Still more problematic is that almost all these guardianship arrangements are ripe for corruption. Validation and inspection are inherently discretionary activities. And discretion can be compromised. The incentives provided by the targets of trust enforcement to look the other way are often considerable, given the fact that guardians of trust often have the power to abort a profitable illicit scheme or to allow it to flourish by giving it a stamp of approval. (Indeed, some swindlers intentionally try to get inspected, licensed, or certified-they hope, by incompetent or corrupt guardians-since a passing grade confers significant market appeal.) As a result, bribery scandals implicating police officers, government regulators, public and private inspectors, independent testing laboratories, and the like are legendary and their numbers staggering. And the somewhat more subtle problems of cooptation of regulators by the regulated and the conflicts of interest and favoritism in the exercise of discretion that arise from the inevitable revolving door between positions in the public and private sectors are no less frequent or threatening to the institution of trust (Kneier et al. 1976).

XREF: Connects to regulatory capture theory and revolving-door literature beyond the cited Kneier et al. source.

Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Imper…, loc. 116