History of corruption in Latin America: towards a concept of corruption.
The conceptualization of the word corruption has definitively evolved. The definition, meaning, and use of the word have been sensible to the influence of the cultural, geographical, and philosophical changes in society over time. Therefore, there has been an intense academic debate around the capability of the modern corruption definition to describe illicit behaviors of people in previous ages. If we understand corruption as using State power to obtain private gains, colonial Latin America will be full of corruption examples. However, the logic behind this definition is a result of later development in liberal ideas. Thus, it is important to ask, Was there any corruption in the colonial period? If so, what was considered corruption?
On the one hand, some historians favor the traditionalist argument, claiming that corruption was heavily present in the region during colonial times. Corruption, for them, has always existed. Thus, its concept transcends periods of human history.
The first record of corruption can be traced back to Roman times. Cicero, the historian and political philosopher, used the word to condemn the behavior of the Roman Provincial Governors, who used their position of power and privileges to obtain personal gains. However, during the middle ages, this term fell in disuse. For instance, the 1729 edition of the Diccionario de Authoridades did not associate the word corruption with the government but with decay, infection, or the contamination of objects, individual or social customs.
It was not until Hipolito Villaroel*, among other academics from New Spain (today, Mexico), that a more modern conceptualization of corruption started to take shape. Likewise, the Bourbonic reforms played a significant role in this transition by modernizing the legal corpus of the colonial administration. Villaroel’s arguments moved the understanding of corruption from a more metaphysical idea to a more concrete reference to questionable social practices concerning the state. In his work, Villaroel (1787) recognized the widespread unpenalized corruption in the kingdom.
On the other hand, other historians consider that corruption is an anachronic term, and its conceptualization follows the end of the colonial period. They argue that corruption was not among any criminal categories; other terms were used instead, for instance, the written regulations mentioned cohecho or dadiva to define bribing a judge to favor one’s case. Similarly, if a royal officer accumulates a considerable amount of money, it was described as monopolio. Nonetheless, the criminalization of these acts rested at the King’s discretion. Corruption did not consist in a criminal category by itself, thus never truly considered an illicit act at the same level as we considered today.
Revisionists, represented by the German researcher Horst Pietschamann, have challenged the idea that corruption, as we understand it today, influenced the colonial period or was even the fuel for political or legal actions against the colony administration. On the contrary, Pietschmann affirms that corruption had a systemic character and was not casual. In other words, he attributes that the system favored corruption-like behavior as a manner of self-preservation. Pietschman named this dynamic “negotiation,” while other authors refer to it as the system’s flexibility to allow the inobservance of Spanish regulations to maintain order according to each geography.
These money-infused negotiations were initially exclusive to society’s leading casts, such as Iberian whites and some Criollo elites. Nonetheless, the idea later permeated into society to encompass smaller bureaucrats and office holders from the most developed urban settings or small and newly created towns.
As the late professor, Jhon Leddy Phelan explained, Spain’s colonial bureaucrats depended on “the system of flexibility” or the ability to negotiate the execution or not of legal mandates in certain jurisdictions if convenient. Whereas flexibility proved crucial to maintaining peace, it paved the way for a general disregard for the rule of law from the ruling elites to the general population. Most certainly, an unintended consequence. Thus, the independent countries’ political and institutional cultures were born with the Spanish colonial power’s vices and the challenge to overcome them.
In sum, the phenomenon of corruption as defined today was not necessarily even possible to conceptualize during colonial times. Nobody thought deeply about that, at least during the early colonial period. Whereas there were widespread (mostly unobserved) acts of corruption-like behavior in the region, the Spanish King could measure, ponder, punish or reward accordingly. Widespread “corruption” was an unintended consequence of the King’s system of flexibility to enhance governance. Nonetheless, its consequences are still present in the region and somehow stained the region’s governance.
*Hipólito Villarroel, Enfermedades políticas que padece la capital de esta Nueva España (México: conaculta, 1994).
