essay about political corruption

Essay on Political Corruption

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100 Words Essay on Political Corruption

Understanding political corruption.

Political corruption is the misuse of public power for private gain. It includes activities like bribery, nepotism, and embezzlement. It’s a global issue affecting the development of countries.

Effects of Political Corruption

Political corruption hinders development and increases inequality. It affects public trust, leading to instability in society. It also discourages foreign investments.

Combating Political Corruption

Fighting corruption requires strong laws and transparent governance. Public awareness and participation are also crucial. With collective efforts, we can curb political corruption.

250 Words Essay on Political Corruption

Introduction.

Political corruption is a global phenomenon, deeply embedded in the socio-economic fabric of many societies. It undermines the democratic principles of nations and impedes economic development.

Manifestations of Political Corruption

Political corruption manifests in myriad ways, such as bribery, embezzlement, nepotism, cronyism, and patronage. It can also take the form of grand corruption, where high-ranking officials manipulate policies to their advantage.

Implications and Consequences

The implications of political corruption are far-reaching. It erodes public trust, hampers economic growth, and exacerbates income inequality. Moreover, it can lead to political instability and social unrest.

To combat political corruption, transparency and accountability in public administration must be promoted. Implementing stringent laws, fostering a culture of ethics, and encouraging citizen participation in governance are crucial steps.

While political corruption remains a daunting challenge, it is not insurmountable. Through collective efforts and robust institutional frameworks, societies can curb this menace and foster a climate of integrity and fairness.

500 Words Essay on Political Corruption

Political corruption is a global issue that transcends cultural, social, and economic boundaries. It refers to the misuse of public power by government officials for private gain, undermining the principles of democracy, justice, and social welfare. This essay explores the causes, implications, and potential solutions to political corruption.

Causes of Political Corruption

The roots of political corruption often lie in a complex interplay of societal, economic, and political factors. One of the primary causes is the lack of transparency and accountability in government operations. This opacity allows corrupt practices to go unnoticed and unpunished. Additionally, weak institutions and inadequate legal frameworks can provide fertile ground for corruption to thrive.

Economic factors, such as poverty and income inequality, can also contribute to political corruption. In societies with high levels of poverty and inequality, public officials may be more susceptible to bribery and embezzlement. Moreover, the concentration of power in the hands of a few can lead to the misuse of public resources for personal benefit.

Implications of Political Corruption

Political corruption has far-reaching consequences that extend beyond the immediate actors involved. It undermines democratic values by eroding public trust in government institutions. When public officials are perceived as corrupt, citizens may feel disillusioned and disengaged from the political process.

In economic terms, corruption can stifle growth and development. It diverts public resources away from essential services such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure, exacerbating poverty and inequality. Furthermore, it creates an unstable business environment, discouraging domestic and foreign investments.

Solutions to Political Corruption

Addressing political corruption requires a comprehensive and multi-faceted approach. Strengthening institutional frameworks is a crucial first step. This involves implementing robust anti-corruption laws, improving governmental transparency, and fostering a culture of accountability.

Education also plays a pivotal role in combating corruption. By promoting civic education and ethical values, societies can cultivate a generation of citizens and leaders who reject corruption. Furthermore, the media and civil society organizations can act as watchdogs, exposing corrupt practices and holding officials accountable.

Lastly, international cooperation is vital in the fight against corruption. Given the global nature of corruption, countries must work together to prosecute corrupt officials, recover stolen assets, and promote good governance.

Political corruption is a pervasive issue that undermines democratic values, impedes economic development, and erodes public trust. However, through a combination of institutional reforms, education, and international cooperation, it is possible to curb corruption and promote a culture of integrity and accountability in public life. The fight against corruption is not just a legal or political challenge, but a moral one that requires the collective effort of all members of society.

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Political Corruption and Solutions

Introduction.

The issue of corruption has been in existence since the conception of politics as a notion. However, even if the phenomenon cannot be erased completely from modern society, it is necessary to minimize it and create a system of values that deems it as unacceptable. By introducing the modern society to a system of values based on transparency and honesty, as well as integrate innovative technology for detecting the causes of corruption at the early stages of implementing change, one will handle the problem of corruption in politics.

Problem Description

Arguably, the issue of political fraudulence exists due to imperfections in the value system that society upholds. The specified assumption has led to attributing the problem of corruption mostly to the question of morality (Gong and Ren 461). However, the specified issue should be linked to other areas in order to be resolved productively. The phenomenon of corruption in politics affects the well-being of citizens since it creates an environment in which their rights are systematically abused, and where justice principles are nonexistent. Therefore, creating tools for reducing the levels of corruption and, if possible, eradicating it completely, is necessary.

Solution to Corruption

What makes the problem of corruption so enduring is its multifaceted nature. Resolving the corruption issue implies handling the concern on several levels, including political, economic, financial, social, and technological ones (Tunley et al. 23). Several components have to be integrated into the management of the corruption-related concerns to establish a new system of fair and unbiased politics.

Abolishment of Impunity

The absence of consequences makes it excessively easy for a large number of politicians to consider the actions that they would have dismissed if facing serious legal repercussions for them. Although the legal system that places emphasis on punishing criminals instead of focusing on their rehabilitation is rather flawed, the fear of persecution is likely to restrain politicians.

Increase in Salaries

Addressing financial issues is another method of managing the problem of corruption in politics. While people taking major positions are unlikely to be concerned with the specified concept, politicians of a smaller caliber may fear possible financial complications. Therefore, ensuring that officials are provided with decent salaries is another step toward managing corruption.

Financial Transparency

Promoting clarity and openness in the political environment is currently a critical component of the general framework that will allow fighting corruption. While removing impunity is a crucial measure that will create the platform for honesty in politics, it will not provide positive results when used alone. Thus, it is critical to use it in tandem with the policy of transparency across the political arena. The integration of the concept of clarity will help to avoid the cases of fraud and the endeavors at cheating against the established system (Hansen and Flyverbom 876). Thus, the principles of transparency should be seen as the key components of the strategy for fighting against corruption in politics.

The introduction of the principles of transparency will also help to prevent instances of organized criminals entering the political field. Due to corruption and significant influence in the economic and financial areas, organized criminals have the power to become the member of the state politics (Vadlamannati and Cooray 117). Therefore, it is crucial to introduce the strategies that will create impediments for organized criminals to become important players in the political field.

With the enhancement of transparency levels in the target community, business activities will also become publically available data, which will make it virtually impossible for people involved in organized crime to gain any political power. As soon as a person or an organization with at least a slightly stained reputation endeavors at becoming a player in the political domain, their efforts will be curbed (Vadlamannati and Cooray 118). Therefore, the notion of transparency as the foundational principle for political decision-making will assist in eradicating corruption in politics.

Improved Report System

Along with the shift in the values that political figures have to uphold, a change in the reporting framework will have to occur. The proposed solution is a part of the transparency program mentioned above. With the enhancement of the reporting framework, citizens will be aware of the activities in which political figures engage. Furthermore, the information regarding finances and especially public funding will become readily available to general audiences, thus making it impossible for politicians to cheat and conceal the truth. Introducing a complaint system that will allow discovering the instances of unethical behavior among politicians, will make it possible for the cases of bribery, fraud, and other cases of financial deception in politics to be revealed.

A newly established reporting system will also require protection for the people that provide the relevant information. At the same time, it will be necessary to ensure that the specified framework is protected against slander since the data supplied anonymously may contain information fabricated intentionally to affect certain political figures negatively. Thus, the proposed reporting system will have to combine an elaborate data verification framework and the enhanced security safeguarding the rights of the people that will provide information. Although there are reasons to integrate the suggested approach into the system for preventing corruption, relying on it as the essential tool for detecting instances of financial fraud would be wrong due to the high levels of subjectivity that it contains.

Fraudulence in politics and increased levels of corruption is a reason for a major concern since the described phenomenon affects the well-being of citizens, the quality of their lives, and the overall level of their security. In order to manage the problem of increased corruption in the political environment, one has to introduce a program combining increased transparency and an enhanced system of reporting the incidents of political corruption. The shift in the political values and principles along with a stringent system of supervision and control will help to minimize the instances of financial fraud and other types of corruption in politics.

However, it is also recommended to ensure that the reporting system that will comprise an important part of a new framework for managing political fraud should be based on a critical assessment of the submitted claims. Thus, one will avoid the cases in which slander may be used against political figures to benefit their opponents. The proposed solution to corruption should incorporate an improved system of values that will imply a people-oriented approach and reinforce the significance of ethical decision-making in the political context.

Thus, the process of supervision will be balanced with careful scrutiny of the facts submitted as evidence. With a detailed analysis of the available information, ethical standards geared toward meeting the needs of citizens, and a well-thought-out platform for decision-making, the current levels of corruption in politics will finally be curbed.

Works Cited

Gong, Ting, Shiru Wang, and Jianming Ren. “Corruption in the Eye of the Beholder: Survey Evidence from Mainland China and Hong Kong.” International Public Management Journal , vol. 18, no. 3, 2015, pp. 458-482.

Hansen, Hans Krause, and Mikkel Flyverbom. “The Politics of Transparency and the Calibration of Knowledge in the Digital Age.” Organization, vol. 22, no. 6, 2015, pp. 872-889.

Tunley, Martin, et al. “Preventing Occupational Corruption: Utilising Situational Crime Prevention Techniques and Theory to Enhance Organisational Resilience.” Security Journal , vol. 31, no. 1, 2018, pp. 21-52.

Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya, and Arusha Cooray. “Transparency Pays? Evaluating the Effects of the Freedom of Information Laws on Perceived Government Corruption.” The Journal of Development Studies , vol. 53, no. 1, 2017, pp. 116-137.

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The causes and effects of corruption, and how to combat corruption, are issues that have been very much on the national and international agendas of politicians and other policymakers in recent decades (Heidenheimer and Johnston 2002; Heywood 2018). Moreover, various historically influential philosophers, notably Plato ( The Republic ), Aristotle ( The Politics ), Machiavelli ( The Prince and The Discourses ), Hobbes ( The Leviathan ) and Montesquieu ( The Spirit of the Laws ), have concerned themselves with political corruption in particular, albeit in somewhat general terms (Sparling 2019; Blau 2009). For these philosophers corruption consisted in large part in rulers governing in the service of their own individual or collective—or other factional—self-interest, rather than for the common good and in accordance with the law or, at least, in accordance with legally enshrined moral principles. They also emphasized the importance of virtues, where it was understood that the appropriate virtues for rulers might differ somewhat from the appropriate virtues for citizens. Indeed, Machiavelli, in particular, famously or, perhaps, infamously argued in The Prince that the rulers might need to cultivate dispositions, such as ruthlessness, that are inconsistent with common morality. [ 1 ] And Plato doubted that the majority of people were even capable of possessing the requisite moral and intellectual virtues required to play an important role in political institutions; hence his rejection in The Republic of democracy in favor of rule by philosopher-kings. Moreover, these historically important political philosophers were concerned about the corruption of the citizenry: the corrosion of the civic virtues. This theme of a corrupt citizenry, as opposed to a corrupt leadership or institution, has been notably absent in contemporary philosophical discussion of the corruption of political institutions until quite recently. However, recently the corruption of political institutions and of the citizenry as a consequence of the proliferation of disinformation, propaganda, conspiracy theories and hate speech on social media, in particular (Woolley and Howard 2019), has become an important phenomenon which philosophers have begun to address (Lynch 2017; Cocking and van den Hoven 2018; Miller and Bossomaier 2023: Ch. 4). Social media bots are used inter alia to automatically generate disinformation (as well as information), propagate ideologies (as well as non-ideologically based opinions), and function as fake accounts to inflate the followings of other accounts and to gain followers. The upshot is that the moral right of freedom to communicate has frequently not been exercised responsibly; moral obligations to seek and communicate truths rather than falsehoods have not been discharged, resulting in large-scale social, political and, in some cases, physical harm. One key set of ethical issues here pertains to an important form of institutional corruption: corruption of the democratic process. For instance, revelations concerning the data firm Cambridge Analytica’s illegitimate use of the data of millions of Facebook users to influence elections in the U.S. and elsewhere highlighted the ethical issues arising from the use of machine learning techniques for political purposes by malevolent foreign actors. The problem here is compounded by home-grown corruption of democratic institutions by people who wilfully undermine electoral and other institutional processes in the service of their own political and personal goals. For instance, Donald Trump consistently claimed, and continues to claim, that the 2020 U.S. presidential election which he demonstrably lost involved massive voter fraud. The problem has also been graphically illustrated in the U.S. by the rise of home-grown extremist political groups fed via social media on a diet of disinformation, conspiracy theories, hate speech, and propaganda; a process which led to the violent attack in January 2021 on the Capitol building which houses the U.S. Congress.

In the modern period, in addition to the corruption of political institutions, the corruption of other kinds of institutions, notably market-based institutions, has been recognised. For example, the World Bank (1997) some time back came around to the view that the health of economic institutions and progress in economic development is closely linked to corruption reduction. In this connection there have been numerous anti-corruption initiatives in multiple jurisdictions, albeit this is sometimes presented as politically motivated. Moreover, the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath have revealed financial corruption, including financial benchmark manipulation, and spurred regulators to consider various anti-corruption measures by way of response (Dobos, Pogge and Barry 2011). And in recent decades there have been ongoing efforts to analyze and devise means to combat corruption in in police organizations, in the professions, in the media, and even in universities and other research-focused institutions.

While contemporary philosophers, with some exceptions, have been slow to focus on corruption, the philosophical literature is increasing, especially in relation to political corruption (Thompson 1995; Dobel 2002; Warren 2006; Lessig 2011; Newhouse 2014; Philp and David-Barrett 2015; Miller 2017; Schmidtz 2018; Blau 2018; Philp 2018; Thompson 2018; Sparling 2019; Ceva & Ferretti 2021). For instance, until relatively recently the concept of corruption had not received much attention, and much of the conceptual work on corruption had consisted in little more than the presentation of brief definitions of corruption as a preliminary to extended accounts of the causes and effects of corruption and the ways to combat it. Moreover, most, but not all, of these definitions of corruption were unsatisfactory in fairly obvious ways. However, recently a number of more theoretically sophisticated definitions of corruption and related notions, such as bribery, have been provided by philosophers. Indeed, philosophers have also started to turn their minds to issues of anti-corruption, e.g., anti-corruption systems (often referred to as “integrity systems”), and in doing so theorizing the sources of corruption and the means to combat it.

1. Varieties of Corruption

2.1.1 personal corruption and institutional corruption, 2.1.2 institutional corrosion and structural corruption, 2.1.3 institutional actors and corruption, 2.2 causal theory of institutional corruption, 2.3.1 proceduralist theories of political corruption, 2.3.2 thompson: individual versus institutional corruption, 2.3.3 lessig’s dependence corruption, 2.3.4 ceva & ferretti: office accountability, 3. noble cause corruption, 4. integrity systems, 5. conclusion, other internet resources, related entries.

Consider one of the most popular of the standard longstanding definitions, namely, “Corruption is the abuse of power by a public official for private gain”. [ 2 ] No doubt the abuse of public offices for private gain is paradigmatic of corruption. But when a bettor bribes a boxer to “throw” a fight this is corruption for private gain, but it need not involve any public office holder; the roles of boxer and bettor are usually not public offices.

One response to this is to distinguish public corruption from private corruption, and to argue that the above definition is a definition only of public corruption. But if ordinary citizens lie when they give testimony in court, this is corruption; it is corruption of the criminal justice system. However, it does not involve abuse of a public office by a public official. And when police fabricate evidence out of a misplaced sense of justice, this is corruption of a public office, but not for private gain.

In the light of the failure of such analytical-style definitions it is tempting to try to sidestep the problem of providing a theoretical account of the concept of corruption by simply identifying corruption with specific legal and/or moral offences. However, attempts to identify corruption with specific legal/moral offences are unlikely to succeed. Perhaps the most plausible candidate is bribery; bribery is regarded by some as the quintessential form of corruption (Noonan 1984; Pritchard 1998; Green 2006). But what of nepotism (Bellow 2003)? Surely it is also a paradigmatic form of corruption, and one that is conceptually distinct from bribery. The person who accepts a bribe is understood as being required to provide a benefit to the briber, otherwise it is not a bribe; but the person who is the beneficiary of an act of nepotism is not necessarily understood as being required to return the favor.

In fact, corruption is exemplified by a very wide and diverse array of phenomena of which bribery is only one kind, and nepotism another. Paradigm cases of corruption include the following. The commissioner of taxation channels public monies into his personal bank account, thereby corrupting the public financial system. A political party secures a majority vote by arranging for ballot boxes to be stuffed with false voting papers, thereby corrupting the electoral process. A police officer fabricates evidence in order to secure convictions, thereby corrupting the judicial process. A number of doctors close ranks and refuse to testify against a colleague who they know has been negligent in relation to an unsuccessful surgical operation leading to loss of life; institutional accountability procedures are thereby undermined. A sports trainer provides the athletes he trains with banned substances in order to enhance their performance, thereby subverting the institutional rules laid down to ensure fair competition (Walsh and Giulianotti 2006). It is self-evident that none of these corrupt actions are instances of bribery.

Further, it is far from obvious that the way forward at this point is simply to add a few additional offences to the initial “list” consisting of the single offence of bribery. Candidates for being added to the list of offences would include nepotism, police fabricating evidence, cheating in sport by using drugs, fraudulent use of travel funds by politicians, and so on. However, any such list needs to be justified by recourse to some principle or principles. Ultimately, naming a set of offences that might be regarded as instances of corruption does not obviate the need for a theoretical, or quasi-theoretical, account of the concept of corruption.

As it happens, there is at least one further salient strategy for demarcating the boundaries of corrupt acts. Implicit in much of the literature on corruption is the view that corruption is essentially a legal offence, and essentially a legal offence in the economic sphere. Accordingly, one could seek to identify corruption with economic crimes, such as bribery, fraud, and insider trading.

But many acts of corruption are not unlawful. Bribery, a paradigm of corruption, is a case in point. Prior to 1977 it was not unlawful for U.S. companies to offer bribes to secure foreign contracts; indeed, elsewhere such bribery was not unlawful until much later. [ 3 ] So corruption is not necessarily unlawful. This is because corruption is not at bottom simply a matter of law; rather it is fundamentally a matter of morality.

Secondly, corruption is not necessarily economic in character. An academic who plagiarizes the work of others is not committing an economic crime or misdemeanor; and she might be committing plagiarism simply in order to increase her academic status. There might not be any financial benefit sought or gained.

We can conclude that many of the historically influential definitions of corruption, as well as attempts to circumscribe corruption by listing paradigmatic offences, fail. They fail in large part because the class of corrupt actions comprises an extremely diverse array of types of moral and legal offences undertaken in a wide variety of institutional contexts including, but by no means restricted to, political and economic institutions.

However, in recent times progress has been made. Philosophers, at least, have identified corruption as fundamentally a moral, as opposed to legal, phenomenon. Acts can be corrupt even though they are, and even ought to be, legal. Moreover, it is evident that not all acts of immorality are acts of corruption; corruption is only one species of immorality.

An important distinction in this regard is the distinction between human rights violations and corruption (see the entry on human rights ). Genocide is a profound moral wrong; but it is not corruption. This is not to say that there is not an important relationship between human rights violations and corruption; on the contrary, there is often a close and mutually reinforcing nexus between them (Pearson 2001; Pogge 2002 [2008]; Wenar 2016; Sharman 2017). Consider the endemic corruption and large-scale human rights abuse that have taken place in authoritarian regimes, such as that of Mobutu in Zaire, Suharto in Indonesia and Marcos in the Philippines (Sharman 2017). And there is increasing empirical evidence of an admittedly sometimes complex, but sometimes not so complex, causal connection between corruption and the infringement of both negative rights (such as the right not to be tortured, suffer arbitrary loss of one’s freedom, or have one’s property stolen) and positive rights, e.g., subsistence rights (such as the right to a sufficient supply of clean water to enable life and health); there is evidence, that is, of a causal relation between corruption and poverty. Consider corrupt authoritarian leaders in developing countries who sell the country’s natural resources cheaply and retain the profits for themselves and their families and supporters (Pogge 2002 [2008]: Chapter 6; Wenar 2016). As Wenar has forcefully argued (Wenar 2016), in the first place this is theft of the property (natural resources) of the people of the countries in question (e.g., Equatorial Guinea) by their own rulers (e.g., Obiang) and, therefore, western countries and others who import these resources are buying stolen goods; and, in the second place, this theft maintains these human rights-violating rulers in power and ensures that their populations continue to suffer in conditions of abject poverty, disease etc.

