essay on remove corruption

How to Stop Corruption Essay: Guide & Topics [+4 Samples]

Corruption is an abuse of power that was entrusted to a person or group of people for personal gain. It can appear in various settings and affect different social classes, leading to unemployment and other economic issues. This is why writing an essay on corruption can become a challenge.

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One “how to stop corruption” essay will require plenty of time and effort, as the topic is too broad. That’s why our experts have prepared this guide. It can help you with research and make the overall writing process easier. Besides, you will find free essays on corruption with outlines.

• ✍️ How to Write an Essay
• 💰 Essay Examples
• 🤑 How to Stop Corruption Essay
• 💲 Topics for Essay

✍️ How to Write an Essay on Corruption

Before writing on the issue, you have to understand a few things. First , corruption can take different forms, such as:

• Bribery – receiving money or other valuable items in exchange for using power or influence in an illegal way.
• Graft – using power or authority for personal goals.
• Extortion – threats or violence for the person’s advantage.
• Kickback – paying commission to a bribe-taker for some service.
• Cronyism – assigning unqualified friends or relatives to job positions.
• Embezzlement – stealing the government’s money.

Second , you should carefully think about the effects of corruption on the country. It seriously undermines democracy and the good name of political institutions. Its economic, political, and social impact is hard to estimate.

Let’s focus on writing about corruption. What are the features of your future paper? What elements should you include in your writing?

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Below, we will show you the general essay on corruption sample and explain each part’s importance:

You already chose the paper topic. What’s next? Create an outline for your future writing. You’re better to compose a plan for your paper so that it won’t suffer from logic errors and discrepancies. Besides, you may be required to add your outline to your paper and compose a corruption essay with headings.

At this step, you sketch out the skeleton:

• what to write in the introduction;
• what points to discuss in the body section;
• what to put into the conclusion.

Take the notes during your research to use them later. They will help you to put your arguments in a logical order and show what points you can use in the essay.

For a long-form essay, we suggest you divide it into parts. Title each one and use headings to facilitate the reading process.

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🔴 Introduction

The next step is to develop a corruption essay’s introduction. Here, you should give your readers a preview of what’s coming and state your position.

• Start with a catchy hook.
• Give a brief description of the problem context.
• Provide a thesis statement.

You can always update and change it when finishing the paper.

🔴 Body Paragraphs

In the body section, you will provide the central points and supporting evidence. When discussing the effects of this problem in your corruption essay, do not forget to include statistics and other significant data.

Every paragraph should include a topic sentence, explanation, and supporting evidence. To make them fit together, use analysis and critical thinking.

Get an originally-written paper according to your instructions!

Use interesting facts and compelling arguments to earn your audience’s attention. It may drift while reading an essay about corruption, so don’t let it happen.

🔴 Quotations

Quotes are the essential elements of any paper. They support your claims and add credibility to your writing. Such items are exceptionally crucial for an essay on corruption as the issue can be controversial, so you may want to back up your arguments.

• You may incorporate direct quotes in your text. In this case, remember to use quotation marks and mark the page number for yourself. Don’t exceed the 30 words limit. Add the information about the source in the reference list.
• You may decide to use a whole paragraph from your source as supporting evidence. Then, quote indirectly—paraphrase, summarize, or synthesize the argument of interest. You still have to add relevant information to your reference list, though.

Check your professor’s guidelines regarding the preferred citation style.

🔴 Conclusion

In your corruption essay conclusion, you should restate the thesis and summarize your findings. You can also provide recommendations for future research on the topic. Keep it clear and short—it can be one paragraph long.

Don’t forget your references!

Include a list of all sources you used to write this paper. Read the citation guideline of your institution to do it correctly. By the way, some citation tools allow creating a reference list in pdf or Word formats.

💰 Corruption Essay Examples

If you strive to write a good how to stop a corruption essay, you should check a few relevant examples. They will show you the power of a proper outline and headings. Besides, you’ll see how to formulate your arguments and cite sources.

✔️ Essay on Corruption: 250 Words

If you were assigned a short paper of 250 words and have no idea where to start, you can check the example written by our academic experts. As you can see below, it is written in easy words. You can use simple English to explain to your readers the “black money” phenomenon.

Another point you should keep in mind when checking our short essay on corruption is that the structure remains the same. Despite the low word count, it has an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement, body section, and a conclusion.

Now, take a look at our corruption essay sample and inspire!

✔️ Essay on Corruption: 500 Words

Cause and effect essay is among the most common paper types for students. In case you’re composing this kind of paper, you should research the reasons for corruption. You can investigate factors that led to this phenomenon in a particular country.

Use the data from the official sources, for example, Transparency International . There is plenty of evidence for your thesis statement on corruption and points you will include in the body section. Also, you can use headlines to separate one cause from another. Doing so will help your readers to browse through the text easily.

Check our essay on corruption below to see how our experts utilize headlines.

🤑 How to Stop Corruption: Essay Prompts

Corruption is a complex issue that undermines the foundations of justice, fairness, and equality. If you want to address this problem, you can write a “How to Stop Corruption” essay using any of the following topic ideas.

The writing prompts below will provide valuable insights into this destructive phenomenon. Use them to analyze the root causes critically and propose effective solutions.

How to Prevent Corruption Essay Prompt

In this essay, you can discuss various strategies and measures to tackle corruption in society. Explore the impact of corruption on social, political, and economic systems and review possible solutions. Your paper can also highlight the importance of ethical leadership and transparent governance in curbing corruption.

Here are some more ideas to include:

• The role of education and public awareness in preventing corruption. In this essay, you can explain the importance of teaching ethical values and raising awareness about the adverse effects of corruption. It would be great to illustrate your essay with examples of successful anti-corruption campaigns and programs.
• How to implement strong anti-corruption laws and regulations. Your essay could discuss the steps governments should take in this regard, such as creating comprehensive legislation and independent anti-corruption agencies. Also, clarify how international cooperation can help combat corruption.
• Ways of promoting transparency in government and business operations. Do you agree that open data policies, whistleblower protection laws, independent oversight agencies, and transparent financial reporting are effective methods of ensuring transparency? What other strategies can you propose? Answer the questions in your essay.

How to Stop Corruption as a Student Essay Prompt

An essay on how to stop corruption as a student can focus on the role of young people in preventing corruption in their communities and society at large. Describe what students can do to raise awareness, promote ethical behavior, and advocate for transparency and accountability. The essay can also explore how instilling values of integrity and honesty among young people can help combat corruption.

