Party Financing in Germany and Japan: Comparative Perspectives on Political Corruption

In the international anti-corruption discourse, and within the international community, the general attitude as to whether a country is democratic is if anti-corruption standards are high and corruption a marginal phenomenon. Nevertheless, corruption is also an effect of modernity and is considered to be an effect of a failed state or a society with weak institutions. However, since the work of Samuel Eisenstadt we are sensitivee to the diversity of pathways to modernity. Considering this, the question that immediately arises is: why does corruption still exist in modern states like the USA, Germany or Japan if it really is only a prerequisite of the passage to modernity? The question itself provides us with an answer: Modern states are in transition too and corruption is one vehicle by which it takes part in this process. According to our understanding corruption functions both as an elevator (structural corruption) for parvenus from the petty bourgeoisie, but can also take the form of a closed circle of exclusive people of the haute vollée. In the former, corruption is an instrument to gain social capital, while in the latter it is to secure access to social chances and social capital.