Why We Need to Kill the ‘Corruption is Cancer’ Analogy
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In this post Professor Paul Heywood gives three reasons to why the analogy of corruption as cancer is not just misplaced, but positively unhelpful for efforts to combat corruption.
When Pope Francis recently described corruption as ‘a cancer that consumes our lives’, he was just the latest in a very long line of world leaders and dignitaries to have done so (see here, here, here, here, and here). In fact, ever since James D Wolfensohn, then president of the World Bank, announced in 1996 that ‘we need to deal with the cancer of corruption’, it has become a virtual cliché to refer to the issue in such terms.
Indeed, the analogy was expressly justified on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office blog in December 2013 by Nigel Baker, UK Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-16):
“It is right to call corruption a cancer. When it grows in the body politic, sometimes imperceptibly, it has the ability rapidly and insidiously to infiltrate and destroy the organs of the state. Once embedded, it is very difficult to cut out. Metastasis across society is common. It prevents countries from developing and reaching their full potential, and destroys the ethical and moral foundation of a state.”
There is, of course, a very long history of describing political failings and shortcomings through reference to illness or disease, evident across many different cultural contexts; an archetypal example of corruption seen in such terms – if a somewhat ironic one, in light of current perceptions indices – is Marcellus’ observation in Hamlet that ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’.
My argument in this post is that the analogy of corruption as cancer is not just misplaced, but positively unhelpful for efforts to combat corruption. There are three main reasons for this.
What political body contracts the cancer of corruption?
First, whereas all cancers involve abnormal cell growth and reproduction within a body, there is no equivalent factual description of corruption; instead, despite widespread adoption of the idea of corruption as ‘the abuse of power for private gain’, the definition remains endlessly disputed (and almost certainly irresolvable). A particular issue, however, is how we should identify the ‘body’ that is being attacked by the cancer of corruption: what is the political equivalent to the human individual?
One answer, of course, is to equate the body with the entire world, and that seems to be what Pope Francis had in mind. But whilst corruption ‘spreading’ to different parts of the world might be seen as equivalent to a form of metastasis, that analogy works only at such a level of abstraction as to be simply trite. Instead, a much more established understanding of the ‘body politic’ in terms of analogy is the nation or the state over which a ruler exercises sovereign authority. Not only does that reflect common usage (see here, here and here), it also resonates with the dominant focus on the nation-state as the unit of analysis when it comes to researching and combating corruption.
This focus on the nation-state seems very deeply ingrained. At two separate workshops in recent months, my suggestion that we should reconsider using the nation-state as an appropriate unit of analysis for understanding corruption (given the increasing evidence that much of the most egregious corruption is transnational and that corruption also varies significantly within states) has met much resistance. If we don’t focus on the nation-state, I’ve been told, then we will have an uncontrollable proliferation of cases – as if somehow the only units of analysis available are either individuals or states.
Yet much corruption is plainly transnational: unlike cancer, which remains confined to an individual body no matter how far it spreads, these types of corruption always cut across different bodies politic. As Alexander Cooley and Jason Sharman persuasively argue in a new article, ‘the methodological nationalism that frames much research and policy on corruption skews our understanding of its increasingly transnational nature.’ The analogy with cancer only serves to reinforce that focus on individual nation states and what they supposedly need to do in order to rid themselves of the disease.
The question of choice
The second problem with the analogy is that it serves to underplay a sense of agency in our understanding of corruption. Although we know ever more about risk factors associated with cancer – some of which can be avoided, others not – it is difficult to conceive that people set out deliberately to get cancer. Indeed, it is not clear that it would be possible to do so: even though smoking is indisputably linked to lung cancer, for instance, not everyone who smokes succumbs; by the same token, other people who live the healthiest of lifestyles still get cancer.
