Power and Corruption in the Early Modern Portuguese World by Erik Lars Myrup (review)

In this book, Myrup argues that informal networks of personal relations underlying the formal administrative structure that held the Portuguese early modern world together were crucial not only for the development of widespread corruption, but also for the survival of the empire in times of crisis. Myrup proposes to analyze this phenomenon by using social network analysis and theory, focusing on the individual trajectories of a number of selected case studies, which span across geography and chronology, and situating their careers within the institutional and local contexts. The benefits of this focus on agents are, Myrup argues, that “network theory’s emphasis upon social relationships, rather than upon the attributes of individual social actors, can obscure as much as it reveals, overshadowing the larger historical context in which the past was lived as well as the agency of individual actors themselves” (7). The book contains an introduction, followed by six chapters divided into three parts—with a geographical focus on Europe, South America (Brazil), and South Asia (centered on Macau and its relations with mainland China and Manila)—and a conclusion.

Problematically, there is but a brief discussion of what constitutes corruption in this period (indebted to the work of Sharon Kettering), the reader being informed that corruption depended largely on circumstances, and that actions and behavior regarded as corrupt today may not have been regarded as such in the period covered in Myrup’s analysis. Again in the conclusion Myrup states: “Contraband trade and other forms of corruption were an accepted part of the colonial world so long as such practices did not overstep certain social and political bounds” (172). How was corruption understood in the context of the absolute state, both in political and moral terms? What were the consequences for individuals seen as corrupt? Such questions are not raised in the book in detail; for these social and political limits in a Portuguese context, Myrup briefly refers to Ernst Pijning’s doctoral research on contraband in eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, and the moral implications of corruption are illustrated only by cursory references to the Arte de Furtar (attributed to the Jesuit Manuel da Costa) in both the introduction and conclusion. However, such questions will certainly be in the mind of readers attracted by the promising title of Myrup’s study. Also, there is no sustained attempt to explore this widespread corruption in the Portuguese early modern world in relation to the development of the Black Legend or to compare the Portuguese case to that of other maritime imperial superpowers.

Given that the thesis of the book and subsequent analysis emphasize the extent to which informal networks operated, the book would have benefitted from a more detailed account of the complex imperial administration in the Portuguese world, its structure, and remit. Despite Myrup’s insistence that “this book is not intended to be an institutional history” (8), such an account would help the reader situate the agents and their motivations in a broader institutional landscape. The author shows that he is well prepared for such a study of imperial administration in the first two chapters of this book (Part One); they address a gap in scholarship and present a very promising prosopographical study of the Overseas Council across two centuries (1641–1833). These two chapters contain graphs and diagrams that provide a clear picture of how the Overseas Council evolved in this period, and how Portugal’s Conciliar bureaucratic organization accommodated a new layer of ministerial bureaucracy in mid-eighteenth century. Chapter 1 focuses on the personal trajectories of Dom Jorge de Mascarenhas and Salvador Correia de Sá e Benavides, and Chapter 2 broadens the analysis to the Council as a whole; the unifying coherence of this section arises from the focus on the social networks of its members, in particular patronage and personal and family connections at court and beyond.

Moving from the colonial center to the...