Thus far, examples of different types of corrupt action have been presented, and corrupt actions have been distinguished from some other types of immoral action. However, the class of corrupt actions has not been adequately demarcated within the more general class of immoral actions. To do so, a definition of corrupt actions is needed.

An initial distinction here is between single one-off actions of corruption and a pattern of corrupt actions. The despoiling of the moral character of a role occupant, or the undermining of institutional processes and purposes, would typically require a pattern of actions—and not merely a single one-off action. So a single free hamburger provided to a police officer on one occasion usually does not corrupt, and is not therefore an act of corruption. Nevertheless, a series of such gifts to a number of police officers might corrupt. They might corrupt, for example, if the hamburger joint in question ended up with (in effect) exclusive, round the clock police protection, and if the owner intended that this be the case.

Note here the pivotal role of habits (Langford & Tupper 1994). We have just seen that the corruption of persons and institutions typically requires a pattern of corrupt actions. More specifically, corrupt actions are typically habitual. Yet, as noted by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics , one’s habits are in large part constitutive of one’s moral character; habits make the man (and the woman). The coward is someone who habitually takes flight in the face of danger; by contrast, the courageous person has a habit of standing his or her ground. Accordingly, morally bad habits —including corrupt actions—are extremely corrosive of moral character, and therefore of institutional roles and ultimately institutions. Naturally, so-called systemic corruption would typically involve not simply the habitual performance of a corrupt action by a single individual but the habitual performance of a corrupt action by many individuals in an institution or, conceivably, an entire society or polity. Moreover, this pattern of individuals engaged in the performance of habitual corrupt actions might have a self-sustaining structure that gives rise to a collective action problem, if the pattern is to be broken. Consider widespread bribery in relation to competitive tenders for government contracts. Bribes are paid by competing companies in order to try influence the outcome of the tender process. Any firm that chooses not to pay a bribe is not given serious consideration. Thus, not to engage in corruption is to seriously disadvantage one’s company. Even those who do not want to engage in bribery do so. This is a collective action problem (Olson 1965).

Notwithstanding the habitual nature of most corrupt actions there are some cases in which a single, one-off action would be sufficient to corrupt an instance of an institutional process. Consider a specific tender. Suppose that one bribe is offered and accepted, and the tendering process is thereby undermined. Suppose that this is the first and only time that the person offering the bribe and the person receiving the bribe are involved in bribery. Is this one-off bribe an instance of corruption? Surely it is, since it corrupted that particular instance of a tendering process.

Ontologically speaking, there are different kinds of entities that can be corrupted. These include human beings, words of a language, artefacts, such as computer discs, and so on. However, our concern in this entry is with the corruption of institutions since this is the main focus of the philosophical and, for that matter, the non-philosophical, literature. Of course, institutions are comprised in large part of institutional roles occupied by human beings. So our focus on institutional corruption brings with it a focus on the corruption of individual human beings. (I refer to the corruption of individual human beings as personal corruption.) However in the case of institutional corruption, the focus on the corruption of human beings (personal corruption) is on human beings qua institutional actors (and on those who interact with institutional role occupants qua institutional role occupants)(Miller 2017: 65).

The upshot of this is that there are three sets of distinctions in play here. Firstly, there is the distinction between institutional corruption and non-institutional corruption—the latter being the corruption of entities other than institutions, e.g., corruption of artefacts. Secondly, there is the distinction between personal and non-personal corruption—the former being the corruption of human beings as opposed to, for instance, institutional processes. Thirdly, with respect to personal corruption, there is the distinction between the corruption of persons qua institutional actors and non-institutional personal corruption. Non-institutional personal corruption is corruption of persons outside institutional settings. Personal corruption pertains to the moral character of persons, and consists in the despoiling of their moral character. If an action has a corrupting effect on a person’s character, it will typically be corrosive of one or more of a person’s virtues. These virtues might be virtues that attach to the person qua human being, e.g., the virtues of compassion and fairness in one’s dealings with other human beings. Corrosion of these virtues amounts to non-institutional personal corruption. Alternatively—or in some cases, additionally—these virtues might attach to persons qua occupants of specific institutional roles, e.g., impartiality in a judge or objectivity in a journalist. Corrosion of these virtues amounts to institutional personal corruption, i.e., corruption of a person qua institutional role occupant.

In order to provide an adequate account of institutional corruption we need a serviceable notion of an institution: the thing corrupted. For our purposes here it is assumed that an institution is an organization or structure of organizations that reproduces itself (e.g., by training and recruitment processes) and is comprised of a structure of institutional roles defined in terms of tasks (Harré 1979; Giddens 1984; Miller 2010). Accordingly, the class of institutions is quite diverse and includes political institutions, (e.g., legislatures), market-based institutions, (e.g., corporations), institutions of learning, (e.g., universities), security agencies, (e.g., police and military organizations), and so on. Importantly, as we noted above, the various different types of, and even motives for, institutional corruption vary greatly from one kind of institution to another.

Note that in theorizing institutional corruption the distinction between an entire society or polity, on the one hand, and its constituent institutions, on the other, needs to be kept in mind. A theory of democracy, for instance, might be a theory not only of democratic government in the narrow sense of the legislature and senior members of the executive, but also of the public administration as a whole, the judiciary, the security agencies (police and military), civil society and so on. Obviously, a theory of the corruption of democratic political institutions (in the narrow sense of the legislature and the senior members of the executive) might not be generalizable to other sorts of institution within a democracy, e.g., to security agencies or market-based institutions. Moreover, fundamental differences regarding the specific form that a democracy ought to take, e.g., between those of a republican persuasion (Pettit 1997; Sandel 2012) and libertarians (Nozick 1974; Friedman 1970), might morph into disputes about what counts as institutional corruption. For instance, on one view market-based institutions exist to serve the common good, while on another they exist only to serve the individual self-interest of the participants in them. Thus on the latter, but not the former, view market intervention by the government in the service of the common good might be regarded as a species of corruption. Further, a theory of the corruption of democracy, and certainly of the corruption of one species of democracy such as liberal democracy, is not necessarily adequate for the understanding of the corruption of many of institutions within a democracy and, in particular, those institutions, such as military and police institutions, hierarchical bureaucracies and market-based institutions, which are not inherently democratic either in structure or purpose, notwithstanding that they exist within the framework of a democratic political system, are shaped in various ways by that framework and, conversely, might be necessary for the maintenance of that framework.

2. Institutional Corruption

2.1 general features of institutional corruption.

Our concern here is only with institutional corruption. Nevertheless, it is plausible that corruption in general, including institutional corruption frequently, if not typically, involves the despoiling of the moral character of persons and in particular, in the case of institutional corruption, the despoiling of the moral character of institutional role occupants qua institutional role occupants. To this extent institutional corruption involves personal corruption and, thereby, connects institutional corruption to moral character. If the moral character of particular institutional role occupants, (e.g., police detectives), consists in large part of their possession of certain virtues definitive of the role in question (e.g., honesty, independence of mind, impartiality) then institutional corruption will frequently involve the displacement of those virtues in these role occupants by corresponding vices, (e.g., dishonesty, weak mindedness, bias); that is, institutional corruption will frequently involve institutional personal corruption.

As noted above, the relationship between institutional corruption and personal corruption is something that has been emphasized historically, e.g., by Plato, Aristotle and Machiavelli. However, some recent theorists of structural corruption have tended to downplay this relationship. Lessig’s notion of dependence corruption (Lessig 2011), in particular, evidently decouples structural corruption from (institutional) personal corruption (see section 2.3.3 below).

Personal corruption, i.e., the state of having been corrupt ed , is not the same thing as performing a corrupt action, i.e., being a corrupt or . Typically, corruptors are themselves corrupted, but this is not necessarily the case. Consider, for example, a parent who pays a one-off bribe to an immigration official in order to be reunited with her child. The parent is a corruptor by virtue of performing a corrupt action, but she is not necessarily corrupted by her, let us assume, morally justifiable action.

Does personal corruption imply moral responsibility for one’s corrupt character? This issue is important in its own right but it also has implications for our understanding of structural corruption. Certainly, many, if not most, of those who are corrupted are morally responsible for being so. After all, they do or should know what it is to be corrupt and they could have avoided becoming corrupt. Consider, for instance, kleptocrats, such as Mobuto and Marcos, who have looted billions of dollars from the public purse (Sharman 2017), or senior members of multi-national corporations who have been engaged in ongoing massive bribery in China and elsewhere (Pei 2016). These kleptocrats and corporate leaders are not only corruptors, they are themselves corrupt; moreover, they are morally responsible for being in their state of corruption.

However, there appear to be exceptions to the claim that personal corruption necessarily or always brings with it moral responsibility for one’s corrupt character, e.g., adolescents who have been raised in criminal families and, as a result, participate in the corrupt enterprises of these families. These individuals perform actions which are an expression of their corrupt characters and which also have a corrupting effect.

What of the moral responsibility of corruptors for their corrupt actions? It is plausible that many, if not most, corruptors are morally responsible for their corrupt actions (e.g., the legions of those rightly convicted of corruption in criminal courts—and therefore, presumably, morally responsible for their actions—in jurisdictions around the world), but there appear to be exceptions, e.g., those who are coerced into offering bribes.

One school of thought in the theory of social institutions that might well reject the view that corruptors are necessarily or even typically morally responsible (or, therefore, blameworthy) for their corrupt actions is structuralism (Lévi-Strauss 1962 [1966]) and especially structural Marxism (Althusser 1971). According to the latter view institutional structure and, in particular, economic class-based relations largely determine institutional structures and cultures, and regularities in the actions of institutional actors. On this anti-individualist conception neither institutional corrosion nor institutional corruption—supposing the two notions can be distinguished (see below)—are ultimately to be understood by recourse to the actions of morally responsible individual human agents. Strong forms of structuralism are inconsistent with most contemporary philosophical accounts of institutional corruption, not the least because these accounts typically assume that institutions have an inherently normative—rather than merely ideological—dimension. However there are echoes of weaker forms of structuralism in some of these accounts when it comes to the issue of the moral responsibility of human persons for institutional corruption. One influential contemporary theorist of corruption who apparently does not accept the view that corruptors are necessarily or always morally responsible (or, therefore, blameworthy) for their corrupt actions is Lessig (Lessig 2011) (see section 2.3.3 below).

The upshot of our discussion of (institutional) personal corruption and moral responsibility is as follows. We now have, at least notionally, a fourfold distinction in relation to corruptors: (1) corruptors who are morally responsible for their corrupt action and blameworthy; (2) corruptors who are morally responsible for their corrupt action but not blameworthy; (3) corruptors who are not morally responsible for having a corrupt character, but whose actions: (a) are expressive of their corrupt character, and; (b) have a corrupting effect; (4) corruptors who do not have a corrupt character and are neither morally responsible nor blameworthy for their corrupt actions, yet whose actions have a corrupting effect, e.g., by virtue of some form of structural dependency for which individual human persons are not morally responsible.

Naturally, in the case of institutional corruption typically greater institutional damage is being done than simply the despoiling of the moral character of the institutional role occupants. Specifically, institutional processes are being undermined, and/or institutional purposes subverted. A further point is that the undermining of institutional purposes or processes typically requires the actions of multiple agents; the single action of a single agent is typically not sufficient. The multiple actions of the multiple agents in question could be a joint action(s) or they could be individual actions taken in aggregate. A joint action is one in which two or more agents perform a contributory individual action in the service of a common or collective end (Miller 2010: Chapter 1) or, according to some theorists, joint intention (Bratman 2016: Chapter 1). For instance, motivated by financial gain, a group of traders within the banking sector might cooperate with one another in order to manipulate a financial benchmark rate, such as LIBOR (London Interbank Borrowing Rate) (Wheatley 2012).

However, arguably, the undermining of institutional processes and/or purposes is not a sufficient condition for institutional corruption. Acts of institutional damage that are not performed by a corruptor and also do not corrupt persons might be thought to be better characterized as acts of institutional corrosion . Consider, for example, funding decisions that gradually reduce public monies allocated to the court system in some large jurisdiction. As a consequence, magistrates might be progressively less well trained and there might be fewer and fewer of them to deal with the gradually increasing workload of cases. This may well lead to a diminution over decades in the quality of the adjudications of these magistrates, and so the judicial processes are to an extent undermined. However, given the size of the jurisdiction and the incremental nature of these changes, neither the magistrates, nor anyone else, might be aware of this process of judicial corrosion, or even able to become aware of it (given heavy workloads, absence of statistical information, etc.). At any rate, if we assume that neither the judges nor anyone else can do anything to address the problem then, while there has clearly been judicial corrosion, arguably there has not been judicial corruption. Why is such corrosion not also corruption?

For institutional corrosion to constitute corruption, it might be claimed (Miller 2017: Chapter 3), the institutional damage done needs to be avoidable; indeed, it might also be claimed that the relevant agents must be capable of being held morally responsible for the damage, at least in the generality of cases. So if the magistrates in our example were to become aware of the diminution in the quality of their adjudications, could cause additional resources to be provided and yet chose to do nothing, then arguably the process of corrosion might have become a process of corruption.

An important question that arises here is whether or not institutional corruption is relative to a teleological or purpose-driven conception of institutions and, relatedly, whether the purposes in question are to be understood normatively. Arguably, the institutional purposes of universities include the acquisition of new knowledge and its transmission to students; moreover, arguably, knowledge acquisition is a human good since it enables (indirectly), for instance, health needs to be met. However, it has been suggested that the purposes of political institutions, in particular, are too vague or contested to be definitive of them (Ceva & Ferretti 2017; Warren 2004). One response to this is to claim that governments are in large part meta-institutions with the responsibility to ensure that society’s other institutions realize their distinctive institutional purposes. On this view, an important purpose of governments is provided, in effect, by the purposes of other fundamental institutions. For instance, an important purpose of governments might be to ensure market-based institutions operate in a free, fair, efficient and effective manner (Miller 2017: 14.1).

Naturally, there are many different kinds of entities which might causally undermine institutions, including other collective entities. However, collectivist accounts of institutions go beyond the ascription of causal responsibility and, in some cases, ascribe moral responsibility. Firstly, such collectivist accounts of institutions ascribe intentions, beliefs and so on to organizations and other collective entities per se. Secondly, this ascription of mindedness to collective entities leaves the way open to ascribe moral agency to these entities (French 1979; List & Pettit 2011). On such collectivist accounts corruptors include collective entities; indeed, corruptors who are morally responsible for their corrupt actions. Thus Lockheed Corporation, on this view, was a moral agent (or, at least, an immoral agent) which corrupted the Japanese government (a second moral agent) by way of bribery. Other theorists, typically referred to as individualists, reject minded collective entities (Ludwig 2017; Miller 2010). Accordingly to individualists, only human agents are possessed of minds and moral agency. [ 4 ] Thus collective entities, such as organizations, do not have minds and are not per se moral agents. Accordingly, it is only human agents who culpably perform actions that undermine legitimate institutional processes or purposes.

An important related issue that arises at this point pertains to the human agents who perform acts of corruption. Are they necessarily institutional actors? It might be thought that this was not the case. Supposing a criminal bribes a public official in order to get a permit to own a gun. The criminal is not an institutional actor and yet he has performed an act of institutional corruption. However, in this example the public official has accepted the bribe and she is an institutional actor. So the example does not show that institutional corruption does not necessarily involve the participation of an institutional actor. What if the criminal offered the bribe but it was not accepted? While this may well be a crime and is certainly an attempt at institutional corruption, arguably, it is not an actual instance of an act of institutional corruption but rather a failed attempt. Moreover, it is presumably not an instance of institutional corruption because the institutional actor approached refused to participate in the attempted corrupt action. Let us pursue this issue further.

As we saw in section 1 , corruption, even if it involves the abuse of public office, is not necessarily pursued for private gain. However, according to many definitions of corruption institutional corruption necessarily involves abuse of public office. Moreover, our example of an attempted bribe to secure a gun permit involves a public official. However, we have canvassed arguments in section 1 that contra this view acts of corruption might be actions performed by persons who do not hold public office, e.g., price-fixing by market actors, a witness who gives false testimony in a law court. At this point in the argument we need to invoke a distinction between persons who hold a public office and persons who have an institutional role. CEOs of corporations do not hold public office but they do have an institutional role. Hence a CEO who embezzles his company’s money is engaged in corruption. Again, citizens are not necessarily holders of public offices, but they do have an institutional role qua citizens, e.g., as voters. Hence a voter who breaks into the electoral office and stuffs the ballot boxes with falsified voting papers in order to ensure the election of her favored candidate is engaged in corruption, notwithstanding the fact that she does not hold public office.

The causal theory of institutional corruption (Miller 2017) presupposes a normative teleological conception of institutions according to which institutions are defined not only as organizations or systems of organizations with a purpose(s), but organizations or systems of organizations the purpose(s) of which is a human good. The goods in question are either intrinsic or instrumental goods. For instance, universities are held to have as their purpose the discovery and transmission of knowledge, where knowledge is at the very least an instrumental good. (For criticisms see Thompson 2018 and Ceva & Ferretti 2021.)

If a serviceable definition of the concept of a corrupt action is to be found—and specifically, one that does not collapse into the more general notion of an immoral action—then attention needs to be focused on the moral effects that some actions have on persons and institutions. An action is corrupt only if it corrupts something or someone—so corruption is not only a moral concept, but also a causal or quasi-causal concept. That is, an action is corrupt by virtue of having a corrupting effect on a person’s moral character or on an institutional process or purpose. If an action has a corrupting effect on an institution, undermining institutional processes or purposes, then typically—but not necessarily—it has a corrupting effect also on persons qua role occupants in the affected institutions.

Accordingly, an action is corrupt only if it has the effect of undermining an institutional process or of subverting an institutional purpose or of despoiling the character of some role occupant qua role occupant. In light of the possibility that some acts of corruption have negligible effects, such as a small one-off bribe paid for a minor service, this defining feature needs to be qualified so as to include acts that are of a type or kind that tends to undermine institutional processes, purposes or persons ( qua institutional role occupants)—as well as individual or token acts that actually have the untoward effects in question. Thus qualified, the causal character of corruption provides the second main feature of the causal theory of institutional corruption, the first feature being the normative teleological conception of institutions. I note accounts predicated on these two assumptions have ancient origins, notably in Aristotle (Hindess 2001).

In keeping with the causal account, an infringement of a specific law or institutional rule does not in and of itself constitute an act of institutional corruption. In order to do so, any such infringement needs to have an institutionally undermining effect , or be of a kind that has a tendency to cause such an effect, e.g., to defeat the institutional purpose of the rule, to subvert the institutional process governed by the rule, or to contribute to the despoiling of the moral character of a role occupant qua role occupant. In short, we need to distinguish between the offence considered in itself and the institutional effect of committing that offence. Considered in itself the offence of, say, lying is an infringement of a law, rule, and/or a moral principle. However, the offence is only an act of institutional corruption if it has some institutionally undermining effect, or is of a kind that has such a tendency, e.g., it is performed in a courtroom setting and thereby subverts the judicial process.

