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POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND GOVERNANCE
Series Editors: Dan Hough · Paul M. Heywood
Corruption in
the MENA Region
Beyond Uprisings
Dina Elsayed
Political Corruption and Governance
Series Editors
Dan Hough
University of Sussex
Brighton, UK
Paul M. Heywood
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, UK
This series aims to analyse the nature and scope of, as well as possible
remedies for, political corruption. The rise to prominence over the last
20 years of corruption-related problems and of the ‘good governance’
agenda as the principal means to tackle them has led to the devel-
opment of a plethora of (national and international) policy proposals,
international agreements and anti-corruption programmes and initiatives.
National governments, international organisations and NGOs all now
claim to take very seriously the need to tackle issues of corruption. It
is thus unsurprising that over couple of decades, a significant body of
work with a wide and varied focus has been published in academic jour-
nals and in international discussion papers. This series seeks to provide a
forum through which to address this growing body of literature. It invites
not just in-depth single country analyses of corruption and attempts to
combat it, but also comparative studies that explore the experiences of
different states (or regions) in dealing with different types of corruption.
We also invite monographs that take an overtly thematic focus, analysing
trends and developments in one type of corruption across either time or
space, as well as theoretically informed analysis of discrete events.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14545
Dina Elsayed
Corruption
in the MENA Region
Beyond Uprisings
Dina Elsayed
Cairo, Egypt
Political Corruption and Governance

ISBN 978-3-030-55313-5 ISBN 978-3-030-55314-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55314-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
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names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
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tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
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To future Arab generations,
May your voices be heard,
May your rights be respected,
May You live in better governed societies,
May you enjoy a better quality of life,
May you witness spring …
Preface
In the context of the growing political and academic attention given to the
MENA region in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings, this book seeks to
explore a key dimension of such political upheavals: corruption. There is a
general consensus that grand and petty corruption are widespread among
countries in the region, and corruption has been a key driver behind the
Arab Spring. Against this backdrop, this book seeks to fill the academic
gap in corruption studies in the MENA region by looking at the root
causes of corruption in fifteen Arab countries. The number of studies on
the nature and extent of corruption in MENA countries is limited due to
the lack of reliable data on corruption-related issues within these coun-
tries, as well as widespread restrictions on accessing corruption-related
information.
Contributing to the literature on corruption in MENA countries, this
book addresses the causes of corruption in the region through a system-
atic cross-national comparative analysis. In particular, fifteen countries are
analyzed in detail using the structured focused comparative method and
the Most Similar Systems Design in order to better comprehend the
distinctive causes of corruption in these countries, and also to explain
the causal relationship between corruption and differences in political
and socio-economic dimensions within these countries over a timeframe
of 1999–2010. The countries are divided into three sub-regions (Gulf
region, North Africa, and Mashreq plus Yemen) to enable focused analysis
and comparison within these groups.
vii
viii PREFACE
The book concludes that the main variables that showed robustness in
impacting the intensity of corruption among all the cases are the rule of
law, quality of regulation, and trade openness. Poverty rates and income
inequality have been clear triggers for petty corruption to flourish in many
cases. However, natural resource endowments have shown less impact
on the levels of corruption in the countries analyzed. While women’s
empowerment has not been found to be a strong indicator, discrimi-
nation in general against women, minorities, religious sects, indigenous
groups, immigrants, non-nationals, opposition parties, and other groups
has revealed a clear absence of social equality among those populations
where favoritism and polarization have taken place. The book further
concludes that the relationship between literacy rates and corruption is
negligible, but that there is a negative causal relationship between the
quality of education and corruption. Finally, there is also a negative
correlation between human development and corruption.
Cairo, Egypt Dina Elsayed

Acknowledgments
To the most interesting, extraordinary, yet exhausting years.

To the experience I have encountered with every new step I took,
putting the pieces of knowledge together to help me reach a clear picture
of this puzzle.
To the constant sincere support of Professor Dr. Nicolai Dose, with
whom I managed to book a space in his busy schedule. I acknowledge
that it has been a significant enriching phase in my life because of his
patient guidance and encouragement.
To Professor Dr. Tobias Debiel, who added constructive input and
invaluable feedback to enhance my work.
To the experts from each country in the MENA region, who gave me
so much of their time, knowledge, experience, and objective perspectives
in discussing critical topics. To their willingness to help in all possible
ways, to their openness, humbleness and follow-up.
To that giving caring loving soul who witnessed it all, who gave me her
hand all along the way, who always believed in me and kept pushing me
forward, and without whom I would not have reached many places. I am
so grateful that she happened to be my mother.
To the generous hand who relentlessly supported me. Thank you,
my father, for tolerating all my ups and downs, for being patient and
understanding.
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my siblings, Khaled, Mohamed, Nancy, Sherine, and Maha. I could

not be any luckier, having you all. I believe I can conquer anything
knowing I have a family supporting me every step of the way.
To my godparents, Mama Nawal El Degwi and Professor Dr. Abdul-
Monem Al-Mashat, who have been inspiring role models, and who always
pushed me to achieve more and aim higher. Thank you for always
encouraging me whenever my journey gets tough.
To those who made me believe that friends are the family we choose
to belong to. Your support has been irreplaceable throughout this phase.
I am thankful to have you.
This book would not have been accomplished without you all.
For this, I am grateful.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
References 5
2 Definition of Concepts 9
1 What Is Corruption? 9
1.1 Corruption Defined Through Public Interest,
Public Opinion, and Public Office 10
1.2 Corruption Defined Through the Principal–Agent
Framework 12
1.3 Corruption as Abuse of Public Office 14
References 18
3 Literature Review 23
1 Causes of Corruption 27
1.1 Regime Characteristics 27
1.2 Role of Government in the Economy 31
1.3 Development and Society 33
2 The Analytical Framework 36
3 Hypotheses of the Study 37
4 Concluding Remarks 38
References 38
xi
xii CONTENTS
4 Research Design, Methodology, and Data Collection 49

1 Case-Study Method 50
2 Structured Focused Comparison Method 51
3 The Most Similar Systems Design 53
4 Data Collection 54
5 Concluding Remarks 57
References 58
5 The MENA Region: Unique Features and Sustained

Regimes 61
1 Regime Characteristics 64
2 Role of Government in the Economy 66
3 Development and Society 68
References 72
6 Corruption in the Gulf Region: A Black Box 77

1 Qatar 80
1.2 Economic Status 85
1.3 Development Status 89
2 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 93
3 Oman 106
4 Bahrain 117
5 Kuwait 129
6 The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) 139
CONTENTS xiii

7 Causes of Corruption in the Gulf Region:
A Cross-National Comparative Analysis 149
References 157
7 Corruption in North Africa: Monopoly of Power

and Widespread Ignorance 165
1 Tunisia 168
2 Morocco 181
3 Egypt 191
4 Algeria 201
5 Libya 211
6 Causes of Corruption in North Africa:
A Cross-National Comparative Analysis 220
References 227
8 Corruption in the Mashreq Region Plus Yemen:

A Region in Turmoil 235
1 Jordan 237
xiv CONTENTS
2 Lebanon 248
3 Syria 258
4 Yemen 269
5 Causes of Corruption in the Mashreq Region Plus
Yemen: A Cross-National Comparative Analysis 280
References 287
9 Corruption in the MENA Region: What are the Roots? 291

1 Comparing Across Each Hypothesis 291
2 Comparing Across the Ten Hypotheses 302
3 What Are the Exclusive Causes of Corruption? 305
References 307
10 Conclusion: Is There a Way Out? 311
Annexes 319
Index 341
Abbreviations
CPI Corruption Perception Index

DCR Democratic Constitutional Rally Party (Tunisia)
EU European Union
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FIS Front Islamic du Salut Party (Algeria)
FNL Front de Libération Nationale Party (Algeria)
GCC Gulf Cooperation Council
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GNI Gross National Income
HDI Human Development Index
IAF Islamic Action Front Party (Jordan)
ILO International Labor Organization
IMF International Monetary Fund
KSA Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
MENA Middle East and North Africa
NA No Available Data
NDP National Democratic Party in Egypt
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
OECD Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development
SMEs Small and Medium Enterprises
TI Transparency International
UAE United Arab Emirates
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
V-Dem Varieties of Democracy Project
WEF World Economic Forum
WTO World Trade Organization
xv
List of Figures
Chapter 5
Fig. 1 Map of the MENA region 63
Chapter 6
Fig. 1 Map of the Gulf region 78
Fig. 2 Regime characteristics in Qatar 83
Fig. 3 Economic status in Qatar 88
Fig. 4 Regime characteristics in UAE 98
Fig. 5 Economic status in UAE 101
Fig. 6 Regime characteristics in Oman 110
Fig. 7 Economic status in Oman 114
Fig. 8 Regime characteristics in Bahrain 122
Fig. 9 Economic status in Bahrain 125
Fig. 10 Regime characteristics in Kuwait 134
Fig. 11 Economic status in Kuwait 136
Fig. 12 Regime characteristics in KSA 143
Fig. 13 Economic status in KSA 146
Chapter 7
Fig. 1 Map of North Africa 166
Fig. 2 Regime Characteristics in Tunisia 173
Fig. 3 Economic Status in Tunisia 176
Fig. 4 Regime Characteristics in Morocco 184
xvii
xviii LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 5 Economic Status in Morocco 187

Fig. 6 Regime Characteristics in Egypt 195
Fig. 7 Economic Status in Egypt 197
Fig. 8 Regime Characteristics in Algeria 205
Fig. 9 Economic Status in Algeria 208
Fig. 10 Regime Characteristics in Libya 214
Fig. 11 Economic Status in Libya 217
Chapter 8
Fig. 1 Map of the Mashreq Region & Yemen 236
Fig. 2 Regime characteristics in Jordan 242
Fig. 3 Economic status in Jordan 244
Fig. 4 Regime characteristics in Lebanon 252
Fig. 5 Economic status in Lebanon 254
Fig. 6 Regime characteristics in Syria 262
Fig. 7 Economic status in Syria 265
Fig. 8 Regime characteristics in Yemen 273
Fig. 9 Economic status in Yemen 276
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Corruption is a worldwide phenomenon; no country is entirely clean and

immune from it. It penetrates societies at all levels, causing the malfunc-
tioning of their political and economic institutions (Glynn et al. 1997;
Amundsen 1999). It is a complex phenomenon that persists as a global
problem, attracting the attention of policymakers, political scientists, and
economists. Efforts continue on the political as well as the academic level
to address corruption and its intermingled dimensions: causes, effects,
implications, and means of curbing it.
During the last decade, international organizations have placed tack-
ling corruption at the top of their agendas and action plans. In December
2003, the United Nations adopted the UN Convention Against Corrup-
tion. This marked a clear step within the development cooperation realm
towards fighting corruption internationally. Initiatives were adopted on
regional and national levels to restrain corruption through good gover-
nance strategies, the enforcement of laws, establishing national entities to
fight corruption, and raising awareness of its implications. Moreover, it
has become an integral component of donor assistance agendas. Devel-
opment aid is now tied in with accountability and transparency measures,
which falls under the umbrella of advancing good governance practices in
recipient countries.
Consequently, much attention has been paid worldwide to improving
the functioning of institutions and political systems. The World Bank
© The Author(s) 2021 1

