Department of Computer Science & Engineering

Assignment On
Corruption in society

Course Title: - Introduction of sociology

Course Code: - ART-1311

Submitted to
Musa. Halima Begum
Assistant professor (Sociology)
Department of Business Administration
Leading University, Sylhet

Submitted by
Bilkis Jahan Mithu, Samia Begum, Nurany Jannat, Nusrat Jahan, S. M. Ahad Ali
Chowdhury
ID: - 2012020152, 2012020153, 2012020154, 2012020155, 2012020156

Department of CSE 53rd Batch

Section: - 2D
Semester: 2nd semester
Submission Date:-02/09/2020
 CORRUPTION IN SOCIETY

Introduction:
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or criminal offense undertaken by a person or organization
entrusted with a position of authority, to acquire illicit benefit or abuse power for one's
private gain. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement,
though it may also involve practices that are legal in many countries. Political corruption
occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for
personal gain. Corruption is most commonplace in kleptocracies, oligarchies, narco-states
and mafia states.

Types of Corruption:
Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism,
parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may
facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human
trafficking, though it is not restricted to these activities Corruption can be defined and
categorized in different ways. The most common types or categories of corruption are supply
versus demand corruption, grand versus petty corruption, conventional versus unconventional
corruption and public versus private corruption.
The types of corruption are strictly linked to the theoretical view on corruption. Economic
theory has developed two basic views of corruption. One view is set within the framework of
the principle-agent theory. This approach is based on the assumption that there is an
asymmetry of information between principals (politicians or decision makers) and agents
(civil servants or bureaucracy). Accordingly, benevolent politicians are not informed about
the misdemeanours of their subordinates. This approach is analytically very clear, it is very
well developed, and the models of theoretical models of corruption based on this approach
are analytically rich, as they can explain a wide range of behaviour of civil servants,
including administrative corruption. However, this approach cannot explain political
corruption. According to the main assumption, the state is benevolent, so there is no
possibility for political corruption. Only administrative corruption (corruption of civil
servants) can be explained and predicted. Since the list of corrupted politicians and associated
political scandals is lengthy in virtually all countries of the world, it seems that not only are
the assumptions of the model unrealistic, but also it predictions regarding political corruption
are wrong. Political corruption simply cannot be explained within this methodological
framework. The crucial feature of this approach is that corruption is exogenous to the
political process; hence principal-agentrelations (and the scale and scope of asymmetry of
information) are not as influenced by the political process and political constellations as by
the outcomes of that process. In other words, corruption is not institutionalized. Nonetheless,
if corruption is considered endogenous to the political process, corruption is institutionalized
and its level and pattern depend on the political constellation, i.e. the political regime in the
country. Corruption is nothing but a consequence of the political process. The methodological
breakthrough of that kind has been recently achieved by Charap and Harms. The
methodological approach is based on the recent contributions to literature on the economics
of conflict and appropriation, the economics of organized crime, and the political economy of
dictatorship. Within such a framework, corruption is considered as a form of rent
appropriation by the ruler. Corruption is the answer to the problem of internal cohesion of
predatory teams. Corrupt civil servants are created to satisfy ruler desire to foster loyalty
through patronage. Corrupt civil service.

Causes of Corruption:
Main causes of corruption in society are as follows:
1. Personal greed. To become rich as quick as possible.
2. Decline of personal ethical sensitivity
3. No sense of service when working in public or private institutions.
4. Lack of awareness or lack of courage to denounce corrupt behaviour.
5. Lack of effective management and administrative mechanism.
6. Unclear rules and loopholes for manipulation.
7. Culture, customs and habits of giving bribes to get things done.
8. Low salary levels.
9. Rapid population and economic growth.
10. Low job opportunities.
11. Lack of financial rules and procedures.
12. Absence, weakness or failure in regulatory and legal system to combat corruption.
13. Lack of strict and fast punishments.
14. Lack of ill fame.
15. Lock of unity in public. 16. Lack of accountability.
17. Emergence of political elite.
18. Lack of love fore country.
19. Lack of seeds and educational institutions.
20. Uneducated soul (having educational degrees).Being a human having no humanity.
21. Disconcertment.
Consequences:
Corruption is regarded as one of the greatest obstacles to growth & development in any
region. Corruption hinders proper resource distribution, undermines the government's
credibility and weakens both its institutions and efficiency, decreases competitiveness,
worsens poverty, marginalizes the disadvantaged, and causes social unrest. The implications
of corruption are numerous. These implications are:-
1. Economy Consequences:

Corruption raises the amount of public spending, as several options allow bribery of public
expenditure which is carried out by high-level officials to receive bribes. Corruption redirects
the composition of public expenditure from the expenditure needed for basic service and
maintenance to spend on new equipment. The corruption appears to take away from the
structure of the public funding from the required fixed assets for health and education, as
commissions are less likely than from other, perhaps needless, initiatives. Corruption
decreases the productivity of a country's public expenditures and infrastructure. Corruption
may decrease tax revenues through jeopardizing the state administration's ability to raise
taxes and fees, although the net consequences depend on how officials chose minimal tax and
other regulatory burdens, exposed to corruption.

