Why are public offices sold in Kyrgyzstan?

• Why are public offices for sale in Kyrgyzstan? To address this question, this article attempts to set out a new logic for understanding the motives, nature, and consequences of corruption in the country. Rather than securing access to a single favor through bribery, officials invest in political and administrative posts in order to obtain access to stream of rents associated with an office. Political and administrative corruption is organically linked in this system, and corruption stems not so much from weak monitoring as from being a franchise-like arrangement, where officials are required to pay continuous fees to their bosses. The key is to be the public official influencing the redistribution of rents as well as participating in the informal market where public goods are privatized and exchanged for informal payments. Thus, instead of control over the pure economic assets of the state, influence over the state's institutional and organizational framework is the dominant strategy for earning and investing in the country.

Keyword

corruption

Kyrgyzstan

rent-seeking

political economy

franchises

state capture

state weakness

tax farming

informal market

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)