D. Elsayed, Corruption in the MENA Region,
Political Corruption and Governance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55314-2_1
2 D. ELSAYED
views corruption as a significant obstacle to economic and social devel-

opment because it undermines the capacities of systems to function
effectively (World Bank 1997). Transparency International considers
corruption one of the “greatest challenges” of this era, since it “under-
mines good government, fundamentally distorts public policy, leads to
misallocation of resources, harms the private sector and private sector
development and particularly hurts the poor” (Commonwealth Secre-
tariat 2001: 55). Nevertheless, so far, the effectiveness of international
institutions’ efforts in this area remains ambiguous on diverse levels
(McCusker 2006; Richter and Burke 2007; Nadgrodkiewicz et al. 2012;
Pech and Debiel 2011; Sumpf 2015).
An overview of academic research on corruption indicates that studies
have attempted to define the concept, determine its causes and effects,
and analyze its diverse motives and dimensions using several methods,
designs, and frameworks. Empirical studies on corruption have notice-
ably increased in number during the last decade, reflecting the greater
concern caused by the alarming figures. Those empirical efforts have
offered various insights which in turn have triggered further research
and analysis. In addition, much of the research has undertaken cross-
national analysis to offer a wider scope and deeper explanation of the
phenomenon. In spite of extensive research efforts on the subject of
corruption, less widespread consensus has been reached regarding its
different dimensions. This is primarily due to the difficulty of measuring
a complex phenomenon like corruption where adequate data is lacking
(Bardhan 1997; Ades and Di Tella 1997; Tanzi 1998; Lambsdorff 1999;
Jain 2001; Aidt 2003; Serra 2006).
Based on that, the relevance of this book stems from both political
perspectives and academic reasoning. First, the 2011 Arab Uprisings,
which brought down some regimes in the MENA region, indicated the
geostrategic importance of this region, as well as the importance of
analyzing its countries with regard to corruption, which stood out as one
of the main reasons for the Arab Uprisings. Second, while the MENA
region has been a subject of research in literature, it is under-represented
in studies of corruption. The topic is generally studied in relation to
broader issues like enhancing democratic practices, promoting notions
of good governance, and the impact of corruption on human develop-
ment and economic growth in the region. These issues have mainly been
addressed by international organizations (such as the World Bank and the
United Nations) through the lens of enhancing good governance and
1 INTRODUCTION 3
transparency in the region, without an in-depth analysis of the distinct

features of corruption within its countries.1 The lack of political will
within the MENA region countries to tackle such a sensitive topic and
the lack of data on its leading causes present another obstacle to the plan-
ning of appropriate strategies to curb it. This book aims to fill this gap
and contribute to the literature on corruption. More specifically, it seeks
to analyze the causes of corruption in this distinctive region, presenting
another level of knowledge stemming from its culture and history. A study
of the causes of corruption in these countries requires consideration of
the exclusive features—their distinct political and socio-economic condi-
tions, oil richness in some cases, and their cultural uniqueness—which are
variously reflected in how their systems function.
Third, since the countries of focus vary in their levels of corruption,
this book intends to study the causes of corruption through an analyt-
ical comparative perspective, which offers a deeper level of understanding
for each country, as well as to compare them cross-nationally. The ability
to speak the mother language of this region—Arabic—and awareness of
its circumstances and culture offers the author an extraordinary oppor-
tunity to comprehend the different dimensions of the phenomenon in
these countries, to analyze corruption within its proper context, and
to correctly reflect on it based on her academic study, experience, and
cultural knowledge.
This book has been developed in an attempt to answer the question:
• What are the causes of corruption in the MENA region countries?
Sub-questions developed during the course of answering this central

question include, but are not limited to:
• What are the main variables causing corruption in each country?

• Which variables are evident among all the selected countries under
study?
• What are the exclusive causes of corruption among each sub-group
within the MENA region?
1 This is elaborated upon in Chapter 5 which tackles the general features of the MENA
region.
4 D. ELSAYED
• Which variables have less of an impact on the levels of corruption in

the MENA countries?
• Which variables turn out to be irrelevant in the study of the causes
of corruption?
To answer the main question, this book employs the case study
research method, conducting an in-depth analysis of the causes of corrup-
tion in fifteen Arab countries in the MENA region. These countries are
Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Kuwait,
Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab
Emirates (UAE), and Yemen. In order to address the sub-questions, the
book follows the structured, focused comparison method and employs
the Most Similar Systems Design to conduct a cross-national comparative
analysis across all the countries.
Regarding the scope and period of study, this book focuses mainly on
public office corruption in the MENA region countries. Private corrup-
tion is beyond the book’s scope.2 The timeframe of the study is from
1999 until 2010. The year 1999 represents, in most cases, a contin-
uation in power of either the same leader or a successor sharing the
same ideology. Furthermore, the intention is to study the phenomenon
of corruption before the 2011 Arab Uprisings, in order to have a consis-
tent analysis. The Arab Spring countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria)
have witnessed drastic changes since 2011 and are still in transition, expe-
riencing unsteady paths towards democracy, which in turn will hinder
coherent analysis of the countries under study.
The book is divided into ten chapters. Following a general outline
of the topic in Chapter 1, chapter 2 defines corruption, highlighting its
various classifications and types, and concluding with a working defini-
tion. Chapter 3 reviews the literature on corruption, focusing on work
addressing its causes, which presents a blueprint for developing the analyt-
ical framework and the hypotheses of the book. Chapter 4 outlines the
methodology, with a specific focus on the structured, focused compar-
ison method, the method of difference, and the Most Similar Systems
Design, as well as the case-study research method. The chapter then
2 Private corruption generally occurs when those in charge misuse their office—an
organizational position in a private firm—for personal benefit.
1 INTRODUCTION 5
explains the data collection process used. Chapter 5 defines the bound-
aries of the MENA region and explains the specific range of countries
under study, highlighting their broad common political, economic, and
societal features. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 focus on the causes of corruption in
the MENA region, initially giving a general overview of each sub-regional
group (Gulf countries, North African countries, and Mashreq countries
plus Yemen). This is followed by an in-depth longitudinal analysis of the
causes of corruption in the fifteen countries across the three sub-regions
during the period of study (1999–2010). Thus, chapter 6 addresses the
causes of corruption in the Gulf countries (Qatar, UAE, Oman, Bahrain,
Kuwait, and KSA) and conducts a cross-country comparison among the
six cases along with some concluding remarks. Chapter 7 looks at the
causes of corruption in North Africa, shedding light on features common
to the countries in the region. It then analyzes the five countries within
the region (Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, and Libya), compares the
causes of corruption across the five cases, and presents some concluding
observations. Chapter 8 analyzes the causes of corruption in the Mashreq
region (Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) plus Yemen, compares the causes
of corruption cross-nationally, and concludes with some remarks on this
group of countries. Chapter 9 conducts a cross-country comparison across
the fifteen countries under study by addressing each hypothesis, then
grouping all the hypotheses, in order to arrive at the causes of corruption
in the MENA region, as well as highlighting exclusive causes of corrup-
tion in some of its countries. Chapter 10 emphasizes the most important
findings of the study, compares the causes of corruption in the three
sub-regions, along with the author’s insights on the issue of corruption
within the MENA region, and suggests future perspectives for research
on corruption.
References
Ades, A., & Di Tella, R. (1997). The New Economics of Corruption: A Survey
and Some New Results. Political Studies, 45(3), 496–515.
Aidt, T. S. (2003). Economic Analysis of Corruption: A Survey. The Economic
Journal, 113(491), F632–F652.
Amundsen, I. (1999). Political Corruption: An Introduction to the Issues
(Working Paper. 99(7)). Bergen: Chr. Michelsen Institute.
Bardhan, P. (1997). Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues. Journal
of Economic Literature, 35(3), 1320–1346.
6 D. ELSAYED
Commonwealth Secretariat. (2001). 1999 Meeting of Commonwealth Law Minis-

ters and Senior Officials: Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, 3–7 May 1999:
Memoranda (Vol. 1). Commonwealth Secretariat.
Glynn, P., Kobrin, S. J., & Naím, M. (1997). The Globalization of Corrup-
tion. In K. A. Elliott (Ed.), Corruption and the Global Economy (pp. 7–27).
Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.
Jain, A. K. (2001). Corruption: A Review. Journal of Economic Surveys, 15(1),
71–121.
Lambsdorff, J. G. (1999). The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions
Index 1999: Framework Document. Berlin: Transparency International.
McCusker, R. (2006). Review of Anti-Corruption Strategies. Canberra: Australian
Institute of Criminology.
Nadgrodkiewicz, A, Nakagaki, M., & Tomicic, M. (2012). Improving Public
Governance: Closing the Implementation Gap Between Law and Practice.
Center for International Private Enterprise. Washington, DC: Global Integrity.
Pech, B., & Debiel, T. (2011). Corruption as an Obstacle to Development?
Taking Stock of Research Findings and the Effectiveness of Policy Strategies.
In UNIKATE 40. Social Sciences - Comparative, International, Transnational
(pp. 16–25). Essen: University of Duisburg-Essen.
Richter, W. L., & Burke, F. (Eds). (2007). Combating Corruption, Encouraging
Ethics: A Practical Guide to Management Ethics. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Serra, D. (2006). Empirical Determinants of Corruption: A Sensitivity Analysis.
Public Choice, 126, 225–256.
Sumpf, D. (2015). Working Paper on Governance: Envisaging the Future in the
Arab Region. United Nations Working Paper.
Tanzi, V. (1998). Corruption Around the World: Causes, Consequences, Scope,
and Cures. Staff Papers-International Monetary Fund, 559–594.
World Bank. (1997). Helping Countries Combat Corruption: The Role of the
World Bank. The World Bank. http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/ant
icorrupt/corruptn/corrptn.pdf. Accessed April 6, 2020.
Further Reading
Debiel, T., & Gawrich, A. (Eds.). (2013). (Dys-) Functionalities of Corrup-
tion: Comparative Perspectives and Methodological Pluralism. Comparative
Governance and Politics. Special Issue 3. Springer.
DeLeon, P. (1993). Thinking About Political Corruption. Armonk, NY: ME
Sharpe.
1 INTRODUCTION 7
Seldadyo, H., & Haan, J. (2005). The Determinants of Corruption. Paper

