Practices and Perceptions of Bureaucratic Corruption: An Ethnography of the Land Administration in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Abstract

The land administration in Pakistan is notoriously known for corruption and popular in anti corruption rhetoric. The efforts done by different governments to eradicate corruption so far failed to achieve the targeted goals. This is because corruption in the post-colony has been institutionalized and is embedded in the wider socio-economic and political matrix of society. This ethnographic research focuses on the political economy of procedures in the land revenue administration with a special focus on its bottom rung locally famous as “the Patwar System'' and its facilitating factors to present a grounded picture of ‘how’ and ‘why’ corruption is practiced and perceived amidst the popular discontent. The main hypothesis of the study was that corruption which has become a norm in the public offices is the result of several facilitating factors including the structure and habitus of state apparatus, the socio-economic and political structure of Pakhtun society, the Pakhtunwali codes of conduct (local values) such as honor [Izat], competition [Siyali], and hospitality [Melmastya] to name a few, and the anti corruption rhetoric and narratives at national level. The major premises of the study thus focuses on analyzing, the post-colonial western based bureaucratic structure and procedures, the socio-economic and political structure of Pakhtun society, and the discourse of corruption stemming out of the anti-corruption rhetoric at the national level in the broader framework of political and economic anthropology. I argue that corruption in the land administration is the result of these multiple factors. We, thus, need to contextualize and study it with a holistic approach. Empirical data is collected through participant observation, key informants, informal conversations, informally conducted focused group discussions, case studies and in depth interviews based on purposive sampling. Key words: land administration, public office, state services, practices and perceptions of corruption, bureaucracy, procedures, Pakhtunwali, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan