BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Conclusion
think with, through, and about bribery. In adopting a relational, consequentialist model
of bribery rather than the standard rational actor model, we gain a better understanding of
when and why people frame an action as bribery. This, in turn, prompts us to focus more
on the content of the social relationships in which bribery occurs, rather than on the
corrupt character of—or poor institutional design around—a bribe-giver or bribe-taker.
Further, that the Athenians relied on personal relationships to the extent that they
did provides a helpful reminder that all polities are constituted by social relationships.
Even arms-length, professional relationships—the kind we find in parts of the Athenian
democracy—are a specific kind of social tie, one with specific norms, obligations, and
practices. The practice of politics in any polity is thus a constellation of these
differentiated social relationships. As we have seen at Athens, the monies used to
negotiate any of these relationships can look like bribes to an outside observer: what was
needed in Athens—and, arguably, what is needed in any polity—is a means to legitimate
one particular perspective, to call a specific negotiation ‘bribery’ or ‘not bribery’.
Fundamentally in Western societies this legitimization is thought to stem from the law,
yet Athens reminds us that there can sometimes be a wide separation between legally and
socially legitimate practices.
It is not clear to what extent reforms like the Athenians’—or even legal inefficacy
more broadly—would be successful instruments of democratization in other societies; in
this respect it is unclear how easily findings from Athens can be translated into a different
context. Certainly, where gift exchange is not a cornerstone of society, it would be more
difficult to imagine that bribery would take on the same meaning as in Athens and, as a
result, that it could be used in the same way to improve, not simply to corrupt, the
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