Prepared for the 2006 EPCS Conference. http://conferences.wcfia.harvard.
edu/sites/projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/gov2126/files/seldadyo_determina
nts_corruption.pdf. Accessed April 6, 2020.
CHAPTER 2
Definition of Concepts
1 What Is Corruption?
At first glance, corruption seems to be a simple, easily understandable
phenomenon. However, as a persistent worldwide phenomenon found in
all countries to varying degrees, it is in fact a complex one that needs a
clear understanding of its characteristics, dimensions, and impact. Various
approaches and perspectives have sought to define the concept, leading to
much controversy, especially since it is associated with both societies and
individual actions. Nowadays, corruption is gaining much academic atten-
tion and is subject to increased scrutiny as efforts are made to curb it and
create better systems of government around the world. While many social
science approaches have sought to define corruption, it remains difficult
to reach a common definition of the term and arrive at reliable concrete
measures of the phenomenon. Furthermore, consideration of corruption
is intermingled with other concepts like governance, transparency, and
accountability in today’s vocabulary (Rose-Ackerman 1997b; Lancaster
and Montinola 2001; Kaufmann et al. 2005). This chapter sheds light
on the range of literature defining the concept and concludes with the
definition used in this book.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55314-2_2
10 D. ELSAYED
1.1 Corruption Defined Through Public Interest, Public Opinion,

and Public Office
Among the researchers who have worked on the concept and its historical
roots is Heidenheimer (1989), who views corruption through a broad
lens as depraved and unprincipled behavior. His definition involved the
three concepts of public opinion, public office, and public interest, but
his approach was later heavily criticized.
The public opinion definition stands for what the public views as
corrupt—presenting a subjective approach—which creates confusion even
about what the ‘public’ is (Heidenheimer 1989). Scott (1972: 3–4) is
considered one of the most prominent writers to offer insights on corrup-
tion. He also gave a public opinion definition of corruption, in which the
‘public’ determines its dimensions. Scott’s definition, likewise, is subjec-
tive, and fails to offer any capacity to operationalize it. Still, this approach
of defining corruption finds relevance in certain fields such as public
policy (i.e., when drafting national anti-corruption strategies), offering
a blueprint to curtail the phenomenon. It also assists in looking into the
norms and values within different contexts and cultures to gain a broader
understanding of what corruption means in different societies.
Heidenheimer (1989) based the public interest definition of corrup-
tion on the commonly accepted norms of what comprises a public good.
In other words, if a public official’s act stands against the public interest,
it is considered unethical. Along the same lines, Friedrich (1966: 74)
contended that one can look at an act and classify it as corrupt according
to the public interest—meaning that if a public official is regarded as
acquiring something beyond his capacities and legal assignments, then
this counts as corrupt conduct. Even though the public interest offers a
more objective approach to defining corruption, it fails to be operational.
This also applies to the public opinion definition, due to the difficulty of
reaching a consensus on public ‘opinion’ and public ‘interest’.
The public office definition of corruption describes the phenomenon
more objectively. According to this approach, Heidenheimer (1989)
defines corruption as the violation of the official regulations of a formal
office. Likewise, Nye’s (1967: 419) public office definition of corrup-
tion is acts that violate the rules and regulations of office and are carried
out with the aim of pursuing private gains. Aikin (1964: 142) also views
corruption as an act that disrupts the authorized power of a public office
or is against its moral standards of behavior in order to gain personal
2 DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS 11
benefits, power, or status. Morris (1991) interprets corruption generally

as conduct against political norms. Lessig (2013) views corruption as a
legal systematic influence that undermines the effectiveness of an institu-
tion, leading to public distrust and weakening the institution’s reputation
and credibility.
Khan (1996: 12) defines corruption as an act by persons in public
office positions that departs from the ‘formal rules of conduct’, where
this behavior is motivated by private gains being ‘wealth, power or status’.
Gould (2001) views corruption as an unethical phenomenon, consisting
of deviation from the moral standards in a given society, and leading
to disrespect for and distrust of the authorized and constituted powers.
Sandholtz and Koetzle (2000) regard corruption as conduct by a public
official that is far from the commonly accepted and prevailing norms in
society. Accordingly, based on the above definitions, corruption consists
of a violation of the power vested in a public official, serving another
person directly or indirectly. It is a two-sided phenomenon, since it takes
both an agent and a client to conduct such acts for personal gain. This
definition is, therefore, operational in the sense of not abiding by the rules
that are established in principle. However, Bayley (1966: 721) and Scott
(1972: 10–11) highlight that defining corruption in public office terms
cannot be generalized as, first, it depends on the cultures of which these
regulations are a part of. Second, it neglects to look at the cases in which
the legislators themselves are corrupt. Third, some regulations are already
unfair, in that they serve the aspirations of those who established them,
so paying a bribe in those cases might not be considered unethical (Rose-
Ackerman 1978: 9). An obvious difficulty of following these approaches,
generally, is their incompatibility with empirical analysis across countries
with diverse cultures (Gibbons 1989; Manzetti and Blake 1996).
Discussions and debates over the definition of corruption according
to these approaches have given rise to other efforts. Johnston (1996:
331) combines the public opinion and public office approaches to give a
definition of corruption under the umbrella of a ‘neo-classical approach’.
He defines corruption as the misuse of ‘public order’ to achieve private
gain, where misuse is determined based on legal standards or societal
norms, in the sense of what the society disapproves or views as unaccept-
able. Hence, societies differ in their definition of corrupt actions, with
standards varying because cultures are dissimilar (Johnston 1996). Simi-
larly, van den Berg and Noorderhaven (2016) argue that the approach
under which corruption is defined decides how the society perceives the
12 D. ELSAYED
concept: it becomes either an insignificant issue that does not require

decisive action or a widespread phenomenon that appears high up on
policymakers’ agendas.
Each of these approaches has its own drawbacks. Though public office
is suitable in many instances, it fails to tackle corruption within specific
contexts, such as the legislative authority. The public opinion approach
lacks clarity and concrete standards, even though most comparisons in
research on the intensity of corruption worldwide rely on public opinion
surveys. The public interest approach falls between the public office and
the public opinion approaches and is ambiguous due to being society
based. In a nutshell, the above set of definitions of corruption (public
opinion, public interest, and public office) have led to much deliberation
on the concept and a lack of consensus on a common meaning, with the
variances leading to abundant research scrutinizing the three approaches.
Research efforts have tried to deal with the non-alignment of the public
office or formal regulations with the public interest that is reflected in
the society’s norms. Studies have sought to understand how and why this
deviation happens, and which norms are associated with corruption within
public office (Gibbons 1989; Morris 1991; Manzetti and Blake 1996;
Kurer 2005). Nevertheless, this controversy began to diminish with the
spread of globalization, notably when international organizations such as
the UN and various transnational actors established general guidelines,
including definitions of illegal and unethical acts.
1.2 Corruption Defined Through the Principal–Agent Framework

A well-known and widely employed definition of corruption is offered
by the principal–agent model. It presents an economic approach to how
corruption occurs, and is based on the rational choice of individuals,
with the underlying assumption that people are driven by self-interest to
act to maximize their own advantage (Olson 1971). This approach to
defining corruption stands principally for those individuals that represent
the process of corruption. It defines corruption as a behavior conducted
through some agents who are delegated to act on behalf of some
principals (Rose-Ackerman 1978; Klitgaard 1988).
Based on this approach, Klitgaard (1988: 24) defines corruption as a
disagreement between the public’s interest and that of the public official.
Hence corruption takes place when the agent fails to act in accordance
with the principal’s interest, seeking private benefit. The two essential
perspectives, according to Klitgaard, are ‘information’ and ‘incentives’.

In line with this, Klitgaard (1988) develops the principal–agent–client
model, which involves three actors playing their part in the corruption
process. The principals are the officials holding power who can deliver
goods or services to the clients. Generally, principals have a compara-
tive advantage as they are acquainted with the administration and are
well aware of the processes, which enables them to exploit their power
to act in their own interests. This takes various forms, including bribery,
fraud, nepotism, extortion, or embezzlement (which are defined in the
following section). Clients are the benefit givers, with these public officials
sometimes employing agents to deliver the activity on their behalf. Agents
might also act in their own interests and begin to abuse power entrusted
to them, sustaining the vicious circle of corruption. Building on this
nexus, Klitgaard’s principal–agent–client model suggests the following
equation to better understand how corruption flourishes:
Corruption = Monopoly + Discretion – Accountability. (Klitgaard 1988:

75)
It shows that opportunities for unethical acts are enhanced when agents
impose their monopoly power on clients, accompanied by discretion
and lack of accountability towards the principal. Klitgaard has given a
precise explanation of corruption, viewing the problem as lying in the
concentration of powers, discretion, and weak accountability.
Becker and Stigler (1974) contend that the bureaucrats are sometimes
the agents, and the rulers are the principals, where both have conflicting
self-interests even though the agent is assigned to fulfill the interests of
the principal. In a similar vein, Alam (1989: 442) argues that corruption
is clearly understood within the principal–agent functional relationship.
He defines it as either “the sacrifice of the principal’s interest for the
agent’s” or “the violation of norms defining the agent’s behavior”. In
this scenario, the government is the agent, while citizens are the prin-
cipals. This can also be the case during elections when democracy is in
place. To explain this situation, citizens/voters—who act as principals—
face restrictions in accessing information, whereas public officials—who
act as agents—have a comparative advantage in processing information
that invites corruption opportunities because citizens have bounded ratio-
nality. They vote according to the limited knowledge they gain. This gives
scope for politicians to be unaccountable and act unethically in many
14 D. ELSAYED
instances (Rose-Ackerman 1978; Banfield 1979; Persson and Tabellini

2000; Adsera et al. 2003; Besley 2006).
Therefore, according to the principal–agent perspective, corruption is
an individual unethical act, driven by personal gain to maximize profit
and minimize costs. This approach to explaining corruption focuses on
the individual incentives in which each actor is only seeking his own self-
interest. It ignores other vital dimensions of the phenomenon, such as
cultural aspects, social values, and norms, and how these systems function
(Elster 1989; Green and Shapiro 1994).
1.3 Corruption as Abuse of Public Office

Webster’s Dictionary defines corruption as ‘inducement (as of public offi-
cials) by means of improper considerations (as bribery) to commit a
violation of duty’ (Gove 1961). The Oxford Dictionary (2000) defines
the concept as a dishonest act, or illegal behavior explicitly conducted
by persons in power, and it changes ‘personal behavior’ to ‘immoral
standards’. McMullan (1961: 183–184) defines corruption in the sense
that a public official is corrupt if he accepts money or benefits in kind
for conducting an act under his assigned authority. Kubbe and Varraich
(2020: 3) define corruption as the “absence of impartiality in the exercise
of public power”.
In broad terms, the most common and acknowledged definition of
corruption is “the abuse/misuse of public office for private benefit/gain”
(Sandholtz and Koetzle 2000; Sandholtz and Gray 2003; Mungiu-Pippidi
2013). Several institutions studying corruption employ this definition.
Among them is Transparency International (TI) which initiated the
Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 1995. Similarly, the World Bank’s
definition of corruption is often quoted in the literature as “the abuse of
public office for private gain” (World Bank 1997). Based on this general
definition, it is worth noting that the abuse of entrusted responsibilities
and authority is not limited to the ‘public’ officials and ‘public’ sector
as it also takes place in the private sector. Corruption in that sense is
also viewed as a one-sided process, encompassing one individual as the
sole actor even though the action can sometimes involve two or more
persons. In other words, one is the corrupt official receiving benefits, and
the other is the person offering them to get a service done.
Corruption is thus a complex concept encompassing many features and
dimensions, including more than one actor, different interests, intended
benefits, abused power, and a common consensus within the society that
this behavior is against its norms. However, this last dimension is not
easy to pinpoint, due to diverse interpretations even among individuals
in one society as well as across societies (Gampat 2007). In line with
that, the definition employed in this book is the working definition of
the World Bank, the United Nations, and Transparency International,
which is the “abuse of public office for private benefit”. Relying on
this definition assists in offering a wide perspective and enables flexibility
in analyzing the countries under study. Most of the data used in this
book is derived from those international institutions, which allows more
consistency throughout the research.
Having mentioned earlier that the focus of this book is corruption
in the public sector, it is worth looking at its different practices, which
helps in the later analysis and reflection on the MENA countries within
this book. Corruption manifests in various forms on different levels of
public administration. The most common distinction on the govern-
mental level is between grand and petty corruption. Grand corruption
occurs when both the amount of corrupt activities is large, and those
involved in them are high-level officials. It is at the decision-making
level, and therefore is also called political corruption, since it is associ-
ated with unethical behaviors of those assigned to take decisions for the
general public, legislate, and enforce laws. In this context, these high-
level officials abuse power vested in them to enhance their status, gain
more benefits, and in many instances sustain their political positions.
Such conduct and decisions occur in complete secrecy; therefore, they
are rarely detected. This type of corruption not only leads to misallo-
cation of resources, but it also negatively affects the whole of society.
While grand corruption is strongly linked to the political elite, it is also
apparent in economies that are witnessing rapid growth, in which there
are opportunities for new investments and industries. It can also include
arms deals and natural resource extraction (Heidenheimer et al. 1993;
Moody-Stuart 1997; Andvig et al. 2000; Alan and Theobald 2000; Leen-
ders and Sfakianakis 2001; Rose-Ackerman 2002; Cisar 2003; Khan 2006;
Bray 2007; FATF 2011).
Petty corruption, on the other hand, falls at the other end of the
administrative hierarchy, way below grand corruption. It refers to minor
benefits associated with routine decisions and undertakings assigned to
low-level civil servants, which is why it is also referred to as bureaucratic
corruption. Typically, this type involves activities like issuing licenses, tax
16 D. ELSAYED
and customs authorities, school admissions, hospital access, and many

