Corruption Is Not the Disease: Development, Incentives, and Weak Institutions
Corruption is the easy diagnosis. Projects fail, aid disappears, infrastructure does not produce growth, and the explanation arrives almost automatically: corrupt officials, corrupt contractors, corrupt systems. The diagnosis is not false. It is incomplete. Corruption can be both an outcome of weak governance and a cause of further institutional decay. Poorly controlled discretion creates opportunities for extraction; once extraction becomes embedded in appointments, procurement and political finance, it weakens the institutions that might have constrained it. That distinction changes the practical question. Punishment, investigation and legal enforcement remain necessary. A theory of incentives does not absolve anyone who steals public money or abuses public authority. It does explain why replacing a few officials or adding another formal rule often leaves the underlying pattern intact. The harder task is to build systems in which delivery is more reliably rewarded than extracti...