2. Public spending Consequences:

Corruption harms public budgets and has particularly strong consequences on education and
health. There are also signs of the link between corruption and military spending, which
means that due to high military spending, a high level of corruption decreases economic
development.

3. Consequences of corruption on taxes:

Owing to corruption, fewer taxes are levied than would otherwise be, as some of the taxes
end up in corrupt tax officials' pockets. There are also regular tax reliefs in the corrupt
countries, limited taxes and various progressive taxes; in short, there is far less revenue than
the country should have, and so corruption often affects economic development through the
country’s financial deficit; and concludes the results on the negative consequences of
corruption on economic growth.

4. Social consequences:

Corruption in the social realm discourages people from working together for the greater good.
Corruption is a hidden operation, which gives only individual gratification. In many
countries, requesting and paying bribe becomes a tradition that nobody is bothering to
demand a bribe, it seems very right to them and who paid bribe it seems to them the quickest
way to do the job, whether it's right or wrong, it doesn't matter. Corruption creates vulnerable
education and health care industries. Corruption also causes social disparity and the large
spare gap between rich and poor, because corruption makes rich people richer and poorer.
Corruption undermines the peaceful social system and violets peace community. Corruption
affects productivity, with low investment resulting in low production and low output resulting
in increased poverty that is persistent in every area of society. Corruption causes envy and
animosity among people in society, corrupt people are hated by ordinary people but they can't
do anything about corrupt people because of powerlessness. Corruption also causes social
instability for the country's average citizens.

5. Environmental consequences:

In South-East Asia, timber trafficking exists on a large scale and the area faces deforestation
at an unprecedented pace through black market dealing because, or possibly because, unique
tree species are inherited from its forests. Huge illicit networks exist that are the main cause
of irreversible damage to the ecosystem, species loss, biodiversity and, however, locals are
unable to take advantage of the resources and are denied their livelihood. They use fake
papers to move tinder across borders: e.g. a special wood is identified as an ordinary kind or
the origin is modified. Another way to move illicit wood is by allowing corrupt officials to
purchase documents. They rely heavily on officials who work with them all along the supply
chain, including forest rangers, local government officials and police officers. Indonesia is a
country particularly hit by these illicit networks and is experiencing a major revenue loss due
to illegal trade in timber. Illegal wood is much cheaper on the global market, which pushes
legal producers to lower prices.

6. Political consequences:

In politics, corruption threatens democracy and good governance by flouting established

procedures, or even subverting them. Corruption in elections and the legislature decreases
transparency and distorts democratic representation; corruption in the Judiciary jeopardizes
the rule of law and corruption in public administration leads to inadequate service provision.
It contradicts a fundamental principle of republicanism about the centrality of civic morality
to republics. Corruption undermines political credibility and democratic ideals such as
confidence and equality, as well as the effects of goods and services being delivered by the
political.

7. Investment consequences:

Corruption brings down overall expenditure. The overall investment includes both private
and public contributions. In countries with a high degree of corruption, foreign investors tend
to favour joint-ventures or short-term investments. Joint-venture interests are limited to goods
requiring basic manufacturing technology. The explanations are very obvious for those
results. International investors rely on local companies' experience and insider knowledge in
dealing with corrupt bureaucracy in joint ventures. This advantage gets lost though if it
includes high-tech goods because the consumer has to deal with technology and property
rights theft. The system of international capital inflow shifts with a high degree of corruption.
Countries with a high degree of corruption tend to be more politically and economically
unstable. Instead of funding projects by attracting corrupt countries to foreign investments,
they have to finance their projects with loans. Corrupt countries tend to be more at risk from
currency crises.
8. Income distribution:

In a capitalist environment economic rent is enjoyed by the wealthy and well-connected. By

definition, economic rent reflects irregular or monopoly income, which can bring huge
benefits. As such, there is a propensity to accumulate resources in the hands of a tiny
minority of the population. Therefore the distribution of income becomes very unequal.
Moreover, the burden of corruption falls more heavily on the poor as they cannot afford to
pay the bribes needed to send their children to proper education, to receive adequate
healthcare, or to have sufficient access to government services such as household water
supply, electricity, sanitation, and community waste disposal. An undesirable situation which
occurs as in some countries where the water sprinkler system in a golf course operates most
of the day to keep the grass green on the fairways through illegal connections to the water
supplies, whereas villagers living across the street do not have enough water for their regular
household needs. At night, the golf course's driving range is ablaze with floodlights by
paying bribes, while kids in the surrounding village have to do their homework by candlelight
in favour of the government's energy conservation campaign.

