BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
considered bribery if officials follow public opinion and the public interest by regularly
accepting bribes not to heed the law; or, conversely, whether perfectly legal lobbying
efforts or campaign contributions should not, in fact, be considered legalized bribery.
Rather, I am calling into question what is at stake—what is actually being measured—by
terming such instances ‘bribery’.
Certainly it is valuable to try to reduce bribery to an essential core which can then
be compared across normative contexts, but the standard definition seems to
misunderstand the nature of that core. In positing an apolitical, neutral definition of
bribery that need only be adapted to a particular culture’s norms, the standard view
misses the fact that every definition of bribery is a political claim: by marking out what
is considered ‘bad’ government, the actions that constitute bribery negatively define the
contours of good government. 3 To that extent, the standard definition actually posits a
specific normative framework for understanding bribery, while allowing only the
contents of that framework to vary cross-culturally; far from being apolitical or
normatively neutral, the standard definition is, itself, a political, normative definition.
Definitions of ‘abuse’ likewise hinge on the terms by which we define the
workings of good government: whether it functions in accordance with the law, public
interest, or public opinion. While it might be illuminating to measure to what extent
different countries adhere to a given definition of good government, this is ultimately a
bizarre comparison, not least because different polities can be organized under different
guiding principles. Phrased this way, the standard approach to defining and measuring
3 Euben (1989), Philp (1997), Génaux (2004) and, with reference to US campaign contribution debates,
Burke (2006). Harrison (2004) highlights the importance and power entailed in naming something
‘corruption’.
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