Here’s what else you can talk about:

• How to encourage ethical behavior and integrity among students. Explain why it’s essential for teachers to be models of ethical behavior and create a culture of honesty and accountability in schools. Besides, discuss the role of parents and community members in reinforcing students’ moral values.
• Importance of participating in anti-corruption initiatives and campaigns from a young age. Your paper could study how participation in anti-corruption initiatives fosters young people’s sense of civic responsibility. Can youth engagement promote transparency and accountability?
• Ways of promoting accountability within educational institutions. What methods of fostering accountability are the most effective? Your essay might evaluate the efficacy of promoting direct communication, establishing a clear code of conduct, creating effective oversight mechanisms, holding all members of the educational process responsible for their actions, and other methods.

How to Stop Corruption in India Essay Prompt

In this essay, you can discuss the pervasive nature of corruption in various sectors of Indian society and its detrimental effects on the country’s development. Explore strategies and measures that can be implemented to address and prevent corruption, as well as the role of government, civil society, and citizens in combating this issue.

Your essay may also include the following:

• Analysis of the causes and consequences of corruption in India. You may discuss the bureaucratic red tape, weak enforcement mechanisms, and other causes. How do they affect the country’s development?
• Examination of the effectiveness of existing anti-corruption laws and measures. What are the existing anti-corruption laws and measures in India? Are they effective? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• Discussion of potential solutions and reforms to curb corruption. Propose practical solutions and reforms that can potentially stop corruption. Also, explain the importance of political will and international cooperation to implement reforms effectively.

Government Corruption Essay Prompt

A government corruption essay can discuss the prevalence of corruption within government institutions and its impact on the state’s functioning. You can explore various forms of corruption, such as bribery, embezzlement, and nepotism. Additionally, discuss their effects on public services, economic development, and social justice.

Here are some more ideas you can cover in your essay:

• The causes and manifestations of government corruption. Analyze political patronage, weak accountability systems, and other factors that stimulate corruption. Additionally, include real-life examples that showcase the manifestations of government corruption in your essay.
• The impact of corruption on public trust and governance. Corruption undermines people’s trust and increases social inequalities. In your paper, we suggest evaluating its long-term impact on countries’ development and social cohesion.
• Strategies and reforms to combat government corruption. Here, you can present and examine the best strategies and reforms to fight corruption in government. Also, consider the role of international organizations and media in advocating for anti-corruption initiatives.

How to Stop Police Corruption Essay Prompt

In this essay, you can explore strategies and reforms to address corruption within law enforcement agencies. Start by investigating the root causes of police corruption and its impact on public safety and trust. Then, propose effective measures to combat it.

Here’s what else you can discuss in your essay:

• The factors contributing to police corruption, such as lack of accountability and oversight. Your paper could research various factors that cause police corruption. Is it possible to mitigate their effect?
• The consequences of police corruption for community relations and public safety. Police corruption has a disastrous effect on public safety and community trust. Your essay can use real-life examples to show how corruption practices in law enforcement undermine their legitimacy and fuel social unrest.
• Potential solutions, such as improved training, transparency, and accountability measures. Can these measures solve the police corruption issue? What other strategies can be implemented to combat the problem? Consider these questions in your essay.

💲 40 Best Topics for Corruption Essay

Another key to a successful essay on corruption is choosing an intriguing topic. There are plenty of ideas to use in your paper. And here are some topic suggestions for your writing:

• What is corruption ? An essay should tell the readers about the essentials of this phenomenon. Elaborate on the factors that impact its growth or reduce.
• How to fight corruption ? Your essay can provide ideas on how to reduce the effects of this problem. If you write an argumentative paper, state your arguments, and give supporting evidence. For example, you can research the countries with the lowest corruption index and how they fight with it.
• I say “no” to corruption . This can be an excellent topic for your narrative essay. Describe a situation from your life when you’re faced with this type of wrongdoing.
• Corruption in our country. An essay can be dedicated, for example, to corruption in India or Pakistan. Learn more about its causes and how different countries fight with it.
• Graft and corruption. We already mentioned the definition of graft. Explore various examples of grafts, e.g., using the personal influence of politicians to pressure public service journalists . Provide your vision of the causes of corruption. The essay should include strong evidence.
• Corruption in society. Investigate how the tolerance to “black money” crimes impact economics in developing countries .
• How can we stop corruption ? In your essay, provide suggestions on how society can prevent this problem. What efficient ways can you propose?
• The reasons that lead to the corruption of the police . Assess how bribery impacts the crime rate. You can use a case of Al Capone as supporting evidence.
• Literature and corruption. Choose a literary masterpiece and analyze how the author addresses the theme of crime. You can check a sample paper on Pushkin’s “ The Queen of Spades ”
• How does power affect politicians ? In your essay on corruption and its causes, provide your observations on ideas about why people who hold power allow the grafts.
• Systemic corruption in China . China has one of the strictest laws on this issue. However, crime still exists. Research this topic and provide your observations on the reasons.
• The success of Asian Tigers . Explore how the four countries reduced corruption crime rates. What is the secret of their success? What can we learn from them?
• Lee Kuan Yew and his fight against corruption. Research how Singapore’s legislation influenced the elimination of this crime.
• Corruption in education. Examine the types in higher education institutions . Why does corruption occur?
• Gifts and bribes . You may choose to analyze the ethical side of gifts in business. Can it be a bribe? In what cases?
• Cronyism and nepotism in business . Examine these forms of corruption as a part of Chinese culture.
• Kickbacks and bribery . How do these two terms are related, and what are the ways to prevent them?
• Corporate fraud . Examine the bribery, payoffs, and kickbacks as a phenomenon in the business world. Point out the similarities and differences.
• Anti-bribery compliance in corporations. Explore how transnational companies fight with the misuse of funds by contractors from developing countries.
• The ethical side of payoffs. How can payoffs harm someone’s reputation? Provide your point of view of why this type of corporate fraud is unethical.
• The reasons for corruption of public officials .
• Role of auditors in the fight against fraud and corruption.
• The outcomes of corruption in public administration .
• How to eliminate corruption in the field of criminal justice .
• Is there a connection between corruption and drug abuse ?
• The harm corruption does to the economic development of countries .
• The role of anti-bribery laws in fighting financial crimes.
• Populist party brawl against corruption and graft.
• An example of incorrigible corruption in business: Enron scandal .
• The effective ways to prevent corruption .
• The catastrophic consequences of corruption in healthcare .
• How regular auditing can prevent embezzlement and financial manipulation.
• Correlation between poverty and corruption .
• Unethical behavior and corruption in football business.
• Corruption in oil business: British Petroleum case.
• Are corruption and bribery socially acceptable in Central Asian states ?
• What measures should a company take to prevent bribery among its employees?
• Ways to eliminate and prevent cases of police corruption .
• Gift-giving traditions and corruption in the world’s culture.
• Breaking business obligations : embezzlement and fraud.

