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Corruption has many implications amongst the political spectrum. More specifically, when talking about armed conflicts, corruption may be addressed as one of the contributive factors for both the origin and permanence of this phenomenon. According to Le Billon (2003), corruption increases grievances and unconformities with the political system, and, moreover, with the poor expenditure of taxes in social programs. This may result in armed groups fighting against inequality or poverty. On the other hand, corruption delegitimizes a government when there are national scandals. It can even lead to revolutions or legitimate us of violence. Finally, corruption may motivate marginalized political-military groups to act against what they believe to be wrong.

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Valery Vega, Carolina Montaño & Liliana Saldaña

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Valery Vega, Carolina Montaño & Liliana Saldaña

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Corruption is an endogenous activity in many political, economical and social networks within a community. Even though this behaviour can be seen from a positive point of view, it is well known by its negative effects on society: the sense of justice and the rule of law get deteriorated; inequality and poverty are produced. These are the main reasons why conflicts start because people see how the elites, taking advantage of the inefficacy of the country´ institutions, pay bribes to the government or some politicians in order to change the distribution of resources, which will benefit them in a economical way. These reforms made by the elites make them see how the State gives more privileges to those who already have everything, leaving behind the other people, the ones who can't survive with the material conditions they live with. In other words, when the State changes its resource distribution policy in order to benefit the most powerful people above the hole community, the inequality increases, which produces both the emergence of armed groups that want to act for change and the support of the population to this kind of movements.

According to these effects, corruption can result in the outbreak of conflict, but there are other aspects that could be positive regarding the role of corruption on armed conflicts. In some cases, the use of bribes and incentives either to the groups that are mainly against the State or to those people that have been on war, can help to maintain the order and stability in the society and support the demobilization of combatants. However, taking into account that corruption is an external factor from the government's attributes, we analyse that it shouldn't be normalised because it destroys the development of a good administration and its functions, which always should act in favour of the society in general.

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In the article, corruption is described as an endogenous part of the social and political fabric. Thhat's why is is at the same time seen as a cause and solution to conflicts and political stability.  That's why it is not corruption itself but a change in the perseption of its legitimacy due to the lack of competition that can lead to conflicts. Domestic or external shocks can change the context into an extraordinary monopolistic concentration of ressources that may feed the economical and political grievances & greed of the marginalized groups kept out this corruption networks.  Finally, LEGITIMATE corruption can but peace as it has the same causes and functions as violence (that can avoid conflicts) and political parties (that means an alternative to a fully democratic system).

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The effects of corruption on armed conflicts are not direct. It depends on the legitimacy of the control and distribution of resources. Hence, changes in corruption –or the lack of it's legitimacy– may cause grievances or demands for political or economic changes in the system. Also, existing rents may work as incentives to strike the State or the ruling elite. And third, political corruption may lead to the use of violence in order to defend or assert one's position.

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Corruption’s main effects on an armed conflict are directly related to its impact in private economy and how it is driven by the monopolized forces. As corruption’s main purpose is to benefit individually a certain group, and the context of a conflict’s outbreak is predominantly based on inequality grievances caused by nonconformity in governmental codes and policies, the access to resources useful to repair damages and warranty minion conditions of life, it is clear that corrupt actions benefit either side of war. With mismanagement or absence of political stability, a notable solution for deepen social inequalities, and lack of lucrative rents for the majority of society, corruption seems as an effortless way out of this unmerited situation. Seems that war benefits corruption, and corruption benefits the people. Therefore, if a conflict has corruptive developments which affect social economy, it would warranty the stability or prolongation of the conflict, regardless of consequences.

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The corruption extend the internal armed conflicts. When a state is corrupt, and has an internal conflict we can say that the state is unstable and his forces are not in the best conditions to be in the war. Also the war conditions are better to the state corruption. If we have this two premises the internal conflicts and corruption are something like  vicious circle because the corruption gives a better conditions to prolong the conflict and the civil war provides conditions to corruption.

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Andrés Esteban Díaz, Camilo Ávila & Isabella Moreno Díaz

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Andrés Esteban Díaz, Camilo Ávila & Isabella Moreno Díaz

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Well, according to Billon the corruption leads to political inestability. When there is political inestability the functioning of the public institutions fails the needs for political change can be seen in the form of armed violence, this can be seen from the effects of the corruption on the grievance.
Second, the canalization of the resources (also  rent) and  the monopolization of industries by political cronies leaves individuals and elites  put at high risk stability and  would  create a lot of dsiscontent and the marginalized could seize the power through the violent way.
Third, the corruption breaks the image of the public institutions, generating a feeling of no confidence in the institutions, including the military forces.

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Natalia Ballesteros, Oscar Hernández y Valentina González

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Natalia Ballesteros, Oscar Hernández y Valentina González

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Based on the reading by Le Billon, we are able to identify four effects corruption has on armed conflict and war.
First, it imposes a problem in terms of legitimacy of institutions. The rupture inside institutions undermines the efficency and provoque a prolongation of war, it criminalizes política conflict.
Second, corruption increases grievances and demands for political change strengthening popular support.
Third, within a violent enviroment, corruption causes a normalizing effect of violent ways to meet both personal and colective interests, this impulses political militar y groups to act for change and fairness.
Fourth, armed conflict can feed and grow in order to disolve or maintain corruption.
The absence of institutions caused by the perversion of the state is a perfecto scenery of chaos and violence.
In Colombia, the producto of coca has criminalized the rebels and seems like the political goals have been quitted. The lack of guarantees for demobilization and reincorporación of combatants are the prelude of a transformación of conflict.