A third feature of the causal theory of institutional corruption pertains to the agents who cause the corruption. As noted in section 2.1.3 , there are many different kinds of entities which might causally undermine institutions, including other collective entities. However, it is an assumption of the causal theory of corruption that only human agents are possessed of minds and moral agency. Accordingly, on the causal theory it is only human agents who culpably perform actions that undermine legitimate institutional processes or purposes.

A fourth and final feature of the causal theory also pertains to the agents who cause corruption. It is a further assumption of the causal theory that the human agents who perform acts of corruption (the corruptors) and/or the human agents who are corrupted (the corrupted) are necessarily institutional actors (see discussion above in section 2.1.3 ). More precisely, acts of institutional corruption necessarily involve a corruptor who performs the corrupt action qua occupant of an institutional role and/or someone who is corrupted qua occupant of an institutional role .

In light of the above discussion the following normative theory of corruption suggests itself: the causal theory of institutional corruption (Miller 2017: Chapter 3).

An act x (whether a single or joint action) performed by an agent (or set of agents) A is an act of institutional corruption if and only if:

• x has an effect, or is an instance of a kind of act that has a tendency to have an effect, of undermining, or contributing to the undermining of, some institutional process and/or purpose (understood as a collective good) of some institution, I , and/or an effect of contributing to the despoiling of the moral character of some role occupant of I , agent (or set of agents) B , qua role occupant of I ;
• A is a role occupant of I who used the opportunities afforded by their role to perform x , and in so doing A intended or foresaw the untoward effects in question, or should have foreseen them;
• B could have avoided the untoward effects, if B had chosen to do so. [ 5 ]

Note that (2) (a) tells us that A is a corruptor and is, therefore, either (straightforwardly) morally responsible for the corrupt action, or A is not morally responsible for A ’s corrupt character and the corrupt action is an expression of A ’s corrupt character.

Notice also that the causal theory being cast in general terms, i.e., the undermining of institutional purposes, processes and/or persons ( qua institutional role occupants), can accommodate a diversity of corruption in a wide range of institutions in different social, political and economic settings, past and present, and accommodate also a wide range of mechanisms or structures of corruption, including structural relations of dependency, collective action problems and so on.

A controversial feature of the causal account is that organizations that are entirely morally and legally illegitimate, such as criminal organizations, (e.g., the mafia), are not able to be corrupted (Lessig 2013b). For on the causal account the condition of corruption exists only relative to an uncorrupted condition, which is the condition of being a morally legitimate institution or sub-element thereof. Consider the uncorrupted judicial process. It consists of the presentation of objective evidence that has been gathered lawfully, of testimony in court being presented truthfully, of the rights of the accused being respected, and so on. This otherwise morally legitimate judicial process may be corrupted, if one or more of its constitutive actions are not performed in accordance with the process as it ought to be. Thus to present fabricated evidence, to lie under oath, and so on, are all corrupt actions. In relation to moral character, consider an honest accountant who begins to “doctor the books” under the twin pressures of a corrupt senior management and a desire to maintain a lifestyle that is only possible if he is funded by the very high salary he receives for doctoring the books. By engaging in such a practice he risks the erosion of his moral character; he is undermining his disposition to act honestly.

2.3 Theories of Political Corruption

Let us term theories of corruption which focus on the undermining of institutional procedures or processes, as opposed to institutional purposes, proceduralist theories of institutional corruption. Mark Warren has elaborated a proceduralist theory of the corruption of democracies, in particular; a theory which he terms “duplicitous exclusion” (Warren 2006). (Relatedly and more recently, Ceva & Ferretti speak of bending public rules in the service of “surreptitious agendas” as definitive of corruption (Ceva & Ferretti 2017: 6), although in a recent work they have shifted to a notion of corruption in terms of lack of accountability (Ceva & Ferretti 2018; Ceva & Ferretti 2021). See discussion below in 2.3.4.)

Democratic political institutions are characterized by equality (in some sense) with respect to these processes. Warren offers a particular account of democratic equality and derives his notion of corruption of democratic political institutions from this. According to Warren, democracies involve a norm of equal inclusion such that

every individual potentially affected by a collective decision should have an opportunity to affect the decision proportional to his or her stake in the outcome. (Warren 2004: 333)

Corruption of democracies occurs under two conditions: (1) this norm is violated and; (2) violators claim to be complying with the norm (Warren 2004: 337). Warren contrasts his theory of duplicitous exclusion with what he terms “office-based” accounts (Warren 2004:329–32).The latter might be serviceable for administrative agencies and roles but is, according to Warren, inadequate for democratic representatives attempting to “define the public interest” (Warren 2006: 10) and relying essentially on the political process, rather than pre-existing agreement on specific ends or purposes, to do so. This latter point is made in one way of another by other theorists of modern representative democracies, such as Thompson (2013) and Ceva & Ferretti (2017: 5), and is an objection to teleological accounts (such as the causal account— section 2.2 above).

Warren’s other necessary condition for the corruption of institutions, namely duplicity, resonates with the emphasis in the contemporary anti-corruption literature and, for that matter, in much public policy on transparency; transparency can reveal duplicity and thereby thwart corruptors. Moreover, the duplicity condition—and the related surreptitious agenda condition of Ceva & Ferretti—is reminiscent of Plato’s ring of Gyges (Plato Gorgias ); corruption is something done under a cloak of secrecy and typically involves deception to try to ensure the cloak is not removed. Unquestionably, corruption often flourishes under conditions of secrecy. Moreover, corruptors frequently seek to deceive by presenting themselves a committed to the standards that they are (secretly) violating. But contra Warren—and, for that matter, Ceva & Ferretti—corruption does not necessarily or always need to be hidden in order to flourish. Indeed, in polities and institutions suffering from the most serious and widespread forms of corruption at the hands of the very powerful, there is often little or no need for secrecy or deception in relation to the pursuit of corrupt practices; corruption is out in the open. Consider Colombia during the period of the drug lord, Pablo Escobar’s, “reign”; the period of the so-called “narcocracy”. His avowed and well-advertised policy was “silver or lead”, meaning that politicians, judges, journalists and so on either accepted a bribe or risked being killed (Bowden 2012). Against this it might be suggested that at least corruption in democracies always involves hiding one’s corrupt practices. Unfortunately, this seems not to be the case either. As Plato pointed out long ago in The Republic , democracies can suffer a serious problem of corruption among the citizenry and when this happens all manner of corrupt practices on the part of leaders and others will not only be visible, they will be tolerated, and even celebrated.

Warren’s theory is evidently not generalizable to many other institutions, namely, those that are not centrally governed by democratic norms and, in particular, by his norm of equal inclusion. Consider, for instance, military institutions. Most important decisions made by military personal in wartime—as opposed to those made by their political masters, such as whether to go to war in the first place—are made in the context of a hierarchical structure; they are not collective decisions, if the notion of a collective decision is to be understood on a democratic model of decision-making, e.g., representative democracy. Moreover, with respect to, for instance, the decision to retreat or stand and fight a combatant does not and cannot reasonably expect to have “an opportunity to affect the decision proportional to her stake in the outcome”. The combatant’s personal stake might be very high; his life is at risk if he stands and fights and, therefore, he might prefer to retreat. However, military necessity in a just war might dictate that he and his comrades stand and fight and, therefore, they are ordered to do so by their superiors back at headquarters and, as virtuous combatants, they obey. I note that Machiavelli contrasts combatants possessed of the martial virtues with corruptible mercenaries who only fight for money and who desert when their lives are threatened (Machiavelli The Prince : Chapter 12).

Thompson’s groundbreaking and influential theory of institutional corruption takes as its starting point a distinction between what Thompson refers to as individual corruption and institutional corruption. When an official accepts a bribe in return for providing a service to the briber, this is individual corruption since the official is accepting a personal benefit or gain in exchange for promoting private interests (Thompson 2013: 6). Moreover, the following two conditions evidently obtain: (i) the official intends to provide the service (or, at least, intends to give the impression that he will provide the service) to the bribee; (ii) the official and the bribee intentionally create the link between the bribe and the service, i.e., it is a quid quo pro . By contrast, institutional corruption involves political benefits or gains, e.g., campaign contributions (that do not go into the political candidates’ own pockets but are actually spent on the campaigns) by public officials under conditions that tend to promote private interests (Thompson 2013: 6). The reference to a tendency entails that there is some kind of causal regularity in the link between acceptance of the political benefits and promotion of the private interests (including greater access to politicians than is available to others (Thompson 2018)). However, the officials in question do not intend that there be such a link between the political benefits they accept and their promotion of the private interests of the provider of the political benefits. Rather

the fact that an official acts under conditions that tend to create improper influence is sufficient to establish corruption, whatever the official’s motive. (Thompson 2013: 13)

I note that in the case of institutional corruption and, presumably, individual corruption (in so far as it involves the bribery of public or private officials) the actions in question must undermine some institutional process or purpose (and/or perhaps institutional role occupant qua role occupant). Thus Thompson says of institutional corruption:

It is not corrupt if the practice promotes (or at least does not damage) political competition, citizenship representation, or other core processes of the institution. But it is corrupt if it is of a type that tends to undermine such processes and thereby frustrate the primary purposes of the institution. (Thompson 2013: 7)

While Thompson has provided an important analysis of an important species of institutional corruption, his additional claim that officials who accept personal benefits in exchange for promoting private interests, i.e., a common form of bribery, is not a species of institutional corruption is open to question (and a point of difference with the causal theory). As mentioned in section 1 , this species of bribery of institutional actors utilizing their position—whether that position be one in the public sector or in the private sector—can be systemic and, therefore, extremely damaging to institutions. Consider the endemic bribery of police in India with its attendant undermining of the provision of impartial (Kurer 2005; Rothstein & Varraich 2017), obligatory (Kolstad 2012) and effective police services, not to mention of public trust in the police. Some police stations in part of India are little more than unlawful “tax” collection or, better, extortion agencies; local business people have to pay the local police if they are to guarantee effective police protection, truck drivers have to pay bribes to the police at transport checkpoints, if they are to transit expeditiously through congested areas, speeding tickets are avoided by those who pay bribes, and so on. Moreover, endemic bribery of this kind is endemic in many police forces and other public sector agencies throughout so-called developing countries, even if it is no longer present in most developed countries.

Thompson invokes the distinction between systemic and episodic services provided by a public official in support of his distinction between individual and institutional corruption. By “systemic” Thompson means that the service provided by the official

is provided through a persistent pattern of relationships, rather than in episodic or one-time interactions. (The particular relationships do not themselves have to be ongoing: a recurrent set of one-time interactions by the same politician with different recipients could create a similar pattern.) (Thompson 2013: 11)

However, as our above example of bribery of police in India makes clear, Thompson’s individual corruption can be, and often is, systemic in precisely this sense. In more recent work Thompson has drawn attention to mixed cases involving, for instance, both a personal and a political gain—the political gain not necessarily being a motive—and suggested that if the dominant gain is political rather than personal then it is institutional corruption or perhaps a mix of individual and institutional corruption (Thompson 2018). Fair enough. However, this does not remove the objection that systemic bribery (for instance) involving only personal gain (both as a motive and an outcome) are, nevertheless, cases of institutional corruption.

Thompson uses the case of Charles Keating to outline his theory (Thompson 1995 and 2013). Keating was a property developer who made generous contributions to the election campaigns of various U.S. politicians, notably five senators, and then at a couple of meetings called on a number of these to do him a favor in return. Specifically, Keating wanted the senators to get a regulatory authority to refrain from seizing the assets of a subsidiary of a company owned by Keating. The chair of the regulatory authority was replaced. However, two years later the assets of the company in question were seized and authorities filed a civil racketeering and fraud suit against Keating accusing him of diverting funds from the company to his family and to political campaigns. Thompson argues that the Keating case involved: (1) the provision or, at least, the appearance of the provision of an improper service on the part of legislators (the senators) to a constituent (Keating), i.e., interfering with the role of a regulator on his behalf; (2) a political gain in the form of campaign contributions (from Keating to the senators), and; (3) a link or, at least, the appearance of a link between (1) and (2), i.e., the tendency under these conditions for the service to be performed because of the political gain.

Accordingly, the case study involves at least the appearance of corrupt activity on the part of the senators. Moreover, Thompson claims that such an appearance might be sufficient for institutional corruption in that damage has been done to a political institution by virtue of a diminution in public trust in that institution. Thus the appearance of a conflict of interest undermines public trust which in turn damages the institution. The appearance of a conflict of interest arises when legislators use their office to provide a questionable “service” to a person upon whom they are, or have been, heavily reliant for campaign contributions. Evidently, on Thompson’s account of institutional (as opposed to individual) corruption it is not necessary that the legislators in these kinds of circumstance ought to know that their actions might well have the appearance of a conflict of interest, ought to know that they might have a resulting damaging effect, and ought to know, therefore, that they ought not to have performed those actions. Certainly, the senators in the Keating case ought to have known that they ought not to perform these actions. However, the more general point is that it is not clear that it would be a case of corruption, if it were not the case that the legislators in question ought to have known that they ought not to perform the institutionally damaging actions in question. On the causal account ( section 2.2 above), if legislators or other officials perform institutionally damaging actions that they could not reasonably be expected to know would be institutionally damaging then they have not engaged in corruption but rather incidental institutional damage (and perhaps corrosion if the actions are ongoing).

As outlined above, Thompson has made a detailed application of his theory to political institutions and, especially to campaign financing in the U.S.. However, he views the theory as generalizable to institutions other than political ones. It is generalizable, he argues, in so far as “public purposes” can be replaced by “institutional purposes” and “democratic process” with “legitimate institutional procedures” (Thompson 2013: 5). Certainly, if the theory is to be generalizable then it is necessary that these replacements be made. The question is whether making these replacements is sufficient. Moreover, the particular species of institutional corruption that he has identified and analyzed might exist in other institutions but do so alongside a wide range of other species to which his analysis does not apply—including, but not restricted to, what he refers to as individual corruption. Thompson has recently identified some other forms of institutional corruption to which he claims his theory applies (Thompson 2018). For instance, the close relationship that might obtain between corporations and their auditing firms. The salient such relationships are those consisting of auditing firms undertaking profitable financial consultancy work for the very corporations which they are auditing; hence the potential for the independent auditing process to be compromised. These relationships certainly have the potential for corruption. However, they do not appear to be paradigms of institutional corruption in Thompson’s sense since, arguably, undertaking such consultancy work is not prima facie an integral function of auditing firms qua auditors in the manner in which, for instance, securing campaign finance is integral to political parties competing in an election (to mention Thompson’s paradigmatic example of institutional corruption).

Newhouse has attempted to generalize Thompson’ theory, but in doing so also narrows it. Newhouse argues that Thompson’s theory is best understood in terms of breach of organizational fiduciary duties (Newhouse 2014). An important underlying reason for this, says Newhouse, is that Thompson’s (and, for that matter, Lessig’s) account of institutional corruption presuppose that institutions have an “obligatory purpose” (Newhouse 2014: 555) Fiduciary duties are, of course, obligatory. Moreover, they are widespread in both the public and private sector; hence the theory would be generalized. On the other hand, there are many institutional actors who do not have fiduciary duties. Thus if Newhouse is correct in thinking that Thompson’s theory of institutional corruption provides a model for breach of organizational fiduciary duty and only for breach of organizational fiduciary duty, the ambition to generalize Thompson’s theory will remain substantially unrealized.

Lawrence Lessig has argued that the U.S. democratic political process and, indeed, Congress itself, is institutionally corrupt and that the corruption in question is a species of what he calls “dependency corruption” (Lessig 2011 and 2013a). Lessig argues that although U.S. citizens as a whole vote in the election of, say, the U.S. President, nevertheless, the outcome is not wholly dependent on these citizens as it should be in a democracy or, at least, as is required by the U.S. Constitution. For the outcome is importantly dependent on a small group of “Funders” who bankroll particular candidates and without whose funding no candidate could hope to win office. Accordingly, there are really two elections. In the first election only the Funders get to “vote” since only they have sufficient funds to support a political candidate. Once these candidate have been “elected” then there is a second election, a general election, in which all the citizens get to vote. However, they can only vote on the list of candidates “pre-selected” by the Funders. Lessig’s account of the U.S. election is complicated, but not vitiated, by the existence of a minority of candidates, such as Bernie Sanders, who rely on funding consisting of small amounts of money from a very large number of Funders. It is further complicated but not necessarily vitiated by the rise of demagogues such as Donald Trump who, as mentioned above, can utilise social media and computational propaganda to have an electoral influence much greater than otherwise might have been the case (Woolley and Howard 2019).

On Lessig’s view there are two dependencies in play, namely, the dependency of the outcome of the election on the citizenry and the dependency of this outcome on the Funders. However, these two dependencies are inconsistent. Therefore, the question that now arises is which dependency is legitimate. Clearly, the dependency on the citizenry as a whole is legitimate since this is what the Constitution clearly intended. Since these funders are not representative of the U.S. citizenry the dependency on the Funders is illegitimate and a corruption of the democratic process in the U.S..

Lessig states that his notion of dependency corruption cuts across Thompson’s notions of individual and institutional corruption (Lessig 2013a: 14). Regarding the relation to Thompson’s notion of institutional corruption: On the one hand, dependence corruption involves a tendency, as does Thompson’s notion of institutional corruption (see above section 2.3.2 ). On the other hand, on Thompson’s theory, a politician, or set of politicians, can receive campaign contributions from Funders and further their private interests without being dependent on them. So in this respect Thompson’s notion of institutional corruption is wider than Lessig’s notion of dependence corruption. Regarding the relation to Thompson’s notion of individual corruption: A politician, or set of politicians, may come to depend on personal benefits from Funders. This is dependence corruption but on Thompson’s theory it is presumably individual corruption. (Although, perhaps, it might not be individual corruption in Thompson’s sense, if it involves a regularity and hence tendency).

Lessig offers a plausible analysis of the corruption of the U.S. electoral system by the Funders. Two related questions now arise. Is Lessig’s theory of dependence corruption correct? Is the notion of dependence corruption generalizable to institutions other than political institutions and, if so, to what extent?

The extent to which Lessig’s notion of dependence corruption is generalizable is ultimately an empirical question; it is a matter of seeking to apply it widely and waiting on the outcome (see, for instance, Light’s analysis of corruption in the pharmaceutical industry (Light, Lexchin, & Darrow 2013)). However, as mentioned above in the comparison of Lessig’s account with that of Thompson, Lessig does not see his dependence account as entirely generalizable.

Unlike the causal account of corruption (see section 2.2 above), Lessig’s notion of institutional corruption commits him only to normatively neutral institutional purposes (Lessig 2014; Lessig 2013b: 14) rather than to morally good or otherwise valuable institutional purposes. Accordingly, by Lessig’s lights, to say of a university that it has as a fundamental purpose to educate (to some objectively acceptable, minimum standard) is merely to say that this is a de facto fundamental purpose. Therefore, being market-based it could change its order of priorities; i.e., it would be perfectly entitled to prioritize profit over educational standards, just as, for instance, a retail store is perfectly entitled to prioritize profit over its standards of service to its customers.

According to Lessig, dependence corruption does not necessarily involve corrupt persons. As we have seen, Lessig’s favored example of dependence corruption is the dependency of the outcome of U.S. elections on a small group of large funders of those campaigning for political office rather than on the American people. Lessig suggests that those who engage in dependence corruption could be “good souls” (Lessig 2011: 17). Here we need to keep in mind distinctions between being evil and being corrupt, and between being corrupt and being morally responsible for one’s corruption. A corrupt person is not necessarily an evil person. After all, as we have seen, a corrupt person might only be corrupt qua institutional actor. Thus a corrupt police officer might be a good father and husband. Moreover, corruption admits of degrees. So a corrupt police officer might be a so-called grass-eater rather than a so-called meat-eater; their corrupt character might only manifest itself in relatively minor forms of corruption, e.g., minor bribe-taking, rather than in major forms of corruption, e.g., on-selling large quantities of heroin seized from drug dealers.