These invaluable tips will help you to get through any kind of essay. You are welcome to use these ideas and writing tips whenever you need to write this type of academic paper. Share the guide with those who may need it for their essay on corruption.

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🔗 References

• Public Corruption: FBI, U.S. Department of Justice
• Anti-Corruption and Transparency: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
• United Nations Convention against Corruption: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
• Corruption Essay: Cram
• How to Construct an Essay: Josh May
• Essay Writing: University College Birmingham
• Structuring the Essay: Research & Learning Online
• Insights from U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre: Medium
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Essay on Corruption for Students and Children

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.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

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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5 Essays About Corruption

Internationally, there is no legal definition of corruption, but it includes bribery, illegal profit, abuse of power, embezzlement, and more. Corrupt activities are illegal, so they are discreet and done in secrecy. Depending on how deep the corruption goes, there may be many people aware of what’s going on, but they choose to do nothing because they’ve been bribed or they’re afraid of retaliation. Any system can become corrupt. Here are five essays that explore where corruption exists, its effects, and how it can be addressed.

Learn more about anti-corruption in a free course .

Corruption in Global Health: The Open Secret

Dr. Patricia J. Garcia The Lancet (2019)

In this published lecture, Dr. Garcia uses her experience as a researcher, public health worker, and Minister of Health to draw attention to corruption in health systems. She explores the extent of the problem, its origins, and what’s happening in the present day. Additional topics include ideas on how to address the problem and why players like policymakers and researchers need to think about corruption as a disease. Dr. Garcia states that corruption is one of the most significant barriers to global universal health coverage.

Dr. Garcia is the former Minister of Health of Peru and a leader in global health. She also works as a professor and researcher/trainer in global health, STI/HIV, HPV, medical informatics, and reproductive health. She’s the first Peruvian to be appointed as a member to the United States National Academy of Medicine

‘Are women leaders less corrupt? No, but they shake things up”

Stella Dawson Reuters (2012)

This piece takes a closer look at the idea that more women in power will mean less corruption. Reality is more complicated than that. Women are not less vulnerable to corruption in terms of their resistance to greed, but there is a link between more female politicians and less corruption. The reason appears to be that women are simply more likely to achieve more power in democratic, open systems that are less tolerant of corruption. A better gender balance also means more effective problem-solving. This piece goes on to give some examples of lower corruption in systems with more women and the complexities. While this particular essay is old, newer research still supports that more women in power is linked to better ethics and lower corruption levels into systems, though women are not inherently less corrupt.

Stella Dawson left Reuters in 2015, where she worked as a global editor for economics and markets. At the Thomson Reuters Foundation and 100Reporters, she headed a network of reporters focusing on corruption issues. Dawson has been featured as a commentator for BBC, CNB, C-Span, and public radio.

“Transparency isn’t the solution to corruption – here’s why”

David Riverios Garcia One Young World

Many believe that corruption can be solved with transparency, but in this piece, Garcia explains why that isn’t the case. He writes that governments have exploited new technology (like open data platforms and government-monitoring acts) to appear like they care about corruption, but, in Garcia’s words, “transparency means nothing without accountability.” Garcia focuses on corruption in Latin America, including Paraguay where Garcia is originally from. He describes his background as a young anti-corruption activist, what he’s learned, and what he considers the real solution to corruption.

At the time of this essay’s publication, David Riverios Garcia was an Open Young World Ambassador. He ran a large-scale anti-corruption campaign (reAccion Paraguay), stopping corruption among local high school authorities. He’s also worked on poverty relief and education reform. The Ministry of Education recognized him for his achievements and in 2009, he was selected by the US Department of State as one of 10 Paraguayan Youth Ambassadors.

“What the World Could Teach America About Policing”

Yasmeen Serhan The Atlantic (2020)

The American police system has faced significant challenges with public trust for decades. In 2020, those issues have erupted and the country is at a tipping point. Corruption is rampant through the system. What can be done? In this piece, the author gives examples of how other countries have managed reform. These reforms include first dismantling the existing system, then providing better training. Once that system is off the ground, there needs to be oversight. Looking at other places in the world that have successfully made radical changes is essential for real change in the United States.

Atlantic staff writer Yasmeen Serhan is based in London.

“$2.6 Trillion Is Lost to Corruption Every Year — And It Hurts the Poor the Most”

Joe McCarthy Global Citizen (2018)

This short piece is a good introduction to just how significant the effects of corruption are. Schools, hospitals, and other essential services suffer, while the poorest and most vulnerable society carry the heaviest burdens. Because of corruption, these services don’t get the funding they need. Cycles of corruption erode citizens’ trust in systems and powerful government entities. What can be done to end the cycle?

Joe McCarthy is a staff writer for Global Citizen. He writes about global events and environmental issues.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Here are 10 ways to fight corruption

Robert hunja.

4. It’s not 1999: Use the power of technology to build dynamic and continuous exchanges between key stakeholders: government, citizens, business, civil society groups, media, academia etc.   5. Deliver the goods: Invest in institutions and policy – sustainable improvement in how a government delivers services is only possible if the people in these institutions endorse sensible rules and practices that allow for change while making the best use of tested traditions and legacies – imported models often do not work.   6. Get incentives right: Align anti-corruption measures with market, behavioral, and social forces. Adopting integrity standards is a smart business decision, especially for companies interested in doing business with the World Bank Group and other development partners.   7. Sanctions matter:  Punishing corruption is a vital component of any effective anti-corruption effort.   8. Act globally and locally:  Keep citizens engaged on corruption at local, national, international and global levels – in line with the scale and scope of corruption. Make use of the architecture that has been developed and the platforms that exist for engagement.   9. Build capacity for those who need it most: Countries that  suffer from chronic fragility, conflict and violence– are often the ones that have the fewest internal resources to combat corruption. Identify ways to leverage international resources to support and sustain good governance.   10. Learn by doing: Any good  strategy must be continually monitored  and evaluated to make sure it can be easily adapted as  situations on the ground change. What are other ways we could fight corruption? Tell us in the comments. 

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Corruption is a Global Problem for Development. To Fight It, We All Have a Role to Play

Oped published in French in La Tribune Afrique, June 13, 2023.

Oped by Ousmane Diagana, World Bank Vice President for Western and Central Africa and Mouhamadou Diagne, World Bank Vice President for Integrity.

Every day, we hear about the onslaught of crises facing the world—from climate change to conflict, inflation and debt, and the ongoing recovery from a years-long pandemic. Add to them the prospect of slow economic growth , and our efforts to overcome these challenges seem rife with obstacles. For developing countries, many with limited and already stretched resources, the confluence of crises will be especially difficult to navigate.

But if we are to achieve success over the challenges of our time, there is one scourge we cannot fail to confront: corruption.

