Political Development or Political Decay: Controversies on Effects of Political Corruption
Author: Dr. Hongchang YANG
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
The issue of effects of political corruption is an important topic of relations between political corruption and political development & political decay. There have been controversies on this issue for a long time. The process of the controversies can be divided into three stages according to western literature concerned: the traditional view, the revisionist school and the post-revisionist school. The traditional school treats political corruption as political decay; the revisionist school reorients it and argues that its effects can lead to political development in developing countries; the post-revisionist school criticizes the view of the latter and reassesses it as political decay. This paper critically summarizes the western literature concerned and holds that a simple explanation of positive or negative effects on political corruption not suitable for such a complicated problem. Finally, the author proposes a framework of synthetic theory to analyze this issue.