What of moral responsibility and corruption? Consider Lessig’s own favored example of dependence corruption. Surely, moral responsibility for corruption of the U.S. electoral system can be assigned to U.S. legislators, in particular, as well as the Funders who finance campaigns in the expectation (presumably) of favorable legislation if their candidates are elected. Lessig distinguishes between

responsibility for changing individual behavior within the system and responsibility for changing the system itself. (Lessig 2013a: 15)

According to Lessig

the sin of a Congressman within such a system is not that she raises campaign money. It is that she doesn’t work to change the corruption that this dependence upon a small set of funders produced. (Lessig 2013a: 15)

So apparently direct participation in the corruption of the electoral system by legislators and (?) Funders is not a sin. Lessig’s claim here might be that the corruptors of the U.S. electoral system are not engaged in sinful acts because they are not morally responsible for this wrongdoing. This claim is open to question. The actions of the legislators and Funders (and, for that matter, the lobbyists) that are constitutive of dependence corruption (offering and receiving (directly and indirectly) campaign funds) are avoidable and the legislators and Funders are, or ought to be, aware of the institutional damage being done by their combined actions. Moreover, in suggesting that the legislators have a moral responsibility to change the system, Lessig, in effect, concedes as much. How could they have a moral responsibility to change the system if they were not aware of it and their role in it?

What might be influencing Lessig at this point is the degree of the moral responsibility, specifically, full and partial responsibility. It is the combined effect of the many individual actions of a large number of legislators (and Funders and lobbyists) that does the institutional damage. Therefore, each only makes a small causal contribution and each, therefore, only has a small share in the moral responsibility for the outcome. Moreover, in relation to changing the system, there is a need for joint action; it is a joint moral responsibility involving shared partial individual responsibility. Thus legislators could, and know they could, jointly act to enact campaign finance reform to address the problem of dependency by, for example, restricting campaign contributions. Accordingly, the moral responsibility in play is a species of collective responsibility; specifically, joint moral responsibility (Miller 2010: Chapter 4).

Ceva & Ferretti understand political corruption widely to include not only the corruption of politicians but of public officials in general, including police officers, members of the professions, such as doctors and teachers, and others in the public sector. They define political corruption in terms of two individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions: “There must be a public official who (1) acts in her institutional capacity as an officeholder (office condition) (2) for the pursuit of an agenda whose rationale may not be vindicated as coherent with the terms of the mandate of her power of office (mandate condition)” (Ceva & Ferretti 2021: 19). The first condition, namely that political corruption involves a public official who acts in her institutional capacity, is familiar (see above). What of condition (2), the mandate condition?

The mandate condition concerns the motive or reason guiding the office holder’s action; the action is performed for the pursuit of an agenda with a rationale. So the officeholder’s action considered in itself might or might not be an exercise of a constitutive institutional right or duty of the office in question. But what is this rationale that would render the action corrupt? The rationale in question is one that “may not be vindicated as coherent with the terms of the mandate of her power of office”. The key notion here is that of coherence with the mandate of the powers of office. Here the powers of office are presumably simply the institutional rights and duties constitutive of an office, e.g., the right of legislators to vote on legislation, the duty not to take bribes. So, in summary, corruption involves the performance of an action(s) the motivating reason for which does not cohere with the mandate authorizing an office holder’s rights and duties qua office holder.

Ceva & Ferretti further argue that the relations between organizational roles generate a deontic dimension. For instance, they say: “Office accountability governs the institutional relations between office holders. As participants in these relations, officeholders are established with the authority to require that one another ‘gives an account’ of their actions” (Ceva & Ferretti 2021: 25). They provide the example of a physician: “By following this course of action, the physician is also in the position of justifying her conduct to her colleagues with reference to the terms of her power mandate, thus fulfilling office accountability. By her action, the physician is accountable not only to the other doctors…but also to the hospital staff” (Ceva & Ferretti 2021:26).

Ceva & Ferretti also address the question, What is wrong with corruption? In doing so they offer a distinctive theory. According to them political corruption is inherently wrong (as opposed to wrong by virtue of its consequences) because it is “a specific form of interactive injustice consisting in a violation of the duty of office accountability” (Ceva & Ferretti 2021: 122). Thus, it turns out that political corruption is inherently wrong because it is unjust. More specifically, political corruption involves an action by an institutional member which is unjust to his colleagues since each member owes it to every other member to do his duty.

A question might arise at this point in relation to the scope of the notion of an institution that Ceva & Ferretti’s employ in their account of political corruption (understood as corruption of public institutions). For instance, are those who are entitled to vote in a democracy themselves institutional role occupants of the institution of government? Are patients in a public hospital themselves role occupants of the hospital or students in a public school role occupants of the school? Ceva & Ferretti deploy an account of a public institution according to which the answer to these questions is in each case in the negative. For on their account of the corruption of public institutions there must be an officeholder possessed of a mandate who engages in corruption. But citizens, hospital patients and school students are not office holders with mandates. Indeed, citizens are the source of the mandate as, arguably (supposing there is a mandate), are patients and if not students, at least their parents (on the students’ behalf). One untoward consequence of this view is that evidently citizens, patients and students cannot themselves directly engage in acts of corruption (understood as corruption of public institutions) or, at least, if they can their actions would fall outside Ceva & Ferretti’s theory of institutional corruption.

At any rate, to return to the question of the wrongness of corruption, we saw above that on Ceva & Ferretti’s view this consists in corruption being a form of interactive injustice. Accordingly, interactive justice goes hand in glove with office accountability. On this view a teacher who fails students who do not provide her with sexual favors, and gives high marks to those who do, is performing corrupt actions by virtue of her unjust treatment of her teaching colleagues. Ceva & Ferretti argue that the normative source (relevant to the inherent wrongness of corrupt actions) of the principle of impartiality in the practice of the assessment by teachers of their students’ work lies in the role-based relations that the teacher has with her fellow teachers (and other school staff) (Ceva & Ferretti 2021: 98). So this teacher’s action is not corrupt by virtue of the injustice done to the students (although Ceva & Ferretti agree that it would be unfair to the students), but rather by virtue of the injustice done to the teacher’s colleagues. Contrary to Ceva & Ferretti it could reasonably be claimed that the primary form of institutional corruption involved here lies in the corruption of the teacher-student relationship (and its harmful consequences). More generally, Ceva & Ferretti’s theory of political corruption evidently privileges relationships between office holders at the expense of those whom they serve.

As we saw earlier, in the paradigm cases corrupt actions are a species of morally wrong, habitual, actions. What of the motive for corrupt actions? We saw above that there are many motives for corrupt actions, including desires for wealth, status, and power. However, there is apparently at least one motive that we might think ought not to be associated with corruption, namely, acting for the sake of the good. Here we need to be careful. For sometimes actions that are done for the sake of the good are, nevertheless, morally wrong actions. Indeed, some actions that are done out of a desire to achieve the good are corrupt actions, namely, acts of so-called noble cause corruption.

This is not the place to provide a detailed treatment of the phenomenon of noble cause corruption (Kleinig 2002; Miller 2016: Chapter 3). Rather let us simply note that even in cases of noble cause corruption—contra what the person who performs the action thinks—it may well be the case that the corrupt action morally ought not to be performed; or at least the corrupt action is pro tanto morally wrong, even if it is morally permissible all things considered. Accordingly, the person who performs it may well be deceiving him or herself, or be simply mistaken when they judge that the action morally ought to be performed. So their motive, i.e., to act for the sake of what is right, has a moral deficiency. They are only acting for the sake of what they believe is morally right, but in fact it is not morally right; their belief is a false belief. So we can conclude that corrupt actions are habitual actions that are at the very least pro tanto morally wrong and quite possibly morally wrong all things considered, and therefore in all probability not motivated by the true belief that they are morally right.

Here there are more complex excuses and justifications available for what might first appear to be an act of noble cause corruption. Perhaps a police officer did not know that some form of evidence was not admissible. The police officer’s false belief that an action is right (putting forward the evidence in a court of law) was rationally dependent on some false non-moral belief (that the evidence was admissible); and the police officer came to hold that non-moral belief as a result of a rational process (he was informed, or at least misinformed, that the evidence was admissible by a senior officer). This would incline us to say that the putative act of noble cause corruption was not really an act of corruption—although it might serve to undermine a morally legitimate institutional process—and therefore not an act of noble cause corruption. This intuition is consistent with the causal account of corruption in particular. The police officer in question did perform an action that undermined a legitimate criminal justice process. However, his action was not corrupt because he is not a corruptor. He did not intend to undermine the process, he did not foresee that the process would be undermined, and (let us assume) he could not reasonably have been expected to foresee that it would be undermined. Nor is his action the expression of a corrupt character.

Earlier, it was suggested that acts of noble cause corruption are pro tanto morally wrong and that this is typically contra what the actor believes. However, it is conceivable that some acts of noble cause corruption are morally justified all things considered. Perhaps the act of noble cause corruption while wrong in itself , nevertheless, was morally justified from an all things considered standpoint. If so, we might conclude that the action was not an act of corruption (and therefore not an act of noble cause corruption). Alternatively, we might conclude that it was an act of corruption, but one of those few acts of corruption that was justified in the circumstances. Perhaps both options are possibilities.

Suppose an undercover police officer offers a “bribe” to a corrupt judge for the purpose, supposedly, of getting the judge to pass a lenient sentence on a known mafia crime boss. The police officer is actually engaged in a so-called “sting” operation as part of an anti-corruption strategy. The judge accepts the bribe and is duly convicted of a criminal offence and jailed. (Let us also assume that the judge is already so corrupt that he will not be further corrupted by being offered the bribe.) The police officer offers the bribe for the purpose of achieving a moral good, i.e., convicting a corrupt official. However, we are disinclined to call this a case of corruption. Presumably the reason for this is that in this context the “bribe” does not have a corrupting effect; in particular, it does not succeed in undermining the judicial process of sentencing the crime boss. So this is a case in which a prima facie act of noble cause corruption turns out not be an act of corruption, and therefore not an act of noble cause corruption. A less straightforward case is the one where the action does have a corrupting effect. Consider two possibilities: (i) The sting is continued for a while (to catch other corrupt judges) and paid for (by bribes) verdicts are temporarily enforced during the sting; (ii) The process of considering and accepting the money offered by the disguised police officer further despoils the judge’s character but has no further effect on court proceedings (because the judge is arrested within minutes). In both cases, arguably, the officer conducting the sting operations committed an act of corruption.

What of morally justified acts of noble cause corruption. Suppose someone bribes an immigration official in order to ensure that his friend—who is ineligible to enter Australia—can in fact enter Australia, and thereby have access to life-saving hospital treatment. This act of bribery is evidently an act of institutional corruption; a legitimate institutional process has been subverted. However, the person acted for the sake of doing what he believed to be morally right; his action was an instance of noble cause corruption. Moreover, from an all things considered standpoint—and in particular, in the light of the strength of the moral obligations owed to close friends when their lives are at risk—his action may well be morally justified. Accordingly, his act of corruption may well not have a corrupting effect on himself. Plausibly, this explains any tendency we might have not to describe his action as an action of corruption. But from the fact that the person was not corrupted it does not follow that the act did not corrupt. Moreover, it does not even follow that some person or other was not corrupted. Clearly, in our example, the immigration official was corrupted and, therefore, the action was pro tanto morally wrong, even if the action was morally right all things considered.

In this section the following propositions have been advanced: (a) the phenomenon of noble cause corruption is a species of corruption, and it is seen to be so by the lights of the causal account of corruption in particular; (b) conceivably, some acts of noble cause corruption are morally justified all things considered; (c) instances of structural corruption favored by Lessig and/or Thompson are potentially cases of noble cause corruption, but this is not necessarily the case.

Thus far our concern has been with theorizing institutional corruption. Indeed, most of the philosophical work undertaken to date has consisted in such theorizing. However, there are some salient exceptions to this. For instance, Pogge has suggested undermining the international borrowing privileges of authoritarian governments who have removed democratic governments (Pogge 2002 [2008]: Chapter 10); Wenar (2016) argues for the enforcement of property rights (popular resource sovereignty) in relation to the resources curse; Lessig (Lessig 2011) has elaborated a raft of specific measures to reform the system of campaign contributions in the U.S.; Alexandra and Miller (2010) have outlined ways to utilize reputational devices in some sectors in which reputational loss hurts the “bottom line” (see also Brennan & Pettit 2005 for an account of the theoretical underpinnings of such practical reforms).

However, at a more general level there is an apparent need on the part of philosophers to conceptualize the notion of an anti-corruption system or, more broadly, an integrity system for institutions (Klitgaard 1988; Pope 1997; Anechiarico & Jacobs 1998; Klitgaard et al. 2000; Preston & Sampford 2002; Baker 2005; Miller 2017). An integrity system is an institutional arrangement the purpose of which is to promote ethical attitudes and behavior and, crucially, to prevent or, at least, reduce institutional corruption. For instance, an integrity system for a police organization might consist of a set of laws and regulations, an internal affairs department comprised of corruption investigators, an external oversight body, professional reporting mechanisms, an enforceable code of ethics, a complaints and discipline process, and so on. The contribution of philosophers to integrity systems has been threefold. Firstly, they have offered synoptic or “birds-eye” views of the architecture of such systems and in so doing determined whether they are fit for normative institutional purpose. Naturally, this work presupposes theories of the normative institutional purposes of the institutions in question (Lessig 2011; Thompson 1995). Secondly, they have addressed a variety of ethical issues that have arisen in the design and implementation of integrity systems and their various institutional components. Consider, for instance, the range of ethical issues that arise in relation to anti-corruption systems for police organizations, e.g., entrapment, privacy/surveillance (Miller 2016). Thirdly, they have identified the underlying causal and/or rational basis of the corruption and, in light of this, designed appropriate anti-corruption measures. (Pogge 2002 [2008]: Chapter 6; Lessig 2011); van den Hoven, Miller, & Pogge 2017). An important set of structural problems facilitating corruption are collective action problems, e.g., regulatory arbitrage in the global financial system and tax havens (Obermayer & Obermaier 2016; Rothstein & Varraich 2017). One kind of solution proposed is that of an enforceable cooperative scheme at the international level (Eatwell & Taylor 2000).

Integrity systems can be thought of as being either predominantly reactive or predominantly preventive, albeit the distinction is somewhat artificial since there is always a need for both reactive elements, e.g., investigations of corrupt actions, and preventive elements, e.g., ethics training and transparency mechanisms. Reactive systems are fundamentally linear. They frame laws and regulation that set out a series of offences, wait for transgressions, investigate, adjudicate and take punitive measures. In many areas, including institutional corruption, resources are limited and, thus, ethically informed decisions have to be made in relation to the prioritization of corrupt activity to be investigated and to what extent. This ethical problem is to be distinguished from the problem of under-resourcing motivated by a desire to hamstring anti-corruption initiatives. Moreover, both problems are to be distinguished from the debate between those who favor increased laws and regulations to combat, for instance, financial corruption, and those who argue for a decrease in such laws and regulations since they unnecessarily increase the cost of doing business.

Preventive institutional mechanisms for combating corruption can be divided into four categories. Mechanisms designed to reduce the motivation to engage in corruption, e.g., ethics education programs; mechanisms to reduce the capacity of those motivated to engage in corruption, e.g., legislation to downsize oligopolies to prevent cartels (Rose-Ackerman 1999), exploitation of the lack of trust between corruptors (Lambsdorff 2007), democratization and the separation of powers (“power corrupts” (Acton 1887 [1948: 364]) to reign in powerful, corrupt governments (Johnston 2014); mechanisms to eliminate or reduce the opportunity to engage in corruption, e.g., conflict of interest provisions; mechanisms to expose corrupt behavior, e.g., oversight bodies, media organizations (Pope 1997; Spence et al. 2011).

It is self-evident that there is need for both reactive and preventive elements if an integrity system is to be adequate. This point obtains whether or not the integrity system in question pertains to a single organization, an industry, an occupational group, or an entire society. However, the reactive and preventive elements need to cohere in an overall holistic integrity system (Miller 2017). A further point often overlooked is that if an integrity system is to be effective it presupposes a framework of accepted social norms in the sense of socially accepted moral principles. Social norms provide the standards which determine what counts as corruption. Moreover, in so doing they determine whether or not such behavior will be tolerated or not. Revealing corruption has very little effect if the wider community to whom the corruption is revealed are tolerant or otherwise accepting of it.

Corruption is a highly diverse phenomenon, including bribery, nepotism, false testimony, cheating, abuse of authority and so on. Moreover, corruption takes different forms across the spectrum of institutions giving rise to political corruption, financial corruption, police corruption, academic corruption and so on. The causal theory of corruption is a sustained attempt to provide an account which accommodates this diversity. In doing so it emphasizes the causal as well as the normative dimension of institutional corruption. The most influential contemporary philosophical theories of political corruption are those of Dennis Thompson and Lawrence Lessig. Moreover, Lessig’s notion of dependence corruptions looks to be generalizable to a degree to institutions other than political institutions. Likewise the mechanism that lies at the heart of Thompson’s theory may be generalizable to a degree to institutions other than political institutions. However, as they stand, neither of these theories provides a general or comprehensive theory of institutional corruption (and Lessig’s theory, at least, is not intended to do so). The wide diversity of corrupt actions implies that there may well need to be a correspondingly wide and diverse range of specific anti-corruption measures to combat corruption in its different forms, and indeed in its possibly very different contexts. Recent decades have seen the rise of whole systems of anti-corruptions mechanisms encased in what are referred to as integrity systems. Here we can distinguish reactive from preventive elements of an integrity or anti-corruption system and, arguably, an effective integrity system should integrate reactive and preventive elements in an overall holistic system.

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• Philp, Mark and Elizabeth David-Barrett, 2015, “Realism about Political Corruption ”, Annual Review of Political Science , 18: 387–402.
• Plato [fourth century BCE], Gorgias , any edition.
• –––, The Republic , any edition.
• Pogge, Thomas, 2002 [2008], World Poverty and Human Rights , London: Polity; second edition, 2008.
• Pope, Jeremy, 1997, National Integrity Systems: The TI Source Book , Berlin: Transparency International.
• Preston, Noel and Charles Sampford, 2002, Encouraging Ethics and Challenging Corruption , Sydney: Federation Press.
• Pritchard, Michael S., 1998, “Bribery: The Concept”, Science and Engineering Ethics , 4(3): 281–286. doi:10.1007/s11948-998-0019-9
• Reich, Robert B., 2015, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few , New York: Alfred A. Knoff
• Resnik, David B., 2007, The Price of Truth: How Money Affects the Norms of Science , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195309782.001.0001
• Rose-Ackerman, Susan, 1999, Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences and Reform , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Rothstein, Bo and Aiysha Varraich, 2017, Making Sense of Corruption , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316681596
• Sandel, Michael, J., 2012, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets , London: Penguin.
• Schmidtz, David (ed.), 2018, Social Philosophy and Policy , 35(2).
• Sharman, J.C., 2017, The Despot’s Guide to Wealth Management: On the International Campaign Against Grand Corruption , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Sparling, Robert, 2019, Political Corruption , Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Spence, Edward H., Andrew Alexandra, Aaron Quinn, and Anne Dunn, 2011, Media, Markets and Morals , Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Thompson, Dennis F., 1995, Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption , Washington DC: Brookings Institute.
• –––, 2013, “Two Concepts of Corruption: Individual and Institutional”, Edward J. Safra Working Papers 16. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2304419
• –––, 2018, “Theories of Institutional Corruption”, Annual Review of Political Science , 21: 495–513. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-120117-110316
• Van den Hoven, Jeroen, Seumas Miller and Thomas Pogge (eds.), 2017, Designing-in Ethics , New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9780511844317
• Walsh, Adrian and Richard Giulianotti, 2006, Ethics, Money and Sport , London: Routledge.
• Warren, Mark E., 2004, “What Does Corruption Mean in a Democracy”, American Journal of Political Science , 48(2): 328–343. doi:10.2307/1519886
• –––, 2006, “Political Corruption as Duplicitous Exclusion” PS: Political Science and Politics , 39(4): 803–807. doi:10.1017/S1049096506060975
• Wenar, Leif, 2016, Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence and the Rules that Run the World , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Wheatley, Martin, 2012, The Wheatley Review of LIBOR, , London: HM Treasury. [ Wheatley 2012 available online ]
• Woolley, Samuel and Philip Howard, 2019, Computational Propaganda, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• World Bank, 1997, Helping Countries Combat Corruption: The Role of the World Bank , Washington DC: World Bank. [ World Bank 1997 available online ]

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Convention Against the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions , Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 15 February 1999.

