Peasants (1938), Society and Education (1948), Young Generation of the Villagers in People’s Poland (a series of volumes, 1964–69), and Culture and Nation (1968). He was a prominent student of Polish intelligentsia, peasantry, and youth. Stanislaw Ossowski (1897– 1963), who wrote On the Peculiarities of Social Sciences (1962) and Class Structure in the Social Consciousness (1963, English ed.). The latter contained fresh, stimulating, and critical overviews of theories of both class and social stratification. Maria Ossowska (1896–1974), who wrote Foundations of the Study of Morality (1947) and Social Determinants of Moral Ideas (1970). Andrzej Malewski (1929– 1963), whose work will be mentioned in the next section. Stefan Nowak (1925–1990), whose work will also be mentioned in the next section.

While Ossowski studied class structure and stratification theoretically, Jan Szczepanski initiated empirical research around the problems of the emergence of a socialist-grown working class and an intelligentsia. His book Polish Society (1970) summarizes about thirty monographs that emerged from this research project between 1956 and 1965.

The period from 1956 up to the 1970s was certainly the time of a strong group of Marxist sociologists, including among others Zygmunt Bauman, Julian Hochfeld, Wladyslaw Markiewicz, and Jerzy Wiatr.

MAJOR CONTEMPORARY

CONTRIBUTIONS

The major group of Polish sociologists consequently avoided pure theorizing. However, a large number of works present novel interpretations of contemporary sociological theories. Functionalistic orientation was extensively studied by several sociologists, among them Piotr Sztompka (System and Function: Toward a Theory of Society, 1974), and by social anthropologists like Andrzej Paluch (Conflict, Modernization and Social Change: An Analysis and Critique of the Functional Theory, 1976). Another extensively studied orientation is interactionist theory by such theoreticians as Marek Czyzewski

(The Sociologist and Everyday Life: A Study in Ethnomethodology and Modern Sociology of Interacton, 1984), Elzbieta Halas (The Social Context of Meanings in the Theory of Symbolic Interactionism, 1987), Zdzislaw Krasnodebski (Understanding Human Behavior: On Philosophical Foundations of Humanistic and Social Sciences, 1986), Ireneusz Krzeminski

(Symbolic Interactionism and Sociology, 1986), and Marek Ziolkowski (Meaning, Interaction, Understanding: A Study of Symbolic Interactionism and Phenomenological Sociology as a Current of Humanistic Sociology, 1981).

There are also good examples of innovative works within the domain of conflict theory by Janusz Mucha (Conflict and Society, 1978), Marxist theory by Andrzej Flis (Antinomies of the Great Vision, 1990), social exchange theory by Marian Kempny (Exchange and Society: An Image of Social Reality in Sociological and Anthropological Theories of Exchange, 1988), and ‘‘sociological theory of an individual’s identity’’ by Zbigniew Bokszanski (Identi- ty–Interaction–Group: Individual’s Identity in Perspective of Sociological Theory, 1989). Since social anthropology used to be treated in Poland as closely related to sociology, I should mention Piotr Chmielewski’s work, Culture and Evolution (1988), in which he gives penetrating theoretic insight into evolutionistic theory from Darwin through his own contemporaries, and Zdzislaw Mach’s book,

The Culture and Personality Approach in American

Anthropology (1989), which presents a critical evaluation of this influential theoretical paradigm.

Original, creative efforts at the level of history of social thought, metatheory, and sociological theory have been quite substantial in the postwar period. In the domain of history of sociology an important achievement is the monumental, twovolume History of Sociological Thought by Jerzy Szacki (1979). The work is not just a simple presentation of theories of significant social thinkers from social philosophy of antiquity to contemporary sociological controversies of the 1970s. Critical analysis of each conception is accompanied by a penetrating account of its place in intellectual history, its relation to other orientations, and its role in the development of the social sciences. It can be said that this work presents the ‘‘true history of social thought.’’ The work does not have its equivalent in world literature.

We should also mention another original, creative work in the domain of history of sociology. Edited by Piotr Sztompka, Masters of Polish Sociology (1984) presents a comprehensive account of Polish sociology from its beginnings up to martial law in 1981 and after—a period that has been described as initiating a search for a new perspective for Polish sociology.

