Pages excerpt from Kim & Whitaker 2013 Network Subversion

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Network subversion: The contrasting effects of multiple
networks on bribery in South Korea
Usic Kim a,*, Mark D. Whitaker b,c,1
a
Department of Sociology, Ewha Womans University, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-750,
Republic of Korea
b
University of WisconsineMadison, USA
c
Apt. 204-310, Shin Banpo Hanshin 4-cha, Jamwon-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul 137-949, Republic of Korea
Abstract
This paper is based on the premise that corrupt uses of public, civic networks ostensibly built and
legitimated for their altruistic purposes can be a source of network subversion and corruption. Open,
public, civic networks of South Korea seem to be systemic and organizational facilitators of criminality
instead of assumptions of criminality being related only to closed, criminal cultures or anomie. We test
whether increasing participation in the major social networks of Korean civic life e networks based on
geography (common ancestral hometown), family (extended kinship), and education (alumni) e are
associated with increasing penchants for self-admitted criminal collusion, in this case, bribery. We argue
that due to relational association or within-network favoritism the increase in multiple networks per
individual generates increasing social capital of access, information, and trust which may be subverted
toward some form of private criminal collusion.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Bribery; Corruption; Network subversion; Multiple networks; Social capital; Korea
1. Introduction
How do social networks generate collusion in general and in this case, corruption and
bribery? Social networks have been found to function beneﬁcially as facilitators of not only
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ82 18 209 0400; fax: þ82 2 3277 4010.
E-mail addresses: lochglen@gmail.com (U. Kim), mwhitake@ssc.wisc.edu (M.D. Whitaker).
1
Tel.: þ82 2 3482 1275; fax: þ82 2 3277 4010.
1756-0616/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2012.11.002
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice
41 (2013) 16e35
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijlcj

social capital but also malignantly as pathways of corruption and bribery (Baker and Faulkner,
1993; Brass et al., 1998; Granovetter, 2007). The coexistence of the bright and dark sides of
social networks suggests that our understanding of social capital in networks should include
a wider sample of behaviors around civic networks than simply the question of whether they
facilitate altruism. Can civic networks facilitate criminality as well? By looking at negative
aspects of social capital, we gain insight into fuller ramiﬁcations of network effects in a more
neutral manner.
In the past, deviant behavior has been explained in relation to social networks in only two
ways. We are suggesting a third in what we call network subversion. First, a dominant
explanation that we call network altruism assumes that social networks do more to suppress
opportunistic behavior than facilitate it. Research in the social control perspective has
emphasized the effectiveness of social networks in subduing deviant behavior through norms
and participation of members in the community (Bellair, 1997; Coleman, 1988; Granovetter,
1973; Krackhardt, 1992; Putnam, 2000; Sampson and Groves, 1989).
However, social networks also have been regarded as a factor of collusion among network
members toward illegal ends. Trust and solidarity from social networks can unite the tie holders
to take advantage of those who are not in their networks. However, in analysis of this negative
side of networks, the dominant explanation for deviant behavior in social networks has been
limited to the stereotype of a closed network of a criminal culture, a perspective we call closed
collusion. Networks can maintain a secretive shared criminal culture as a collective endeavor
and even honor. This closed, criminal culture of social capital has been found in both lower
class poverty-stricken communities and in upper class elite deviance (Younts, 2008). Such
closed networks are argued to produce moral hazard and isolation (Portes, 1998). They also
have been argued to provide networked offenders with useful social capital and cultural models
for deviance (Browning et al., 2004). Thus there is a dichotomous assumption in the literature
about deviance and social networks. Public or open social networks are stereotyped as only
altruistic forms of social capital that constrain deviance, while private or closed singular
networks are stereotyped as the only networks that are criminally inductive in their social
capital that encourages deviance.
There is a third possibility of how social networks, social capital, and deviance operate.
Ostensibly public altruistic social networks may be a resource for facilitating private, closed
senses of deviance e in network subversion e via manipulation of someone else’s potentially
altruistic behavior and loyalty to protect their opportunistic members, securing a double use of
the network for a member’s illegal ends. This brings about degeneration of social networks
from altruistic or innocent phenomena toward being a major source of illegal behaviors. We see
network subversion as a bridging concept and mechanism between those two stereotyped views
on networks regarding altruism and corruption.
This network effect is tested as a source for corruption in South Korea. From the point of this
third view of network subversion, existing research assumptions about networks, altruism, and
corruption have limitations in the light of the Korean experience with corruption. First, in the
past literature, network members’ illegal behavior was studied mostly for its connection to
special groups such as organized crime but seldom were such illegal behaviors studied from the
point of view that more altruistic networked areas of the general public may experience
network subversion that conditions those in the civic networks to facilitate someone’s criminal
behavior out of altruistic loyalty to that person (Cartier-Bresson, 1997; Gambetta, 2009;
Manion, 1996; Tavits, 2010). Corruption and networks of private clientelism can be widespread
among the general public, particularly in a geographic area of large mistrust (Putnam et al.,
17U. Kim, M.D. Whitaker / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 41 (2013) 16e35

