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Abstract:This essay challenges conceptions of political corruption that rely on standards external to politics and explores an understanding of corruption as something that is part of the internal policing of politics. The essay draws attention to the multiple, conflicting ideas and principles that contribute to our understanding of corruption but argues that these often generate over-moralized and over-generalized claims and can become corrosive of the compromises and procedures that are central to political rule. The essay shows that recent accounts of political corruption often have highly attenuated understandings of "politics" and are over-expansive in their normative commitments, and argues that how we understand and talk about the corruption of politics is of major significance for the stability and effectiveness of the political orders of Western societies.

The characteristics of urban political machines prevalent in the early 20th-century US are examined; the extent of machine politics present in developing nations during the mid-20th century is also explored. Three conditions necessary for the development of political machines are identified: the selection of political leaders through sanctioned elections; the presence of adult suffrage; & the existence of high levels of competition between or within political parties. The role of patronage in political machines & the machines' influence over the enforcement stage of legislation are then discussed. A three-phase schema that illustrates the development of political machines is subsequently presented. Different types of loyalty (eg, community ties) & the inducements required to make individuals change their loyalties are also addressed. It is asserted that machine politics are present in developing nations characterized by fragmented political power, ethnic conflict, & extreme poverty. 2 Tables. J. W. Parker

State of Corruption: Power, Politics, and Policies in Malaysia offers compelling new empirical insights into the covert world of corruption. This book, a collection of three reports, is a penetrating assessment of the controversial, complex, and diverse ties between business and politics that have led to patronage, cronyism, collusion, nepotism, and rent-seeking. A novel assessment is provided of foundations controlled by politicians who abuse them to obtain 'donations' which are then funnelled into the political system, altering fair play during party and general elections. Substantial evidence is provided of the abuse of an ensemble of public policies and government-controlled institutions by politicians to illicitly accumulate wealth. The book also scrutinises a re-emerging phenomenon — the involvement of business elites in politics as a means to secure power and shape policies. This book's comprehensive, and chilling, examination of systemic corruption in Malaysia is explained in a manner that is accessible to all.

The study of political influence in the West has for the most part focused on the process by which interest groups affect the content of legislation; hence, the input process has occupied the center of attention.Students of politics in the new states of Africa and Asia who have adopted this perspective, however, have been struck by the relative weakness both of interest structures to organize demands and of institutionalized channels through which such demands, once organized, might be communicated to decisionmakers. The open clash of organized interests is often conspicuously absent during the formulation of legislation in these nations. To conclude from this, however, that the public has little or no effect on the eventual "output" of government would be completely unwarranted. Between the passage of legislation and its actual implementation lies an entirely different political arena that, in spite of its informality and particularism, has a great effect on the execution of policy.Much of the expression of political interests in the new states has been disregarded because Western scholars, accustomed to their own politics, have been looking in the wrong place. A large portion of individual demands, and even group demands, in developing nations reach the political system, not before laws are passed, but rather at the enforcement stage.