The unfortunate truth is that corruption persists in all countries. It manifests in many ways—from petty bribes and kickbacks to grand theft of public resources. With advances in technology, corruption has increasingly become a transnational challenge without respect for borders, as money can now move more easily in and out of countries to hide illicit gains.

Corruption is also a fundamental problem for development.

Corruption harms the poor and vulnerable the most, increasing costs and reducing access to basic services, such as health, education, social programs, and even justice. It exacerbates inequality and reduces private sector investment to the detriment of markets, job opportunities, and economies. Corruption can also undermine a country’s response to emergencies, leading to unnecessary suffering and, at worst, death. Over time, corruption can undermine the trust and confidence that citizens have for their leaders and institutions, creating social friction and in some contexts increasing the risk of fragility, conflict, and violence.

To prevent these negative impacts, we must confront corruption with determined and deliberate action. For the World Bank Group, fighting corruption in development has been a long-standing commitment in our operational work. This commitment is reflected in our support for countries in building transparent, inclusive, and accountable institutions , but also through initiatives that go beyond developing countries to also include financial centers, take on the politics of corruption more openly than before, and harness new technologies to understand, address, and prevent corruption.  

Indeed, across western and central Africa in particular, it is one of the World Bank Group’s strategic priorities to emphasize issues of good governance, accountability, and transparency among our partner countries, with the aim of reducing corruption. We recognize that transparency in public affairs and the accountability of high-level officials are fundamental to the trust of citizens in their government and the effective delivery of public services. Working to rebuild and bolster trust between citizens and the state is critical today, especially in countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence that make up half of the countries in this region alone.

Across Africa, World Bank Group support is helping countries face these challenges. Recent investments in the Republic of Congo , Ghana , and Morocco , for example, will support institutional governance reforms to improve the performance and transparency of service delivery. In Kenya, our support will further fiscal management reforms for greater transparency in public procurement , thereby reducing opportunities for corruption. Strengthening citizen-state engagement is key: In Burkina Faso, for example, a World Bank-funded project helped the national government improve citizen engagement and public sector accountability through the development of a digital tool to monitor the performance of municipal service delivery. 

The World Bank Group’s commitment to fighting corruption is also reflected in robust mechanisms across the institution that enhance the integrity of our operations. Our independent Integrity Vice Presidency (INT) works to detect, deter, and prevent fraud and corruption involving World Bank Group funds. Over two decades of INT’s work, the World Bank has sanctioned more than 1,100 firms and individuals, often imposing debarments that make them ineligible to participate in the projects and operations we finance. In addition, we have enforced more than 640 cross-debarments from other multilateral development banks, standing with our MDB partners to help keep corruption out of development projects everywhere. Nevertheless, we must remain vigilant to the risks of fraud and corruption that remain.

The World Bank Group also leverages its position as global convener to support anticorruption actors at all levels and from around the world. That is why we are pleased to have organized the next edition of the World Bank Group’s International Corruption Hunters Alliance (ICHA) to take place in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, on June 14-16, 2023.

The ICHA forum is an opportunity for front-line practitioners committed to fighting corruption as well as policy makers and representatives from the private sector and civil society, to come together to share knowledge, experience, and insights for confronting corruption. For the first time since its inception in 2010, we are hosting the ICHA forum in an African country. This reflects the reality that the negative impacts of corruption can be more devastating for developing countries, who face unique challenges and have fewer resources to overcome them. Yet, it also acknowledges that there is a wealth of anticorruption strengths, skills, and expertise from these countries that we must draw upon.

Together, we can affirm that through our collective action, we can advance the fight against corruption even in an era of crises.  

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Essay on Corruption

Students are often asked to write an essay on Corruption in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Corruption

Understanding corruption.

Corruption is a dishonest behavior by a person in power. It can include bribery or embezzlement. It’s bad because it can hurt society and slow down progress.

Types of Corruption

There are many types of corruption. Bribery is when someone pays to get an unfair advantage. Embezzlement is when someone steals money they’re supposed to look after.

Effects of Corruption

Corruption can lead to inequality and injustice. It can make people lose trust in the government and can cause social unrest.

Fighting Corruption

To fight corruption, we need strong laws and honest leaders. Education can also help people understand why corruption is harmful.

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250 Words Essay on Corruption

Introduction.

Corruption, a pervasive and longstanding phenomenon, is a complex issue that undermines social and economic development in all societies. It refers to the misuse of entrusted power for private gain, eroding trust in public institutions and impeding the efficient allocation of resources.

Manifestations and Impacts of Corruption

Corruption manifests in various forms, including bribery, embezzlement, nepotism, and fraud. Its impacts are far-reaching, affecting socio-economic landscapes. Economically, it stifles growth by deterring foreign and domestic investments. Socially, it exacerbates income inequality and hampers the provision of public services.

Anti-Corruption Strategies

Addressing corruption requires a multi-faceted approach. Legislation and law enforcement are critical, but they must be complemented with preventive measures. Transparency, accountability, and good governance practices are key preventive strategies. Technology can also play a significant role, particularly in promoting transparency and reducing opportunities for corrupt practices.

Corruption is a global issue that requires collective action. While governments bear the primary responsibility for curbing corruption, the involvement of civil society, media, and the private sector is indispensable. Thus, the fight against corruption is a shared responsibility, requiring the commitment and efforts of all sectors of society.

500 Words Essay on Corruption

Corruption, an insidious plague with a wide range of corrosive effects on societies, is a multifaceted phenomenon with deep roots in bureaucratic and political institutions. It undermines democracy, hollows out the rule of law, and hampers economic development. This essay explores the concept of corruption, its implications, and potential solutions.

The Nature of Corruption

Corruption is a complex social, political, and economic anomaly that affects all countries. At its simplest, it involves the misuse of public power for private gain. However, it extends beyond this to encompass a wide range of behaviors – from grand corruption involving large sums of money at the highest levels of government, to petty corruption that is prevalent at the grassroots.

Implications of Corruption

Corruption poses a significant threat to sustainable development and democracy. It undermines the government’s ability to provide essential services and erodes public trust in institutions. Furthermore, it exacerbates income inequality, as it allows the wealthy and powerful to manipulate economic and political systems to their advantage.

Corruption also hampers economic development by distorting market mechanisms. It discourages foreign and domestic investments, inflates costs, and breeds inefficiency. Additionally, it can lead to misallocation of resources, as corrupt officials may divert public resources for personal gain.

The Root Causes

The causes of corruption are multifaceted and deeply ingrained in societal structures. They include lack of transparency, accountability, and weak rule of law. Institutional weaknesses, such as inadequate checks and balances, also contribute to corruption. Cultural factors, such as societal acceptance or expectation of corruption, can further perpetuate the problem.