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3 The causes and explanations of political corruption

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The chapter explores how corruption can be explained or accounted for. It argues that there are two very broad questions facing scholars who have sought to explain corruption: 1) Under what conditions will individuals become caught up in it either as corruptors or the corrupted? 2) What explains why levels of corruption appear to be higher in some contexts than in others? The two questions, though related, are different. Thus, one of the suggestions one might make to explain why corruption seems more widespread among Nigerian than among UK civil servants, say, is that the former are paid much less than the latter. But though lower salaries might throw light on why there is more corruption among Nigerian than among British civil servants generally, it will not help us to understand why some Nigerian civil servants, assuming their salaries are uniformly low, behave corruptly while others remain honest. The chapter is therefore divided into two sections corresponding to the questions identified above followed by a section drawing some conclusions for the issue to be considered in the following chapter: the mechanisms and dynamics of corruption.

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148 Essay Samples and Topics on Corruption

🏆 best corruption title ideas, 👍 good corruption presentation topics, 💡 most interesting research topics on corruption, ❓ research questions on corruption.

• Essay on Corruption, Its Causes, and Effects However, people have used political activities and offices to advance their gains and neglect the need to be accountable and responsible to the public.
• Corruption: A Development Problem of Bangladesh There are statistics that show the extent of corruption in Bangladesh and the effects of the problem in the country’s economic development. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Corruption in Nigeria: How to Solve the Issue This paper will discuss the causes of corruption and the reasons why a strong corruption is viewed in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. A bureaucratic corruption is a form of corruption which is primarily seen […]
• Power and Corruption in Shakespeare’s Plays Macbeth ascends to the throne, he is determined to hold on to the throne, and so he must get rid of Banquo and his family because the witches had predicted that the throne would go […]
• The Film ‘Chinatown’ and Corruption in the American Society One of the ways through film directors can achieve this objective is to focus on the political issues in the society. According to Kavanagh, ‘Chinatown’ is one of the films that highlight the social and […]
• The Corruption of the Catholic Church in Chaucer’s Works Using the central theme of religious hypocrisy, Chaucer successfully used the Pardoner, the Friar, and the Summoner characters to expose the church representatives’ corruption and evil practices.
• Alienation and Corruption in “The Trial” by Franz Kafka The novel presents the incompatibility of the “divine law” and human law, and the protagonist’s, Joseph K, inability to understand the discrepancy.
• Nissan Corporation’s Corruption Scandal Investigation The key objective of this paper is to discuss this case in terms of business ethics and understand the meaning of Ghosn’s behaviors.
• Corruption in the South African Public Sector Studies done have clearly shown that most of the public is fully aware of corruption in South Africa and also that the public is aware of the efforts being made to root out corruption in […]
• The Acts of Corruption Committed by the Church The purpose of this paper is to list some of the prevalent acts of corruption committed by the church and its followers and to understand the reasons behind them.
• Corruption in Russia: IKEA’s Expansion to the East The first problem is associated with the improperly designed ad campaign that was perceived as immoral due to the fact that despite the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the local population preserved its mentality related […]
• Corruption and Society: Critical Analysis Because of the latter, the political and social traditions of these societies are built on the beneficial effects of corruption. However, it is a mistake to believe that the social structure of traditional societies will […]
• Leadership, Power, Corruption in Today’s Politics The concept of leadership, especially in the political arena is complex and the perception of a good leader differs from one school of thought to another.
• How Pushkin Illustrates the Theme of Corruption in the “The Queen of Spades?” Alexander Pushkin in his writing, “The Queen of Spades”, takes the reader through the world of faro gambling at the time of the Imperialist Russia in the beginning of the early 19th century.
• How Corruption Violates Fundamental Human Rights of Citizens This essay seeks to establish how corruption leads to breach of fundamental human rights of citizens and determine which rights in particular are mostly risky due to corruption.
• Corruption Imagery in R.W. Fassbinder’s “Lola” (1981) It is the second in the said trilogy with The Marriage of Maria Braun being the first and Veronika Voss the last.
• Causes of Corruption in a Country One of the major causes of corruption in a country is the poor design of policies and laws that are being implemented by the government.
• Addressing Corruption in the Engineering Field I chose this topic because corruption is a moral ill in society, especially among engineers and in the recent past it has led to deadly consequences such as the death of people, destruction of the […]
• Robert Bolt “A Man for All Seasons”: Corruption Theme The 16th century was a period of political conflict and corruption in England; the theme is presented through the statesman Thomas More who is considered to participate in the struggle between the state and the […]
• Corruption and Accountability of Police Work In this regard, lack of strong and proper policies on misconduct and unethical behavior in the line of duty has helped to perpetrate the corruption of law enforcement officers in various sectors of their work.
• Civil Society Role in Combating Corruption Causes of corruption can be summarized as follows: The lack of political will to combat corruption at the leadership level; The weak judicial system and the absence of the rule of law; The weak parliamentary […]
• Corruption in Law Enforcement Some developments in the state fought the criminality of the state machinery indirectly, such as the endorsement of the civil rights in 1964.
• Corruption and Integrity: The Broad Context of Moral Principles One of the approaches in comparing the most and least corrupt is evaluating the economic positions of the countries. Another significant difference between the most and least corrupt countries is in terms of the effectiveness […]
• Causes of Corruption in Africa’s Developing Countries Corruption is the leading cause of underdevelopment and challenging economic conditions in Africa’s developing countries. Finally, legal and media institutions lack the freedom to practice justice and expose corruption.
• What Contributes to the Corruption? Neo-liberalism and corruption One of the major factors that contributed to the apparent rise and spread of corruption and which is a subject of debate is neo-liberalism which started in the 1970s and the 1980s.
• Corruption in Charity Organizations However, certain rich people avoid paying taxes by giving lots of money to charities in the form of donations. The main reason why some people donate to charities is so that they can win the […]
• Witches Against Corruption in Miller’s The Crucible Play Through their portrayal in the play, the accused witches have become powerful symbols of strength and resistance for women who want to take a stand against corruption and injustice.
• Terrorism, Corruption, and Climate Change as Threats Therefore, threats affecting countries around the globe include terrorism, corruption, and climate change that can be mitigated through integrated counter-terror mechanisms, severe punishment for dishonest practices, and creating awareness of safe practices.
• Discussion: Bribery and Corruption Is an Issue That Threatens Sustainability Therefore, multinational enterprises should audit their supply chains to eliminate unsustainable practices such as bribery and the use of child labor and promote socially and environmentally responsible production.
• Determinants of Corruption in Nigeria Therefore, in this research, I am planning to focus on the empirical part of the topic and attempt to make a positive change in society.
• The Saudi Aramco Company and Corruption The main idea behind the company’s engagement in a public offering is believed to be driven by the need to make Saudi Arabia’s dependency on oil income through diversification of the economy.
• Corruption in Bell, Gilchrist County, Florida The main form of corruption, as evidenced in the video, is embezzlement. The second form of corruption evidenced in the video is graft.
• Corruption in African Region: Causes and Solutions In this regard, the major objectives included investigating the current situation in African organizations, identifying the causes of corruption in African developing countries, studying the impact of neo-patrimonialism on African corruption, and examining unethical business […]
• Corruption in Leading African Companies The research topic is dedicated to the exploration of corporate governance and business ethics within the scope of studying corruption in leading African companies.
• The Key Challenges of Detecting and Prosecuting Corruption in Law Enforcement However, while this is true to some extent, the truth is that the lack of international anti-corruption law, geopolitical considerations, inefficiencies and inherent weaknesses of the Magnitsky Act, opaque banking industries in some countries, and […]
• The Police Culture and Corruption Goal misalignment between the community and police occurred as a result of militarized police starting to view themselves as armies battling on the front lines of war instead as public servants.
• Corruption in Education: Opposition and Refutation Therefore, corruption in the educational sector is not the absolute cause of poor education and increased social problems in the DRC.
• Corruption in Infrastructure of the Democratic Republic of Congo The mining companies are negatively affected by rampant corruption and a culture of everyday transactions, which has resulted in the misappropriation of public funds.
• Corruption in the Democratic Republic of Congo This is a comprehensive report published by the IMF that examines in tremendous detail the corruption, policy, and frameworks of governance and corruption in the DRC.
• Police Corruption: A Crime With Severe Consequences Police corruption is a severe crime that can lead to adverse consequences for the officer-criminals and society. The documentary “Seven Five” shows the story of one of the most criminal police officers Michael Dowd.
• Noble-Cause Corruption Prevention In conclusion, it is difficult to restrict noble-cause corruption, and the only way to affect its outcomes is to promote the right values among police officers.
• Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know Besides, the poor personnel policy of the state permits the spread of corruption and opportunities for promotion independent of the actual results of the employees’ activity.
• Ethical Issue: Public Corruption The theory of ethical formalism that is represented in the works of Immanuel Kant and John Rawls argues that “the only thing truly good is goodwill, and that what is good is that which conforms […]
• A Moderate Approach of Treating Corruption Propositions The more corruption is entrenched in the government, the more difficult it is for businesses to exist in conditions of local competition with other corrupt officials.
• The Effects of Corruption in Politics on Economics Developed countries report a low level of corruption and tend to be more reliable and financed from the outside. In contrast, the absence of corruption indicates the ensured economic growth and prosperity.
• Corruption During Disaster Relief One of the most notable elements about most of the disasters that have been documented in various parts of the world is lack of adequate preparation in case of their occurrence.
• Public Corruption and Embezzlement For a party to be guilty of an offense, the elements of the guilty mind and the actual commission of the crime must be present.
• Ethical Issues Related to the Internal Corruption In such regard corruption appears to be a considerably controversial ethical issue, as it is closely linked with the aspects of loyalty and trust.
• Corruption in Kuwait: Analysis of Different Aspects of Kuwait’s Corruption Kuwait is a nation that is affected by corruption cases, and it is one of the states in the world that are highly corrupt.
• Agency Interaction and Police Corruption One of the officers told me that I do not need to pay for my food at this restaurant because the owners give it free to the police officers.
• Police Corruption, Misconduct and Brutality: When a Good-Cop-Bad-Cop Routine Goes Wrong The given cases show that, sadly enough, power abuse among the members of the police department is still an issue, and it is probably going to be as long as the means to coordinate the […]
• Noble Cause Corruption – A Crime-Fighting Sub-Culture The term Noble Cause Corruption refers to a crime-fighting sub-culture that involves the law enforcement members being engaged in activities that would otherwise be considered criminal or unethical for the purposes of the greater good […]
• Elite Squad 1&2: The Theme of Corruption The media sugarcoats the drug lords and extorts their reporting of the events in the Rio’s crime and corruption as seen in the film “Elite Squad 2” instead of exposing the truth.
• Institutional Corruption: Praise the Lord Club For example, in the case of bribery, the crime is fuelled both by the person who asks for the bribe and the one who pays it out.
• Corruption of Public Officials It has been identified that individuals of the upper class also commit crime by the virtue of the positions that they hold and the trust and power that is vested to them.
• Anti-Corruption Strategies in Kazakhstan On the backdrop of the notion that corruption is an international issue of concern5, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the success of anti corruption strategies in Kazakhstan.
• Public Corruption and Its Impact on the Economy Corruption is in itself a very negative aspect that impedes the economic growth of the affected country, or organization irrespective of the status of development.
• Public Corruption as a Cultural Tradition This means that corruption as a wider topic of concern to most people has its roots in the cultural aspect of socialism and formed a fundamental aspect of the cultural aspect of human life.
• Corruption and Integrity in Modern World The difference in the levels of corruption in these countries is a result of different parameters and at the same time, the effects are diverse.
• Touch of Evil: The World of Drug Lords and Corruption Janet Leigh, who is considered to be an outstanding American actress of the 50s, perfectly played one of the leading roles in the movie, the role of Susan Vargas.
• Corruption and Ways to Prevent Its Occurrence Power is the authority and ability to control. Emotional intelligence is the capacity and ability to integrate, assess and manage feelings of self or of others.
• Police Corruption in “The Detonator” by Wesley Snipes Judging by the content of high-level corruption within the police as exhibited in the movies, it is only reasonable to say that police have deviated from their traditional role of being the custodians of social […]
• Latin America: Administrative Reforms and Corruption The government agenda incorporated research agenda in 1995 with the shared but conflicting leadership between the presidency of the council of ministers with whom the emphasis was placed on the organizational and management aspects of […]
• Corruption and Integrity: The Analysis of the Corruption System in the World In the territory of the Middle East this country takes the first place in corruption; the analysis of the corruption issues in the country carried out based on recent tragedy happening to Radhi al-Radhi being […]
• African Corruption and Sapolsky’s “A Primate’s Memoir” The preservation of the wildlife is necessary in order to ensure that the animals are protected from being killed hence they do not become extinct as many other animals have furnished due to lack of […]
• Corruption of Government in Church Some people argue that that most of the actions of the church in the course of its development cannot be regarded as corruptive whereas others state that the desire of the church to enrich itself […]
• Relationship Between Lobbying and Corruption Lobbying can be defined as the act of influencing government leaders for the alteration of law or the creation of new legislation that will support the interest of a particular group or organization. The basis […]
• Police Reform in Russia: Evaluation of Police Corruption Which individual, institutional, and organizational factors of corruption did Medvedev’s 2011 police reform target, and how successful was it in eliminating the practice of corruption among law enforcement officers in Russia compared to other states?
• Police Corruption in Russia: Determinants and Future Policy Implications To critically review the present-day situation pertaining to police corruption in Russia To evaluate the effectiveness of measures that Russia currently undertakes to curb police corruption To analyse the main legal, economic, social, and […]
• The Problem of Corruption in Government In addition to officials, citizens are also partly responsible for the existence of corruption as a daily occurrence, therefore, not only senior staff but also the population may be involved in combating bribery.
• Corruption, Media and Public. Cocalero Documentary However, for the public to act against such cases, the media has to play its role in spreading nonpartisan information concerning the occurrence of corruption in a given area.
• International Business: Corruption and Bribery in Latin America In the context of this paper, it could be claimed that in Latin America, the frequency of the occurrence of corruption and bribery tends to rise in response to the malfunction of inherent power mechanisms […]
• Corruption in Kenya Evolves for a Digital Age At the same time, it is obvious that the interested parties are quick to catch up with the progress regardless of the legality of their actions.
• Noble Cause Corruption in Police Officers One might argue that NCC has a reason to exist as it may serve as the means of safeguarding the wellbeing of the members of the community in dire situations.
• Noble Cause Corruption and Police Misconduct However, the phenomenon is based on a misconception about the purpose of the justice system and the role that the members of the police must play in society.
• Anti-Corruption Efforts in Trading With China Under this law, any person who is found guilty of operating business in a country in an effort to give property or money to customers so as to sell or purchase products is liable to […]
• Noble Cause Corruption in Officer Employees Therefore, I present this memorandum for you to be aware of the principles of ethical behavior, which are obligatory for every officer, and expect your ethically-sound conduct in the future.
• Corruption in New York and Ethical Obligations When discussing the violations of ethical principles in the case of Smith and Halloran, it is essential to mention that the established rules of ethics in political leadership are put in place to prevent classic, […]
• Police Corruption and Citizen’s Ethical Dilemma There are three key stakeholders in the given situation, which are the policemen, who set the terms; the father, who is to take the pivoting decision; and the family, who depends on the decision which […]
• Corruption Shaping Democracies in Latin America This research paper gives a detailed analysis of the nature of this problem and how it affects the welfare of different communities, regions, and citizens.
• Private Prisons’ Ethics and Capital-Driven Corruption The promotion of private prisons in the U.S.context was a response to the identified crisis. Even though there is a slight propensity to justify the idea of private prisons as the tools for containing prisoners […]
• American Police Corruption and Its Classification The invention of camera phones gave everybody the ability to document the wrongful actions of police and have undermined the trust people had in the police authority.
• Noble Cause Corruption and Virtue Ethics The answer lies in the purpose and the implied public image of the police. The role of the policeman is to uphold the law dictated by the government and the constitution of the country.
• Corruption in Arbitration in the United Arab Emirates As such, when conducting a research that focuses on corruption and how to deal with it, it is important to have a clearly guided approach of the study that can help in achieving the desired […]
• Bribery and Corruption in International Arbitration The tendency towards the globalization created the basis for the improved cooperation between states, companies, agencies, individuals, etc.and preconditioned the shift of priorities towards the global discourse as the most promising mean of cooperation.
• Public Corruption as a Phenomenon and Explanations Thus, to describe the phenomenon of public corruption, four major hypotheses exist the concept of “slippery slope,” the society-at-large hypothesis, the structural or affiliation hypothesis, and the rotten apple hypothesis.
• Gift Culture and Corruption in the World The main argument in this kind of claim is that corruption is a critical attribute of many societies that embrace the gift culture practice.
• Theater of Corruption in “Syriana” by Stephen Gaghan The aim of this paper is to explore the overlapping of oil and politics in the context of the movie. In scene 20 when discussing the negotiations of the prince’s brother with American lawyers, Woodman […]
• The Corruption Issue in the Contemporary Society Further, pinpointing the necessary aspects that foster the development of the skill besides assessing the influence of faith and spirituality in the reinforcement of the quality would be the concentration of the paper.
• Global Business: Culture, Corruption, Experiments This paper summarizes the main points of three articles focusing on international business, gives the writer’s respective position and rationale, and provides employer best practices in the specific areas examined.
• Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: United States vs. John Blondek, et al. Hence, the description of the chain of events that has led to the indictment, as seen by the Judge: “Blondek and Tull were employees of Eagle Bus Company…they paid a $50,000 bribe to Defendants Castle […]
• Corruption in Business Environment For instance, the business environment of China is in the state of transition because of significant changes in political regimes and leaders.
• Corruption and Corporate and Personal Integrity Bribery, embezzlement of funds and illegitimate procurement always impose extra and unjustified costs to the cost of acquiring public services and damages the credibility of those institutions that are involved in the vice.
• Sociology: Is Guanxi Corruption? In China, Guanxi has been in use for a very long time and has been socially accepted as a way of life, both in the day-to-day activities and also in business practices.
• Excessive Business Regulations and Corruption For the purpose of the paper, business regulation is taken to mean the laws and institutions established by governments to govern the establishment of businesses either by local citizens and companies or by foreign investors.
• Political Corruption: Causes, Consequences and Strategies The ethics of the process deals with the methods that public officials apply in the execution of their duties. Political corruption exists in all countries and harms their systems of economic and political governance through […]
• Corruption and Ethics in China’s Banking Sector The ranking of China among the most corrupt countries is illustrative of the rampant corruption both in the state and in the private sector. In America, corruption is a civil tort and perpetrators of the […]
• Mexican Political Parties Role in Corruption and Insecurity The top political brass of Mexico is to blame for the misfortunes in the country. This separation led to reduced influence of the church in political activities.
• Political Corruption in the Airline Industry The cartoon relates to this in that the two nationals may have used corrupt means to avoid security checks, and the pilot also had a personal political affiliation which may have caused him to divert […]
• Political Corruption as a Trigger of Democracy Hence, the development of the political systems invites more active voters who contribute to the development of the democratic principles. Therefore, the democratic influence on political power is closely associated with the development of the […]
• Political Corruption: Least and Most Corrupt Countries This has led to not only following of the laws to the latter but also avoiding the labeling of corruption in their work place.
• Ethical Problems in Corruption The notion that in a court of law, it is normally the suspects’ arguments against the amount of evidenced presented before the courts have greatly contributed to noble cause corruption.
• Global Financial Crisis: Corruption and Transparency Due to the large number of the emerging markets, the global financial regulators lacked a proper mechanism to handle the situation.
• The Roles of Vertical and Shared Leadership in the Enactment of Executive Corruption: Implications for Research and Practice Responsibility disposition refers to the tendency of a leader to feel obliged to do the right thing for the welfare of the majority.
• Public Policy on Corruption The rationale of the policy The rationale of this policy is to eliminate corruption. Besides, this model will ensure that there is universality when it comes to the application of these policies.
• Judicial Corruption in Developing Countries It originates from the judges and lawyers who are at the center of the legal systems in Africa. There is a lingering culture of impunity in African leadership that is the primary cause of corruption.
• Cairo Revolution Against Corruption and Injustice The success of that protest led to the formalization of the movement with a mission to organize and mobilize ordinary people to fight for their rights.
• Does Corruption Grease or Put Sand in a System’s Cogs? The first advantage is that corruption enables a system to avoid bureaucratic structures that would cause delays in the progress of a system.
• Corruption and Bribery in the Oil Sector in Nigeria and Angola It is identified that the west, through their MNCs, are solely to blame for the rampant cases of corruption in Nigeria and Angola.
• Corruption and Bribery in the Oil Sector of Angola The oil industry in the African continent, particularly in the largest oil producers like Angola and Nigeria is the centre of corruption and there is a need to introduce transparency in the management of oil […]
• Business Corruption in the American and Chinese Culture This paper presents ethical issues focusing on business corruption in the American and Chinese culture. Business corruption practices take place in the American and Chinese civilizations differently.
• Corruption in Russia The rising corruption cases have been related to the 2006 Russian president’s policies that were meant to strengthen the state on the expense of the Russia’s civil society.
• Corruption in Russia: Causes and Consequences In addition, because of the clear connection between corruption and increased crime, security standards have declined in Russia, because of the ever-increasing net of criminal gangs, which evade the long arms of the law, because […]
• Public Policy vs. Social Norms and Corruption Political processes enshrined in democratic values of integrity and accountability must continue to shape the institutional framework in the region. Political and civil institutions in Sierra Leone could stop the escalation of illegal trade to […]
• The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) Due to the fact that the Corruption Perceptions Index reflects the degree of corruption in countries, it can also denote the level of integrity performance.
• Law Enforcement: Noble Cause Corruption Since the policeman knows the driver/occupant of the vehicle is a threat to the society, he dramatically puts some illegal drugs on the car which will act as a basis for his/ her arrest.
• Corruption as a Social Phenomenon While all manners of corruption are inherently damaging to the society, this particular form of corruption poses the most significant threat since it is the political bodies in our country that are charged with guiding […]
• Concepts of Corruption as Threat of Security The political officers who are charged with the core obligation of discharging their mandate with the cardinal objective of protecting the interest of the public have gone astray and turned a threat to the welfare […]
• Does Competition Kill Corruption?
• Can Salaries and Re-Election Prevent Political Corruption?
• Does Corruption Affect Health Outcomes in the Philippines?
• Did China’s Anti-corruption Campaign Affect the Risk Premium on Stocks of Global Luxury Goods Firms?
• Does Corruption Affect Income Inequality and Poverty?
• Are Corruption and Taxation Harmful to Growth?
• Does Corruption Affect Suicide?
• Can Corruption Constrain the Size of Governments?
• Does Corruption Affect Total Factor Productivity?
• Are Corruption Levels Accurately Identified?
• Does Corruption Cause Encumber Business Regulations?
• Can Corruption Ever Improve an Economy?
• Does Corruption Discourage International Trade?
• Are Financial Development and Corruption Control Substitutes in Promoting Growth?
• Does Corruption End the Dominant Party System?
• Can Corruption Foster Regulatory Compliance?
• Does Corruption Erode Trust in Government?
• Are the Law, Democracy, and Socioeconomic Factors Related to the Level of Corruption in the Brazilian States?
• Does Corruption Ever Help Entrepreneurship?
• Can Corruption Function as “Protection Money” and “Grease Money”?
• Does Corruption Facilitate Trade for the New EU Members?
• Are There Differences Between Perception of Corruption in Public and Private Sector?
• Does Corruption Foster Growth in Bangladesh?
• Can India Get Rid of Corruption?
• Are Top Managers Responsible When Corruption Is Afoot?
• Can Institutional Reforms Reduce Corruption?
• Are Women More Likely Than Men to Oppose Corruption in China?
• Can Openness Deter Corruption?
• Does Corruption Impede Economic Growth in Pakistan?
• Can the Exchange Rate Regime Influence Corruption?
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Strategies for winning the fight against corruption