The same cannot really be said of corruption. To engage in any corrupt exchange requires a conscious decision or choice to do so – even if, in social settings where corruption is deeply embedded and endemic, that ‘choice’ may seem so highly constrained as to be near meaningless. For much routine, day-to-day corruption which entails the payment of small-scale bribes, there is an element of truth in that. But, as has been pointed out in previous posts on this blog (see here, here, here and here), there are several factors relating to social norms, gender and identity that influence why and whether people engage in corruption, even in the most conflict-affected settings.
And the idea that choice is somehow constrained is emphatically not true for the kinds of sophisticated, transnational corruption networks that rely on skilled professional enablers and intermediaries to function. Yet the analogy with cancer suggests that corruption is something that just happens, an ever-present risk to which we are may unfortunately fall victim despite our best efforts.
For sure, corruption kills in all kinds of ways, and more generally has a hugely negative impact on the quality of life for millions across the world – in particular, in fragile and conflict-affected states, corruption is routinely associated with a host of ills, including widespread violence and killings. But the FCAS picture is a complex one: corruption in such settings is often as much a symptom as a cause of broader failings in governance, and can even serve as a source of limited stability. And if we return to the idea of the nation-state as the body politic, it is hard to think of any that has actually died from corruption. Indeed, we don’t comment in concerned tones: ‘did you hear the terrible news about Canada: it’s been diagnosed with corruption’.
Focus on treating the patient, not curing the disease
The third issue is that the use of cancer as an analogy for corruption inevitably suggests that we should be seeking a ‘cure’ – often explicitly so, as in the title of Robert I Rotberg’s latest volume, that describes corruption as ‘an insidious cancer of a national body politic’. In practice, many of the historically suggested ‘cures’ have been quite crude, prescribing ‘one-size-fits-all’ institutional reforms to strengthen the ‘good governance’ immune system – a sort of political equivalent to a course of radio- or chemotherapy no matter what type of corruption we are seeking to address.
We are now developing a more sophisticated understanding of corruption, but there is still an overwhelming tendency to see it as a pathology that is susceptible to treatment. Such an approach runs the risk not only of political naivety, but also of continuing to target such treatments at the level of the nation-state (as in the UNODC’s recent guide on the development and implementation of national anti-corruption strategies). Ironically enough, recent advances in cancer treatment have started to look at the use of DNA sequencing to develop personalised therapies targeted at the individual level – precisely the kind of highly specific and tailored focus often dismissed as impractical or unrealistic by those working on corruption.
At root, my real concern is that comparing corruption to cancer serves as a lazy analogy that reflects a broader series of generic, and frankly unhelpful, assumptions. After more than twenty years writing and researching on the topic of corruption, I have become ever more convinced that we need to change the terms of the conversation and move beyond some of the standard clichés that characterise the field. Through the British Academy/DFID Anti-Corruption Evidence Programme, we are trying to challenge colleagues to move away from sweeping generalizations about corruption acting as some kind of dependent or independent variable. Instead, we are encouraging researchers and practitioners alike to focus on the complexity and contradictions of the many manifestations of corruption. That means embracing the need to reconsider fundamental issues, such as the role of agency, the need to question our units of analysis and to the need to adapt reform initiatives to specific contexts, as well as focusing in much more detail on different sectors and settings.
The “Corruption in Fragile States” blog series
This post is part of the corruption in fragile states series. The series provides a space for conversation about corruption in fragile states. Since its inception in 2016 as part of the CDA Perspectives Blog, the series has sought to challenge status quo thinking with a particular emphasis on exploring systems-based approaches to understanding and acting on corruption dynamics. Topics in the series range from new research findings in Uganda, Iraq or the DRC to provocative thought pieces intended to contest dominant paradigms or practices.
Now hosted by the Institute for Human Security at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, series contributions are inspired by, but not limited to, the Corruption, Justice and Legitimacy project as well as the, now concluded, Central Africa Accountable Service Delivery Initiative. All blog posts published after March 1, 2018, information about submitting guest posts, and subscribing to future series updates is available here.
To receive blog posts on other topics from CDA subscribe here. You may contact [email protected] if you are interested in submitting a guest post on the latest work in the fields of accountability and feedback loops, conflict sensitivity, peacebuilding effectiveness, and responsible business.