Combating Corruption

Addressing corruption requires a multifaceted approach that targets its root causes. Enhancing transparency and accountability in public administration is crucial. This can be achieved through the use of technology, such as e-governance, which reduces the opportunities for corruption.

Legal reforms are also essential to strengthen the rule of law and ensure that corrupt practices are adequately punished. Additionally, fostering a culture of ethics and integrity in society can help to change attitudes towards corruption.

Furthermore, international cooperation is key in the fight against corruption, particularly in the context of globalized finance. Cross-border corruption issues, such as money laundering, require coordinated international responses.

In conclusion, corruption is a pervasive and complex issue that undermines social, economic, and political progress. Addressing it requires a comprehensive approach that includes institutional reforms, cultural change, and international cooperation. While the fight against corruption is challenging, it is crucial for achieving sustainable development and social justice. By fostering a culture of transparency, accountability, and integrity, societies can effectively combat corruption and build a more equitable future.

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Seven Steps to Control of Corruption: The Road Map

After a comprehensive test of today’s anticorruption toolkit, it seems that the few tools that do work are effective only in contexts where domestic agency exists. Therefore, the time has come to draft a comprehensive road map to inform evidence-based anticorruption efforts. This essay recommends that international donors join domestic civil societies in pursuing a common long-term strategy and action plan to build national public integrity and ethical universalism. In other words, this essay proposes that coordination among donors should be added as a specific precondition for improving governance in the WHO’s Millennium Development Goals. This essay offers a basic tool for diagnosing the rule governing allocation of public resources in a given country, recommends some fact-based change indicators to follow, and outlines a plan to identify the human agency with a vested interest in changing the status quo. In the end, the essay argues that anticorruption interventions must be designed to empower such agency on the basis of a joint strategy to reduce opportunities for and increase constraints on corruption, and recommends that experts exclude entirely the tools that do not work in a given national context.

ALINA MUNGIU-PIPPIDI is Professor of Democracy Studies at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. She chairs the European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building (ERCAS), where she managed the FP7 research project ANTICORRP. She is the author of  The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption  (2015) and  A Tale of Two Villages: Coerced Modernization in the East European Countryside  (2010).

T he last two decades of unprecedented anticorruption activity – including the adoption of an international legal framework, the emergence of an anticorruption civil society, the introduction of governance-related aid conditionality, and the rise of a veritable anticorruption industry – have been marred by stagnation in the evolution of good governance, ratings of which have remained flat for most of the countries in the world.

The World Bank’s 2017 Control of Corruption aggregate rating showed that twenty-two countries progressed significantly in the past twenty years and twenty-five regressed. Of the countries showing progress on corruption, nineteen were rated as either “free” or “partly free” by Freedom House (a democracy watchdog that measures governance via political rights and civil liberties); only seven were judged “not free.” 1 Our governance measures are too new to allow us to look further into the past; still, it seems that governance change has much in common with climate change: it occurs only slowly, and the role that humans play involuntarily seems always to matter more than what they do with intent.

External aid and its attached conditionality are considered an essential component of efforts to enable developing countries to deliver decent public services on the principle of ethical universalism (in which everyone is treated equally and fairly). However, a panel data set (collected from 110 developing countries that received aid from the European Union and its member states between 2002 and 2014) shows little evolution of fair service delivery in countries receiving conditional aid. Bilateral aid from the largest European donors does not have significant impact on governance in recipient countries, while multilateral financial assistance from EU institutions such as the Office of Development Assistance (which provides aid conditional on good governance) produces only a small improvement in the governance indicators of the net recipients. Dedicated aid to good-governance and corruption initiatives within multilateral aid packages has no sizable effect, whether on public-sector functionality or anticorruption. 2 Countries like Georgia, Vanuatu, Rwanda, Macedonia, Bhutan, and Uruguay, which have managed to evolve more than one point on a one-to-ten scale from 2002 to 2014, are outliers. In other words, they evolved disproportionately given the EU aid per capita that they received, while countries that received the most aid (such as Turkey, Egypt, and Ukraine) had rather disappointing results.

So how, if at all, can an external actor such as a donor agency influence the transition of a society from corruption as a governance norm , wherein public resource distribution is systematically biased in favor of authority holders and those connected with them, to corruption as an exception , a state that is largely independent from private interest and that allocates public resources based on ethical universalism? Can such a process be engineered? How do the current anticorruption tools promoted by the international community perform in delivering this result?

Looking at the governance progress indicators outlined above, one might wonder whether efforts to change the quality of government in other countries are doomed from the outset. The incapacity of international donors to help push any country above the threshold of good governance during the past twenty years of the global crusade against corruption seems over- rather than under-explained. For one, corrupt countries are generally run by corrupt people with little interest in killing their own rents, although they may find it convenient to adopt international treaties or domestic legislation that are nominally dedicated to anticorruption efforts. Furthermore, countries in which informal institutions have long been substituted for formal ones have a tradition of surviving untouched by formal legal changes that may be forced upon them. One popular saying from the post-Soviet world expresses the view that “the inadequacy of the laws is corrected by their non-observance.” 3

Explicit attempts of donor countries and international organizations to change governance across borders might appear a novel phenomenon, but are they actually so very different from older endeavors to “modernize” and “civilize” poorer countries and change their domestic institutions to replicate allegedly superior, “universal” ones? Describing similar attempts by the ancient Greeks – and also their rather poor impact – historian Arnaldo Momig­liano writes: “The Greeks were seldom in a position to check what natives told them: they did not know the languages. The natives, on the other hand, being bilingual, had a shrewd idea of what the Greeks wanted to hear and spoke accordingly. This reciprocal position did not make for sincerity and real understanding.” 4

Many factors speak against the odds of success of international donors’ efforts to change governance practices, especially government-funded ones. One such factor is the incentives facing donor countries themselves: they want first and foremost to care for national companies investing abroad and their business opportunities; reduce immigration from poor countries; and generate jobs for their development industry. Even if donor countries would prefer that poor countries govern better, reduce corruption, and adopt Western values, they also have to play their cards realistically. Thus, donor countries often end up avoiding the root of the problem: when the choice is between their own economic interests and more idealistic commitments to better governance, the former usually wins out.

T he first question a policy analyst should ask, therefore, is not how to go about altering governance in developing countries, but whether the promotion of good governance and anticorruption is worth doing at all, self-serving reasons aside. I have addressed these questions in greater detail elsewhere; this essay assumes a donor has already made the decision to intervene. 5 The evidence on the basis of which such decisions are made is often poor, but realistically, due to the other policy objectives mentioned above (such as the exigencies of participation in the global economy), international donors will continue to give aid systematically to corrupt countries. As long as one thinks a country is worth granting assistance to, preventing aid money from feeding corruption in the recipient country becomes an obligation to one’s own taxpayers. For the sake of the recipient country, too, ensuring that such money is used to do good, rather than actually to funnel more resources into local informal institutions and predatory elites, seems more of an obligation than a choice.