The greatest achievements in the fields of metatheory and/or philosophy of social sciences include two books by Stefan Nowak and Edmund Mokrzycki. Nowak’s book, Understanding and Prediction: Essays in Methodology of Social and Behavioral Sciences (1976), can be considered the vehicle by which Polish sociology entered metatheoretical debates of contemporary social sciences as a fully mature partner. Nowak discusses several issues crucial for sociological metatheory, such as the usefulness of the ‘‘humanistic coefficient,’’ laws of science versus historical generalizations, inductionism versus deductionism, the time dimension, causal explanations, reduction of one theory to another, and axiomatized theories. The solutions he proposes are novel and enlightening. The same can be said about Edmund Mokrzycki’s book, Philosophy and Sociology: From the Methodological Doctrine to Research Practice (1983). Mokrzycki argues that since early positivism began circulating in the 1950s as the methodological foundation of sociology, the result has been that empirical sociology

has lost the character of a humanistic discipline without acquiring the status of a true scientific discipline. As a way out, Mokrzycki proposes to put sociology within the framework of a broadly understood theory of culture.

In the field of sociological theory, the following achievements should be pointed out. First, we should mention the theoretical group dealing with class, social structure, and stratification. This group is headed by Wlodzimierz Wesolowski, whose Classes, Strata, and Power (Wesolowski 1979) serves as their leading theoretical achievement. The crux of the argument is that while, theoretically, relationship to the means of production determines attributes of social position (such as income, work, and prestige), the uniformity of that relationship created under socialism makes the means of production lose their determining properties. In this circumstance, status becomes disengaged from class and tends to ‘‘decompose’’ so that we encounter the phenomenon of ‘‘leapfrogging’’ by groups along certain dimensions. This statement was the point of departure for further studies on meritocratic justice, educational meritocracy, and stratification and structure in comparative perspective (Slomczynski et al. 1981; Slomczynski 1989; Kohn and Slomczynski 1990), social mobility (Wesolowski and Mach 1986), as well as for other studies.

A second group of works deals with problems in the field of sociology but bordering on microsociology and social philosophy. Pawel Rybicki’s

The Structure of the Social World (1979) introduces to sociological debates in Poland, for the first time in a very comprehensive way, problems of micromacro link, the problematics of a small group, and ontological dilemmas especially related to individualism versus holism controversy. On the other hand, Andrzej Malewski’s work (1975), aimed primarily at modification and experimental testing of the social-psychological theories of L. Festinger, M. Rokeach, and N. E. Miller, also undertakes fundamental methodological and theoretical problems of the integration of social sciences, which Malewski tries to solve through the procedure of theoretical reduction. Jacek Szmatka’s work Small Social Structures: An Introduction to Structural Microsociology (1989), tries to reach virtually all the same goals that his predecessors, mentioned above, tried to reach. The final result of these endeavors

is his structural microsociology, based on assumptions of emergent sociological structuralism, the structural conception of the small group, and specific conception of shortand long-range social structures.

Still another type of theorizing is present in the next two important theoretical works, Sztompka’s

Theory of Social Becoming (1990) and Jadwiga Staniszkis’s The Ontology of Socialism (1989). The two works are very different in terms of style of theorizing and level of abstraction, but they have one goal in common: to produce theoretical conceptions that would account for tensions, problems, and processes of Polish society. Sztompka, who develops his conception around such categories as human agency and social movements, is highly abstract and stays within the Marxian tradition. Staniszkis engages in her analysis categories such as power, politics, legitimization, and ideology. She is less abstract and refers frequently to concrete societies. However, she too stays within the Marxian tradition.

Sociology of Culture, by Antonina Kloskowska (1983), continues vital traditions of this field in Polish sociology and also provides several theoretical innovations. The term sociology of culture is understood here to refer to a branch of sociological theory that is culture oriented and that operates with various types of cultural data. Basic subject matter for this theory is symbolic culture, while basic factors are conditions and functions of symbolic culture in the domain of societal culture. Kloskowska develops, among other theories, communication theory of symbolic culture and theory of symbolic culture development; one of her statements is that symbolic culture can perform its functions only when it preserves its original character, and its values remain intrinsic and autotelic, and are sought for their own sake.