other services. In many cases, petty corruption is initiated by the service
seeker (the person offering a bribe or equivalent in kind) in order to
bypass bureaucratic regulations, i.e., obtain a privilege, gain access, or
lessen the time needed to get the service done. Unlike grand corruption,
which abuses rules and regulations to serve the private interest of those in
power, petty corruption may not necessarily have strong political conse-
quences, as it takes place at the administrative end of the political system.
Petty corruption occurs regularly when civil servants are underpaid and
may be tempted to increase their income through dishonest activities
(Heidenheimer et al. 1993; Andvig et al. 2000; Leenders and Sfakianakis
2001; Rose-Ackerman 2002; Cisar 2003; Khan 2006; Bray 2007; FATF
2011). Even though the distinction between grand and petty corruption
remains unclear in many instances, it is relevant in analytical terms, and in
the case of this book, to the study of the countries of the MENA region.
Corruption takes many forms, with some practices involving threats
or coercion, and some happening on a day-to-day basis, such as bribery,
while others are unusual, complex, and involve huge resources. Never-
theless, they all tend to take place in secret and may be recognized in
certain circumstances. The most common forms relevant to this book are
described below (Gupta 1995; Rose-Ackerman 1997a; Amundsen 1999;
Andvig et al. 2000; Myint 2000; UNODC 2004; Richter and Burke
2007; Lambsdorff 2007; Goldstraw-White and Gill 2012).
The most well-known and common form of corruption is bribery, the
payment of money or a benefit in kind to a public official in exchange for
a service. Corruption is a two-sided process, and in the case of bribery,
the initiative can come from either the benefit taker or the benefit giver.
The benefit is often money but can also be valuables or favors of personal
interest to the bribe taker, such as incentives or access to information. The
term has different connotations in different cultures. For example, with
petty corruption in the MENA region, a ‘sweetener’, commonly known as
baksheeh, is offered to civil servants to make a bureaucratic process faster
or easier, or to bypass it.
Extortion is a kind of blackmail, as it mainly relies on coercion, power,
and the threat of violence to oblige a person to act in a certain manner.
Extortion can be initiated by a person seeking favors and benefits, and
in this case, officials are the victims. Sometimes public officials misuse
their authority to gain personal advantage, and this is generally associated
with bureaucratic regulations of which few have oversight, so they are less
accountable for their decision making. Extortion is similar to bribery but

differs in two aspects. The first is that it is a corrupt behavior that uses
coercion, violence or the threat of violence to extract money or other
benefits. The second is that, unlike the exchange of benefits associated
with bribery, one party can obtain a substantial benefit while the other
gets nothing, except being let go and not intimidated again.
Embezzlement is often associated with grand corruption. It is the
ability of a public official to exploit their position and power to access and
make use of valuables, money, or property entrusted to their authority.
The actions of embezzlement are often referred to as theft, which is
not always classified as corruption. This type is obvious in some of the
MENA region countries as it is a more common occurrence in authori-
tarian regimes. Within those regimes, there is less chance of being caught,
and sanctions are rarely applied, mainly due to the absence of a strong
legal system.
Fraud is the illegal and unethical extraction of money. It involves
deception and providing false data in order to manipulate the person in
charge of the data to take certain actions based on it. It is considered fraud
when state institutions and officials are part of informal black markets, and
when illegal goods are traded. Since it generally involves huge amounts
of money or falsifying very critical information, it mostly falls under the
heading of grand corruption.
Other abuses of power can happen through preferential treatment,
which occurs in three interrelated forms of corruption: favoritism, nepo-
tism, and clientelism. Preferential treatment involves a person in power
granting certain benefits, based on the powers invested in their position,
and favoring someone who is affiliated to them in some way. The affil-
iation and link can be family, friendship, political party, religion, sect,
tribal ties, or any other group identity that links the persons together.
Such actions create conflicts of interest, as when someone is seeking a
personal advantage, it might damage the interests of another or even of
the public generally. Another aspect of the conflict is that manipulative
behavior in order to gain some benefit is against the code of conduct of
public office. However, rationalizing and defining an ambiguous situation
where circumstances intermingle, can be challenging. Examples include
donations to certain parties, appointment of individuals from the ruling
family or friends to political positions, or granting a license for business
operations to specific individuals. In this connection, Varraich (2014)
developed an umbrella model for corruption and other concepts that
18 D. ELSAYED
are often associated with it (clientelism, state capture, patrimonialism,

particularism, and patronage), showing how the concepts overlap.
In conclusion, the distinction between a corrupt and a non-corrupt
act is not always crystal clear. Even though corruption, whether grand or
petty, and taking any of the forms mentioned, may be evident, grey areas
exist when it comes to distinguishing between appropriate and inappro-
priate behaviors. This can include gift giving, lobbying, and state capture
of certain services or goods like natural resources. For example, in some
societies, an exchange of gifts is a very common and accepted behavior
when a service is done by a person in a public office, but in other societies
this is considered a corrupt activity and is strictly forbidden. Therefore, in
each and every culture, corruption is perceived differently. Legal systems
also differ with regard to penal codes, and the clarity and efficacy of rules
and regulations. In a nutshell, this book relies on the broad definition of
corruption as the abuse of public office for private interest, since it focuses
on public-sector corruption and primarily relies on data and reports avail-
able from international organizations that employ this definition (UN,
World Bank, Transparency International). This in turn allows coherent
and consistent analysis of the phenomenon throughout the study.
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CHAPTER 3
Literature Review
There is a great deal of literature on the topic of corruption. However, the

wide range of empirical studies of corruption reveals different approaches
and findings. It is generally agreed that corruption hinders development
and weakens bureaucracy (Sequeira 2012). This chapter examines some
of the prominent research outcomes, with a particular focus on the causes
of corruption.
Corruption has gained much attention among economics scholars.
Leff (1964) was the first to analyze the relationship between corrup-
tion and economic growth, followed by Huntington (1968) and Hines
(1995), who argued that corruption could affect growth positively. Mixed
outcomes were recorded by studies of this relationship in countries as
different as the US (Akai et al. 2005), Nigeria (Ajie and Wokekoro
2012), and China (Donga and Torgler 2013). Mutaşcu and Danuletiu
(2010), using the Human Development Index to examine the correlation
between corruption and political, administrative, and economic factors,
concluded that corruption negatively affects individual welfare. Mauro
(1997) argued that those in charge of public resource allocation have
better opportunities for corrupt activities, and that consequently, corrup-
tion may assist in increasing public investment. In another study, Mauro
(1998) contended that corruption lowers allocation of expenditure on
education.

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24 D. ELSAYED
Several studies have concluded that there is a strong relationship

between GDP and corruption. Husted (1999) and Paldam (2002) argued
that even though corruption negatively impacts GDP, less developed
and developing countries are not able to fight it effectively. Lambsdorff
(1999) and Paldam (2002) argued that the absence of corruption impacts
GDP, contending that the growth of GDP can be explained through
changes and variations in the levels of corruption in given countries, but
not in absolute levels. Researchers like Akçay (2001), on the other hand,
analyzed the level of corruption to FDI flows in some developing coun-
tries, finding that corruption does not act as a barrier to growth. Similarly,
Evrensel (2010) reached the conclusion that corruption is associated
more with governance variables than with growth. There is, therefore,
some ambiguity regarding the impact of corruption on GDP growth
(Knack and Keefer 1995; Brunetti et al. 1997).
Mauro (1995) studied the impact of corruption on investment through
a cross-sectional study of 67 countries. He found that corruption impacts
investment negatively, reducing the ratio of investment to GDP. In a later
study, Mauro (1997) reiterated his results, relying on a larger sample of
countries. Knack and Keefer (1995) and Brunetti et al. (1997) reached
similar findings, supporting Mauro’s argument. Offering another explana-
tion, Wedeman (1996) argued that the effect of corruption on investment
depends on the ‘level’ of corruption in a given country, countries with
lower levels of corruption being strongly affected, while those with high
levels of corruption will not notice such a strong impact on their invest-
ments. Campos et al. (1999) argued similarly, relying on data from the
World Bank to analyze this aspect. They concluded that corruption is
sometimes important for economic gains, with both predictability and
level of corruption impacting on investment.
Tanzi and Davoodi (1997) looked at the impact of corruption on
investment. They argued that corruption affects the quality of a coun-
try’s infrastructure in many dimensions, including negatively impacting
investments and, consequently, GDP. Although their findings were not
robust, they found that corruption strongly increased public investment.
Presenting an alternative view, Lambsdorff (1999) contended that the
‘nature’ of corruption determines its impact and risks to investment.
Furthermore, many studies have tackled the relation between corrup-
tion and capital inflows, and it is widely acknowledged that corruption
undermines a country’s capacity to attract foreign capital. Wheeler and
3 LITERATURE REVIEW 25
Mody (1992) did not reach a robust conclusion about the relation-
ship between FDI and a given country’s level of risk—which includes
corruption, among other indicators. However, Wei (1997) found a strong
negative impact of corruption on FDI by studying capital inflows between
countries having bilateral relations. Alesina and Weder (1999) generally
concluded that corruption does not particularly influence FDI. Never-
theless, Lambsdorff (1999) argued that corruption has a negative effect
on capital inflows in the host country, indicating a strong relationship
between corruption levels and credit risks, with poor governance having
a bad impact on capital inflows in a corrupt country. Castro and Nunes
(2013) tested the effect of corruption on FDI inflows. Their results
showed a negative correlation, indicating that countries witnessing lower
levels of corruption have higher FDI inflows. Delgado et al. (2014)
studied the effect of FDI on economic growth, associating it with the
level of corruption. They concluded that corruption indirectly affects
FDI, weakening its share in achieving growth rates in several developing
countries. Different outcomes are recorded by studies of the impact of
corruption on FDI inflows in specific regions. Quazi (2014) analyzed
East and South Asia, arriving at the conclusion that there is a clear nega-
tive effect of corruption on FDI inflows. Nevertheless, another study by
Quazi et al. (2014) on African countries found that corruption acts as a
facilitator for FDI inflows in these countries.
Regarding trade, Lambsdorff (1998, 1999) analyzed data for the eigh-
teen largest exporting and 87 largest importing countries, the later study
relying on a wider range of countries and data. He concluded that coun-
tries vary in their willingness to export to corrupt countries, and hence
their readiness to become involved in corrupt practices like bribery. He
also found that these exporting countries are responsible for corruption
occurring in international trade.
As for foreign assistance, Alesina and Weder (1999) examined whether
corrupt countries encourage donor countries1 to offer development aid
or deter them from doing so. They did not find clear-cut evidence that
corrupt countries are less prone to receive aid from OECD countries.
However, while some countries, including Australia and the Scandina-
vian countries, have a greater tendency to discourage aid contributions to
corrupt countries, this is not the case for countries like the US.
1 Donor countries in the cited study are the OECD countries.