While our knowledge of how to establish a norm of ethical universalism is still far from sufficient, I will outline a road map toward making corruption the exception rather than the rule in recipient countries. To do so, I draw on one of the largest social-science research projects undertaken by the European Union, ANTICORRP, which was conducted between 2013 and 2017 and was dedicated to systematically assessing the impact of public anticorruption tools and the contexts that enable them. I follow the consequences of the evidence to suggest a methodology for the design of an anticorruption strategy for external donors and their counterparts in domestic civil societies. 6

Many anticorruption policies and programs have been declared successful, but no country has yet achieved control of corruption through the prescriptions attached to international assistance. 7 To proceed, we must also clarify what constitutes “success” in anticorruption reforms. Success can only mean a consolidated dominant norm of ethical universalism and public integrity. Exceptions, in the form of corrupt acts, will always remain, but if they are numerous enough to be the rule, a country cannot be called an achiever. A successful transformation requires both a dominant norm of public integrity (wherein the majority of acts and public officials are noncorrupt) and the sustainability of that norm across at least two or three electoral cycles.

Q uite a few developing countries presently seem to be struggling in a borderline area in which old and new norms confront one another. This is why popular demand for leadership integrity has been loudly proclaimed in headlines from countries such as South Korea, India, Brazil, Bulgaria, and Romania, but substantially better quality of governance has yet to be achieved there. While the solutions for each and every country will ultimately come from the country itself – and not from some universal toolkit – recent research can contribute to a road map for more evidence-based corruption control.

The first step is to understand that with the exception of the developed world, control of corruption has to be built from the ground up, not “restored.” Most anticorruption approaches are built on the concept that public integrity and ethical universalism are already global norms of governance. This is wrong on two counts, and leads to policy failure. First, at the present moment, most countries are more corrupt than noncorrupt. A histogram of corruption control shows that developing countries range between two and six on a one-to-ten scale, with some borderline cases in between (see Figure 1). Countries scoring in the upper third are a minority, so a development agency is more likely than not to be dealing with a situation in which corruption is not only a norm but an institutionalized practice. Development agencies need to understand corruption as a social practice or institution, not just as a sum of individual corrupt acts. Further, presuming that ethical universalism is the default is wrong from a developmental perspective, since even countries in which ethical universalism is the governance norm were not always this way: from sales of offices to class privileges and electoral corruption, the histories of even the cleanest countries show that good governance is the product of evolution, and modernity a long and frequently incomplete endeavor to develop state autonomy in the face of private group interests.

Figure 1 Particularism versus Ethical Universalism: Distribution of Countries on the Control of Corruption Continuum

Source: The World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators, Control of Corruption, http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/#home distribution . Distribution recoded 1–10 (with Denmark 10). The number of countries for each score is noted on each column.

Institutionalized corruption is based on the informal institution of particularism (treating individuals differently according to their status), which is prevalent in collectivistic and status-based societies. Particularism frequently results in patrimonialism (the use of public office for private profit), turning public office into a perpetual source of spoils. 8 Public corruption thrives on power inequality and the incapacity of the weak to prevent the strong from appropriating the state and spoiling public resources. Particularism encompasses a variety of interpersonal and personal-state transaction types, such as clientelism, bribery, patronage, nepotism, and other favoritisms, all of which imply some degree of patrimonialism when an authority-holder is concerned. Particularism not only defines the relations between a government and its subjects, but also between individuals in a society; it explains why advancement in a given society might be based on status or connections with influential people rather than on merit.

The outcome associated with the prevalence of particularism – a regular pattern of preferential distribution of public goods toward those who hold more power – has been termed “limited-access order” by economists Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast; “extractive institutions” by economist Daron Acemoglu and political scientist James Robinson; and “patrimonialism” by political scientist Francis Fukuyama. 9 Essentially, though, all these categories overlap and all the authors acknowledge that particularism rather than ethical universalism is closer to the state of nature (or the default social organization), and that its opposite, a norm of open and equal access or public integrity, is by no means guaranteed by political evolution and indeed has only ever been achieved in a few cases thus far. The first countries to achieve good control of corruption – among them Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Prussia – were also the first to modernize and, in Max Weber’s term, to “rationalize.” This implies an evolution from brutal material interests (espoused, for instance, by Spanish conquistadors who appropriated the gold and silver of the New World) to a more rationalistic and capitalistic channeling of economic surplus, underpinned by an ideology of personal austerity and achievement. The market and capitalism, despite their obvious limitations, gradually emerged in these cases as the main ways of allocating resources, replacing the previous system of discretionary allocation by means of more or less organized violence. The past century and a half has seen a multitude of attempts around the world to replicate these few advanced cases of Western modernization. However, a reduction in the arbitrariness and power discretion of rulers, as occurred in the West and some Western Anglo-Saxon colonies, has not taken place in many other countries, regardless of whether said rulers were monopolists or won power through contested elections. Despite adopting most of the formal institutions associated with Western modernity – such as constitutions, political parties, elections, bureaucracies, free markets, and courts – many countries never managed to achieve a similar rationalization of both the state and the broader society. 10 Many modern institutions exist only in form, substituted by informal institutions that are anything but modern. That is why treating corruption as deviation is problematic in developing countries: it leads to investing in norm-enforcing instruments, when the norm-building instruments that are in fact needed are quite different. Strangely enough, developed countries display extraordinary resistance to addressing corruption as a development-related rather than moral problem. This is why our Western anticorruption techniques look much like an invasion of the temperance league in a pub on Friday night: a lot of noise with no consequence. Scholars contribute to the inefficacy of interventions by perpetuating theoretical distinctions that are of poor relevance even in the developed world (such as “bureaucratic versus political” or “grand versus petty” corruption), which inform us only of the opportunities that somebody has to be corrupt. As those opportunities simply vary according to one’s station in life (a minister exhorting an energy company for a contract is simply using his grand station in a perfectly similar way to a petty doctor who required a gift to operate or a policeman requiring a bribe not to give a fine), such distinctions are not helpful or conceptually meaningful. In countries where the practice of particularism is dominant, disentangling political from bureaucratic corruption also does not work, since rulers appoint “bureaucrats” on the basis of personal or party allegiance and the two collude in extracting resources. Even distinguishing victims from perpetrators is not easy in a context of institutionalized corruption. In a developing country, an electricity distribution company, for instance, might be heavily indebted to the state but still provide rents (such as well-paid jobs) to people in government and their cronies and eventually contribute funds to their electoral campaigns. For their part, consumers defend themselves by not paying bills and actually stealing massively from the grid, and controllers take moderate bribes to leave the situation as it is. The result is constant electricity shortages and a situation to which everybody (or nearly everybody) contributes, and which has to be understood and addressed holistically and not artificially separated into types of corruption.

