Based on twelve years of research on corruption across the globe, this book presents four case studies which illustrate the cultural, cognitive, and social implications of corruption. With diverse approaches and empirical case studies, it examines the socio-institutional, organizational, and cognitive-hermeneutical aspects of the cultural theory model of corruption.

A social theory of grand corruption from antiquity to the twenty-first century. In contemporary policy discourse, the notion of corruption is highly constricted, understood just as the pursuit of private gain while fulfilling a public duty. Its paradigmatic manifestations are bribery and extortion, placing the onus on individuals, typically bureaucrats. Sudhir Chella Rajan argues that this understanding ignores the true depths of corruption, which is properly seen as a foundation of social structures. Not just bribes but also caste, gender relations, and the reproduction of class are forms of corruption. Using South Asia as a case study, Rajan argues that syndromes of corruption can be identified by paying attention to social orders and the elites they support. From the breakup of the Harappan civilization in the second millennium BCE to the anticolonial movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, elites and their descendants made off with substantial material and symbolic gains for hundreds of years before their schemes unraveled. Rajan makes clear that this grander form of corruption is not limited to India or the annals of global history. Societal corruption is endemic, as tax cheats and complicit bankers squirrel away public money in offshore accounts, corporate titans buy political influence, and the rich ensure that their children live lavishly no matter how little they contribute. These elites use their privileged access to power to fix the rules of the game—legal structures and social norms—benefiting themselves, even while most ordinary people remain faithful to the rubrics of everyday life.

Based on 12 years of research on corruption across the globe, this book presents four empirical case studies which illustrate the cultural, cognitive, and social implications of corruption. Davide Torsello examines the socio-institutional, organizational, and cognitive-hermeneutical aspects of the cultural theory model of corruption. This insightful book proposes an innovative theoretical framework on how the notion of culture can be used to understand corruption as an inexplicable yet resilient phenomenon. Chapters examine the hermeneutical, cultural, and social aspects of corruption, the unravelling political-business corruption in contemporary Japan, and the relationship between organizational culture and corruption. Torsello advises on how to deal with corruption by asking questions that have often been ignored in mainstream literature and suggests that the investigation of corruption must focus on larger societal fields, rather than more limited individual-organizational ones, although ultimately the decision to indulge or not in such a criminal act is of the individual and reflects their own degree of self-awareness. Illustrating multidimensional perspectives on mainstream theories of corruption, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars in cultural sociology, political studies, public administration and management, and public policy. It will also be beneficial for practitioners working in criminology, local and national governance, politics, and social policy.

This book is a collection of chapters on corruption. It highlights the importance of corruption, transparency, and accountability and ways to deal with it. Understanding the types of corruption is very important to know how to deal with it. Types of corruption include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, embezzlement, double-dealing, under-the-table transactions, manipulating elections, diverting funds, laundering money, and defrauding investors. Identifying corruption in all its forms requires analyzing the country and its political system and laws and rooting out the sources of corruption and the people behind it. Corruption and those participating in it must be identified to find ways to deal with it, including installing proper governance mechanisms with complete transparency and accountability for politicians, people in power, and/or citizens, as well as applying rules and holding those who infringe them accountable. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the many types of corruption and how to handle them.

Recent years have seen an unprecedented rise in interest in the topic of corruption, resulting in a rising demand for suitable teaching materials. This edited collection brings together two different approaches to the study of corruption — the first represented by a large, practically-oriented literature devoted to identifying the causes of corruption, assessing its incidence and working out how to bring it under control; the second by a smaller collection of critical literature in political theory and intellectual history that addresses conceptual and historical issues concerned with how corruption should be, and how it has been, understood — and uses the second to reflect on the first. This collection will be of interest to post-graduate students in political science, law, sociology, public policy and development studies, to senior public servants, and to professionals working in multilateral agencies, NGOs and the media.

Since the 1980s, democratic struggles have triggered constitutional reforms, elections, and other forms of political progress. This comprehensive volume offers refreshing perspectives on Africa's democratic renewal and will open up dialogue on the trends and trajectory of Africa's democratic future.

The book provides an institutional, historical, and sectorial analysis of Argentina’s structural corruption. Looking back over the last 200 years, the book demonstrates that Argentina has historically addressed corruption through ineffective debates between public-private biases or a cultural-criminal approach reinforced by modernization theory, neither of which have helped tackle the problem. Instead, Volosin proposes meaningful institutional reforms to reduce opportunities for corruption and to increase monitoring incentives and capabilities. The book argues that political economy hindrances for reform are as significant as reform itself and shows that in times of crisis or scandal, the need to move quickly to satisfy citizen demands forces politicians to promote unplanned changes that lack real teeth. Moreover, the machine’s reach over most public and private actors precludes regime-undermining reform, which is precisely what is needed to meaningfully attack entrenched structural corruption. In order to combat serious deficits in the public procurement regime, Volosin recommends a micro-sectorial analysis of government procurement, supported by an innovative human rights strategy to help measure and disclose corruption’s hidden social cost, raise awareness, integrate vulnerability criteria into the fight against corruption, and employ local, regional, and international litigation and monitoring tools to compel the political branches to perform structural change. This innovative exploration into corruption in Argentina will be of interest to researchers working on public policy, administrative law, anticorruption studies, law and development, and governance both in Argentina, and beyond.

In this book, Sten Widmalm adopts comparative and empirical approaches to examine how decentralization is connected to social capital and corruption. Using evidence from in-depth field studies in Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, and analyzing it against historical cases from around the world, he presents theoretical perspectives and policy suggestions. Widmalm’s journey takes him to ancient Rome, Greece and India, as well as to the West, China, Latin America, and Russia of more recent times.

This book addresses empirical, theoretical, and policy perspectives in its examination of the development of sustainability management of African firms. Documenting cases of sustainable activities across Africa and accelerating knowledge about the opportunities and challenges facing firms operating in Africa, the chapters examine various aspects of sustainability and sustainable entrepreneurship/innovations in the African context. The authors seek to shed light on how African nations can be positioned to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals as well as the innovative strategies necessary to improve sustainability practices of African firms for greater success. With guidance for scholars and policymakers, this book will serve as a valuable resource, providing readers with an up-to-date and contextual understanding of sustainability practices, drivers, and challenges in Africa. Samuel Adomako is Associate Professor of Strategy at the Birmingham Business School at the University of Birmingham, UK. Albert Danso is Associate Professor of Accounting and Finance at the Leicester Castle Business School at De Montfort University, UK. Agyenim Boateng is Professor of Finance and Director of Finance and Banking Research Centre at the Leicester Castle Business School at De Montfort University, UK.

This interdisciplinary Research Agenda contains state-of-the-art surveys of the field of corruption and points towards an agenda for future research. This comprehensive work covers the main approaches to diagnosing, analysing and measuring corruption, as well as the ways to tackle it. Chapters explore top political and grassroots corruption, buying and stealing votes, corruption in relation to gender and the media, digital anti-corruption and an examination of whistleblowing and market-based tools.