26 D. ELSAYED
Some scholars have looked at the political implications of corruption.

Many have argued that corruption erodes legitimacy, leading to a lack
of trust by citizens in the political system (Seligson 2002; Anderson
and Tverdova 2003). Through testing specific dimensions of legitimacy
in six Latin American countries, Booth and Seligson (2009) concluded
that corruption—particularly obvious in petty corruption—undermines
the population’s trust in the system. Chang and Chu (2006) studied
some Asian countries, finding a strong relationship between trust and
state legitimacy. They contended that when citizens perceive higher levels
of political corruption, this leads to reduced trust in the legitimacy of
the state. Rose-Ackerman (2001) analyzed post-socialist state transitions,
highlighting the interaction between trust and democracy and stressing
the importance of distinguishing between trust among individuals and
trust in the bureaucracy, and their impact on corruption. However, other
studies have argued that patronage can assist in strengthening legitimacy
in unstable situations. These arguments are based on the fact that corrupt
behaviors related to offering political support and receiving rewards in
return can enhance legitimacy, with benefits exchanged in a patron–
client system (Huntington 1968; Reno 1995; Papagianni 2008; OECD
2008; Bellina et al. 2009; Mungiu-Pippidi 2011). Making a similar argu-
ment, Arriola (2009) analyzed some African countries, contending that
patronage networks enable leaders to stay in office longer, which indicates
political stability. Beissinger and Young (2002) argued that patronage
can act as a legitimizing factor for the country as long as the political
elite’s interests do not surpass the state’s interest, but that if this does
happen, state legitimacy is eroded. Galtung and Tisné (2009) argued that
patronage networks can hinder state building in post-conflict countries,
illustrating this by reference to several states in Africa. Another contrasting
perspective is offered by Lindemann (2008), who finds that the effect
of corruption on stability depends on the political elites’ relations with
society.
Furthermore, many researchers have focused on the question of how
to fight corruption. De Asis (2000), basing his insights on the World
Bank’s perspectives on governance, argued that there are three main
pillars of corruption. First, incentives prevailing in low wages, patronage
and excessive bureaucracy; second, absence of transparency and access
to information; and third, lack of accountability. His broadly accept-
able list of solutions to corruption, based on these three interlinked
issues, included ‘domestic’ efforts, primarily through raising awareness,
political will, and following a participatory analysis of the issue. Tanzi’s

(2000b) alternative viewpoint was based on the IMF’s experiences with
fiscal decentralization. Tanzi stressed the importance of better-functioning
public institutions in charge of tax policies, administration, expenditures,
and budgets. He also emphasized the importance of effective resource
transfer from the center to the subdivisions, in order to ensure effective
and specific task execution. In the absence of efficient decentralization
policies and procedures, corruption becomes more profoundly rooted in
the lower levels of administration (Tanzi 2000b).
1 Causes of Corruption
Although scholars have worked extensively on the causes of corruption,
there is no consensus in the literature (Bardhan 1997; Ades and Di Tella
1997; Tanzi 1998; Lambsdorff 1999; Jain 2001; Aidt 2003; Serra 2006).
This section reviews the relevant literature, highlighting the most signif-
icant causes of corruption and those most widely agreed upon among
researchers. It is divided into three sub-sections that are the basis for the
hypotheses and analytical framework of this book.
The first addresses the regime characteristics, and the features of the
political system and its bureaucratic structures that can positively or
negatively impact corruption levels. The second looks at the different
economic features within a given country. The third tackles develop-
mental, societal, and cultural features affecting corruption levels in a given
country.
1.1 Regime Characteristics

Democracy is a complex term; it is important to understand what democ-
racy is in order to determine its indicators. It is a political system
characterized by mass participation, competitive elections, the rule of law,
and respect for civil rights. Many criteria need to be fulfilled for a country
to be categorized as democratic. Among the most important characteris-
tics of democracy are: first, accountability of the regime; second, political
competition so that no specific political party or person can get a grip
on power; third, political equality both for the electorate and for those
running for public office, given that everyone has the right to access
public office; and fourth, freedom of the media and especially a free
press that monitors government activities and decisions, spreads awareness
28 D. ELSAYED
and keeps the public informed (Lipset 1959; Dahl 1971; Sartori 1987;
Diamond et al. 1995; Roskin and Robert 2013).
Paldam (1999a), Goldsmith (1999), and Sandholtz and Koetzle
(2000) found no clear impact of democracy on corruption. However,
Suphacahlasai (2005), Kunicova and Rose-Ackerman (2005), and
Lederman et al. (2005) found that democracy and corruption are nega-
tively correlated. Treisman (1999a) relied on Gastil’s democracy index
and found little evidence of the effect of democracy on corruption levels,
although in a later study (Treisman 2000), he argued that older democ-
racies witness less corruption. Paldam (1999a), and Gerring and Thacker
(2004, 2005) reached findings supporting those of Treisman (2000). In
addition, Montinola and Jackman (2002) and Sung (2004) concluded
that well-established democracies are negatively correlated with corrup-
tion; however, semi-democratic or autocratic regimes witness higher levels
of corruption. De Mesquita et al. (2002) argued along the same lines,
contending that political figures in non-democratic regimes hold onto
power for longer. They succeed in sustaining power and misusing the
country’s resources for their personal benefit; hence, these countries
witness higher levels of corruption.
Politicians in democratic countries, on the other hand, stay in office
for a shorter time and seek to maintain their popularity in order to be
re-elected; they therefore make more effort to offer public goods. In a
World Bank study, Rose-Ackerman (1997: 40) argues for the importance
of democracy to deter corruption, stating that “democracy gives citizens
a role in choosing their political leaders. Thus, corrupt elected officials
can be voted out of office”. In contrast, she later states that “democracy
is not necessarily a cure for corruption. Some democracies harbor corrupt
politicians even though citizens are aware of their malfeasance. Moreover,
bribes are often used to fund political parties and election campaigns.” In
relation to this, Lederman et al. (2001), Sung (2002), and Brunetti and
Weder (2003) argue that a free press is negatively associated with corrup-
tion, as it reveals corrupt behaviors and abuses of public office to the
masses. Linked to this is the importance of respecting political rights and
civil liberties. Treisman (2007), using World Bank data, found that polit-
ical rights are negatively associated with levels of corruption, but these
findings were not robust. Another dimension of democracy is the quality
of the judiciary, with an independent judiciary distinctly reducing corrup-
tion levels (World Bank 1997). Ades and Di Tella (1996), as well as Sung
(2002), also found a negative relationship between the independence of

judicial authority and levels of corruption.
Decentralization is another aspect studied in association with corrup-
tion. It affects the intensity of corruption either positively by supporting
better regulation with effective checks—hence lower corruption is
observed—or negatively by creating more regulation with less moni-
toring, resulting in higher corruption levels. The concentration of power
in capital cities and growing dissatisfaction with central government plan-
ning has introduced a broader perspective on administration (Smoke
1994; Olowu 2000). Decentralization has risen to the top of the devel-
opment agenda and donor strategies. The World Bank (2000) considers
decentralization an essential component of anti-corruption aid that is
focused on governance and accountability in developing countries (Crook
and Manor 1998; World Bank 1999). According to Khan (2002), decen-
tralization is the process of changing government administration in order
to be more responsive to the people’s needs by delegating some of the
central government’s powers to the lower levels of administration. Even
though the definition and process seem clear, the results of decentraliza-
tion on the ground have differed widely among countries (Smoke and
Lewis 1996), so there are no definitive findings regarding the impact
of decentralization on corruption. Weingast (1995) and Breton (1996)
argued that less corruption is evident in decentralized governments
due to subdivisions competing to provide public services. Gurgur and
Shah (2005) supported the argument that decentralization contributes
to better governance; hence corruption decreases. They contended that
corruption levels are higher in unitary systems, so corruption is more
negatively correlated with unitary countries than with federal ones.
A different perspective was offered by Banfield (1979), who argued
that decentralization increases corruption, with fragmentation in the
political system providing opportunities for corrupt practices to expand
due to the smaller number of entities monitoring and ensuring trans-
parency. Prud’homme (1995) argued that corruption is more evident in
the lower levels of administration since more opportunities are present
due to the relative freedom of action of local bureaucrats in decision
making, as well as the proximity of those local officials to the public and
their needs. Manor (1999) contended that decentralization is associated
with a greater number of people involved in corrupt activities. Brueckner
30 D. ELSAYED
(2000), Tanzi (2000a, b), and Carbonera (2000) arrived at similar gener-
alizations, concluding that in local subdivisions, corruption is more likely
to take place.
On another level of analysis, Shleifer and Vishny (1993) argued
that corruption is more apparent in countries that are in the middle
of the decentralization spectrum, meaning that the country is still in
a mid-level of governmental centralization. However, countries that
are either extremely centralized or extremely decentralized witness less
corruption (Shleifer and Vishny 1993). Treisman (1999b) concluded
that federal systems witness higher levels of corruption than centralized
systems. Furthermore, Treisman (2000) used the Transparency Interna-
tional Index (CPI) to look at the relationship between corruption and
decentralization in a cross-country analysis. He reached the same conclu-
sion that federal states witness higher levels of corruption than unitary
states. He explained that unitary states are ‘cleaner’ than federal ones,
given the existence of clear and effective hierarchies of control that allow
central government officials to limit subnational bureaucrats’ actions.
Goldsmith (1999) had similar results, highlighting that decentralization
does not offer a better system of administration since it is easier in such
systems to be unseen and to get away with corrupt activities. Goel and
Nelson (2010) employed two measures to look at decentralization—the
number of government subdivisions in relation to the population and
to the area. They obtained mixed outcomes regarding decentralization
and corruption, but if better regulation is enacted and enforced, less
corruption is observed.
Looking at fiscal decentralization, Huther and Shah (1998) and Fisman
and Gatti (1999) studied subdivisions’ expenditures as an indicator of
decentralization, concluding that with decentralized public spending,
lower corruption levels occur. Arikan (2000) as well as Fisman and
Gatti (2002) similarly concluded that more subnational government
spending—with fiscal decentralization—is associated with fewer corrupt
activities. De Mello (2000) argued that fiscal decentralization generally
connects the public’s needs more closely to government. Estache and
Sinha (1995) worked on a cross-country analysis of 20 countries over
20 years. They found that deliverables to the public are positively affected
when expenditure is decentralized; however, this is less efficient when
funds are held by central government.
Concerning history and its relationship with corruption, Treisman
(1999a) and Swamy et al. (2001) looked at the impact of colonial history
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the red glare and the muffled tom-toms. There are vocal qualities
peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is
terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other.
Animal fury and orgiastic license here whipped themselves to
demoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstasies that tore and
reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests
from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organized ululations
would cease, and from what seemed a well-drilled chorus of hoarse
voices would rise in singsong chant that hideous phrase or ritual:
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."
Then the men, having reached a spot where the trees were thinner,
came suddenly in sight of the spectacle itself. Four of them reeled,
one fainted, and two were shaken into a frantic cry which the mad
cacophony of the orgy fortunately deadened. Legrasse dashed
swamp water on the face of the fainting man, and all stood trembling
and nearly hypnotized with horror.
In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island of perhaps an
acre's extent, clear of trees and tolerably dry. On this now leaped
and twisted a more indescribable horde of human abnormality than
any but a Sime or an Angarola could paint. Void of clothing, this
hybrid spawn were braying, bellowing and writhing about a
monstrous ring-shaped bonfire; in the center of which, revealed by
occasional rifts in the curtain of flame, stood a great granite monolith
some eight feet in height; on top of which, incongruous in its
diminutiveness, rested the noxious carven statuette. From a wide
circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flame-girt
monolith as a center hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies
of the helpless squatters who had disappeared. It was inside this
circle that the ring of worshipers jumped and roared, the general
direction of the mass motion being from left to right in endless
bacchanale between the ring of bodies and the ring of fire.
It may have been only imagination and it may have been only
echoes which induced one of the men, an excitable Spaniard, to
fancy he heard antiphonal responses to the ritual from some far and
unillumined spot deeper within the wood of ancient legendry and
horror. This man, Joseph D. Galvez, I later met and questioned; and
he proved distractingly imaginative. He indeed went so far as to hint
of the faint beating of great wings, and of a glimpse of shining eyes
and a mountainous white bulk beyond the remotest trees—but I
suppose he had been hearing too much native superstition.
Actually, the horrified pause of the men was of comparatively brief
duration. Duty came first; and although there must have been nearly
a hundred mongrel celebrants in the throng, the police relied on their
firearms and plunged determinedly into the nauseous rout. For five
minutes the resultant din and chaos were beyond description. Wild
blows were struck, shots were fired, and escapes were made; but in
the end Legrasse was able to count some forty-seven sullen
prisoners, whom he forced to dress in haste and fall into line
between two rows of policemen. Five of the worshipers lay dead,
and two severely wounded ones were carried away on improvised
stretchers by their fellow-prisoners. The image on the monolith, of
course, was carefully removed and carried back by Legrasse.
Examined at headquarters after a trip of intense strain and
weariness, the prisoners all proved to be men of a very low, mixed-
blooded, and mentally aberrant type. Most were seamen, and a
sprinkling of negroes and mulattoes, largely West Indians or Brava
Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave a coloring of
voodooism to the heterogeneous cult. But before many questions
were asked, it became manifest that something far deeper and older
than negro fetishism was involved. Degraded and ignorant as they
were, the creatures held with surprizing consistency to the central
idea of their loathsome faith.
They worshiped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages
before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of
the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under
the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the
first man, who formed a cult which had never died. This was that
cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and always would
exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world
until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in
the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the
earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the
stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to
liberate him.
Meanwhile no more must be told. There was a secret which even
torture could not extract. Mankind was not absolutely alone among
the conscious things of earth, for shapes came out of the dark to visit
the faithful few. But these were not the Great Old Ones. No man had
ever seen the Old Ones. The carven idol was great Cthulhu, but
none might say whether or not the others were precisely like him. No
one could read the old writing now, but things were told by word of
mouth. The chanted ritual was not the secret—that was never
spoken aloud, only whispered. The chant meant only this: "In his
house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."
Only two of the prisoners were found sane enough to be hanged,