9. Effect on the government budget:

Corruption may have unintended effects on both government budget revenue and expenditure
sides. It is popular in many countries to pay bribes to minimize taxes, fines, duties, customs
duties and public utility charges such as water and electricity. Bribes are often used to make
illegally connecting water, electricity, gas, and telephone to access these facilities without
paying for the services provided. Both these result in significant government revenue losses.
Fraud, misappropriation and embezzlement of public funds contribute to the losses.
Corruption negatively affects the state budget composition. Big and costly projects, the costs
of which are hard to estimate but with the tremendous potential for kickbacks and economic
rent, are also good candidates for illicit deals and thus for national budget inclusion. In the
other hand, spending in teacher pay, buying school textbooks or initiatives on rural
preventive health care or training programs to meet a shortage of essential labour skills in the
industry does not make much money. Therefore, corrupt regimes appear to devote a
significant part of their national budgetary spending to the procurement of expensive military
hardware and large-scale programs, and less to education and health, and other priority needs
that would help to solve crucial economic bottlenecks and ease the difficulties that most
common citizens face in their everyday lives.

10. Social costs:

There are laws and regulations in any society which serve social goals and protect the public
interest, such as building codes, environmental controls, traffic laws and prudential banking
regulations. Violating those laws by dishonest means for the economic benefit can cause
significant social harm. There are several instances of this in the entire Asia-Pacific region.
For example, there have been multiple instances where soil erosion, caused by illegal
deforestation, has resulted in entire villages being washed down hillsides in flash floods or
buried in mudslides, taking a heavy toll in lives. Violating building codes through the
connivance of corrupt officials and construction contractors has brought about the collapse in
some countries of apartment blocks, department stores and hotels. Failure to comply with
proper fire prevention and protection laws has caused stores, hotels and discotheques to go up
in flames, packed with shoppers and clients. Overloaded ferries and cargo ships have sunk all
over the country in seas and rivers. It is popular in many countries to pay bribes to run
roadworthy and badly maintained public vehicles that have led to road accidents and buses
plunging ravines and gorges due to mechanical failures. Corruption has triggered the failure
of bridges and the burst of dams, resulting in significant loss of life and property.

Recommendations:
Prevention is better than cure. Yes viz bad habit should be nipped in the bud. If we digitalize
everything in official matter then may be curbing to corruption.
1. Corruption is not only about bribes: People especially the poor get hurt when resources
are wasted. That’s why it is so important to understand the different kinds of corruption to
develop smart responses.
2. Power of the people: Create pathways that give citizens relevant tools to engage and
participate in their governments – identify priorities, problems and find solutions.
3. Cut the red tape: Bring together formal and informal processes (this means working with
the government as well as non-governmental groups) to change behaviour and monitor
progress.
4. it’s not 1999: Use the power of technology to build dynamic and continuous exchanges
between key stakeholders: government, citizens, business, civil society groups, media,
academia etc.
5. Deliver the goods: Invest in institutions and policy – sustainable improvement in how a
government delivers services is only possible if the people in these institutions endorse
sensible rules and practices that allow for change while making the best use of tested
traditions and legacies – imported models often do not work.
6. Get incentives right: Align anti-corruption measures with market, behavioural, and social
forces. Adopting integrity standards is a smart business decision, especially for companies
interested in doing business with the World Bank Group and other development partners.
7. Sanctions matter: Punishing corruption is a vital component of any effective anti-
corruption effort.
8. Act globally and locally: Keep citizens engaged on corruption at local, national,
international and global levels – in line with the scale and scope of corruption. Make use of
the architecture that has been developed and the platforms that exist for engagement.
9. Build capacity for those who need it most: Countries that suffer from chronic fragility,
conflict and violence– are often the ones that have the fewest internal resources to combat
corruption. Identify ways to leverage international resources to support and sustain good
governance.
10. Learn by doing: Any good strategy must be continually monitored and evaluated to
make sure it can be easily adapted as situations on the ground change.

Conclusion:
A useful conclusion emerging from the current discussion and ongoing debate on the issue of
corruption is that corruption is a symptom of a country's deep-seated and fundamental
economic, political and institutional weaknesses and deficiencies. Therefore, initiatives
against corruption must resolve these root causes and not the symptoms, in order to be
successful. Therefore, emphasis must be placed on preventing corruption by addressing the
root causes which give rise to it through economic, political and institutional reforms. Anti-
corruption enforcement measures such as oversight bodies, a reinforced police force and
more efficient law courts will not be effective in the absence of any serious effort to address
the root causes. Reducing institutional weaknesses offers the best hope of getting through
corruption. Because of reforms corruption will not disappear. But reforms will bring it under
control and minimize its adverse effects so that the country can continue its efforts to become
a modern, developed society with a good chance of achieving that objective.