Blog image: A dividing lung cancer cell. Credit: National Institutes of Health. Retrieved from: The National Cancer Institute.
About the author
Paul M Heywood, PhD, FRSA, FAcSS. Professor Paul Heywood holds the Sir Francis Hill Chair of European Politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, UK. Prior to taking up his Chair in 1995, he taught at the University of Glasgow and Queen Mary College, London. He studied at the University of Edinburgh, and did his doctorate at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on political corruption, institutional design and state capacity, and he is author, co-author or editor of eighteen books and more than eighty journal articles and book chapters. Recent funded research includes an ESRC/Hong Kong project on Integrity Management in the UK, HK and China; an EU FP7 project, ANTICORRP, on anti-corruption policies; and TACOD, an EU project on tackling corruption through open data. Professor Heywood is currently leader of a £3.6m British Academy/DFID Anti-Corruption Evidence programme (2015-18), designed to identify new initiatives that can help developing countries tackle the scourge of corruption and the negative impact it has on millions of people’s lives. He is a Trustee of Transparency International-UK, where he chairs the Advocacy and Research Committee. Professor Heywood is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (2002), a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (2012), and a Fellow of Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (2013).
Dear Paul Heywood:
You are right. I share in the blame. In 1993, as some friends of mine and I were launching Transparency International we were honored that Nobel laureate Oscar Arias was coming to Berlin to speak at public meeting at the opening of our first office. I worked with President Arias on his speech and included the “cancer of corruption” phrase. I no longer can recall where I had first heard it, but I cannot claim originality here – and yes, at the time I thought it sounded good.
A couple of years later, a few of us from TI were invited to discuss anti-corruption by the new president of the World Bank, Jim Wolfensohn, who had invited all of the Bank’s vice presidents and top managers to the three-hour event. Many of those in the room were old friends of TI founder Peter Eigen and me, as both of us had worked in senior positions in the Bank for some years. I believe it was in that meeting where, once again, the cancer of corruption phrase was used.
It was no surprise therefore that the phrase should turn up a few months later in Wolfensohn’s speech (as you note in your blog).
It is a totally misleading phrase. Your arguments are absolutely right. I plead guilty.
Sincerely,
Frank Vogl
co-founder Transparency International
Overall I agree with most of the points you raise in the piece, however I have some points I would like to ask you.
The point you raise about corruption being transnational and not something that is necessarily confined to one nation-state piqued my interest. From a strict intellectual point of view, I am in full agreement with you, we must move beyond the nation-state as the unit of analysis, especially in the case of corruptions that are transnational. However, from a practical point of view, what kind of policy innovation would we be looking at? Would we have to then engage international bodies, such as the EU (which actually has a legal framework that could potentially enforce codes that are brought forth) or would it be a collaborative effort between bodies such as the EU and a number of IOs and NGOs?
The point where I do not agree with you is in the matter of choice. You point out that nobody actually sets out to “get cancer” but in the same vein, I think no individual (especially the victims of corruption) set out to “get corruption”. It may be a matter of consciously engaging in corruption, but most certainly not a choice, if anything it is a form of coercion, where people are forced into it, especially in situations where a citizen knows their bribe is what keeps their child from getting treatment. The final point you make, is about the assumption of a cure existing. I understand the frustration of the blueprint approach but I wanted to pick you brain about what suggestions you would have to attach such a form of corruption?
From our previous discussions I know that you are very much in favour of moving away from the blueprint – one size fits all – policy approach that corruption has received by the policy sphere, and focus our attention instead in a way where the context is taken into account. However, what I wonder is, do you think we can combat it or do you feel there are no solutions?
I recently read a very interesting article by S. Mukherjee in the New Yorker, that actually focuses on the different types of cancers and the point of the different bodies. I think you would find it to be an enjoyable read as it also tries to move away from the understanding of cancer as a disease that can be treated with a blueprint approach, instead they have now started to look also at the host body that is being attacked and how the different settings help to stem or increase the disease. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/11/cancers-invasion-equation
Very many thanks, Aiysha, for your thoughtful comments on the blog post, and apologies for the delay in responding. Thanks, also, to Frank Vogl for the fascinating backstory on the emergence of the ‘corruption as cancer’ analogy.