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Corruption has two main effects on the internal conflicts.
On the one hand, it can bring to a state a political stability, and so avoid the conflict. In this case, the culture of political corruption can conduct to a social and political peace, and the corruption becomes broadly legitimate. We can say that in this case, corruption is preferable to violence and may even prevent it.
On the other hand, corruption can have a really bad effect.
Corruption becomes bad when it leads to or sustain a violent conflict. Because of corruption, the opposition precipitates the political change through violence, and they sometimes end as corrupted also.

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Corruption is a complex phenomena that may influence the armed conflict. First, corruption can increase the demands for a political change creating instability which leads to the armed conflicts, and also the emerge of 'spoil politics' who are only looking for self-enrichment use violence became in the way to get economic accumulation. However, Corruption has different effects that are not necessary violent, so the corruption may also work as politic and economic stabilizer, because it is able to reduce the grievances, and thought clientelism creates reciprocity links between the political actors.

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Corruption is mainly seen as positively correlated to armed conflicts. Nonetheless Phillipe Le Billon intends to highlight the complexity of interaction between corruption, peace and conflicts. The effects of corruption on armed conflicts mainly depends of the type of corruption we consider. Corruption is not the main cause of conflict, but it can increase grievances or greed and maybe results in a conflict between group if it is seen as illegitimate by part of the population. When corruption began to be competitive or criminalized, it can also undermine the possibility of peaceful resolution of conflict, increasing the resort of violence. Nonetheless, Le Billon insists in the idea that legitimate or institutionalized corruption may be a factor of political stability. That’s why he develops, with other authors, the idea of corruption buying peace. Corruption can be useful to resolve a conflict in a way to reduce and satisfy grievances and greed of all party, by buying out groups in order to help the demobilization, giving political handouts to the leader or by increasing internationals aids. The transformation from the economy of war to the peace one is an important moment of conflict resolution and is keen to corruption. Le Billon asserts that peacemaker ought to not neglect the economic aspect of peace, which corruption is part of, and one solution could be the international supervision of it on a short term.

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Laura Daniela Mendoza, Maria Paula Álvarez.

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Laura Daniela Mendoza, Maria Paula Álvarez.

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Corruption has many different effects in the armed conflict, among which stand out the increase of grievances, considering that the mismanagement of resources can generate widespread feelings of economic injustice and inequality, as well as political discontent when an illegitimate government fails to represent the majority of the population. On the other hand, when corruption is the cause of institutional weakness, violence becomes a form of accumulating resources and political action. Finally, a corrupt government can develop interests in the continuation of the conflict as a mean to preserve power, which makes it difficult to terminate it. However, it is necessary to remember that, according to Le Billon, corruption is not in itself the cause of a conflict, but a generator of social erosion and a generalized feeling of discontent.

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It appears that corruption can have many ≠ effects on armed conflicts depending on the types of corruption.

Here are the main effects we met.

-Corruption can lead to a decrease of the allocation in public ressources whose consequences are to deepen inequalities and to create a less educated youth that is more likely to rebel.

-It increase grievances and conflictual demands for political changes.

Corruption, leads to spoil politics that may participate into the collapse of the state and the outbreak of armed conflicts. Indeed, corruption mainly lead to an unlawful enrichment of ressources that has as a consequence the increase of organized violence.

- Also, it appears that corruption may prolongs war/ armed conflict as it offers impunity for ruling groups who use corrupt practices and as it can undermine the efficiency and morale of armed forces, especially government forces. As a result, armed forces develop a more important interest in the continuation of war and may help armed groups to accelerate victories.

-Corruption can also be used as financial incentives to seek the interest of combattant leaders and help armed groups gaining recruits.

Also, it provides funds creating a parallel budget used for political purpose such as financing political parties.

Globally, corruption can lead to, and sustain violent conflict, but on the other hand it can also be used as a tool to build a political and economic order within a context of relative disorder which is quite contradictory.

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Corruption can intervene in different ways within the internal conflict, always at different levels, these are some of the main effects it has in the armed conflict:

Firstly, corruption can increase grievances and conflictual demands for political change because the expenditures and collection of public taxes can be really affected by corruption which can, then, result in a deepening of inequalities.

It also can create political instability through popular support for political change (and the conditions of corruption)

On the other hand, the availability of rents for the leadership can constitute the prize for capturing the state, or at least the more lucrative rents controlled by the ruling elite, as the reading says.

Also, political corruption and corruption in politics can undermine institutionalized public affairs which can affect the different processes of political change and the conflict resolution mechanisms.

Moreover, corruption can “buy peace”, this is related with the provision of services by some group that owns some territory, generating security, and goods for the people. So, when some armed group can control different territories, they may impulse the internal conflict.

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The main effects of corruption on armed conflicts are different depending on the stage of the conflict, as it can stimulate a conflict to start, or help on its prolongation or termination.  It highly depends on whether corruption is conceived as legitimate or not. Also, it is not per se corruption what triggers a conflict, but a change in the pattern of corruption, as this phenomenon is present in all societies.

Corruption may trigger an armed conflict if it destabilize society and grievances emerge in the marginalized groups, and also, the conflict is more latent if greed continues to exist in dominant ones. (Corruption helps the dominants to mantain the status quo)

Corruption can escalate a conflict as it motivates new totalitarian regimes that purges the corrupt classes. And the new government might also become corrupted, triggering more violent opposition. (This may build a vicious cycle)

Another effect is that corruption may weaken the ethics and capacity of security forces, making the state more incapable of defending its sovereignty, and this would lead to prolongation of the conflict.

As corruption maintains the status quo, it can also help to end a conflict, if dominant groups are able to buy out the uncomfortable group. This is because corruption satisfies the greed of the political oppositional group, as it reduces its grievances by extending clientelistic circles.

Nevertheless, it’s important to have in mind that corruption itself is not a cause of armed conflicts. But it plays important roles in all of its stages.