Subscribe to africa in focus, ngozi okonjo-iweala ngozi okonjo-iweala nonresident distinguished fellow - global economy and development , africa growth initiative @noiweala.

January 15, 2019

Below is a viewpoint from Chapter 1 of the Foresight Africa 2019 report, which explores six overarching themes on the triumphs of the past years as well as strategies to tackle the remaining obstacles for Africa. Read the full chapter on bolstering good governance .

That corruption and poor governance are key factors holding back Africa’s development are notions deeply embedded in the literature and thought on Africa’s socioeconomic development. What is not so common is discourse and success stories about how to systematically fight this corruption. Though this may sound discouraging, I can tell you, from my experience, that it is indeed possible to fight corruption successfully with the right knowledge, patience, and commitment to transparency.

To fight corruption, we must first understand it. Underlying the various forms of corruption—grand, political, and administrative, which include public resource transfers to private entities, allocation of public resources to political allies, and misuse of public funds—are three important factors. The first is a lack of transparency of critical financial and other information central to economic development, in particular revenues and budgets. Second is the weakness or total absence of institutions, systems, and processes that block leakages. Third is the pervasiveness of impunity—limited political will to hold accountable and punish those found guilty of such corruption.

Between the three, the tougher problem is how to build strong and enduring institutions. Building institutions takes time and does not deliver the quick results that typically attract politicians or donors. But it is essential if Africa is to fight corruption systematically and ensure long-term stability. We are fortunate to now have technology that enables us to build electronic platforms to manage government finances, biometric systems to bring integrity to our personnel and government payment systems, and web-based platforms to provide transparency of government finances. We need to go even further to see how we can deploy blockchain and other emerging technologies to underpin our contract negotiations and procurement systems, a huge source of corruption and leakage in many countries.

Africa needs to focus its anti-corruption fight on long-term, high-return institution building activities, coupled with the justice infrastructure and political will to hold those who transgress accountable.

We should combine these efforts with building strong and independent audit and justice systems, including a well-resourced judiciary and an oversight office to field complaints. We also need to create an environment that enables strong and accountable civil society organizations that provide oversight of government. Such strong and independent institutions have a salutary effect on political will as they exert the necessary pressure on politicians, even at the highest levels, to act. Such initiatives take patience and determination though, since building these institutions, systems, and processes may take a decade or more.

My experience in Nigeria showed that a decade spanning three administrations was necessary to build well-functioning technology platforms for managing the country’s finances. The savings in terms of blocked leakages, amounting to over a billion dollars, made it worthwhile.

We found that supporting institution building with openness and transparency of revenue and budgetary data provides a win that can be implemented quickly. The increasing accessibility of the inter net via mobile phones and various analytic apps makes it easier now more than ever to share with citizens information on revenues and expenditures. Publishing monthly data in national newspapers on local, state, and federal government revenues was unprecedented in Nigeria when we started in 2004, but it helped us gain public support for our initiatives going forward. It laid the basis for much more sophisticated analytics on the budget shared widely via the internet today.

Africa needs to focus its anti-corruption fight on long-term, high-return institution building activities, coupled with the justice infrastructure and political will to hold those who transgress accountable. This process should start by making key government statistics open and transparent, enabling citizens to keep on top of important information and build trust in their governments. Only with these pragmatic approaches can the continent record wins against corruption.

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Understanding corruption in the twenty-first century: towards a new constructivist research agenda

• Review Article
• Published: 12 January 2021
• Volume 19 , pages 82–102, ( 2021 )

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• Sofia Wickberg 1  

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The search for a universally acceptable definition of corruption has been a central element of scholarship on corruption over the last decades, without it ever reaching a consensus in academic circles. Moreover, it is far from certain that citizens share the same understanding of what should be labelled as ‘corruption’ across time, space and social groups. This article traces the journey from the classical conception of corruption, centred around the notions of morals and decay, to the modern understanding of the term focussing on individual actions and practices. It provides an overview of the scholarly struggle over meaning-making and shows how the definition of corruption as the ‘abuse of public/entrusted power for private gain’ became dominant, as corruption was constructed as a global problem by international organizations. Lastly, it advocates for bringing back a more constructivist perspective on the study of corruption which takes the ambiguity and political dimensions of corruption seriously. The article suggests new avenues of research to understand corruption in the changing context of the twenty-first century.

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Corruption is one of today’s most high-profile social ills and has become one of the world’s most talked-about issues (Heywood 2015 , 1). Long seen as a ‘pathology of underdevelopment’ (Gledhill 2004 ), corruption is understood today as a problem shared across societies, despite significant variations in scale and form. Not only is there a consensus on the fact that corruption exists in all countries and all sectors, but corruption is now seen as a global problem ignoring national borders (World Bank 2020 ). It is a great source of public anxiety because, in itself, corruption undermines the values and rules of democratic systems and fair public service, but also because it causes, or at least facilitates, the emergence of other problems, including some of the most existential threats that have (re)surfaced over the last decades, such as climate change, transnational organized crime, terrorism or global health challenges (OECD 2017 ; Klein 2014 ; UN 2020 ; Steingrüber et al. 2020 ).

Corruption is also one of the most challenging problems of our contemporary world, deemed by some to be a growingly wicked problem (Rittel and Webber 1973 ; Heywood 2019 ; Wickberg 2020 ). Indeed, despite a substantial rise in research on corruption and an exponential growth of policy initiatives since the ‘corruption eruption’ following the end of the Cold War (Naim 1995 ), anti-corruption efforts are considered today as a global policy failure (Quah 2008 ; Heeks and Mathisen 2012 ; Persson et al. 2013 ; Marquette and Peiffer 2018 ). We still lack information and understanding on the mechanisms and dynamics of corruption in practice. Given the methodological challenges associated with the analysis of corruption practices as they unfold, we know little about the nature of these practices, the actual motivations of participants, the pressures they find themselves under or their understanding of the situation. The anti-corruption agenda has become global and programmes considered as ‘good practices’ have spread, leading to a certain degree of policy convergence (Hough 2013 ; Katzarova 2019 ; Wickberg 2020 ). There is a need for more contextually sensitive research and policy (Heywood 2017 ), to better understand the role of political structures and social norms and practices (in different countries and sectors) in manifestations and conceptions of corruption (Heidenheimer and Johnston 2002 ; Ledeneva 2008 ; Kubbe and Engelbert 2017 ).

Another major challenge facing policy-making and research in this area is the increasing instrumentalization of anti-corruption rhetoric in a time of growing anti-politics sentiment (Fawcett et al. 2017 ; Clarke et al. 2018 ; Mungiu-Pippidi and Heywood 2020 ). This trend indeed tends to further blur what is already considered an ‘essentially contested concept’ (Gallie 1956 ; Rothstein and Varraich 2017 ), which can be understood in different ways and sustain a variety of competing narratives. This ambiguity stems from corruption being, at the same time (but not necessarily for the same people), a crime, an analytical concept, a negatively loaded term of appraisal and a public problem whose definition evolves through the actions of policy actors. As Elizabeth Harrison ( 2006 , 26) suggests, corruption is ‘both a normative concept and a set of practices that help some people and seriously harm others’. This duality captures the important idea that corruption is both ambiguous in the abstract ( what is corruption? ) and in the particular ( what practices should be labelled corruption? ).

Research on corruption has flourished since the 1990s, with scholars studying every aspect of the problem, from its causes and consequences to its mechanisms, forms and workings (see Heywood 2015 ; Mungiu-Pippidi and Heywood 2020 for an overview of the different aspects of corruption research). This article will review only one dimension of this rich literature, namely research on the concept itself. It looks, albeit briefly, at the ways in which corruption has been defined, tracing the history of the concept and highlighting the more recent definitional battles, before exposing how the currently mainstream understanding of corruption as the ‘abuse of public/entrusted power for private gain’ (World Bank, Transparency International) imposed itself. In a last section, it advocates for taking the ambiguity and political dimensions of corruption seriously, and proposes new avenues of research to understand corruption in the twenty-first century.

Making sense of corruption

A short history of an old concept.

Today, corruption is often presented as a universal phenomenon that has existed through time and space (Alatas 1968 ; Mendilow and Phélippeau 2019 ; Knights 2018 ). Its meaning has, however, fluctuated between being understood as the nature of certain individuals or organizations that are corrupt and being seen as the influence of external factors that corrupt someone or something that was good or pure in its original state. Buchan and Hill ( 2014 ) show that corruption has gone from referring to the broadly understood condition of things departing from an original state to describe economic crime and the misconduct of public officials, specifying that there is no fixed temporal demarcation as these conceptions have always coexisted.

‘Corruption’ comes from the Latin corruption/corrumpere —to destroy or ruin—and was later used in Old French. The Centre national des ressources textuelles et lexicales (CNRTL) traces its use back to the twelfth century, attributing different meanings to the term: ‘alteration from what is sane, honest in the soul’ and later, in the fourteenth century ‘action of diverting someone from their duty with money or favours’. Footnote 1 The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term in Old English to the fourteenth century and also attributes various definitions to the term corruption: giving it a physical definition (‘the destruction or spoiling of anything, especially by disintegration or by decomposition with its attendant unwholesomeness’) as well as a moral one (‘moral deterioration or decay; the perversion of anything from an original state of purity’). Scholars tend to agree on the religious influence on the term (Friedrich 1972 ; Génaux 2004 ), Rothstein and Varraich ( 2017 ) tracing its roots in both Christian and Muslim faiths.

What is common to all these definitions is the notion of change, of departure from an original or pure state, be it a physical, a moral or a social state. Scholars having explored the origins of the concept suggest that this idea of change and degeneration comes from the Aristotelian opposition of permanence ( aphthorà ) and change ( phthorà ), found in his treatise Peri geneseôs kai phthoras translated to the Latin De generatione et corruption . This treatise is part of Aristotle’s work on physics and specifically on the generation, alteration and dissolution of things in nature, which will later be applied to the study of politics in his theory on constitutional change, corruption thus being understood as ‘system decay’. Looking at Classical, Medieval and Early Modern political thought, Buchan and Hill ( 2014 ) identify two discourses that have been used to make sense of corruption. The first, which relates directly to this notion of change, is what they label ‘degenerative conception’, associated with moral, spiritual but also political decay. They refer to the second one, being narrower and contemporary, as the ‘social-scientific conception of corruption’, which defines a specific form of abuse of power. The two interpretations have existed in parallel for centuries, with the degenerative conception remaining dominant until the end of the eighteenth century, when the conception of corruption as deviant behaviour took over.

The narrowing of the meaning of corruption illustrates the growing influence of a legal conception of corruption. According to Génaux ( 2002 ), corruption had a legal existence in Roman law and ius commune and was associated with the criminality of certain agents of public power, namely those exercising justice, as apparent in Sylla’s law, the Coutumes de Beauvaisis from 1246 and a series of European treatises of penal doctrine from the sixteenth century, all referring specifically to the corruption of judges. Historians situate the triumph of the more technical meaning of corruption and the emergence of political uses of the term in the late eighteenth century (Monier 2016 ; Kroeze et al. 2018 ). Corruption, no longer understood as system decay, becomes specifically used to describe the subversion of public office, as we can see in OED quotations from the nineteenth century that broadens the focus from judges to practices in parliaments or elections. The French criminal code of 1810 established the offence of bribery of public officials using the term corruption . Indeed, corruption in French legal language equates to the English bribery . Footnote 2

This narrow meaning of corruption, as compared to the pre-modern conception of corruption as moral decay, is closely tied to the philosophy of the Enlightenment, the development of Weberian bureaucracies, separation of the public and private spheres and interests, and the emergence of democratic regimes. The conception of corruption as individual abuse of power is often associated with the shift in political ideology in Britain and the emergence of the philosophy of David Hume, Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham, which separated corruption from the notion of virtue to attach it to the idea of interests (Hirschman 1997 ; Buchan and Hill 2014 ; Boccon-Gibod forthcoming). Until the late eighteenth century, the amalgamation of public and private interests makes the contemporary understanding of corruption incongruous. Yves Mény explains this by emphasizing both the absolute superiority of the interest of the State in pre-revolutionary France and the confusion of public and private interests consequential to the purchase of public offices and charges with the aim to financially benefit from them, as Richelieu supposedly said ‘It is normal that ministers watch over their wealth while they watch over that of the State’ (Hirsch 2010 ; Mény 2013 ). With the development of liberal political thought, the public–private distinction created the basis on which an understanding of the possibility of conflicting public and private interests could develop. The development of modern belief systems, drawing a clearer distinction between the public and private spheres and the separation of powers, contributed to redefining corruption as the misuse of public power for private gain (Kroeze 2016 ). As Friedrich ( 2002 , 22) puts it: ‘by the second half of the nineteenth century, what had been considered “normal behaviour” had become corruption’.

With the narrowing of the concept to refer to the labelling of individual deviant behaviour, allegations of political corruption became increasingly used in political competition to undermine opponents’ credibility. Combined with an increasingly mediatized public sphere and critical public opinion (Habermas 1989 ), the end of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of waves of scandals in Europe and America. Critical groups from both sides of the political spectrum, using corruption as a political weapon, bridged the technical and degenerative conceptions of corruption in their discourse, making the abuses of some the symptom of the moral decay of the system. As Paul Jankowski ( 2008 , 83) writes, in early twentieth-century France, ‘ corruption’ served to describe any regime that did not find public favour; ‘the myth of corruption [serving] to crystallise other free-floating fears and resentments’. The nineteenth century created a confusion between an increasingly formalized conception of corruption in law and a broader lay definition reflecting the belief in system decay that is still, to some extent, a reality today (Philp 2015 ). However, as Albert O. Hirschman ( 1997 , 40) notes, from the late eighteenth century, ‘corruption’, while still referring to the deterioration in the quality of government, became increasingly likened with bribery, until ‘the monetary meaning drove the non-monetary one out almost completely’, much like ‘fortune’ according to the author. After the Second World War, the topic of corruption went through a period of relative disregard, with many European countries preoccupied with reconstruction and with the memory of the fascist discourse on corruption still ripe. Footnote 3 Corruption re-emerged as a topic of political and academic interest in the late twentieth century, when it acquired its contemporary meaning of ‘abuse of public (or entrusted) power for private gain’ (World Bank; Transparency International) and progressively became defined as a global public problem (Williams 2000 ).

The struggle over meaning-making

Whether considering corruption as a category of criminal offences or a broader group of unethical and/or abusive practices, scholars, practitioners and policy-makers has sought to identify common elements that define what can be considered as corruption. Controversy is still rife, leading some to argue against the need for a universal definition. As Heywood ( 2015 , 1–2) flagged, ‘there remains a striking lack of scholarly agreement over even the most basic questions about corruption, [such as] the very definition of “corruption” as a concept’. Defining a public problem is not a neutral exercise of truth finding. It is a fundamental political process that can oppose different worldviews and that has political consequences as it categorizes people and labels practices. How one understands corruption, both conceptually ( what it is) and theoretically ( why is it), indeed depends on one’s (implicit or explicit) view on human nature (are certain individual corrupt by nature or do we all have a propensity for corruption), of human agency (is it individual deviance or a systemic problem) and the relation between political and economic power (how much interference between the spheres is acceptable). The cost–benefit analysis of the occurrence of corruption, inspired by Becker ( 1974 ), has largely dominated the mainstream conception of corruption since Robert Klitgaard ( 1998 ) adapted it to the issue of corruption through his now famous formula (C = M + D − A: Corruption equals monopoly plus discretion minus accountability).