and the rest were committed to various institutions. All denied a part
in the ritual murders, and averred that the killing had been done by
Black-winged Ones which had come to them from their immemorial
meeting-place in the haunted wood. But of those mysterious allies no
coherent account could ever be gained. What the police did extract
came mainly from an immensely aged mestizo named Castro, who
claimed to have sailed to strange ports and talked with undying
leaders of the cult in the mountains of China.
Old Castro remembered bits of hideous legend that paled the
speculations of theosophists and made man and the world seem
recent and transient indeed. There had been eons when other
Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of
Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still to be
found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died
vast epochs of time before man came, but there were arts which
could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right
positions in the cycle of eternity. They had, indeed, come themselves
from the stars, and brought Their images with Them.
These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed
altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape—for did not this star-
fashioned image prove it?—but that shape was not made of matter.
When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world
through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live.
But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They
all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the
spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars
and the earth might once more be ready for Them. But at that time
some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The
spells that preserved Them intact likewise prevented Them from
making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark
and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all
that was occurring in the universe, for Their mode of speech was
transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs. When,
after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones
spoke to the sensitive among them by molding their dreams; for only
thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals.
Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around
small idols which the Great Ones showed them; idols brought in dim
eras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came
right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His
tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time
would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the
Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws
and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and
reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new
ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the
earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.
Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory
of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.
In the elder time chosen men had talked with the entombed Old
Ones in dreams, but then something had happened. The great stone
city R'lyeh, with its monoliths and sepulchers, had sunk beneath the
waves; and the deep waters, full of the one primal mystery through
which not even thought can pass, had cut off the spectral
intercourse. But memory never died, and high priests said that the
city would rise again when the stars were right. Then came out of the
earth the black spirits of earth, moldy and shadowy, and full of dim
rumors picked up in caverns beneath forgotten sea-bottoms. But of
them old Castro dared not speak much. He cut himself off hurriedly,
and no amount of persuasion or subtlety could elicit more in this
direction. The size of the Old Ones, too, he curiously declined to
mention. Of the cult, he said that he thought the center lay amid the
pathless deserts of Arabia, where Irem, the City of Pillars, dreams
hidden and untouched. It was not allied to the European witch-cult,
and was virtually unknown beyond its members. No book had ever
really hinted of it, though the deathless Chinamen said that there
were double meanings in the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul
Alhazred which the initiated might read as they chose, especially the
much-discussed couplet:
"That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange eons even death may die."
Legrasse, deeply impressed and not a little bewildered, had inquired

in vain concerning the historic affiliations of the cult. Castro,
apparently, had told the truth when he said that it was wholly secret.
The authorities at Tulane University could shed no light upon either
cult or image, and now the detective had come to the highest
authorities in the country and met with no more than the Greenland
tale of Professor Webb.
The feverish interest aroused at the meeting by Legrasse's tale,

corroborated as it was by the statuette, is echoed in the subsequent
correspondence of those who attended, although scant mention
occurs in the formal publication of the society. Caution is the first
care of those accustomed to face occasional charlatanry and
imposture. Legrasse for some time lent the image to Professor
Webb, but at the latter's death it was returned to him and remains in
his possession, where I viewed it not long ago. It is truly a terrible
thing, and unmistakably akin to the dream-sculpture of young Wilcox.
That my uncle was excited by the tale of the sculptor I did not
wonder, for what thoughts must arise upon hearing, after a
knowledge of what Legrasse had learned of the cult, of a sensitive
young man who had dreamed not only the figure and exact
hieroglyphics of the swamp-found image and the Greenland devil
tablet, but had come in his dreams upon at least three of the precise
words of the formula uttered alike by Eskimo diabolists and mongrel
Louisianans? Professor Angell's instant start on an investigation of
the utmost thoroughness was eminently natural; though privately I
suspected young Wilcox of having heard of the cult in some indirect
way, and of having invented a series of dreams to heighten and
continue the mystery at my uncle's expense. The dream-narratives
and cuttings collected by the professor were, of course, strong
corroboration; but the rationalism of my mind and the extravagance
of the whole subject led me to adopt what I thought the most
sensible conclusions. So, after thoroughly studying the manuscript
again and correlating the theosophical and anthropological notes
with the cult narrative of Legrasse, I made a trip to Providence to see
the sculptor and give him the rebuke I thought proper for so boldly
imposing upon a learned and aged man.
Wilcox still lived alone in the Fleur-de-Lys Building in Thomas Street,
a hideous Victorian imitation of Seventeenth Century Breton
architecture which flaunts its stuccoed front amidst the lovely
Colonial houses on the ancient hill, and under the very shadow of
the finest Georgian steeple in America. I found him at work in his
rooms, and at once conceded from the specimens scattered about
that his genius is indeed profound and authentic. He will, I believe,
be heard from sometime as one of the great decadents; for he has
crystallized in clay and will one day mirror in marble those
nightmares and fantasies which Arthur Machen evokes in prose, and
Clark Ashton Smith makes visible in verse and in painting.
Dark, frail, and somewhat unkempt in aspect, he turned languidly at
my knock and asked me my business without rising. When I told him
who I was, he displayed some interest; for my uncle had excited his
curiosity in probing his strange dreams, yet had never explained the
reason for the study. I did not enlarge his knowledge in this regard,
but sought with some subtlety to draw him out.
In a short time I became convinced of his absolute sincerity, for he
spoke of the dreams in a manner none could mistake. They and their
subconscious residuum had influenced his art profoundly, and he
showed me a morbid statue whose contours almost made me shake
with the potency of its black suggestion. He could not recall having
seen the original of this thing except in his own dream bas-relief, but
the outlines had formed themselves insensibly under his hands. It
was, no doubt, the giant shape he had raved of in delirium. That he
really knew nothing of the hidden cult, save from what my uncle's
relentless catechism had let fall, he soon made clear; and again I
strove to think of some way in which he could possibly have received
the weird impressions.
He talked of his dreams in a strangely poetic fashion; making me see
with terrible vividness the damp Cyclopean city of slimy green stone
—whose geometry, he oddly said, was all wrong—and hear with
frightened expectancy the ceaseless, half-mental calling from
underground: "Cthulhu fhtagn," "Cthulhu fhtagn."
These words had formed part of that dread ritual which told of dead
Cthulhu's dream-vigil in his stone vault at R'lyeh, and I felt deeply
moved despite my rational beliefs. Wilcox, I was sure, had heard of
the cult in some casual way, and had soon forgotten it amidst the
mass of his equally weird reading and imagining. Later, by virtue of
its sheer impressiveness, it had found subconscious expression in
dreams, in the bas-relief, and in the terrible statue I now beheld; so
that his imposture upon my uncle had been a very innocent one. The
youth was of a type, at once slightly affected and slightly ill-
mannered, which I could never like; but I was willing enough now to
admit both his genius and his honesty. I took leave of him amicably,
and wish him all the success his talent promises.
The matter of the cult still remained to fascinate me, and at times I
had visions of personal fame from researches into its origin and
connections. I visited New Orleans, talked with Legrasse and others
of that old-time raiding-party, saw the frightful image, and even
questioned such of the mongrel prisoners as still survived. Old
Castro, unfortunately, had been dead for some years. What I now
heard so graphically at first hand, though it was really no more than
a detailed confirmation of what my uncle had written, excited me
afresh; for I felt sure that I was on the track of a very real, very
secret, and very ancient religion whose discovery would make me an
anthropologist of note. My attitude was still one of absolute
materialism, as I wish it still were, and I discounted with almost
inexplicable perversity the coincidence of the dream notes and odd
cuttings collected by Professor Angell.
One thing which I began to suspect, and which I now fear I know, is
that my uncle's death was far from natural. He fell on a narrow hill
street leading up from an ancient waterfront swarming with foreign
mongrels, after a careless push from a negro sailor. I did not forget
the mixed blood and marine pursuits of the cult-members in
Louisiana, and would not be surprized to learn of secret methods
and poison needles as ruthless and as anciently known as the
cryptic rites and beliefs. Legrasse and his men, it is true, have been
let alone; but in Norway a certain seaman who saw things is dead.
Might not the deeper inquiries of my uncle after encountering the
sculptor's data have come to sinister ears? I thing Professor Angell
died because he knew too much, or because he was likely to learn
too much. Whether I shall go as he did remains to be seen, for I
have learned much now.
3. The Madness from the Sea.

