This past week only, the English version of Google News has registered over 34.000 news stories about corruption.

Democracies are by no means vaccinated against corruption. According to Transparency International, the Nordic countries rank among the least corrupt in the world. Still, corruption is seen as a growing problem and there have of course been high profile scandals in these countries as well.

Why do I think corruption is poison for society? Because it destroys trust — in democratic institutions, in business relationships, in civil society. And trust is needed in all these areas for a democracy to be healthy.

Corruption often happens where business meets government, for example when contracts are awarded or licenses granted. A civil servant can be bribed to look the other way, or a politician paid off to ensure the signing of a big contract. Look at it from an honest businesswoman’s perspective: if she has fought with legal weapons and then loses out because a competitor paid someone off, she’ll lose faith in the system. She might quit the entrepreneur project she tried to get off the ground. No wonder more corrupt societies are less innovative and poorer.

But this is about more than the economy. As a voter and citizen, if you believe elected politicians and bureaucrats can be bought, why should you bother to participate, to vote or even run for office yourself? It might be argued that rampant corruption has been a major factor in destroying democracy in Russia before it could take hold.

The few independent voices making themselves heard out of Russia these days, like Natalia Novozhilova, often point to a kind of apathy among the people as a result of years of economic and political corruption (Novozhilova is the winner of the 2007 prize from the Norwegian Freedom of Expression Foundation and the German Zeit Foundation).

I’ll just put it this way: It takes a very strong democracy to withstand the poison of corruption. What about weak democracies or
societies on the threshold between dictatorship and democracy (there are many of those around today)? How can corruption be fought there? Could the fight against corruption be a catalyst for democracy? What do you think?

(Originally published on the Why democracy website.)