The conceptual debate within academia over the last decades, summarized in Table  1 which gives an overview of the elements emphasized by different definitions, has opposed scholars who argue that it should only be used to describe the violation of legal norms or formal rules of a given public office, others for whom corruption is defined by the damage done to the public interest or to the distribution of public goods, and social constructivists who base the definition of corruption on people’s perception (Graaf 2007 ; Lascoumes 2010 ; Rothstein and Varraich 2017 ; Wickberg 2018 ).

Some academic definitions retain parts of the normative dimension of the pre-modern conception of corruption, defining it in terms of the specific damages it does. Thompson ( 1993 ) argued against an excessive focus on individual gain and characterized corruption through its impact on the working of institutions and processes. For him, the consequences matter more than intention and motives (Thompson 1993 ; Philp and David-Barrett 2015 ). Carl Friedrich ( 1972 ) and, more recently, Warren ( 2015 ) understand corruption as an abuse of power that has negative consequences on the public interest. Rothstein and Torsello ( 2014 ) proposed a ‘public goods theory’ of corruption which sees corruption as the conversion of public goods into private ones by those in charge of managing them. Similarly, Kalniņš ( 2014 ) defines corruption as the ‘particularistic (non-universal) allocation of public goods due to abuse of influence’. These definition can be considered normative in comparison with the public office definition, which has become dominant as the article will later show, since practices need to be harmful to be labelled ‘corrupt’. Corruption is indeed seen as a synonym of duplicitous exclusion or a form of unjustified partiality or injustice (Warren 2015 ; Rothstein and Varraich 2017 ).

While the definition of corruption remains an open question in academia, the ‘public office’ definition has largely won the battle among practitioners. Some elements of this definition remain up to interpretation (what does abuse mean?). Yet, the identification of corrupt practices is dependent on rules of office. In this sense, the ‘public office’ definition is certainly the easiest to operationalizable in different contexts. Taking public office as a central definitional element indeed avoids engaging in debates on public goods, the public interest or moral ideals (Bukovansky 2006 ; Gebel 2012 ; Wedel 2012 ). It does not presume some common understanding of public interest or what constitutes public goods (Kurer 2015 ). The ‘public office’ definition inspired the World Bank and Transparency International’s definitions of corruption, respectively, the ‘abuse of public office for private gain’ and the ‘abuse of entrusted power for private gain’, which are widely used in policy and academic spheres today.

Globalizing a problem and harmonizing its meaning

From being a problem internal to (certain) political systems, corruption progressively became reconceived as a global public problem in the second half of the twentieth century (Abbott 2001 ; Wang and Rosenau 2001 ; Roux 2016 ; Katzarova 2019 ). This meant firstly that practices labelled as instances of corruption evolved to include ‘trans-boundary problems’ resulting from facilitated cross-border movements of people, goods and financial flows (Soroos 1990 ; Glynn et al. 1997 ). Secondly, it meant that academics and policy actors started to conceive of corruption as a problem that existed in all countries in the world and that should be understood in a similar manner. If corruption was to be studied as a cross-border phenomenon, it needed to be defined in a manner that allowed for international comparison. Academics, most prominently economists, played a crucial role in constructing corruption as a global problem and harmonizing its meaning through quantification.

Corruption rankings, measurements and mapping played a particularly important role in putting corruption on the global agenda, making visible a phenomenon that is notoriously hard to ‘see’ (Wang and Rosenau 2001 ; Heywood and Rose 2014 ; Hellman 2019 ). The politics of numbers indeed proved essential in raising awareness about corruption, as is still visible in contemporary reference to estimates of costs and level of corruption. As Peter Andreas and Greenhill ( 2010 , 1), argue ‘to measure something—or at least to claim to do so—is to announce its existence and signal its importance and policy relevance’. According to Kelley, in the global information age, rankings and measurements matter since countries worry about their reputation and pay attention when provided with ‘credible and visible information about their performance, especially if [it] makes it easy to compare them with other states or track their performance over time’ ( 2017 , 232), turning indicators into a technology of global governance, shaping our understanding of global problems such as corruption (Cooley and Snyder 2015 ; Merry et al. 2015 ).

Quantifying corruption implies selecting, categorizing and analysing measurable information to make it tractable, countable and comparable. As Heywood and Rose ( 2014 ) argue, corruption indicators inevitably reflect particular definitions. They contain biases relative to the universe of things which could be measured. Looking at existing measurements helps us get a sense of how the battle of the numbers framed the problem, contributing to define corruption on the global stage. In a time where modernization theory was falling out of fashion, research on the economics of corruption made it necessary to develop an operational definition that caters to the needs of measurement and comparison. Rose-Ackerman ( 1978 , 7), one of the leading figures in this field of research, provides a clear explanation of the need for ‘essentially equat[ing] corruption with bribery’. Other practices relating to corruption, such as favouritism, influence peddling or policy/state capture are indeed much harder to quantify through victimization surveys. She justifies narrowing the concept of corruption to bribery using a ‘wide range of productive research’ that focusses on ‘the piece of the broader concept most susceptible to economic analysis—monetary payments to agents’ (Rose-Ackerman 2006 , xiv). The need to quantify and measure corruption certainly played an important role in the narrowing down of corruption to becoming a synonym of bribery.

In the mid-1990s, international governmental and non-governmental organizations also started to quantify corruption for the purpose of measurement and comparison. The NGO Transparency International (TI) and the World Bank were the first to develop corruption indicators. It is widely recognized that TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) was an important factor in the organization’s growing visibility and influence on the international stage, notably through the media attention that it came to receive each year (Wang and Rosenau 2001 ; Bukovansky 2015). To operationalize its governance turn, the World Bank developed its Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) in 1996, which includes an indicator on the ‘control of corruption’. Both measurement tools are composite indexes, merging indicators on the level of corruption and on existing mechanisms to prevent it. This suggests a vague definition of corruption, based on the ‘public office’ definition that they promote. TI rapidly became a mass-producer of corruption indicators, progressively diversifying its methods (turning to public opinion surveys with the Global Corruption Barometer—GCB) and focus (looking at the practices of exporting firms with the Bribe Payers’ Index—BPI). The corruption measurements developed by the World Bank and TI served the organizations’ ambition to normalize their definition of corruption (Nay 2014 ), inspired by the ‘public office’ definition and focussing on the practices of individual office-holders.

Corruption measurement has become a competitive market, providing the developers of successful tools with a place under the (anti-corruption) sun, attracting academic citations, research funding and visibility in policy spheres. Other organizations joined the bandwagon of corruption measurement as the problem became increasingly visible in the public debate. The Index of Public Integrity (IPI), produced by the European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building (ERCAS) at the Hertie School of Governance, and the European Quality of Government Index (EQI), produced by the Quality of Government Institute (QoG) at the University of Gothenburg, are interesting cases. Unlike the first indicators, these measurements were developed by academic institutions who became known for being relatively critical to the international anti-corruption regime. These measurements do not fundamentally differ from TI and the World Bank’s measurement in terms of their underlying conceptualization of corruption. But they add a level of sophistication to the measurements, allowing for subnational ranking in the case of the EQI, and interpret control of corruption differently, as detailed in Table  2 . More and more actors are willing to invest time and resources in developing indicators to measure corruption. This supports Diane Stone’s ( 2013 ) claim that global governance is increasingly structured around interactions between state and non-state actors, with knowledge organizations playing an increasing role. Measurement tools have become a source of cognitive authority, necessary to gain visibility in the anti-corruption community and to promote one’s conception of corruption. The methods used to measure corruption contribute to reinforce the dominant conception of corruption as a global problem and thus to shape the cognitive framework for policy-making at the national and global levels.

TI and the World Bank were instrumental in constructing corruption as a global problem, by providing a definition that they presented as non-political and thus as applicable to all polities around the world. It is not coincidental that they appropriated a concept of corruption promoted by an epistemic community seeking to render corruption measurable and comparable across borders. From designating the (fundamentally political) process of political system decay, corruption’s current mainstream definition refers to the transgression of the rules of public office. Johnston ( 2015 , 284) summarizes the transition to our contemporary understanding of corruption as the shift from broader moral notions towards notions that ‘are by now almost exclusively, material or money-based. From there it is not a long leap to the sorts of technical and index-driven outlooks on corruption and reform that are dominant, but in some important respects unsatisfying, today’, as they ignore many forms of corruption that might be prevalent in many countries and/or considered as particularly serious in the eyes of citizens. This search for a technical definition of corruption might indeed clash with the broader, more ambiguous, use of the term in political or lay discourse (Hay 2007 ; Philp 2015 ).

Understanding what is labelled ‘corruption’

While the existence of a common definition of corruption might be necessary for measurement and comparative research, I argue that there is another side to corruption meaning-making that deserves further research. As presented in previous sections of the article, corruption is conceptually ambiguous, but it is also interpretively ambiguous—and these are not the same (Best 2008 ; Craig 2015 ; Hay 2016 ). Different ‘things’ can be said to be corrupt, and by labelling them as such, we confer (different) negative connotations upon them. Historians have sought to understand what phenomena and practices are or have been labelled corrupt (or ‘as corruption’), across time and space. They find that corruption has played a role in public and political discourse ever since antiquity but that its boundaries fluctuate, with the term referring to very different phenomena, practices and events (Buchan and Hill 2014 ; Kroeze et al. 2018 ). The question of which practices and phenomena feature under the label ‘corruption’ is still not resolved, as meanings coexist as seen above, and people use the terms rather differently across countries and social groups.

In ‘policy English’ (Clarke 2006 ), the dominant language of the anti-corruption regime, corruption refers to a category of unethical practices, which includes bribery, embezzlement, trading in influence, abuse of functions, illicit enrichment or money laundering, largely captured under the World Bank’s or TI’s definition presented above. This perspective has been translated into other languages, like Swedish, where ‘ korruption’ refers to a similar category of criminal offences (Institutet mot mutor, Transparency International Sverige). France features among the exceptions, since ‘ corruption’ in French refers to a specific criminal offence (articles 432-11 and 433-1 of the Criminal Code) which translates to the English ‘bribery’. The French ‘ corruption ’, however, also has a wider meaning (that is similar the English or Swedish terms), but the expressions ‘ atteintes à la probité ’ or ‘ manquements au devoir de probité ’ (meaning ‘violations of integrity’) are more commonly used than corruption in official discourse. Corruption might thus not always refer to the same ‘real world’ practices across borders. Corruption is, however, not defined at all in most international conventions (such as the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, the Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption or the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption), which resolve the interpretive ambiguity of corruption through a list of practices. The United Nations did not manage to reach a consensus among member states’ different understanding of the problem (Vlassis 2004 ; Katzarova 2019 ) and saw it as a strategic choice not to define it at all, to maintain a certain interpretative leeway: ‘Notwithstanding the varying acts that may constitute corruption in different jurisdictions (…) Nothing herein shall limit the future criminalization of further acts of corruption or the adoption of measures to combat such acts’ (United Nations 2010 , 43). Corruption even has porous and movable definitional boundaries within the international policy community, as this quote from the Council of Europe suggests, ‘no precise definition can be found which applies to all forms, types and degrees of corruption, or which would be acceptable universally as covering all acts which are considered in every jurisdiction as contributing to corruption’ (World Bank 1997 , 20; Pearson 2013 , 36).

While scholars continue to debate what a universal ‘core’ to the concept of corruption might be which could embrace all of these practices, as exposed above, many call for more contextually sensitive research on corruption to better understand the dynamics and mechanisms of the problem as it unfolds from the transnational level, with its constantly changing vehicles, to the local and sectoral level (Marquette and Peiffer 2018 ; Kubbe and Engelbert 2017 ; Kubbe and Varraich 2019 ; Mungiu-Pippidi and Heywood 2020 ; Wickberg 2020 ). Beyond the need for corruption research to rethink its focus, I argue that scholars should take the ambiguous dimension of the problem seriously and seek to understand how different social groups within and across societies resolve the interpretive ambiguity of corruption.

Early scholarship on corruption used constructivist and sociological frameworks to understand citizens’ attitude to corruption, concluding that acceptance or rejection of corruption varies significantly across social groups, depending on contexts and prevalent social norms (Gardiner 1970 ; Heidenheimer 1970 ; Peters and Welch 1978 ; Heidenheimer et al. 1989 ). This bottom-up approach to the study of corruption more recently inspired Pierre Lascoumes ( 2010 ) to analyse French citizens’ attitudes towards the problem. These seminal studies deserve to be explored anew, to better understand how corruption can continue to mean different things to different people, social and professional groups and in different contexts, despite international efforts to diffuse and harmonize anti-corruption policy since the 1990s. In a time of rising populism and anti-politics sentiments I suggest that beyond attitudes to corruption, it is the very understanding(s) and uses of the term ‘corruption’ that ought to be further explored.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the attribution of the term ‘corruption’ to certain practices varies depending on political/partizan preferences and geographical or linguistic differences. The scandal involving François Fillon, then candidate to the French presidency, during the 2017 campaign is revealing in this regard: his fellow Républicains presenting the situation as a political move by the opposition to destabilize their candidate, while opponents or foreign media more easily labelled it ‘corruption’ (Lefebvre 2017 ; Pecnard 2017 ; Zaretysky 2017 ; Europe 1 2017 ; Belouezzane 2020 ). Academic research also shows that, despite overwhelmingly rejecting corruption—at least in theory, the public does not hold a conceptually monolithic view of corruption (Rose 2018 ; Navot and Beeri 2018 ). These studies start from the assumption people might agree on a common conceptual core in the abstract, but that disagreements will emerge regarding how the term is applied, its application to concrete cases and to the conceptual boundaries (Atkinson and Mancuso 1985 ; Philp 1997 ; Johnston 2014 ; Navot and Beeri 2018 ). Navot and Beeri ( 2018 ), for instance, reintroduce the use of scenarios—utilized by earlier studies presented above—to measure the conceptualizations and conceptions of political corruption held by the Israeli population. Their study offers a new tool to elucidate public understanding of corruption, which ought to be used by scholars in other countries and regions to get valuable insights regarding the link between conceptions of corruption and perception of the problem. Feminist scholarship also finds significant differences between how women and men perceive corruption, with regard to both levels and types. Women are usually found to be less tolerant to corruption than men (Sineau 2010 ; Torgler 2010 ), to be less likely to engage in corruption (Barnes 2018 ) and to sometimes be held to higher standards (Eggers 2018 ). Research also shows that, partly due to their social role and exclusion from spheres of power, women are not sensitive to the same types of corruption, perceiving higher levels of ‘need corruption’ (to access public services) than ‘greed corruption’ (to access undue privileges) (Bauhr and Charron 2020 ). This difference in conception is also a result of women being exposed to other forms of abuse than men, such as sexual extortion, making corruption more than a monetary transaction (Loli and Kubbe forthcoming).

Beyond scenario-based research, I suggest that we need more research regarding the concrete use of the term corruption by citizens, political organizations, the media, in both writing and orally, online and ‘in real life’. Indeed, while the mainstream conception of corruption in international policy and academic circles was largely shaped by international organizations involved in the fight against corruption, it is far from certain that citizens share this expert view on what corruption is and what it refers to. As Philp ( 2015 , 18–19) points out, ‘because it is a widely used category of social meaning with powerful negative connotations, (…) technical and professional use of the term often clashes with the meanings which are ascribed to it by ordinary people, politicians and public servants, the media and commentators, each of whom may have different concerns and different interests in identifying certain types of conduct as corrupt’. As the problem of corruption becomes increasingly politicized, in populist and conspiracy-leaning discourse but not only, this research agenda could trace the evolution(s) of the use of the term, the construction of these various uses within and between groups and countries, and seek to understand the reasons and strategies used by actors to mobilize this normative concept for political (or other) reasons.

Considering corruption as a social and historical construct, and recognizing that the term can indeed mean different things to different people, social groups and in different national contexts encourages scholars to seek to elucidate its various conceptions by studying the situated use of the term (Schaffer 2016 ). Such a research agenda should further our understanding of how corruption was constructed and defined as a public problem in different contexts, following existing research showing how the definition of corruption adapted to serve powerful actors on the global stage, to denounce certain practices (more prevalent in the developing or transitioning countries) or to further the agenda of international financial institutions (Krastev 2004 ; Harrison 2006 ; Sousa et al. 2009 ; Tänzler et al. 2012 ; Wedel 2012 ; Jakobi 2013 ; Bratu and Kažoka 2018 ; Katzarova 2019 ; Wickberg 2020 ). This is indeed not unexplored terrain nor is it a novel idea. Michael Johnston ( 1996 ) argued three decades ago, while debates on the definition of corruption were raging, that there was also a need to pay attention to the political conflicts shaping the idea of corruption. Yet only few studies have faced this challenged, beyond the issue of attitudes towards corruption (see for instance Koechlin 2013 ; Huss 2018 ; Engler 2020 ; Berti et al. 2020 for an overview of studies on the media framing of corruption). Both case studies and comparative research are needed, to understand different interpretations of corruption within and across (sub-)national borders—between different social groups and between policy-makers (who are often both the initiators and the target audience of anti-corruption policy), politicians (including those with a populist-leaning), business and interests’ representatives, activists, the media and ordinary citizens—as well as the factors that might explain similarities and differences. Applying a comparative approach to this constructivist agenda would shed light on different social groups’ use and conception of the term across borders, and identify where conceptions converge or differ. A multitude of research methods could be used to contribute to this research agenda, from discourse analysis, in-depth interviews, focus groups or participant observation to quantitative text analysis and surveys.

This constructivist research agenda should not be perceived as a means to further fuel the debate between a universalistic and a relativistic approach to corruption. Rather, I argue that elucidating the expert, political and everyday uses of the term, and doing so comparatively, would greatly serve both the academic and policy community. Indeed, divergence in conceptions of the problem (with and across societies) might be an underestimated factor explaining the failure of anti-corruption policy (Persson et al. 2013 ; Marquette and Peiffer 2018 ). It might also generate gridlocks in international cooperation, as has been the case in the European Union for instance. Despite the multiplication of initiatives against corruption, we have not gotten rid of it. The discourse of the policy community has even evolved, from reflecting the ambition to eliminate the problem to the more modest project of managing its risks, and the efforts of global actors and international organizations to depoliticize the problem have rendered anti-corruption efforts increasingly technocratic and uniform (Wickberg 2020 ). A better understanding of the different ways social groups’ conceive of corruption could push scholars and policy-makers to re-politicize the problem and better consider existing (local, national or global) power structures in their reflexion on the mechanisms of corruption and the development of solutions (Philp and David-Barrett 2015 ; Heywood 2015 ; Marquette and Peiffer 2018 ). (Re)applying a constructivist perspective to the study of corruption could also shed light as to how the meaning(s) and use(s) of the term evolves in the face of changes in global political economy, power structures, new means of communication, etc. While scholars called for such a turn already in the 1990s (Johnston 1996 ), the recent rise of populist discourse, anti-politics sentiment, post-truth, conspiracy theories and illiberal democracy, coupled with the emergence of new media and technology, make this endeavour all the more relevant, as corruption becomes increasingly politicized and instrumentalized (Mungiu-Pippidi and Heywood 2020 ).