The second step is diagnosing the norm. If we conceive governance as a set of formal rules and informal practices determining who gets which public resources, we can then place any country on a continuum with full particularism at one end and full ethical universalism at the other. There are two main questions that we have to answer. What is the dominant norm (and practice) for social allocation: merit and work, or status and connections to authority? And how does this compare to the formal norm – such as the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), or the country’s own regulation – and to the general degree of modernity in the society? For instance, merit-based advancement in civil service may not work as the default norm, but it may in the broader society, for instance in universities and private businesses. The tools to begin this assessment are the Worldwide Governance Indicator Control of Corruption, an aggregate of all perception scores (Figure 1); and the composite, mostly fact-based Index for Public Integrity that I developed with my team (which is highly correlated with perception indicators). Any available public-opinion poll on governance can complete the picture (one standard measure is the Global Corruption Barometer, which is organized by Transparency International). Simply put, the majority of respondents in countries in the upper tercile of the Control of Corruption indicators feel that no personal ties are needed to access a public service, while those in the lower two-thirds will in all likelihood indicate that personal connections or material inducement are necessary (albeit in different proportions). Within the developed European Union, only in Northern Europe does a majority of citizens believe that the state and markets work impartially. The United States, developed Commonwealth countries, and Japan round out the top tercile. The next set of countries, around six and seven on the scale, already exhibit far more divided public opinion, showing that the two norms coexist and possibly compete. 11 In countries where the norm of particularism is dominant and access is limited, surveys show majorities opining that government only works in the favor of the few; that people are not equal in the eyes of the law; and that connections, not merit, drive success in both the public and private sectors. Bribery often emerges as a substitute for or a complement to a privileged connection; when administration discretion is high, favoritism is the rule of the game, so bribes may be needed to gain access, even for those with some preexisting privilege. A thorough analysis needs to determine whether favoritism is dominant and how material and status-based favoritism relate to one another in order to weigh useful policy answers. Are they complementary, compensatory, or competitive? When the dominant norm is particularistic, collusive practices are widespread, including not only a fusion of interests between appointed and elected office holders and civil servants more generally, but also the capture of law enforcement agencies.

The second step, diagnosis, needs to be completed by fact-based indicators that allow us to trace prevalence and change. Fortunately for the analyst (but unfortunately for everyone else), since corrupt societies are, in Max Weber’s words, status societies , where wealth is only a vehicle to obtain greater status, we do not need Panama-Papers revelations to see corruption. Systematic corrupt practices are noticeable both directly and through their outcomes: lavish houses of poorly paid officials, great fortunes made of public contracts, and the poor quality of public works. Particularism results in privilege to some (favoritism) and discrimination to others, outcomes that can both be measured. 12

Table 1 illustrates how these two contexts – corruption as norm and corruption as exception – differ essentially, and shows that different measures must be taken to define, assess, and respond to corruption in either case. An individual is corrupt when engaging in a corrupt act, regardless of whether he or she is a public or private actor. The dominant analytic framework of the literature on corruption is the principal-agent paradigm, wherein agents (for example government officials) are individuals authorized to act on behalf of a principal (for example a government). To diagnose an organization or a country as “corrupt,” we have to establish that corruption is the norm: in other words, that corrupt transactions are prevalent. When such practices are the exception, the corrupt agent is simply a deviant and can be sanctioned by the principal if identified. When such practices are the norm, corruption occurs on an organized scale, extracting resources disproportionately in favor of the most powerful group. Telling the principal from the agent can be quite impossible in these cases due to generalized collusion (the organization is by privileged status groups, patron-client pyramids, or networks of extortion) and fighting corruption means solving social dilemmas and issues around discretionary use of power. Most people operate by conformity, and conformity always works in favor of the status quo: if ethical universalism is already the norm in a society, conformity helps to enforce public integrity; if favoritism and clientelism are the norm, few people will dissent. The difference between corruption as a rule and corruption as a norm shows in observable, measurable phenomena. In contexts with clearer public-private separation, it is more difficult to discover corrupt acts, requiring whistleblowers or some time for a conflict of interest to unfold (as with revolving doors, through which the official collects benefits from his favor by getting a cushy job later with a private company). In contexts where patrimonialism is widespread, there is no need for whistleblowers: officials grant state contracts to themselves or their families, use their public car and driver to take their mother-in-law shopping, and so forth – all in publicly observable displays (see Table 1).

Table 1 Corruption as Governance Context

Efforts to measure corruption should aim at gauging the prevalence of favoritism, measuring how many transactions are impersonal and by-the-book, and how many are not. Observations for measurement can be drawn from all the transactions that a government agency, sector, or entire state engages in, from regulation to spending. The results of these observations allow us to monitor change over time in a country’s capacity to control corruption. Even anecdotal evidence can be a good way to gauge changes to corruption over long periods: twenty years ago, for example, it was customary even in some developed countries for companies bidding for public contracts to consult among themselves; today this is widely understood to be a collusive practice and has been made illegal in many countries. These indicators signal essential changes of context that we need to trace in developing countries and indeed to use to create our good governance targets. If in a given country it is presently customary to pay a bribe to have a telephone line installed, the target is to make this exceptional.

In my previous work, I have given examples of such indicators of corruption norms, including the particularistic distribution of funds for natural disasters, comparisons of turnout and profit for government-connected companies versus unconnected companies, the changing fortunes of market leaders after elections, and the replacement of the original group of market leaders (those connected to the losing political clique) by another well-defined group of market leaders (those connected with election winners). The data sources for such measurements are the distribution of public contracts, subsidies, tax breaks, government subnational transfers; in short, basically any allocation of public resources, including through legislation (laws are ideal instruments to trade favors for personal profit). If such data exist in a digital format, which is increasingly the case in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and even China, it becomes feasible to monitor, for example, how many public contracts go to companies belonging to officials or how many people put their relatives on public payrolls. Ensuring that data sources like these are made open and universally accessible by public or semipublic entities (such as government and Register of Commerce data) is itself a valid and worthy target for donors. The method works even when data are not digitized: through simple requests for information, as most countries in the world have freedom of information acts. Inaccessibility of public data opens an entire avenue for donor action unto itself: supporting freedom-of-information legislation also supports anticorruption efforts, since lack of transparency and corruption are correlated.

