Critical Analysis: Public Corruption

Corruption is a problem dealing with economic and social structure of a nation across the globe. Corruption in politics is a public sector phenomenon and is nonetheless one of the central issues facing many nations in modern times. Dealing with both legal and ethical considerations, there are instances that the office or duties are being betrayed in exchange of selfish benefits. Throughout history, failure of the remedies applied to it largely impacted the socio-economic development of the nation.

It is good to analyze what motivates corruption, how its different varieties are perceived, what does it serve and what can be done to minimize or even eradicate this. Attitudes towards position and obligations remained to be the prime factors that motivate public personnel to be do corrupt actions. In high level and low level of corruption, the use of public office whether it is a high official or a clerk were initiated with the use of authority giving favors due to self interests that need to be met.

For example, alliance in politics servicing an electoral candidate’s campaign if perceived as a power of assuring victory in the electoral process will result not just to gratitude but to a subtle obligation for paying back in terms of influential favors since being a candidate in election required allotment of non profitable amount of money. This can also be applied with clerks who have the ability to give favor in exchange of bribes.

This is possible when we consider the low compensation of government employees that in order to survive, or earn more money, they will choose to accept the bribe (U Myint. 2000. p. 40-41) We can have in mind that hard times and great stress will make corrupt people. As we can notice with the way situations are determining the attitude of an individual, we can say that corruption is a form merely not of political choice but of economic choice and if we are talking about economic variables, we should not forget that market will always play its role and price is which will matter most in dealing with it.

It remained one of the highly considered points of view in analyzing corrupt acts, but this economic perception applied in high level of corruption revealed that it is incomplete and has discrepancies for there are actual motives beyond such as the immeasurable power of discipline. With the extent of corruption’s effects in the society and with its length of stay in the history of policy making, there can be notions that corruption is becoming part of the culture or that corruption is a culture itself.

But any act and practices suggesting lame authority has no space in an ideal society thus making them nuisance and should be acted to totally remove them in the social system. The attitude towards the use of authority apparently needs to be addressed in post conventional manner to keep it on track of servicing solely the public interests.

All collective actions done by people in the social group defined and established the culture and if a portion of culture is no longer servicing its functions there should be a way that it can be destroyed and make changes to adopt in better situations. Political planning must address the issue with high authoritative will paired with the sensitivity with the root causes of it.