This article has demonstrated how the existing literature confirms that corruption has been and remains an essentially contested concept, an ambiguous term which can be understood in different ways and sustain a variety of competing narratives. While the meaning of corruption progressively narrowed from its ‘degenerative conception’, associated with moral, spiritual but also political decay, to a ‘social-scientific conception of corruption’, referring to specific forms of individual abuse of power, the contemporary understanding of the term is still a matter of scholarly disputes. The development of an international anti-corruption regime and policy community made it necessary to develop a common definition of corruption allowing for the elaboration of global solutions and common policy instruments. Similarly, measuring corruption and studying it as a global phenomenon required a conception of the problem that allowed for international comparison. One of the consequences of the globalization of the anti-corruption agenda was the purging of the political dimension from the idea of corruption, turning it into an issue of (wrong) incentives, by its conceptual architects, the World Bank and Transparency International.

In this article, I argue that it is necessary for corruption research to diversify its analytical lenses and reconsider the constructivist perspective developed by some of the pioneers of this scholarship, adapting it to the new challenges of the twenty-first century. Having stripped corruption of its intrinsically political dimension, it might just be timely to bring politics back in and reconsider the contentious nature of the development and evolution of the terms’ meaning, at the interplay of formal institutions and socio-political forces, of global and local dynamics. This approach could be relevant beyond corruption research, as there is value in paying closer attention to the construction of numerous normative concepts mobilized for political reasons, such as democracy, human rights, modernization, populism or crisis (Oren 2002 ; Guilhot 2005 ; Gregg 2011 ; Voltolini et al. 2020 ). As critical and feminist work on concepts suggests, it is necessary for social sciences to consider concepts, such as corruption, as a product of context and power struggles, and to bring meaning-making back to the core of our analysis of politics (Mazur 2020 ). I propose a research agenda that takes the ambiguity of corruption seriously and thus seeks to elucidate how people in different social groups, professional spheres and geographical locations resolve this interpretive ambiguity, and to understand where similarities and differences in conceptions of corruption stem from. As Mason ( 2020 ) recently wrote: ‘there has been no shortage of thinking done about corruption’, and we live in a world rich of research, expertise and policy innovations targeting the intractable problem of corruption. Far from undermining this valuable work, the approach presented in this article offers to look at the problem from a different angle, to shed light on the practices that are currently omitted from mainstream understandings of corruption and on the social and political dynamics and conflicts that shape it as a social issue and as a policy problem.

Author’s own translation.

Interestingly, in French, ‘corruption’ also refers to the sexual abuse of youth, reflecting the original polysemy.

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Wickberg, S. Understanding corruption in the twenty-first century: towards a new constructivist research agenda. Fr Polit 19 , 82–102 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-020-00144-4

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On Political Corruption

• Samuel Issacharoff
• Corruption, Clients, and Political Machines  by  Stephen E. Sachs

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• November 2010
• See full issue

Lurking beneath the surface of all debates on campaign finance is a visceral revulsion over future leaders of state groveling for money. The process of fundraising is demeaning to any claim of a higher calling in public service and taints candidates, policies, donors, and anyone in proximity to this bleakest side of the electoral process. The intuition is that at some level money must be corrupting of the political process and that something must be done to limit the role of money in that process. In turn, and almost inescapably, the same logic appears to lead to the belief that less money is better than more money, and that successful reform must bring down the cost of modern electoral campaigning.

It is the logic of constricting the effects of money that has defined the modern era of campaign finance reform, an era that began after the Watergate scandals and is now completing its fourth decade. Time and again, the impetus behind the reform effort has been to depress the amount of money spent in campaigns and thereby limit the associated moral stain. So long as a stench attaches to money and by extension to those who seek to direct political outcomes with money, the cause of campaign finance reform takes the high road. If money be the root of all evil, reducing the amount of money in the system is the natural conclusion.

With these efforts at limitation comes the inevitable result that some speakers will be handicapped in expressing their views and that the total quantity of speech will be curtailed. This point is not really disputed by the reform camp, nor by the dissident wing of the Supreme Court. The oft-invoked claim that money is not speech, and the corollary claim of the rights of listeners not to be bombarded with excesses from one side of the debate, both assume a right to limit the propagation of certain views, presumably those that are overfunded or overexposed, or both. For Justice Stevens and a persistent minority on the Court, the claim that money is not speech lends constitutional cover to the search for a way to squeeze money out of politics. In turn, this attempt to restrain the amount of money in the system runs headlong not only into the teeth of the constitutional concern of the majority of the Court but also into the brute fact of the increased scale and complexity of campaigning for contested office.

The restrictive aspect of the reform agenda is ultimately both its strength and its constitutional liability. Constitutionally, the effort to limit the spending of political campaigns – which, if not directly speech, is certainly “speechy enough” – has occasioned a long line of losses for reform, with Citizens United v. FEC but the latest in an almost unbroken streak. Citizens United continues the troubled tradition of Buckley v. Valeo in drawing the divide between political contributions and expenditures. The former category gives rise to potential regulation in order to combat a poorly specified corruption of the political process – a concept to which I return below – while the latter is seen as within the domain of expressive liberties that the state may not seek to restrict.

Academic commentary has long had a field day with the core expenditures-versus-contributions rationale of Buckley . The system of limited contributions but unchecked expenditures runs afoul of the animating logic of the 1974 campaign finance amendments, and is in fact a regulatory structure created by the Court. No rational regulatory system would seek to limit the manner by which money is supplied to political campaigns, then leave unchecked the demand for that same money by leaving spending uncapped. In the meantime, majorities drawn from varying voting blocs on the Court have persistently rejected the Buckley divide between contributions and expenditures, with only a division among the Justices on how to overturn Buckley serving to shore up a frayed body of law. Whether framed as doctrinal incoherence or simply as a doctrinal approach that proved unworkable over time, the Court’s attempt to muddle through the difficult issue of money and politics has been subject to easy hits by critics. I confess to being a participant in looking at the failures of Court doctrine, all the while conceding in articles and the classroom just how intractable the problem seemed. Indeed, writing with Professor Pamela Karlan a decade ago, I concluded that not much could be done about the pull of finance in elections, such that the perverse “hydraulic” of money finding its outlet led many campaign finance reform efforts to backfire and empower the unaccountable tertiary actors (the political action committees (PACs), the 527s, and all the rest) at the expense of the candidates and parties who actually had to stand for election before We the People.

This Comment takes Citizens United as a launching point to revisit the central Buckley paradigm and examine what possibilities for reform remain to redress the vulnerabilities of democracy before the powers of the purse. Beginning with Buckley , the Court recognized that contributions had the unique potential to corrupt the political process. Revisiting the contribution process and the concept of corruption may yield a better handle on what should be the sources of concern in the financing of electoral campaigns. The approach taken here is to start by examining the competing concerns that tend to get glossed over by underspecified references to political corruption, then to see if the processes of financing campaigns can be addressed both to those concerns and to increasing the level of democratic engagement in politics. Specifically, this approach focuses on the mechanisms used to empower democratic participation in two ways: one by inducement, one by prohibition. Counterintuitively, the inducement looks to increase the amount of contributions to campaigns to alleviate some of the concerns over political corruption, while the prohibition seeks to bar those in a position to distort public policy – such as government contractors – from providing support to candidates’ campaigns. The argument rests heavily on the idea that the threat to democratic governance may come from the emergence of a “clientelist” relation between elected officials and those who seek to profit from relations to the state.

The inquiry begins in Part I with the contested terrain over the nature of political corruption. Once the Supreme Court announced in Buckley that the concern over corruption or even its appearance could justify limitations on money in politics, the race was on to fill the porous concept of corruption with every conceivable meaning advocates could muster. As with the elusive term “diversity” after Buckley’s contemporary, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke , a thin constitutional reed transformed the lexicon of political debate. Part II advances the argument that the corruption concern is really a concern with ensuring public – rather than private – outputs from the policymaking process. This reorientation toward corruption in the outputs of policymaking suggests effective solutions to address the financial vulnerabilities of democracy compatible with the Court’s strong constitutional stance in Citizens United , which are discussed in Part III.

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Introduction to Greed, Corruption, and the Modern State: Essays in Political Economy

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The expert authors in this timely volume offer diverse perspectives on how corruption distorts state and market relations, while drawing from insights in political science, economics, and law. This book represents a new wave of research in political economy, relying on methodological rigor to address topics ranging from corruption in taxation and trade to crony capitalism and false anticorruption reforms. Key chapters provide a thorough review of the literature on links between political connections and democratic institutions. Special attention is paid to the OECD Anti Bribery Convention, the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, China’s anti-corruption drive, and language used to discuss tax evasion. Case studies from various regions—such as China, Paraguay, South Africa, and New York City— anchor the analysis with real world situations. Greed, Corruption, and the Modern State is a critical resource for students, researchers, and practitioners interested in development, economics, governance, and corruption.

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500+ words essay on corruption.

Essay on Corruption – Corruption refers to a form of criminal activity or dishonesty. It refers to an evil act by an individual or a group. Most noteworthy, this act compromises the rights and privileges of others. Furthermore, Corruption primarily includes activities like bribery or embezzlement. However, Corruption can take place in many ways. Most probably, people in positions of authority are susceptible to Corruption. Corruption certainly reflects greedy and selfish behavior.

Methods of Corruption

First of all, Bribery is the most common method of Corruption. Bribery involves the improper use of favours and gifts in exchange for personal gain. Furthermore, the types of favours are diverse. Above all, the favours include money, gifts, company shares, sexual favours, employment , entertainment, and political benefits. Also, personal gain can be – giving preferential treatment and overlooking crime.

Embezzlement refers to the act of withholding assets for the purpose of theft. Furthermore, it takes place by one or more individuals who were entrusted with these assets. Above all, embezzlement is a type of financial fraud.

The graft is a global form of Corruption. Most noteworthy, it refers to the illegal use of a politician’s authority for personal gain. Furthermore, a popular way for the graft is misdirecting public funds for the benefit of politicians .

Extortion is another major method of Corruption. It means to obtain property, money or services illegally. Above all, this obtainment takes place by coercing individuals or organizations. Hence, Extortion is quite similar to blackmail.

Favouritism and nepotism is quite an old form of Corruption still in usage. This refers to a person favouring one’s own relatives and friends to jobs. This is certainly a very unfair practice. This is because many deserving candidates fail to get jobs.

Abuse of discretion is another method of Corruption. Here, a person misuses one’s power and authority. An example can be a judge unjustly dismissing a criminal’s case.

Finally, influence peddling is the last method here. This refers to illegally using one’s influence with the government or other authorized individuals. Furthermore, it takes place in order to obtain preferential treatment or favour.

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Ways of Stopping Corruption

One important way of preventing Corruption is to give a better salary in a government job. Many government employees receive pretty low salaries. Therefore, they resort to bribery to meet their expenses. So, government employees should receive higher salaries. Consequently, high salaries would reduce their motivation and resolve to engage in bribery.

Tough laws are very important for stopping Corruption. Above all, strict punishments need to be meted out to guilty individuals. Furthermore, there should be an efficient and quick implementation of strict laws.

Applying cameras in workplaces is an excellent way to prevent corruption. Above all, many individuals would refrain from indulging in Corruption due to fear of being caught. Furthermore, these individuals would have otherwise engaged in Corruption.

The government must make sure to keep inflation low. Due to the rise in prices, many people feel their incomes to be too low. Consequently, this increases Corruption among the masses. Businessmen raise prices to sell their stock of goods at higher prices. Furthermore, the politician supports them due to the benefits they receive.

To sum it up, Corruption is a great evil of society. This evil should be quickly eliminated from society. Corruption is the poison that has penetrated the minds of many individuals these days. Hopefully, with consistent political and social efforts, we can get rid of Corruption.

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Donald Trump’s Secret Shame About New York City Haunts His Trial

By Elizabeth Spiers

Ms. Spiers, a contributing Opinion writer, is a journalist and a digital media strategist.

With jury selection underway in Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Lower Manhattan, the former president’s chickens have finally come home to roost. It feels uniquely appropriate that Mr. Trump will have to endure the scrutiny on his old home turf. New York City residents have been subjected to his venality and corruption for much longer than the rest of the country, and we’re familiar with his antics — the threats, the lawsuits, the braggadocio, his general ability to slip through the tiniest crack in the bureaucracy or legal system just fast enough to avoid the consequences of his actions. He rose to fame here, but was never truly accepted by the old money elites he admired. The rich and powerful sometimes invited him to their parties, but behind his back they laughed at his coarse methods and his tacky aesthetic. His inability to succeed in New York in quite the way he wanted to drove much of the damage he did to the country as a whole, and arguably his entire political career.

For many of his admirers, Mr. Trump represents a certain kind of rich person whose wealth and success are emblematic of the American dream, and on the campaign trail, that was the story he told. That illusion was reinforced by “The Apprentice,” a heavily scripted pseudo-competition in which Mr. Trump pretended to fire people, something that in real life he generally has others do. He likes having authority but not doing the hard work of leadership and prefers to outsource the dirty work to underlings and lawyers.

It’s harder for Mr. Trump to avoid the actual untelevised reality of who he is in New York City, where he grew up the son of a wealthy Queens real estate developer and used his inheritance less to grow the family business than to grow his personal brand. His business dealings were murky , sometimes mob-connected and riddled with high-profile failures and bankruptcies . Serious real estate investors did not regard him as a peer. Eventually, banks began to refuse to lend him money. He was ruthlessly skewered by New York publications, most famously by Spy magazine, which called him a “short-fingered vulgarian.”

But he had a taste for being in the public eye — constantly. Gossip columnists at his favored tabloids often received tips from Mr. Trump about himself, even about his own sexual escapades, under the pseudonym John Barron . If you want to get attention without paying for public relations consultants, another good way to do it is to run for public office. Mr. Trump expressed interest in the presidency starting in the late 1980s, took steps in that direction in 2000 and considered it again in 2012 before being elected in 2016.

All of these qualities make Mr. Trump what the complexity scientist Peter Turchin refers to as an “elite aspirant.” It may seem absurd to refer to a rich guy who went to an Ivy League school and has been a public figure for a long time as an aspiring elite, but by Professor Turchin’s definition, Mr. Trump fits the term because he wanted forms of power he did not have. He had wealth, which is one of Professor Turchin’s four types of elite power, but precariously. He had neither the kind of influence that media figures who deal in persuasion have nor the raw political power that elected officials do. He admires dictators and people whose power is derived from violence (military figures, law enforcement) because he doesn’t have that, either.

If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, the song goes, but Mr. Trump couldn’t make it here — at least not the way he craved — despite being born here and being one of the few people who could afford it.

So it’s easy to understand why he bashes his hometown as a crime-ridden hellscape, and why the Oval Office appealed. Washington offered him political power but also something he may have wanted even more: the respect New York denied him.

No physical space in New York City is more emblematic of Mr. Trump than his flagship Trump Tower. It’s flashy, slightly out of place on Fifth Avenue , with what seems like a general aesthetic philosophy that one can never have too much gold plating. When he got permission to tear down the Bonwit Teller building, which used to stand on that site, he promised to donate its Art Deco friezes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He destroyed them instead. New York Magazine’s Marie Brenner wrote at the time that the building’s approval “ legitimized a pushy kid nobody took seriously. ”

The details of the criminal case getting underway in Manhattan make it salacious (A porn star! Hush money!) and it would probably have been a career-ending scandal for any other president, but against the backdrop of Mr. Trump’s endless appearances in supermarket tabloids, it just seems like par for the course. New Yorkers pride themselves on a certain kind of skepticism that allows them to spot a con man, but Mr. Trump’s cons have always been so out in the open that we may have underestimated his vindictiveness and his capacity to do real harm.

There were glimpses of it, though. It’s tough to identify the nadir of Mr. Trump’s bad behavior in New York, but I believe it was in 1989, when he took out ads in major media outlets (including this one) calling for the death penalty to be reinstated in New York State after five Black and Latino teenagers were accused of raping a jogger in Central Park. The five men had their convictions vacated in 2002, but Mr. Trump still refuses, out of malice or vanity, to apologize or acknowledge their innocence. When asked whether he believes they should have been convicted, he still insists that they admitted their guilt .

One of the men, Yusef Salaam, is now a member of the New York City Council. The day Mr. Trump was arrested in April of 2023, Mr. Salaam wrote, in an ad mocked up to look like Mr. Trump’s original, “I hope that you exercise your civil liberties to the fullest, and that you get what the Exonerated Five did not get — a presumption of innocence and a fair trial.”

And that’s what he’s getting, at last.

In many ways Mr. Trump’s success outside of New York is a function of a characteristic he has that the city itself does not: an inferiority complex. Even when confronted with evidence of his wrongdoing, he insists that he is a victim, and now so are the people who vote for him. When he was indicted in Georgia , he told his followers, “They’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you — and I’m just standing in their way.”

Mr. Trump was successful in part because he projected his own anxieties onto the people who were loyal to him. When pressuring the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to help him overturn the results of the 2020 election, he said, “They’re going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad, whether you know it or not, they’re laughing at you.” Mr. Trump both fears and loathes being laughed at, and publicly seethed his way through the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011 when, as expected, he was the butt of some of the jokes. “He was pissed off like I’d never seen him before,” Chris Christie later said . “Just beside himself with fury.” The evening confirmed Mr. Trump’s suspicions that the elites were sneering at him and he wasn’t in on their jokes.

In this sense he’s a lot like Richard Nixon, who, as his former aide Tom Charles Huston said, understood “in his gut” when middle-class people “felt they were being put upon, because he felt he had been put upon.”

Mr. Trump also feels that he has been put upon, not just by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, but by all of the New York City liberals who did not take him seriously when he put on a face full of makeup, donned a comically long tie and climbed into the clown car bound for Washington. There is some relief for New Yorkers who are witnessing the prospect of his comeuppance, though. The rest of the country is seeing a side of Mr. Trump that New York City residents have always been familiar with: the guy who’s angry that he hasn’t been accepted in the elite circles he admires and is outraged that others have.

Elizabeth Spiers, a contributing Opinion writer, is a journalist and a digital media strategist.

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Supreme court case could shape illinois political corruption probes, the u.s. supreme court heard arguments on monday for a case that challenges the bribery statute and could shape the future of illinois politics. a decision is expected by late june..

NPR Editor Speaks Out: How National Public Radio Lost Americans' Trust Honestly with Bari Weiss

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Uri Berliner is a senior business editor at NPR. In his 25 years with NPR, his work has been recognized with a Peabody Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and a Society of Professional Journalists New America Award, among others. Today, we published in The Free Press his firsthand account of the transformation he has witnessed at National Public Radio. Or, as Uri puts it, how it went from an organization that had an “open-minded, curious culture” with a “liberal bent” to one that is “knee-jerk, activist, scolding,” and “rigidly progressive.”  Uri describes a newsroom that aimed less to cover Donald Trump but instead veered towards efforts to topple him; a newsroom that reported the Russia collusion story without enough skepticism or fairness, and then later largely ignored the fact that the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion; a newsroom that purposefully ignored the Hunter Biden laptop story—in fact, one of his fellow NPR journalists approved of ignoring the laptop story because “covering it could help Trump.” A newsroom that put political ideology before journalism in its coverage of Covid-19. And, he describes a newsroom where race and identity became paramount in every aspect of the workplace and diversity became its north star.  In other words, NPR is not considering all things anymore.  On today’s episode: How did NPR lose its way? Why did it change? And why does this lone journalist feel obligated to speak out? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Court papers show Sen. Bob Menendez may testify his wife kept him in the dark, unaware of any crimes

Prosecutors say cash and gold bars were given to the couple in return for the senator carrying out political favors..

• Associated Press
• Larry Neumeister

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, left, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, arrive at the federal courthouse in New York, Sept. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeenah Moon, File)

What you need to know

• U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife are accused of using his foreign affairs influence to help Egypt in return for bribes
• Investigators say a search of Menendez’s home yielded nearly $500,000 in hidden cash and $100,000 in gold bars
• This is the second indictment in eight years against Menendez. His unrelated 2015 indictment ended in a mistrial
• Here are some key takeaways from his September indictment

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The indictment says Menendez pestered the U.S. attorney for New Jersey and another top federal prosecutor about a bank fraud case involving his friend, developer Fred Daibes.

7 months ago

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