1994). Second, previous studies focused only on singularly closed and concentrated networks
as the origins of corruption that may be desired for security by those planning criminal acts of
corporate collusion or terrorism (Baker and Faulkner, 1993). However, illegal behaviors of
network subversion in the general public seem to rest on dispersed networks in open, over-
lapping circuits of acquaintance, rather than on cohesive, closed groups. Third, by addressing
the potentials of criminal behavior being facilitated by the overlapping networks of the general
public, we argue for more attention to be directed to multiple networks as origins of deviance
instead of only single networks of deviance. The corruption that takes place in multiple
networks may have different mechanisms than those of single networks (Krohn et al., 1988).
Empirically, we argue from the Korean case of network subversion there are three circuits of
acquaintance in this culture’s general public that may be used to facilitate corruption particularly
when combined as multiple networks. We test if these three prominent origins of social capital in
South Korea e social networks based on geography (ancestral hometown), family (extended
kinship), and education (alumni) e may be judged to facilitate bribery. Data derived from a South
Korean national survey that asked questions about bribery experience. We are interested to see if
there is an increasing likelihood of bribery under conditions of increasing multiple social ‘altru-
istic’ networks employed simultaneously in relational association or within-network favoritism.
2. Bribery and social networks in Korea
2.1. Bribery in Korea
For a definition of bribery, it is the action of giving a reward to a person who has official
duties in order to influence and incline the person to violate an official duty of office (Johns and
Bagaric, 2002). Exact give-and-take exchange or quid pro quo may not be easily identified.
Reward for a favor can be provided in disguise or at different point in time. Therefore, we limit
our analysis to the more documentable focus of bribery as the behavior of giving money or its
equivalent to other actors that is intended as a reward for an illegal favor. With our interest in
networks, our focus on bribery includes any action of an intermediary that agrees to facilitate
the bribery action of others, as bribery can be unmediated and mediated.
Bribery is not a rare event in South Korea. According to surveys, bribery is a publicly
widespread event in this country. From 2000 to 2006, surveys were administered to a sample of
500 Korean companies and independent business operators that had transactions with the
government and the public sector. More than 50% answered as true that “other companies and
businessmen give money to public officials when they seek public service from the officials.”
About 70% answered as true that “corruption is a serious social problem.” More than 70% of
the respondents agreed with the statement that “giving money to the officials is effective in
receiving public service from them” (Park and Seo, 2006).
Positioning the Korean case in an internationally comparative perspective may help
understand why Korea is a good place to look for network subversion. The Corruption
Perceptions Index (CPI) for the public sector is measured by the international non-
governmental organization Transparency International. They show that perceived political
cleanness in the Korean government and public sector remains relatively low in ranking. The
CPI rank of the South Korea ranges between 39th and 50th among different samples of 90
through 182 countries over multiple years. Among OECD countries, its rank of political
cleanness remains almost at the bottom over time. In 2002 when the CPI was fielded for the first
time after Korea became part of the OECD, political cleanness of South Korea was ranked 18th
18 U. Kim, M.D. Whitaker / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 41 (2013) 16e35

