Addressing Political Corruption In India

The debate on the relationship between corruption and democracy involves the fundamental issue of the nature of corruption and that of democracy. Both these concepts can be understood in quite different manners. This paper tries to bring corruption into the realm of democratic theory by focusing on the nature of the problem and its effects on democracy. It begins by discussing the various ways in which theorists and thinkers have conceptualized political corruption, making it a complex phenomenon. This explores how political corruption takes root in and thrives in a democracy. The paper also highlights the importance of focusing more on the effects of corruption so that the systemic nature of the problem can be explored. The intention in this paper is not to come up with any grand theory of corruption but it only seeks to problematize the conventional and prevalent understanding of political corruption. Conventionally, corruption has been considered as a moral, individual or social problem but recent approaches to study corruption have tried to establish link between corruption and democracy by focusing on the effects of corruption on democratic institutions and processes. These different understandings have made corruption a contested field of research as it affects economic, social, and political aspects of a political system almost equally. This exercise insists the need of looking at it from institutional perspective as it is engulfed in social, economic and political fields. The paper presents its arguments by acknowledging the link between reducing corruption and broader process of democratization.