La corruption et le clientélisme au Mali et en Europe de l'Est : quelques points de comparaison.

Abstract

Jean-Loup Amselle — Corruption and Clientelism in Mali and Eastern Europe: Points of Comparison. Under despotic, patrimonial or neopatrimonial, governments, the contradiction between modernist appearances and interpersonal relations serves as the grounds for an analysis of corruption, nepotism and maladministration. However such an analysis projects a moralizing, modem view on phenomena grounded in another logic. Rather than comparing two sets—the West versus Africa and Eastern Europe—term by term, we should first define the domains of corruption and of clientage in each set. Corruption and clientelism, when part of the way governments work, have a place identical to that of the conception of primitive societies without writing. In both cases, a logic of ascription and stigmatization is at work.