at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2022, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Shekhar applied the "Page 99 Test" to his new book, The Logic of Corruption: Why it Persists and Why Reforms Fail, with the following results:
From page 99:Learn more about The Logic of Corruption at the Cambridge University Press website. Visit Chandra Shekhar's website.The survey specifically assessed whether the observed district-level patterns—corruption in intra-district transfers, petty corruption in the marketplace, and the linkages between them—are features of the district-level bureaucracy as a whole.It will not be inaccurate to term page 99 as the most important page in the whole book. Surprisingly, someone opening the book to page 99 will see what probably is its most important empirical result, including getting a good sense of what the whole project is all about. Of course, the core puzzle of the book is not stated verbatim on page 99, but it becomes quite clear to the reader through the description of the survey and its main results that the project is about the grand corruption of political and bureaucratic elites and petty corruption of street-level bureaucrats, and their linkages. By reading page 99 alone, the reader will learn that the book identifies corruption not as a uniform phenomenon, but categorizes the corruption of elites as grand corruption and the corruption of street-level bureaucrats as petty corruption. The reader also learns from this page that petty corruption at the grassroots and grand corruption, especially in the transfers and postings of both street- and senior-level bureaucrats, are widely prevalent, a key result that has been tested across India’s state police, environmental, and infrastructure bureaucracies.
According to the survey, 79.2 percent (95 percent CI: 68.3 to 90.1 percent) of the street-level bureaucrats affirmed that grand corruption remains widely prevalent in intra-district transfers and agreed that it would be difficult to obtain an important assignment without resorting to such corruption. “Important” assignments referred to certain police stations that differed in their geographic locations and earning potentials, or distinct police categories within a district (for example, the civil police, who are the primary enforcers of the law in the district, versus the reserved police of the district, who are called upon only in situations of emergency). Further, 70.5 percent (95 percent CI: 59.1 to 81.9 percent) admitted having used either bribery or political influence or both at least once in their careers to secure their preferred assignment choice. The choice in this response referred to a district, a specialized unit, or a place within a district, hinting at the ubiquity of corruption in assignment allocations of street-level bureaucrats. A large percentage of officials (82.1 percent) (95 percent CI: 71.4 to 92.8 percent) reported that petty corruption like street-level bureaucrats taking bribes from street vendors in the marketplaces is not a district-specific phenomenon; similar practices occur in other districts as well, indicating the bureaucracy- wide presence of these petty corruption markets.
A total of 80.2 percent (95 percent CI: 69.4 to 91.0 percent) of the officials in the survey also believed that the market for corruption in transfers at all levels in the hierarchy remains the principal locus around which corruption is organized. This view reinforced the findings of the internal survey conducted by the Indian government (Figure 2.3), which showed that senior civil servants believed that a majority of their colleagues resorted to unethical means to obtain preferred assignments. It also echoed the views expressed by street-level bureaucrats during the first phase of the interviews, particularly regarding (a) the corrupt and unfair practices in the appointment of senior officials and not just street-level positions, and (b) an artificial sense of legitimacy based on the purchasing of office among street officials to extract rent in implementation. Finally, 77.3 percent (CI: 66.2 to 88.3 percent) agreed that the occurrence of grand corruption in the transfer of street-level bureaucrats is independent of who holds political power…
The book examines why corruption exists and persists in government bureaucracies using an extensive seven-year-long fieldwork with three of India’s major state bureaucracies: the police, environmental, and infrastructure. The core puzzle derives from three realities. First, both grand and petty forms of corruption exist in India’s state bureaucracies. Second, grand and petty corruption are organized around the market for public office, especially the transfers and postings of street-level bureaucrats by political and bureaucratic elites. Finally, grand corruption causes petty corruption to exceed it beyond the level explained by standard principal-agent relationships inherent in large, complex bureaucracies. Street-level bureaucrats have strong preferences over assignments, which they categorize into choicest and punishment postings. Political and bureaucratic elites allocate choicest street-level offices in exchange for bribery and political influence, a mechanism I conceptualize as “the market for public office.” (This term was coined by Robert Wade in 1980s.) After participating in the market for public office, street-level bureaucrats view it as legitimate to extract rent and accommodate elites’ informal expectations in the implementation, explaining the existence of high levels of petty corruption. To maintain their choicest assignments, street-level bureaucrats also regularly share a portion of the rent with their superiors, which accounts for the persistence of high levels of this corruption.
--Marshal Zeringue
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