The most vital and extensively cultivated, however, is empirical sociology of Polish society. Its standards of research procedures do not differ from western European ones. Polish sociology owes many important methodological and technical improvements to two prominent and in some sense classical methodologists: Stefan Nowak and Jan Lutyñski. The empirical branch of Polish sociology is very diversified and multifaceted. Especially extensive are studies on several aspects of

social consciousness of Polish society (continuing Ossowski’s 1963 work); its changes in time perspective (Koralewicz 1987), value system, attitudes, aspirations (Nowak 1980, 1982, 1989), class consciousness, and political participation (Ziolkowski 1988); and collective subconsciousness and the concept of collective sense (Marody 1987, 1988). Another important and vital field of research are studies on political and legal system of Polish society (Staniszkis 1987), legitimation of the social order (Rychard 1987), repressive tolerance of the political system (Gorlach 1989), local power elite (Wasilewski 1989), and deviance and social control (Kwasniewski 1987). The third domain of research consists of different aspects of social and economic organization of the Polish society, namely self-management and current economical crisis (Morawski 1987), determinants of economical interests (Kolarska-Bobinska 1988), and conditions of social dimorphism (Wnuk-Lipinski 1987). There are also interesting studies on the life values of youth in Poland (Sulek 1985), the role of the army in the Polish political and social scene (Wiatr 1988), and the birth and the role of the Solidarity movement (Staniszkis 1984). We should also mention the Polish attempt to develop the framework of sociotechnics by Adam Podgorecki (1966), which convinced many academics to switch to the study of practical applications of sociology.

CURRENT TRENDS AND PERSPECTIVES IN

POLISH SOCIOLOGY

The events of 1989, which marked the beginning of an economical, political, and social transformation in Poland, gave Polish sociologists rich empirical material to study. The great interest in research on Polish transition provoked even the suppositions of overpolitization of Polish sociology. Nevertheless, new perspectives appeared in the field of social structure, stratification, and mobility (Wnuk-Lipinski 1989, 1996; Domanski 1994). Attempts to construct a model of the middle class in postcommunist societies have been made by H. Domanski and J. Kurczewski. There is a special focus on the consolidation of young central and eastern European democracies and political and party systems in studies by Ewa Nalewajko (1997). Another well-developed field is the study of power and business elites, their roots and integration by Jacek Wasilewski (Wasilewski 1997, 1998) and

Wlodzimierz Wesolowski (1995, 1996). The mainstream of current Polish sociology is focused on society in transition, but this does not mean that there are no pure theoretical studies being in process. The basic science type endeavor is being pursued in the tradition of structural social psychology (i.e., group processes). The theoretical research program in network exchange theory developed by Szmatka, Mazur, and Sozanski is one of the most methodologically advanced in sociology, and their new studies on network conflict theory gained some recognition in world sociology (Szmatka et al. 1997, 1998; Szmatka and Mazur 1998).

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KINGA WYSIENSKA

JACEK SZMATKA

POLITICAL AND

GOVERNMENTAL

CORRUPTION

Everyone knows what political corruption is, but it is notoriously hard to define. Different cultures

have different conceptions of corruption: what would be considered corrupt in Denmark might be seen as simply polite in Indonesia. This understanding also varies across time: buying office was standard procedure in eighteenth-century Britain but would be inexcusable today. Arnold Heidenheimer has divided corruption into three categories (Heidenheimer et al. 1978). ‘‘White’’ corruption includes acts that a majority of people would not consider worthy of punishment. ‘‘Gray’’ corruption includes acts that ‘‘some elements’’ would want to see punished, but others would not. ‘‘Black’’ corruption includes acts that a ‘‘majority consensus

. . . would condemn and would want to see punished on the grounds of principle.’’ Heidenheimer suggests that as societies modernize, behavior that was once seen as ‘‘white’’ becomes ‘‘gray,’’ and may eventually turn ‘‘black.’’ Others have suggested that the concept of ‘‘corruption’’ develops as societies move from seeing governmental offices as private property to believing them to be public trusts.