If heaven ever wishes to grant me a boon, it will be a total effacing of
the results of a mere chance which fixed my eye on a certain stray
piece of shelf-paper. It was nothing on which I would naturally have
stumbled in the course of my daily round, for it was an old number of
an Australian journal, Sydney Bulletin for April 18, 1925. It had
escaped even the cutting bureau which had at the time of its
issuance been avidly collecting material for my uncle's research.
I had largely given over my inquiries into what Professor Angell
called the "Cthulhu Cult," and was visiting a learned friend of
Paterson, New Jersey, the curator of a local museum and a
mineralogist of note. Examining one day the reserve specimens
roughly set on the storage shelves in a rear room of the museum, my
eye was caught by an odd picture in one of the old papers spread
beneath the stones. It was the Sydney Bulletin I have mentioned, for
my friend has wide affiliations in all conceivable foreign parts; and
the picture was a half-tone cut of a hideous stone image almost
identical with that which Legrasse had found in the swamp.
Eagerly clearing the sheet of its precious contents, I scanned the
item in detail; and was disappointed to find it of only moderate
length. What it suggested, however, was of portentous significance
to my flagging quest; and I carefully tore it out for immediate action.
It read as follows:
MYSTERY DERELICT FOUND AT SEA
Vigilant Arrives With Helpless Armed New Zealand Yacht in Tow.
One Survivor and Dead Man Found Aboard. Tale of Desperate Battle
and Deaths at Sea. Rescued Seaman Refuses Particulars of
Strange Experience. Odd Idol Found in His Possession. Inquiry to
Follow.
The Morrison Co.'s freighter Vigilant, bound from Valparaiso, arrived

this morning at its wharf in Darling Harbour, having in tow the battled
and disabled but heavily armed steam yacht Alert of Dunedin, N. Z.,
which was sighted April 12th in S. Latitude 34° 21', W. Longitude
152° 17', with one living and one dead man aboard.
The Vigilant left Valparaiso March 25th, and on April 2d was driven
considerably south of her course by exceptionally heavy storms and
monster waves. On April 12th the derelict was sighted; and though
apparently deserted, was found upon boarding to contain one
survivor in a half-delirious condition and one man who had evidently
been dead for more than a week.
The living man was clutching a horrible stone idol of unknown origin,
about a foot in height, regarding whose nature authorities at Sydney
University, the Royal Society, and the Museum in College Street all
profess complete bafflement, and which the survivor says he found
in the cabin of the yacht, in a small carved shrine of common pattern.
This man, after recovering his senses, told an exceedingly strange
story of piracy and slaughter. He is Gustaf Johansen, a Norwegian of
some intelligence, and had been second mate of the two-masted
schooner Emma of Auckland, which sailed for Callao February 20th,
with a complement of eleven men.
The Emma, he says, was delayed and thrown widely south of her
course by the great storm of March 1st, and on March 22d, in S.
Latitude 49° 51´, W. Longitude 128° 34´, encountered the Alert,
manned by a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-
castes. Being ordered peremptorily to turn back, Capt. Collins
refused; whereupon the strange crew began to fire savagely and
without warning upon the schooner with a peculiarly heavy battery of
brass cannon forming part of the yacht's equipment.
The Emma's men showed fight, says the survivor, and though the
schooner began to sink from shots beneath the waterline they
managed to heave alongside their enemy and board her, grappling
with the savage crew on the yacht's deck, and being forced to kill
them all, the number being slightly superior, because of their
particularly abhorrent and desperate though rather clumsy mode of
fighting.
Three of the Emma's men, including Capt. Collins and First Mate
Green, were killed; and the remaining eight under Second Mate
Johansen proceeded to navigate the captured yacht, going ahead in
their original direction to see if any reason for their ordering back had
existed.
The next day, it appears, they raised and landed on a small island,
although none is known to exist in that part of the ocean; and six of
the men somehow died ashore, though Johansen is queerly reticent
about this part of his story and speaks only of their falling into a rock
chasm.
Later, it seems, he and one companion boarded the yacht and tried
to manage her, but were beaten about by the storm of April 2nd.
From that time till his rescue on the 12th, the man remembers little,
and he does not even recall when William Briden, his companion,
died. Briden's death reveals no apparent cause, and was probably
due to excitement or exposure.
Cable advices from Dunedin report that the Alert was well known
there as an island trader, and bore an evil reputation along the
waterfront. It was owned by a curious group of half-castes whose
frequent meetings and night trips to the woods attracted no little
curiosity; and it had set sail in great haste just after the storm and
earth tremors of March 1st.
Our Auckland correspondent gives the Emma and her crew an
excellent reputation, and Johansen is described as a sober and
worthy man.
The admiralty will institute an inquiry on the whole matter beginning
tomorrow, at which every effort will be made to induce Johansen to
speak more freely than he has done hitherto.
This was all, together with the picture of the hellish image; but what a
train of ideas it started in my mind! Here were new treasuries of data
on the Cthulhu Cult, and evidence that it had strange interests at sea
as well as on land. What motive prompted the hybrid crew to order
back the Emma as they sailed about with their hideous idol? What
was the unknown island on which six of the Emma's crew had died,
and about which the mate Johansen was so secretive? What had the
vice-admiralty's investigation brought out, and what was known of
the noxious cult in Dunedin? And most marvelous of all, what deep
and more than natural linkage of dates was this which gave a malign
and now undeniable significance to the various turns of events so
carefully noted by my uncle?
March 1st—our February 28th according to the International Date
Line—the earthquake and storm had come. From Dunedin the Alert
and her noisome crew had darted eagerly forth as if imperiously
summoned, and on the other side of the earth poets and artists had
begun to dream of a strange, dank Cyclopean city whilst a young
sculptor had molded in his sleep the form of the dreaded Cthulhu.
March 23rd the crew of the Emma landed on an unknown island and
left six men dead; and on that date the dreams of sensitive men
assumed a heightened vividness and darkened with dread of a giant
monster's malign pursuit, whilst an architect had gone mad and a
sculptor had lapsed suddenly into delirium! And what of this storm of
April 2nd—the date on which all dreams of the dank city ceased, and
Wilcox emerged unharmed from the bondage of strange fever? What
of all this—and of those hints of old Castro about the sunken, star-
born Old Ones and their coming reign; their faithful cult and their
mastery of dreams? Was I tottering on the brink of cosmic horrors
beyond man's power to bear? If so, they must be horrors of the mind
alone, for in some way the second of April had put a stop to
whatever monstrous menace had begun its siege of mankind's soul.
That evening, after a day of hurried cabling and arranging, I bade my

host adieu and took a train for San Francisco. In less than a month I
was in Dunedin; where, however, I found that little was known of the
strange cult-members who had lingered in the old sea taverns.
Waterfront scum was far too common for special mention; though
there was vague talk about one inland trip these mongrels had
made, during which faint drumming and red flame were noted on the
distant hills.
In Auckland I learned that Johansen had returned with yellow hair
turned white after a perfunctory and inconclusive questioning at
Sydney, and had thereafter sold his cottage in West Street and
sailed with his wife to his old home in Oslo. Of his stirring experience
he would tell his friends no more than he had told the admiralty
officials, and all they could do was to give me his Oslo address.
After that I went to Sydney and talked profitlessly with seamen and
members of the vice-admiralty court. I saw the Alert, now sold and in
commercial use, at Circular Quay in Sydney Cove, but gained
nothing from its non-committal bulk. The crouching image with its
cuttlefish head, dragon body, scaly wings, and hieroglyphed
pedestal, was preserved in the Museum at Hyde Park; and I studied
it long and well, finding it a thing of balefully exquisite workmanship,
and with the same utter mystery, terrible antiquity, and unearthly
strangeness of material which I had noted in Legrasse's smaller
specimen. Geologists, the curator told me, had found it a monstrous
puzzle; for they vowed that the world held no rock like it. Then I
thought with a shudder of what old Castro had told Legrasse about
the primal Great Ones: "They had come from the stars, and had
brought Their images with Them."
Shaken with such a mental revolution as I had never before known, I
now resolved to visit Mate Johansen in Oslo. Sailing for London, I re-
embarked at once for the Norwegian capital; and one autumn day
landed at the trim wharves in the shadow of the Egeberg.
Johansen's address, I discovered, lay in the Old Town of King Harold
Haardrada, which kept alive the name of Oslo during all the
centuries that the greater city masqueraded as "Christiania." I made
the brief trip by taxicab, and knocked with palpitant heart at the door
of a neat and ancient building with plastered front. A sad-faced
woman in black answered my summons, and I was stung with
disappointment when she told me in halting English that Gustaf
Johansen was no more.
He had not long survived his return, said his wife, for the doings at
sea in 1925 had broken him. He had told her no more than he had
told the public, but had left a long manuscript—of "technical matters"
as he said—written in English, evidently in order to safeguard her
from the peril of casual perusal. During a walk through a narrow lane
near the Gothenburg dock, a bundle of papers falling from an attic
window had knocked him down. Two Lascar sailors at once helped
him to his feet, but before the ambulance could reach him he was
dead. Physicians found no adequate cause for the end, and laid it to
heart trouble and a weakened constitution.
I now felt gnawing at my vitals that dark terror which will never leave
me till I, too, am at rest; "accidentally" or otherwise. Persuading the
widow that my connection with her husband's "technical matters"
was sufficient to entitle me to his manuscript, I bore the document
away and began to read it on the London boat.
It was a simple, rambling thing—a naive sailor's effort at a post-facto
diary—and strove to recall day by day that last awful voyage. I can
not attempt to transcribe it verbatim in all its cloudiness and
redundance, but I will tell its gist enough to show why the sound of
the water against the vessel's sides became so unendurable to me
that I stopped my ears with cotton.
Johansen, thank God, did not know quite all, even though he saw
the city and the Thing, but I shall never sleep calmly again when I
think of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in
space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which
dream beneath the sea, known and favored by a nightmare cult
ready and eager to loose them on the world whenever another
earthquake shall heave their monstrous stone city again to the sun
and air.
Johansen's voyage had begun just as he told it to the vice-admiralty.