out of the then 21 OECD countries (Kim, 2003). In the past ten years, the CPI rank of South
Korea among the growing number of OECD countries has not changed significantly (The Korea
Times, 2011).
2.2. Social networks in Korea
Ethnographically, many instances of corruption and bribery in South Korea may be
understood as influenced by three major social networks. Others note that a bundle of senti-
ments and attitudes cherishing social connections may be the biggest cause of a corruption-
oriented culture in Korea (Lee, 2003). This is often called YeonGoJui. A direct translation in
English might be connectionism. It means the connection-oriented sentiments and attitudes in
these three major social networks in Korea that cherish: co-membership; exchange of favors
exclusively between members; an emotional commitment to collective cultures; and discrim-
ination against non-members (Kim, 2002; Paik et al., 2000). These three networked experiences
have been retained for lifelong participation in Korean civic life more than in other developed
and developing countries (Kwon, 2005; Yu, 2003).
Historically in the Confucian culture of the last Joseon Dynasty (1392e1897), the social bond
of the YeonGoJui was the fundamental base of trust, honor, status, and hierarchical identity in both
Korean politics and culture. On the one hand, during the dynasty and under Japanese imperialism
(1910e1945) and then a series of native dictators (1945e1987), delayed development of fully
transparent participatory formal institutions of state bureaucratic power can be interpreted as one
cause of the primacy of the traditional reliance on YeonGoJui. Koreans came to depend upon
personal and unofficial social networks. Solutions provided by the networks often included skills
which bypassed legal and official procedures. On the other hand after fuller democracy from 1987,
such ongoing delayed transparency now can be seen equally as a result of hegemonic, autonomous
cultural strength of the YeonGoJui itself. An ongoing Confucian status culture cherishes strong
emotional ties to extended family lineage, durable regional heritage, and favor-exchange between
members from the same region, extended family or school. However, in a wider national context
this often leads to collusion among actors in politics, markets and social institutions (Kim, 2003).
We argue that any single networks typically can be categorized in terms of their two basic
forms of network actions: relational association and within-network favoritism. Relational
association is defined as the action of associating with members of given social networks. It is
similar to mingling networking (Johns and Bagaric, 2002) but in South Korea such activity has
a limited connotation of mingling only within old networks.
First, relational association in Korea is centered on the ancestral ‘hometown’ organization,
the HyangWooHwey, organized by people sharing the same vague ancestral area where one’s
patrilineal ancestors were born, lived, and buried. The meaning of ‘hometown’ can vary from
a small town to a large province. Largely Confucian in its traditional loyalties to extended
family, peers, and age hierarchy as the basis for altruism, the HyangWooHwey identity has
played a significant role as a base catalyzing social identity formation, regionalism, political
party formation, and ongoing bloc voting in modern national elections. When Koreans leave
their ancestral hometowns for work in the larger cities, they often remain disconnected from
other urbanites and divided in regional affiliations. The HyangWooHwey serves as a pool for
recruitment or promotion in Korean government, political parties, business firms, and academia
(Shin and Song, 2003; Yu, 2003). For example, an exclusionist regionalism divides the regions
of Youngnam (South East) versus Honam (South West) and expresses itself strongly in political
party voting, mobility in jobs, marriage taboos, and other forms of social life.

Second, relational association in Korea centers on a patrilineal kinship organization, the
JongChinHwey, organized by the members of a kinship group of a principal family line with its
branch families that over centuries migrated to different regions. Though cohesive power based
on this kinship tie can be weak, it still can be influential by appeals or insistences placed on
members to exhibit loyalty to an abstract collective family identity and age seniority, both basic
principles of Confucian ethics and altruism. In Korean modern politics and economics, there
have been many incidences of illegal activities among members of a kinship group or family
(Kwon, 2005).
Third, relational association in Korea is centered on the alumni organization, the Tong-
ChangHwey. Unlike Western culture, in Korea lifelong alumni organizations are formed at all
levels of education e elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and graduate
school. Thus Korea is without the more singular ‘capstone’ European alumni tradition that
concerns itself only with a ‘finishing’ university status for later professionalization and working
life. Plus, Korea is unlike the similar wider United States alumni tradition that adds potentially
more meritocratic, open, and voluntaristic college-level fraternities, sororities, and senior
societies to the collegiate-primary alumni tradition. These fail to exist in Korea. In Korea the
alumni organizations of high school and college are considered both significant markers in the
working world (Kim, 2002). Like elsewhere in the world, alumni ties generate strong and
exclusive sentiments among graduates. Unlike elsewhere however since a Korean’s high school
alumni link sometimes overlaps with the ancestral hometown tie as most students went to high
schools in their common ancestral hometown, they enter college with a strong cultural
expectation to preserve and to enhance earlier alumni links instead of to lose them. A college
alumni link is no less important though becomes less primate than European cultural areas. In
many Koreans’ minds, college alumni networks are decisive factors for getting jobs, receiving
promotions, developing careers, and even pursuing political or state bureaucratic office (Shin
and Song, 2003; Yu, 2003).
Within-network favoritism is the second form of network action. It is defined as the actions
of favoritism or advantage given to those who belong to the same social networks. In the
Korean case it is based on the aforementioned geography, family, and education. This is often
hard to distinguish from the nepotistic practice of favoring relatives or friends for promotion. It
is a form of within-network exchange (DiMaggio and Louch, 1998). Network members often
favor others in the same network. They are expected to receive favors from other network
members and to reciprocate in future network action by contributing time, favors, or other
resources of access for other network members. Korean diffuse within-network favoritism is
still strong despite criticized as a major cause of corruption and inefficiency in politics,
government, academia, and business (D. Kim, 2002; Kwon, 2005).
Summarizing the description, the major social networks in Korea can be categorized as a 2
by 3 table (Table 1), with two general forms of network action performed via three types of
specific Korean social networks. Thus in practice, many Koreans combine three multiple
networks via relational association, within-network favoritism, or both.
3. Explaining bribery by network subversion in multiple networks
3.1. Theoretical model
We theorize that because of network subversion the greater penchant for deviant behavior is
likely found in individuals involved in multiple networks. They use their access to greater