The American political scientist V. O. Key Jr. (1936) defines graft as ‘‘an abuse of power for personal or party profit.’’ Joseph Nye, another American political scientist, calls corruption:

[B]ehavior which deviates from the formal duties of a public role because of privateregarding (family, close family, private clique) pecuniary or status gains; or violates rules against the exercise of certain types of privateregarding influence. This includes such behavior as bribery (use of a reward to pervert the judgment of a person in a position of trust); nepotism (bestowal of patronage by reason of ascriptive relationship rather than merit); and misappropriation (illegal appropriation of public resources for private-regarding uses) (Nye 1967).

One long-running controversy in political science is whether corruption can serve a useful purpose for society. The most traditional school of thought, the ‘‘moralist’’ school, insists that corruption is always a breach of the public trust and must never be tolerated. Foremost in the ranks of this school were the ‘‘muckrakers,’’ American journalists who wrote books, during the early twentieth century, denouncing big business and public corruption. But in a review of a muckraking classic,

Lincoln Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities, the American political scientist Henry Jones Ford (1904, p. 678) argued that corruption was better than ‘‘slackness and decay.’’ If businessmen had to corrupt politicians in order to get things done, that was an acceptable cost of progress. Ford’s heirs, the socalled revisionists, became important in social science during the 1960s. Such revisionists as Nye and Samuel Huntington argued that corruption could serve useful social purposes. Corruption could bridge gaps between otherwise antagonistic groups. It could ease the path to modernization by overcoming bureaucratic inertia. It could foster social integration by binding people closer to the state.

More recently, scholars have returned to emphasizing the ill effects of corruption. It can increase the costs of administration, bloating national budgets. Rather than cutting bureaucracy, corruption tends to expand it, as officials seek more opportunities to shake down citizens. If businessmen must bribe in order to function in a particular country, they may take their investments elsewhere. Corruption can weaken the private sector into dependence and degrade the public sector into banditry. The economic collapse of Indonesia, a country previously seen as an example of the coexistence of corruption and prosperity, has fueled this school of thought. Recent research by Paolo Mauro (1997), an economist at the International Monetary Fund, has shown that highly corrupt countries tend to invest less of their gross domestic product, spend less on education, and have lower economic growth rates than their cleaner counterparts.

CORRUPTION IN THE UNITED STATES

The United States is less corrupt than almost all Third World countries. Its capitalist economy and democratic government offer fewer opportunities for massive political graft than the socialist kleptocracies of Africa. American government’s dispersal of power prevents the sort of presidential corruption that has characterized Latin America. The American press, its freedom constitutionally guaranteed, is quick to jump on accusations of malfeasance, often blowing them out of proportion. The American legal system has inherited the English tradition of protecting private property and respecting individual rights.

But for most of its history, the United States has had a reputation of being more corrupt than most western European countries. British observers such as Lord Bryce expressed this sentiment most often, contrasting the probity of the Victorian era to the iniquity of the Gilded Age. The exuberant democracy of the nineteenth century spawned extensive patronage, widespread vote fraud, and a venal political class. Indeed, Bryce and Alexis de Tocqueville noted that the most able Americans went into business rather than government; when they needed political favors, they bought them from those lesser talents who had won office. Civil servants continue to have a lower status in the United States than in Europe. In addition, the American system is much more permeable than its European counterparts. Its numerous state and local governments encourage popular participation. They also give citizens more chances to corrupt bureaucrats.

As a general rule, corruption in the United States has been greater at the state and local levels than in the federal government. While no president has ever been imprisoned, many mayors and governors have. Fixated on Washington, the media often ignores what happens in city halls or, especially, state capitols. This gives boodlers more confidence that their misdeeds will go unpunished. Since city governments conduct most law enforcement, more scandals take place in local police departments than in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Since state and local governments conduct most construction, contractors develop more shady relationships with governors or mayors than with presidents. Many defense firms, however, have cozy ties with Congress members and Pentagon officials.