The Emma, in ballast, had cleared Auckland on February 20th, and
had felt the full force of that earthquake-born tempest which must
have heaved up from the sea-bottom the horrors that filled men's
dreams. Once more under control, the ship was making good
progress when held up by the Alert on March 22nd, and I could feel
the mate's regret as he wrote of her bombardment and sinking. Of
the swarthy cult-fiends on the Alert he speaks with significant horror.
There was some peculiarly abominable quality about them which
made their destruction seem almost a duty, and Johansen shows
ingenuous wonder at the charge of ruthlessness brought against his
party during the proceedings of the court of inquiry. Then, driven
ahead by curiosity in their captured yacht under Johansen's
command, the men sight a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea,
and in S. Latitude 47° 9', W. Longitude 126° 43' come upon a
coastline of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry
which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth's
supreme terror—the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh, that was built in
measureless eons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that
seeped down from the dark stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his
hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults and sending out at last, after
cycles incalculable, the thoughts that spread fear to the dreams of
the sensitive and called imperiously to the faithful to come on a
pilgrimage of liberation and restoration. All this Johansen did not
suspect, but God knows he soon saw enough!
I suppose that only a single mountain-top, the hideous monolith-
crowned citadel whereon great Cthulhu was buried, actually
emerged from the waters. When I think of the extent of all that may
be brooding down there I almost wish to kill myself forthwith.
Johansen and his men were awed by the cosmic majesty of this
dripping Babylon of elder demons, and must have guessed without
guidance that it was nothing of this or of any sane planet. Awe at the
unbelievable size of the greenish stone blocks, at the dizzying height
of the great carven monolith, and at the stupefying identity of the
colossal statues and bas-reliefs with the queer image found in the
shrine on the Alert, is poignantly visible in every line of the mate's
frightened description.
Without knowing what futurism is like, Johansen achieved something
very close to it when he spoke of the city; for instead of describing
any definite structure or building, he dwells only on the broad
impressions of vast angles and stone surfaces—surfaces too great
to belong to anything right or proper for this earth, and impious with
horrible images and hieroglyphs. I mention his talk about angles
because it suggests something Wilcox had told me of his awful
dreams. He had said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw
was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres
and dimensions apart from ours. Now an unlettered seaman felt the
same thing whilst gazing at the terrible reality.
Johansen and his men landed at a sloping mud-bank on this
monstrous Acropolis, and clambered slipperily up over titan oozy
blocks which could have been no mortal staircase. The very sun of
heaven seemed distorted when viewed through the polarizing
miasma welling out from this sea-soaked perversion, and twisted
menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive
angles of carven rock where a second glance showed concavity after
the first showed convexity.
Something very like fright had come over all the explorers before
anything more definite than rock and ooze and weed was seen.
Each would have fled had he not feared the scorn of the others, and
it was only half-heartedly that they searched—vainly, as it proved—
for some portable souvenir to bear away.
It was Rodriguez the Portuguese who climbed up the foot of the
monolith and shouted of what he had found. The rest followed him,
and looked curiously at the immense carved door with the now
familiar squid-dragon bas-relief. It was, Johansen said, like a great
barn-door; and they all felt that it was a door because of the ornate
lintel, threshold, and jambs around it, though they could not decide
whether it lay flat like a trap-door or slantwise like an outside cellar-
door. As Wilcox would have said, the geometry of the place was all
wrong. One could not be sure that the sea and the ground were
horizontal, hence the relative position of everything else seemed
fantasmally variable.
Briden pushed at the stone in several places without result. Then
Donovan felt over it delicately around the edge, pressing each point
separately as he went. He climbed interminably along the grotesque
stone molding—that is, one would call it climbing if the thing was not
after all horizontal—and the men wondered how any door in the
universe could be so vast. Then, very softly and slowly, the acre-
great panel began to give inward at the top; and they saw that it was
balanced.
Donovan slid or somehow propelled himself down or along the jamb
and rejoined his fellows, and everyone watched the queer recession
of the monstrously carven portal. In this fantasy of prismatic
distortion it moved anomalously in a diagonal way, so that all the
rules of matter and perspective seemed upset.
The aperture was black with a darkness almost material. That
tenebrousness was indeed a positive quality; for it obscured such
parts of the inner walls as ought to have been revealed, and actually
burst forth like smoke from its eon-long imprisonment, visibly
darkening the sun as it slunk away into the shrunken and gibbous
sky on flapping membranous wings. The odor arising from the newly
opened depths was intolerable, and at length the quick-eared
Hawkins thought he heard a nasty, slopping sound down there.
Everyone listened, and everyone was listening still when It lumbered
slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green
immensity through the black doorway into the tainted outside air of
that poison city of madness.
Poor Johansen's handwriting almost gave out when he wrote of this.
Of the six men who never reached the ship, he thinks two perished
of pure fright in that accursed instant. The Thing can not be
described—there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and
immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force,
and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled. God! What
wonder that across the earth a great architect went mad, and poor
Wilcox raved with fever in that telepathic instant? The Thing of the
idols, the green, sticky spawn of the stars, had awaked to claim his
own. The stars were right again, and what an age-old cult had failed
to do by design, a band of innocent sailors had done by accident.
After vigintillions of years great Cthulhu was loose again, and
ravening for delight.
Three men were swept up by the flabby claws before anybody
turned. God rest them, if there be any rest in the universe. They
were Donovan, Guerrera and Angstrom. Parker slipped as the other
three were plunging frenziedly over endless vistas of green-crusted
rock to the boat, and Johansen swears he was swallowed up by an
angle of masonry which shouldn't have been there; an angle which
was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse. So only Briden and
Johansen reached the boat, and pulled desperately for the Alert as
the mountainous monstrosity flopped down the slimy stones and
hesitated floundering at the edge of the water.
Steam had not been suffered to go down entirely, despite the
departure of all hands for the shore; and it was the work of only a
few moments of feverish rushing up and down between wheels and
engines to get the Alert under way. Slowly, amidst the distorted
horrors of that indescribable scene, she began to churn the lethal
waters; whilst on the masonry of that charnel shore that was not of
earth the titan Thing from the stars slavered and gibbered like
Polypheme cursing the fleeing ship of Odysseus. Then, bolder than
the storied Cyclops, great Cthulhu slid greasily into the water and
began to pursue with vast wave-raising strokes of cosmic potency.
Briden looked back and went mad, laughing shrilly as he kept on
laughing at intervals till death found him one night in the cabin whilst
Johansen was wandering deliriously.
But Johansen had not given out yet. Knowing that the Thing could
surely overtake the Alert until steam was fully up, he resolved on a
desperate chance; and, setting the engine for full speed, ran
lightning-like on deck and reversed the wheel. There was a mighty
eddying and foaming in the noisome brine, and as the steam
mounted higher and higher the brave Norwegian drove his vessel
head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean
froth like the stern of a demon galleon. The awful squid-head with
writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht,
but Johansen drove on relentlessly.
There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness
as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves,
and a sound that the chronicler would not put on paper. For an
instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud,
and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where—God
in heaven!—the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was
nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance
widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting
steam.
That was all. After that Johansen only brooded over the idol in the
cabin and attended to a few matters of food for himself and the
laughing maniac by his side. He did not try to navigate after the first
bold flight, for the reaction had taken something out of his soul. Then
came the storm of April 2nd, and a gathering of the clouds about his
consciousness. There is a sense of spectral whirling through liquid
gulfs of infinity, of dizzying rides through reeling universes on a
comet's tail, and of hysterical plunges from the pit to the moon and
from the moon back again to the pit, all livened by a cachinnating
chorus of the distorted, hilarious elder gods and the green, bat-
winged mocking imps of Tartarus.
Out of that dream came rescue—the Vigilant, the vice-admiralty
court, the streets of Dunedin, and the long voyage back home to the
old house by the Egeberg. He could not tell—they would think him
mad. He would write of what he knew before death came, but his
wife must not guess. Death would be a boon if only it could blot out
the memories.
That was the document I read, and now I have placed it in the tin box
beside the bas-relief and the papers of Professor Angell. With it shall
go this record of mine—this test of my own sanity, wherein is pieced
together that which I hope may never be pieced together again. I
have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and
even the skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever
afterward be poison to me. But I do not think my life will be long. As
my uncle went, as poor Johansen went, so I shall go. I know too
much, and the cult still lives.
Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which
has shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is
sunken once more, for the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April
storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and slay
around idol-capped monoliths in lonely places. He must have been
trapped by the sinking whilst within his black abyss, or else the world
would by now be screaming with fright and frenzy. Who knows the
end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise.
Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads
over the tottering cities of men. A time will come—but I must not and
can not think! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my
executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no
other eye.
[1] Found among the papers of the late Francis Wayland

Thurston, of Boston.

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Corruption in the MENA Region:

Beyond Uprisings 1st ed. Edition Dina

Double-Edged Politics on Women’s Rights in the MENA

The Assessment of L2 Written English across the MENA

Contemporary Research in Accounting and Finance: Case

A Tale of Four Worlds: The Arab Region After the

Reliability Engineering, Third Edition (Wiley Series in

Feminisms in the Nordic Region: Neoliberalism,

Water Resources in the Mediterranean Region 1st Edition

Socioeconomic Protests in MENA and Latin America: Egypt

More information about this series at

Political Corruption and Governance

Cover illustration: Parkpoom Yeesoontes/EyeEm/Getty Images

Cairo, Egypt Dina Elsayed

To the most interesting, extraordinary, yet exhausting years.

To my siblings, Khaled, Mohamed, Nancy, Sherine, and Maha. I could

4 Research Design, Methodology, and Data Collection 49

5 The MENA Region: Unique Features and Sustained

6 Corruption in the Gulf Region: A Black Box 77

6.2 Economic Status 144

7 Corruption in North Africa: Monopoly of Power

8 Corruption in the Mashreq Region Plus Yemen:

9 Corruption in the MENA Region: What are the Roots? 291

10 Conclusion: Is There a Way Out? 311

CPI Corruption Perception Index

Fig. 5 Economic Status in Morocco 187

Corruption is a worldwide phenomenon; no country is entirely clean and

© The Author(s) 2021 1

views corruption as a significant obstacle to economic and social devel-

transparency in the region, without an in-depth analysis of the distinct

• What are the causes of corruption in the MENA region countries?

Sub-questions developed during the course of answering this central

• What are the main variables causing corruption in each country?

• Which variables have less of an impact on the levels of corruption in

Commonwealth Secretariat. (2001). 1999 Meeting of Commonwealth Law Minis-

Seldadyo, H., & Haan, J. (2005). The Determinants of Corruption. Paper

© The Author(s) 2021 9

1.1 Corruption Defined Through Public Interest, Public Opinion,

benefits, power, or status. Morris (1991) interprets corruption generally

concept: it becomes either an insignificant issue that does not require

1.2 Corruption Defined Through the Principal–Agent Framework

perspectives, according to Klitgaard, are ‘information’ and ‘incentives’.

Corruption = Monopoly + Discretion – Accountability. (Klitgaard 1988:

instances (Rose-Ackerman 1978; Banfield 1979; Persson and Tabellini

1.3 Corruption as Abuse of Public Office

and customs authorities, school admissions, hospital access, and many

accountable for their decision making. Extortion is similar to bribery but

are often associated with it (clientelism, state capture, patrimonialism,

Heidenheimer, A. J. (1989). Perspectives on the Perception of Corruption. In A.

Morris, S. D. (1991). Corruption and Politics in Contemporary Mexico.

There is a great deal of literature on the topic of corruption. However, the

© The Author(s) 2021 23

Several studies have concluded that there is a strong relationship

1 Donor countries in the cited study are the OECD countries.

Some scholars have looked at the political implications of corruption.

political will, and following a participatory analysis of the issue. Tanzi’s

1.1 Regime Characteristics

(2002), also found a negative relationship between the independence of