Culture : Schooled in Corruption : Postgraduates in Argentina study the “perverse systems” that breed bid-rigging, skimming and influence-peddling. It’s all academic, of course.

Universities sometimes come up with courses on subjects that reflect the Zeitgeist , or spirit of the times. A while back, a hot topic might have been, say, guerrilla war. Or more recently, rain forest ecology.

These days, the University of Buenos Aires is offering a postgraduate seminar on corruption, a subject that currently has much of Latin America preoccupied--if not obsessed. Presidents charged with corruption have lost their jobs in Brazil and Venezuela, and numerous corruption scandals have erupted elsewhere in the region, including Argentina.

Like war and rain forests, corruption has always been around. But this year it sizzles: ZZZZZeitgeist !

And economics professor Jorge R. Etkin, 50, is fascinated by it--if not obsessed. In his research and teaching, he explores corruption’s myriad manifestations. Its complicated dynamics. Its underlying causes. Its social, political and economic implications.

Etkin has written a book about corruption and the “perverse systems” that breed it. The book, published this year, is the text for his one-semester postgraduate seminar at the university.

The course, now in its second semester, has enrolled a variety of professionals, executives, public employees and others who are interested in Etkin’s favorite subject. They meet at night in a windowless classroom freshly decorated with gray paint and white blackboards that take felt pens instead of chalk.

Guest lecturers from government, business and the professions talk about their experiences with perverse systems. Students participate in discussions and also write term papers describing examples of corruption.

The other evening, students from the previous semester’s class were talking about their term papers with students of the current semester.

A man with thick black hair and mustache described how a state-owned coal company where he worked used to rig the bidding for equipment purchases from favored suppliers.

A heavy-set woman with short hair said bid-rigging also was common at a government company where she worked. “Many times we fixed bidding between companies--this for me, that for you,” she said.

A woman in a fuchsia sweater told about the principal of a public grade school in a poor neighborhood who connived with suppliers to rake off school funds. “The kids are the victims,” she said.

A woman with blue eyes and the wrinkled face of a heavy smoker criticized the bureaucratic system used by the Buenos Aires municipal government for processing different kinds of request forms from the public. “It is a perverse, corrupt system,” she said.

After the class, Estela Cammarota described Etkin’s course as “a kind of lens” that helps the students to see the shadowy mechanisms behind corruption. “You lose your innocence,” said Cammarota, a professor of management who took the course last semester.

Claudia MacGrath, owner of a vocational institute that teaches technical subjects in English, said she enrolled this semester in search of educational solutions to the problem of institutionalized corruption.

“Things start with education,” MacGrath said. “I want to see if something can be done from below.”

Etkin said a corrupt system must be tackled from all sides. “We have to invent a counter-system,” he said.

A slight man with a full head of graying hair, Etkin easily warms to his subject. In an interview in the university’s faculty lounge, he synthesized his views on corruption and how it can be fought--in Argentina, Latin America, the United States or anywhere:

Look at corruption not as a crime committed by individuals, but as the inevitable outgrowth of flawed institutions, he said.

“My course in the university is a course concerned with the system, not the politicians who steal,” he said. “You have to think of the system, not the criminal. The criminal takes advantage of the system . . .

“I’m not interested in the fact that the president’s sister-in-law entered the country with a suitcase full of narco-dollars. I’m interested in what the system is like that lets the sister-in-law come through customs with a suitcase full of narco-dollars.”

Etkin said, his greatest concern is about “hyper-corruption,” which he described as “a crime that has turned into a way of life.”

His analysis of an Argentine political reality that fosters corruption could apply to many of the world’s democracies: Time for campaign spots on national television costs $200 a second, so a successful campaign for Congress costs about $4 million, so most politicians get campaign contributions from business, so business wants benefits in return.

Etkin emphasizes that he believes democracy to be the best system of government. But no democracy is perfect, and “corruption is mounted on the imperfections of the system.” By nature, democratic systems are open and tolerant, which makes them vulnerable to “fissures” of corruption, he said. “What worries me is that these fissures could turn into a crack that would break the system.”

But over-reaction to corruption could also threaten democracy. With tough, intolerant enforcement, “people would feel that there is no freedom.”

Switching to a medical metaphor, Etkin said he tries to explore a ways of fighting the corruption “virus” while preserving democracy.

“Maybe limits can be put on these illnesses so that they won’t grow and kill the organism,” he said. “I want to see how we can live with those viruses without their growing.”

For example, judges and legislators have legal immunities from normal procedures of criminal prosecution. The immunities can help maintain independence from undue influence, but they can also create privileges that lead to abuse. The trick is to preserve the independence of legislators, but eliminate privileges and total immunity from prosecution.

Etkin proposed changes in systems that allow governments to control their own systems for receiving bids from suppliers. “A government controlling itself? That’s a joke,” he said.

He added that more effective systems of government checks and balances are needed in countries like Argentina to control corruption. “In the United States they work a lot with checks and balances . . . In Argentina, that doesn’t work.”

Education is a good antidote to corruption, he said. “Ethics education must be instituted. The problem is ethics. That is what is lacking around the world.”