While there was corruption in colonial America (even George Washington used liquor to buy votes during his candidacy for the Virginia legislature), municipal graft did not truly take off until the nineteenth century. Powered by the Industrial Revolution, and fed by waves of immigration, American cities boomed during this period. While governmental institutions were weak, a new form of organization filled this gap: the political machine. Michael Johnston defines a political machine as a ‘‘party organization within which power is highly centralized, and whose members are motivated and rewarded by divisible material incentives rather than by considerations of ideology or

long-term goals of public policy’’ (1982, p. 38). While they would sometimes advocate social reform if they believed it would win votes, machine politicians were primarily interested in the spoils of office: jobs and favors for their supporters and graft for themselves. Machines developed close ties to business interests seeking contracts or other concessions: construction contractors, real estate developers, insurance agencies, law firms, organized crime. Ward leaders mobilized machine supporters, often the immigrant poor, through small favors such as Christmas baskets; the fixing of minor crimes; or, for the most loyal, undemanding government jobs.

While the stereotypical machine was Democratic, there were many Republican machines until the New Deal made urban workers loyal Democrats. City machines were the most common, but there were rural machines (most notably in southern Texas), suburban machines, and even statewide machines. While one normally associates machine politics with the inner-city poor, one of the strongest remaining machines in the country is the Republican organization of Nassau County, New York—a New York City suburb that is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. (It is probably best known as the political base of former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato.)

Probably the most famous machine was Tammany Hall, which dominated Manhattan’s Democratic organization from the early nineteenth century until the early 1960s. Descended from the Sons of Liberty of the Revolutionary era, it rose to supremacy after the Civil War under the leadership of William ‘‘Boss’’ Tweed and Richard Croker, and reached its zenith of power around World War I under the guidance of the unusually shrewd Charles F. Murphy. In the 1930s, Murphy’s successors made a series of miscalculations that crippled Tammany. They alienated both President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Governor Herbert Lehman, and they supported John O’Brien, an inept hack, as the successor to the discredited Mayor James J. Walker. O’Brien lost the 1933 mayoral race to Fiorello LaGuardia, a nominal Republican, staunch New Dealer, and sworn Tammany foe. LaGuardia’s three terms in office helped pound the nails into Tammany’s coffin. Other Democratic organizations in New York City, particularly those in the Bronx and Brooklyn, became more important.

While Tammany enjoyed a brief comeback in the 1950s under Carmine DeSapio, its fate was sealed when DeSapio lost his race for Democratic district leader in 1961. Manhattan had become gentrified, and its new, wealthier residents had no interest in Tammany-style politics.

Many cities had machines. Until the New Deal, Chicago had rival Democratic and Republican organizations whose battles for power occasionally turned violent. After the New Deal, the Democratic organization dominated Chicago and some of its leaders, especially Mayor Richard J. Daley (1955—1976), became national figures. Philadelphia had a Republican machine of legendary rapaciousness that managed to hold onto City Hall until 1951. Once it became clear that the GOP would not return to power, many longtime Republican ward bosses switched parties and built a powerful Democratic machine. Kansas City had its Pendergast organization, which produced President Harry Truman. Jersey City’s two machine mayors, Frank ‘‘I Am the Law’’ Hague and John V. Kenny, dominated its politics from 1917 to 1971. Machines were not confined to the North: Edward ‘‘Boss’’ Crump ruled Memphis for many years, while San Antonio became notorious for its vote buying and graft.

Political machines have declined throughout the twentieth century. Prompted by Lincoln Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities (1904), Progressive reformers strengthened the civil service and reduced machine influence in city government, sometimes by making elections nonpartisan or by replacing elected mayors with the council-manager system. While Franklin D. Roosevelt rewarded those machine Democrats who backed him (most notably Chicago Mayor Edward Kelly and Edward Flynn, ‘‘the Boss of the Bronx’’), some observers have argued that his New Deal eventually undermined machines by replacing their handouts with bureaucratic programs (although Richard J. Daley could show them how those could be turned to a machine’s advantage).

The postwar years brought many changes to American cities that hurt machines. Television gave candidates a means to reach voters without the help of local bosses. Court decisions greatly restricted the amount of patronage leaders could bestow upon their followers. The rise of public

sector unions further restricted bosses’ ability to hand out jobs, and in some cities, unions replaced party bosses as the main support for politicians. Inquiries such as the 1951 Kefauver hearings exposed the links between many urban politicians and organized crime.

Political scientists and journalists have offered varying assessments of political machines. Some praise them for integrating immigrants into American politics. Many of the newcomers had little experience with democracy and little understanding of the Anglo-American tradition. Machine politicians gave them something concrete for their vote, whether that was a small gift, help with the law, or a job. Machines have also been praised for making government function; Richard J. Daley boasted that Chicago was ‘‘the city that works.’’ Others have criticized machines for corrupting government, enriching political hacks, and providing poor public services.

While few machines still operate, American cities still see plenty of graft. Periodic scandals rock urban police departments, most recently in New Orleans and Washington. Frequently, there are revelations about the scandalous relations between construction firms and politicians. In the mid-1980s, a scandal concerning the Parking Violations Bureau ended the careers of many New York City politicians. Marion Barry, the four-term mayor of Washington, made himself a synonym for graft and misgovernment.

There have also been many scandals concerning state government. During the late nineteenth century, businessmen, especially railroad magnates, bribed state legislators en masse. From Arizona to South Carolina, recent sting operations have found state legislators pathetically eager to accept payoffs. The cozy relationships between state officials and the construction industry have had national implications. In 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned as part of a plea bargain stemming from bribes he accepted as governor of Maryland.

There are large regional differences in attitudes toward corruption. What is considered scandalous in Minnesota may be seen as merely inappropriate in New York and harmless in Louisiana. Daniel Elazar argues for a theory of political culture that explains these differences. Puritan New England developed a ‘‘moralistic’’ conception of

governance that emphasized the common good. When New Englanders settled the states of the northern tier, from Michigan to the Pacific Northwest, they brought this culture with them. These states continue to be intolerant of corruption. The Middle Colonies attracted a diverse ethnic mix that made it difficult to agree on a common good. Instead, they developed an ‘‘individualistic’’ political culture that saw politics as a business and tolerated politicians’ pursuit of self-interest. States in a belt running west from New York and New Jersey to Illinois and Missouri continue to accept petty graft as part of the normal way of conducting politics. The South developed politics dominated by elite factions and low public participation. Elazar calls this culture ‘‘traditionalistic.’’ Particular states have developed their own cultures tolerant of or antagonistic to corruption. The Scandinavians who settled the upper Midwest brought their squeakyclean politics with them. Louisiana’s French heritage bestowed upon it the Napoleonic Code, with its emphasis on state power and a certain lassitude about graft.

CORRUPTION AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL

While there were scandals during the Republic’s early years, corruption did not become a major problem until the Jacksonian era of the 1820s and 1830s. Mass political parties brought with them the ‘‘spoils system’’ through which the president bestowed government jobs upon his supporters. The ‘‘spoils system’’ came to dominate government to the extent that some presidents spent most of their time fulfilling the demands of state party leaders for rewards for their followers. After a disappointed office seeker assassinated President James Garfield in 1881, demands for reform led Congress to pass the Pendleton Act two years later, which created the modern civil service; but it was not until the early twentieth century that merit came to predominate in government employment.

The Industrial Revolution increased business influence in government. The Civil War saw a series of military procurement scandals, beginning a long tradition in American life. During the years after the war, there were several scandals concerning the relationships between politicians and railroads (many of which received government subsidies). In addition, during this period,

many prominent officials were found to have taken bribes, most notably William Belknap, Ulysses Grant’s secretary of war.

While the Progressive era saw a general reform of American politics, the United States experienced several scandals during the 1920s. The sale and production of alcoholic beverages was forbidden during the Prohibition era (1920–1933), but the public’s continuing thirst spawned a vast underground liquor trade that fueled the rise of organized crime and corrupted many public officials. The administration of President Warren Harding (1921–1923) is usually considered the most corrupt in American history. Charles Forbes, head of the Veterans’ Bureau, was convicted of fraud, conspiracy, and bribery. In the ‘‘Teapot Dome’’ scandal, Interior Secretary Albert Fall secretly leased federal oil reserves to two businessmen in return for cash gifts and no-interest loans; Fall was eventually imprisoned for bribery.