In regard to policy level, Aiysha makes a perfectly sensible point. I think the answer is that policy innovation needs to operate at a range of different levels, according to the particular aspect or dimension that we are seeking to address. Thus, for complex transnational networks that involve money-laundering, the response will need to entail a combination of international-level legislation (e.g. FATF-style regulations), supported by international bodies, and also some national-level implementation mechanisms; for corruption in a local health service or police force, on the other hand, the policy response might work best at regional or municipal level, or even sector level. There is no one right answer that applies in all situations.
The key point in moving away from the focus on nation-states is not that states have no relevance in terms of being the site of anti-corruption interventions; rather, it is that such interventions will have a chance of being effective only if we have correctly diagnosed the kind of corruption we are seeking to address, and it is in that regard that we have tended to fall short. If we routinely misconceptualise what we are dealing with (for instance, as a result of the ‘methodological nationalism’ that Cooley and Sharman refer to in the article cited above), then it won’t matter where the policy response is pitched, as we won’t have understood properly what we are trying to do. There is little point, for example, in calling for enhanced regulatory frameworks in settings where the rule of law itself hardly operates.
In regard to choice, I understand your objection (which is acknowledged in the blog, when I say that ‘where corruption is deeply embedded and endemic, that “choice” may seem so highly constrained as to be near meaningless’). The point I am seeking to make, however, is two-fold. First, there actually *is* always a choice (as the late political philosopher G.A. Cohen observed, ‘if you are forced to do something, then you are free to do it’: that is, no matter how unpalatable the alternative, there is in fact always an alternative, and that is why you find, even in deeply corrupt settings, those who refuse to engage with corruption – just as, throughout history, there have always been those who have stood up against injustice even in ‘impossible’ circumstances). Second, the difference with cancer is that the latter does ‘happen’ to people, no matter what they may decide to do. You cannot *decide* to have or to not have cancer (granted, some who believe in the power of psychoneuroimmunology may demur).
That links to the point about ‘curing’ corruption. I think the whole idea of corruption as some kind of pathology is dangerous: it seems to suggest that there is some kind of natural, healthy state of political system that has ‘caught a disease’, but I think that is a very questionable assumption. Since writing the blog, I came across this interesting piece by two biologists, Petter B. Forsberg and Kristofer Severinsson, who explore the idea of corruption as a virus. As they note, conceiving of corruption as a virus that spreads with its own malign force to ensure its own survival ‘blurs the fact that corruption is guided and produced by human decisions and actions’.
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/exploring-virus-metaphor-corruption-theory-corruption-virus
So, it’s not that there are no solutions, but rather that we need to get much more realistic and sophisticated about what we are dealing with. I think the cancer analogy is unhelpful on so many levels, but the one area where it could be of value is actually the one that tends to get rejected as unrealistic. The New Yorker article you point to, as well as my reference to DNA sequencing allowing for individually targeted treatments, highlights one key lesson that very few seem to have got – advances in oncology have come about precisely by moving beyond any reductionist and simplistic approach to trying to understand ‘cancer’ as if it were one thing. Now, whereas the ‘fact’ of cancer involving abnormal cell growth is undisputed, there are none the less some two hundred different types of cancer that researchers seek to understand and address.
Yet, if some of us call for greater differentiation and disaggregation in relation to corruption (where there isn’t even agreement on the basic definition), it often gets dismissed as impossible or unrealistic, or we are accused of ‘running around in definitional circles’. So, instead, there is a tendency to adopt a ‘we sort of know what we mean’ approach, where corruption is poorly defined and lazily described, and then – hey – we are surprised that the resulting responses don’t work…
Major thanks for the blog. Really Great.
Major thankies for the post. Really looking forward to read more. Really Great.