capacities of two types of social capital beyond single networks though including them: both
bonding social capital and bridging social capital. We expect to find more bribery coming from
people with more multiple networks because they provide tie holders with greater social capital
of access, information and trust both for subversion as well as potentially for altruism. Ironi-
cally, altruistic social networks may provide a platform of network subversion through temp-
tation and peer-protection for people to choose to be involved in bribery.
To elaborate, multiplicity across the major social networks can provide access to two types
of social capital for deviance: bonding social capital and bridging social capital. Bonding
social capital indicates values held and solidarity of action from links shared between homo-
geneous actors. Such homogeneous social capital can construct strong ties (Putnam, 2000;
Schuller et al., 2000). On the other hand, bridging social capital indicates values derived from
the network position of individuals or groups that branch across different networks, creating
social capital from brokerage between heterogeneous actors (Burt, 2002; Schuller et al., 2000).
Multiple networks in Korea provide these two different types of social capital. First, the
major social networks provide a bonding social capital of trust uniting people with a sense of
solidarity and belongingness to a corporate body (Krackhardt, 1992). In a bribery situation,
actors need the trust and assurance that their planned action will not result in punishment even
if it goes badly and is rejected. Such connections between people may give some individuals the
incentive to broach the subject of bribery, based on altruistic networks they might share with
existing officeholders. The greatest trust for establishing overtures for bribery, for network
subversion, may come from the opportunistic use of this network altruism. This network
subversion is encouraged from both the initiator and the recipient. For the initiator of bribery
such public, open, trusting ties give a self-righteous aura of legitimacy to the initiator to
introduce the topic to his recipient. On the one hand, first, the altruistic tie may confuse both
their abilities to know when they are using their open altruistic networks to cross an ethical and
legal line. On the other hand, second, capitalizing on the altruistic tie to introduce the idea of
deviancy provides both with a tacitly understood corroborative alibi as agreement to cloak or to
‘rationalize as one event’ the deviant exchange within an ongoing larger altruistic connection.
Regardless of whether deviancy is facilitated, covered up, and/or rejected by the recipient,
network subversion encourages others to do wrong via the pressure to maintain other shared,
reciprocal, altruistic, network actions. Thus network subversion is encouraged as well from the
recipient of bribery, in the overture to bribery already initiated to maintain their ironically
altruistic ties. Network members also can develop acceptable trust for sharing advice and
information for how to go about certain behaviors like deviance (DiMaggio, 1997; Krackhardt,
1992; Smith-Lovin, 2007; Zelditch, 2001). Furthermore, bribery can be locally approved by
Table 1
Major social networks and forms of network actions in Korea.
Social networks
Geography Family Education
Forms of
Network
Action
Relational
association
Associating in
hometown
organization
Associating in
kinship
organization
Associating in
alumni
organization
Within-network
favoritism
Favoring
hometown
members
Favoring kinship
members
Favoring
alumni

