Peruvian TV station owners held out for bribes that were 100X larger than those received by judges

The Fall, 2004 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives carried a fascinating analysis of the relative bribability of different elements in governance and reporting, based on the records of the Peruvian secret police under Fujimori, during their concerted effort to subvert government, the judiciary, and the press (all while drawing millions in payments from the US government, due to their "antiterrorist" stance, used to fund the bribery campaigns):

Which of the democratic checks and balances - opposition parties, the judiciary, a free press - is the most forceful? Peru has the full set of democratic institutions. In the 1990s, the secret-police chief Montesinos systematically undermined them all with bribes. We quantify the checks using the bribe prices. Montesinos paid television-channel owners about 100 times what he paid judges and politicians. One single television channel's bribe was five times larger than the total of the opposition politicians' bribes. By revealed preference, the strongest check on the government's power was the news media.

How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru (Thanks, Paul!)

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jphilby

millions in payments from the US government

Nothing new in SA, for at least two centuries … and if they don’t do what they’re told, we “visit” them to “protect American interests” and “restore democracy”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations
Anonymous

I don’t see what the table of values has to do with the title of the article, besides the fact that it seems to enumerate bribery in some fashion. It doesn’t say what or who “Bresani” is, or explain what “Bribe Data” and “Bribe Receipts” mean. It doesn’t even show any comparative amounts of media bribes versus judicial bribes. Is it the one you meant to show?
PapayaSF

their “antiterrorist” stance

Well, they were fighting the Shining Path, a brutal bunch of terrorists by any reasonable definition.

Abimael GuzmÃ¡n stated that “the triumph of the revolution will cost a million lives” – at a time when Peru’s population was only 19 million.
Jesse

I **love** this paper. Classically great forensic economics paper. Along the same lines, here’s two more :

“Estimating the Value of Political Connections” (uses ties to Suharto’s govt in Indonesia coupled with instances when he was hospitalized)
http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/rfisman/estimating_the_value.pdf

Aaand “Corruption, Norms and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets”, which is exactly what it says, using NYPD parking ticket data
http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/rfisman/parking_16sep07.pdf

Enjoy!
Anonymous

But this could never happen in our nation of Manifest Destiny. We are American Exceptional, an exception to history, an exception to the world.

Only Russia has conspiracies. Only Latin America has bribery. Jesus has given America a dispensation of special grace and providence. There are no conspiracies here! The only corruption is in Liberal enclaves like Chicago and New Orleans!

Pax Americana! Viva Reagan! Praise Jesus!
Anonymous

Montesinos’s operation from 1991-2000 was backed by the US until he got too cute for his own good (he tweaked the embassy’s nose by tagging a semi trailer used for moving with a trace amount of an explosive he knew would set off their alarms-real ballsy, stupid, but ballsy). He was cultivated and flipped in the earlier 70s during the waning days of Velasco’s government. While he was certainly a world-class corruption machine, he was by no means unusual in the Peruvian constellation. The deeply embedded criminals are still operating in the country and will until the end of time or a true French Revolution style pachacutec. Hell, the Prado’s stole all the gold in the treasury during the Pacific War, absconded to Europe and still remain one of THE families. No consequences for those types. Montesinos- hell he grew up in relative poverty in out in Tiabaya, in a green house with broken windows, just off the main square. That may explain why he had over 1500 tailor-made french cuff shirts- he never wore one twice-oligarchs don;t have those hangups…
Anonymous

SeÃ±orita Laura surrenders…
gmoke

Fox News and Rupert Murdoch do it the other way around, offering TV time and “special commentator” status to politicians in order to bribe them (not that most of their pet pols need much bribery to begin with (as they are usually already corrupt in the first place)).