The succeeding decades saw few high-level scandals. There were many congressional peccadilloes, but the worst that could be discovered about any high officials was influence peddling by some of Harry Truman’s cronies and acceptance of small gifts by Dwight Eisenhower’s chief of staff. The Watergate scandal (1972–1974) made up for lost time, bringing down President Richard Nixon and sending many of his closest allies to jail. While it is beyond the scope of this article to explain the details of this affair—there are entire books that do that—we should note that little about Watergate concerned financial corruption, primarily Nixon’s tax evasion and massive illegal contributions to his 1972 reelection campaign. Watergate was mostly a matter of abuse of power, especially Nixon’s use of the government to harass his political enemies and his cover-up thereof.

Watergate led to a flood of legislation. The 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act was extensively amended in 1974. The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 created the institution of the independent counsel to investigate official malfeasance. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 forbade American companies to bribe overseas officials. Prosecutors and journalists became more aggressive in their investigations of corruption. Two major scandals rocked Congress: the revelation of corrupt links between a South Korean lobbyist and several congressmen (‘‘Koreagate’’)

and the willingness of some senators and representatives to take bribes in a sting investigation (‘‘Abscam’’).

The 1980s saw their share of scandals. The Iran-Contra affair, which involved the covert sale of arms to Iran and the illegal diversion of the profits to Nicaraguan anti-communist rebels (the ‘‘contras’’), tarnished the last years of the Reagan Administration. A long investigation found favoritism and influence peddling to be rife within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The collapse of many savings and loans (S&Ls), which cost the government $500 billion to pay back depositors, revealed suspicious relationships between some thrift operators and prominent politicians, most notably House Speaker Jim Wright. The so-called Keating Five senators lobbied for easier treatment for S&L owner Charles Keating; revelations about their activities ended the careers of three of the five.

While Bill Clinton promised to run the ‘‘most ethical administration in history,’’ he has instead presided over an era as sleazy as those of his predecessors. Scandals forced out HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. There were charges that foreigners made large illegal donations to the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 election. The most explosive charges surrounded Clinton himself. Allegations of corrupt real estate deals by Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas led to an independent counsel investigation that began in 1993 and continues as of this writing. This investigation eventually produced the charge that Clinton had perjured himself and had obstructed an inquiry into his affair with a White House intern. Clinton was questioned about this affair as part of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Clinton was eventually impeached, but the Senate failed to convict him.

CORRUPTION IN WESTERN EUROPE

Italy is probably considered the most corrupt country in western Europe. Southern Italy has a long history of patron-client relationships that take precedence over written law. In this highly stratified society, landowners and professionals serve as natural patrons to their clientele of laborers and peasants. The Mafia, of course, is part of this system of

patronage. Italy’s complex administrative law undermines efficiency, and so requires mediation in order to function. Politicians and local notables help citizens, especially businessmen, navigate the maze of red tape—for a price.

After World War II, Italy developed a strong party system that permeated all of society. While Italy had many small parties, three dominated politics until 1993: the Christian Democrats, the Socialists, and the Communists. In order to keep the Communists out of power, the Christian Democrats dominated every government from 1947 to 1993; after 1962, they usually governed with the support of the Socialists. Both the Christian Democrats and the Socialists were deeply factionalized, with politicians commanding their own followings. As such, the parties could only be held together through bargaining—which often included graft. The Christian Democrats, in particular, were dependent upon the support of local leaders in the South and in Sicily (which were both far behind the rest of country economically), many of them with ties to the Mafia. Southern politicians used the national government’s resources to support their local economies. Often this meant public works boondoggles, which enriched politically connected (and Mafia-owned) construction firms and which only increased the contempt held by northern Italians for their southern countrymen.

Because many Italians feared that a communist government would bring their country into the Soviet bloc, the Christian Democrats were essentially a perpetual governing party. Proportional representation meant that no party would ever gain a majority, so coalition governed Italy. While squabbling among factions meant that particular governments usually lasted a year or less, the same parties always came out on top. The Christian Democrats and the Socialists used their power to create a vast web of patronage, which enmeshed Italy’s many state-owned firms, the national broadcasting system, executive agencies, and public banks. The lack of turnover loosened what few inhibitions Italian politicians had about exploiting their positions for financial gain. While the Communists remained out of power, they cut backroom deals with the ruling parties to enrich themselves, especially after the 1970s, when they distanced themselves from the Soviet Union and when regional autonomy gave Communists more chances to govern.