France: Corruption as Resentment

Corruption will be defined here as occurring when one or more actors involved in, or witnessing corrupt exchange have reasons for resentment and therefore permit corruption to come to light. This thesis will be elaborated and critiqued with respect to recent episodes of political, administrative, and economic corruption occurring in France. The adoption of this framework of analysis is not a short-cut which spares the author the customary 'review of the literature' on the subject matter. Rather, it is an implicit refutation of some of the views included in that literature, in particular those which associate corruption with variables such as economic underdevelopment and social backwardness.1 The choice of the formula 'corruption as resentment' permits the exploration of how corrupt exchange also takes place in highly developed and advanced social contexts. In a previous article, where the author could not escape the painful exercise of a review of the literature, corruption was analysed with a view to uncovering some aspects of victimization caused by it.2 It was argued that a number of actors, endowed with varying degrees of resources and power, participate in corrupt exchange, and that only a deeply-rooted optical illusion enables us to see these exchanges as victimless. Without analysing why corruption occurs, in that article the attempt was made to show why, when, and for whom it is harmful. In a similar vein, this article does not propose an aetiological view: here, the existence of corruption is treated as a given, while questions are posed regarding how it is perceived. In other words, an explanation is attempted of its public manifestation, rather than of its 'true' prevalence, of its very definition as corruption, rather than of its causes. This avenue has also been taken by other authors: 'scandal, like treason, only exists when something goes wrong'.3 This is to say that abuse of power, governmental malpractice, and incompetence only emerge when they are