peers with similar beliefs (Tavits, 2010; Younts, 2008). Third, thinking they are in an altruistic
connection though acting in network subversion, both may distort a realistic assessment of their
punishment possibilities. Network altruism can become network subversion.
Second, bridging social capital for deviance is provided more effectively by multiple
networks than a single network. It provides a wider range of links for access and information.
First, multiple social networks established for altruistic purposes in public provide access via
social capital whether direct or indirect to current officeholders. Observations have shown that
access to opportunity through network connection is decisive in corruption (Baker and
Faulkner, 1993; Brass et al., 1998; Gambetta, 2009). It feels more legitimate for initiator or
recipient to self-rationalize their overture or criminality if their shared altruistic connection is
the channel chosen to venture such corruption. If altruistic social networks give legitimate
access to opportunities or resources, the network members at large can benefit from such
connections of network subversion, in this case bribery. Second, multiple social networks also
provide the greater benefit of information for deviance since they facilitate greater transmission
of information and knowledge. Networks are more effective in conveying tacit or illegal
information than explicit or legal information. Networks provide skills to read signals, since
network members can exchange ideas, discuss issues, and share interpretations of phenomena
with groups (DiMaggio, 1997; Smith-Lovin, 2007).
Multiple networks are better than single networks in providing the potentially criminal
benefit of access and information since these connect the tie holder with more diverse direct and
indirect contacts compared to those deviant networks composed of single tie. In the social
networks of the Korean YeonGoJui, both bonding and bridging social capitals come together.
The potentially deviant benefits of access and information from diverse multiple networks can
accrue more than in a single network since network members gain from multiple allegiances
while not losing any benefits of trust and solidarity of a single network. This makes multiple
networks a richer preferred route of deviancy than single networks are.
3.2. Hypotheses
Based on the theoretical model, we build four testable hypotheses about effects of multi-
plicity in social networks upon bribery. Since multiple networks are developed by combining
multiple ties from the three major social networks, further split via two different forms of
network action, we examine this varying context of network multiplicity to see what kind of
networked areas are correlated to different levels of self-reported penchants to bribery. Addi-
tionally, we examine under what combination of networks and network actions does deviancy
measured in bribery occur most or least. We test for the basic premise first: whether greater
multiplicity in relational association is associated with more deviance.
Hypothesis 1. The greater the multiplicity in the number of networks in which an actor
associates relationally, the greater is the likelihood of their bribery compared to those with less
multiplicity in relational association.
Network multiplicity of within-network favoritism is the number of networks in which an
actor favors others from the same networks. We argue that multiple networks of an actor
formed by within-network favoritism can provide an actor with a greater benefit of access to
bribery targets, resources, information, and trust due to the exchange of favors in multiple
ties e with a greater access to deviant behavior opportunities than single network ties or
absence of network ties.

Hypothesis 2. The greater the multiplicity in the number of networks in which an actor favors
others in the same networks, the greater is the likelihood of their bribery compared to those
with less multiplicity in their within-network favoritism.
So far, we set up hypotheses to test for a generalizable linear relationship between network
multiplicity and the likelihood of bribery. We need a test to narrow the focus and concentrate on
whether an actor in multiple social networks is more likely to be involved in bribery than an
actor in a single network only. In this test of a discrete effect of multiple networks vis-a`-vis
a single network, we exclude those who do not have any network. We test for networks in
relational association first (i.e., in the first of two forms of network action).
Hypothesis 3. An actor who associates relationally in multiple networks is more likely to be
involved in bribery than someone who associates relationally in a single network.
Next we run another test of single versus multiple networks to see if there are discretely
different patterns of within-network favoritism (i.e., in the second of the two forms of network
action).
Hypothesis 4. An actor who favors other network members in multiple networks is more likely
to be involved in bribery than someone who merely favors other network members in a single
network.
4. Methods
4.1. Data
Data come from a national survey of 2002 administered by the Survey Research Center at
Sungkyunkwan University. This survey is well suited to study the relationship between Yeon-
GoJui arrangements and Korean corruption. The survey was performed in order to investigate
the opinions and attitudes of Koreans with regard to basic social order (Yoon et al., 2002).
Using a multi-stage proportional stratified sampling method, the survey was fielded to
respondents as a questionnaire administered via in-person interview. The number of valid
responses was high: 1436 out of the initial sample of 1500 respondents for a response rate of
95.7%.
4.2. Variables and measurement
Bribery, our dependent variable, is measured by the natural logarithm based on a binary
variable. Respondents were asked both how frequently they gave money to public officials
expecting favors from them in return and how frequently they served as a trusted intermediary
by giving money to some persons as the result of requests by another person. These questions
openly indicate bribery rather than mere exchange of gift with goodwill. Respondents were
asked to choose among the following responses: “never,” “rarely,” “sometimes,” “frequently,”
or “very frequently.” From this data a binary variable was invented with the value of 1 if
a respondent admitted to being involved in any of these two bribery activities. It had a value of
zero if otherwise. Responses are consistent and reliable (Cronbach’s alpha ¼ .74).
Next, the first variables tested for independent effects on dependent bribery action are the
two general network actions that are available: Multiplicity of association and Multiplicity of
favoritism. Multiplicity of association measures the number of distinct networks in which an
actor associates relationally with members of the same network. This variable was constructed

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