N ow that targets have been established, the fourth step is solving the problem of domestic agency. By and large, countries can achieve control of corruption in two ways. The first is surreptitious: policy-makers and politicians change institutions incrementally until open access, free competition, and meritocracy become dominant, even though that may not have been a main collective goal. This has worked for many developed countries in the past. The second method is to make a concerted effort to foster collective agency and investment in anticorruption efforts specifically, eventually leading to the rule of law and control of corruption delivered as public goods. This can occur after sustained anticorruption campaigns in a country where particularism is engrained. Both paths require human agency. In the former, the role of agency is small. Reforms slip by with little opposition, since they are not perceived as being truly dangerous to anybody’s rents, and do not therefore need great heroism to be pushed through; just common sense, professionalism, and a public demand for government performance. The latter scenario, however, requires considerable effort and alignment of both interests favoring change and an ideology of ethical universalism. Identifying the human agency that can deliver the change therefore becomes essential to selecting a well-functioning anticorruption strategy.

Changing governance across borders is a difficult task even under military occupation. Leaving external actors aside, a country’s governance can push corruption from norm to exception either through the actions of an enlightened despot (the king of Denmark model beginning in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), an enlightened elite (as in the British and American cases), or by an enlightened mass of citizens (the famous “middle class” of political modernization theory). Enlightened despots do appear periodically (the kingdom of Bhutan is the current example of shining governance reforms, after the classic example of Botswana, where the chief of the largest tribe became a democratically elected president). Enlightened elites can perhaps be engineered (this is what George Soros and the Open Society Foundation have tried to do, with one of the results being a great mobilization against elites in less democratic countries), and countries that have them (like Estonia, Georgia, Chile, and Uruguay) have evolved further than their neighbors. Enlightened and organized citizens must reach a critical mass; and regardless how strong a demand for good governance they put up, they cannot do much without an alternative and autonomous elite that is able to take over from the corrupt one. As the recent South Korean case has proved, entrusting power at the top to former elites leads to an immediate return to former practices; however, in that case, the society had sufficiently evolved in the interval to defend itself.

In principle, donors can work with enlightened despots, attempt to socialize enlightened elites to some extent, and help civil society and “enlightened” citizens. But, in practice, this does not go so well. Donors seem by default to treat every corrupt government as though it were run by an enlightened despot, entrusting it with the ownership of anticorruption programs. These, of course, will never take off, not only because they are more often than not the wrong programs, but because implementing them would run counter to the main interests of these principals. Additionally, this approach is not sustainable: pro-Western elites are so scarce these days that checking their anticorruption credentials often becomes problematic. Take the tiny post-Soviet republic of Moldova, which could never afford to punish anyone from the Russian-organized crime syndicates that control part of its economy and even a breakaway province thriving on weapons smuggling. Due to international anticorruption efforts, a prime minister was jailed for eight years for “abuse of function” – actually for failing to prevent cybercrime – despite the fact that he held pro-EU policy goals. The better and less repressive approach – designing anticorruption interventions that include society actors as main stakeholders by default, not just working with governments – is rather exceptional, although such an approach might greatly enhance the effectiveness of aid programs in general.

The remaining option, building a critical mass from bottom up, is not easy either, as it basically means competing with patronage and client networks that have a lot to offer the average citizen. “Incentivizing,” another anticorruption-industry buzzword, is really a practical joke. No anticorruption incentive can compete with a diamond mine, a country’s oil income, or, indeed, its whole budget, including assistance funds. Despoilers generally control those rents and distribute them wisely to stay in control. Anticorruption is not a win-win game, it is a game played by societies against their despoilers, and when building accountability, not everybody wins. But if in contemporary times countries like Estonia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Taiwan, Chile, Slovenia, Botswana, and even Georgia are edging over the threshold of good governance through their own agency, we must maintain hope that others can follow.

W e see all around the world that demand for good governance and participation in anticorruption protests have increased – just not sufficiently to change governance. Perhaps there was not enough middle-class growth in the last two decades for that: the Pew Research Center found that between 2001 and 2011, nearly seven hundred million people escaped poverty but did not travel far up enough to be labeled middle-class. 13 Fortunately, the development of smartphones with Internet access provides a great shortcut to fostering individual autonomy and achieving enlightened participation.

Any assistance in increasing the percentage of “enlightened citizens” armed with smartphones is helpful in creating grassroots demand for government transparency; this is why both Internet access and ownership of smartphones are strongly associated with control of corruption. 14 But for our transition strategy we need more: careful stakeholder analysis and coalition building. Brokers of corrupt acts and practitioners of favoritism are not hidden in corrupt societies. Losers are more difficult to find; today’s losers may be tomorrow’s clients. As a ground rule, however, whoever wishes to engage in fair, competitive practices – whether in business or politics – stands to lose in a particularistic society. He or she faces two options: to desert for a more meritocratic realm (hence the close correlation between corruption and brain drain) or to fight. These are our recruitment grounds. It is essential to understand who is invested in challenging the rules of the game and who is invested in defending them; in other words, who are the status quo losers and winners? Who, among the winners, would stay a winner even if more merit-based competition were allowed? Who among the losers would gain? These are the groups that must come together to empower merit and fair competition.

By now, enough evidence should exist to support a theory of change, which in turn informs our strategy. To understand when the status quo will change, we need a theory of why it would change, who would push for the desired evolution, and how donors can assist them to steer the country to a virtuous circle. The main theories informing intervention presently are very general: modernization theory (the theory that increases in education and economic development bring better governance) and state modernization (the belief that building state capacity will also resolve integrity problems). But as there is a very close negative correlation between rule of law and control of corruption, it is the case more often than not that rule of law is absent where corruption is high, so legal approaches to anticorruption (like anticorruption agencies or strong punitive campaigns) can hardly be expected to deliver. 15 The same goes for civil-service capacity building in countries where bureaucracy has never gained its autonomy from rulers. Good governance requires autonomous classes of magistrates and of bureaucrats. These cannot be delivered by capacity-building in the absence of domestic political agency or some major loss of power of ruling elites that could empower bureaucrats. 16 This is why the accountability tools that work in our statistical assessments are those associated with civil-society agency. Voluntary implementation of accountability tools by interested groups (businesses who lose public tenders, for instance, or journalists seeking an audience) works better than implementation by government, which is always found wanting by donors.

In our recent work, my colleagues and I tested a broad panel of anticorruption tools and good governance policies from the World Bank’s Public Accountability Mechanism database. The panel includes nearly all instruments that are either frequently used in practice or specified in the UNCAC: anticorruption agencies, ombudsmen, freedom of information laws (FOIs), immunity protection limitations, conflict of interest legislation, financial disclosures, audit infrastructure improvements, budgetary transparency, party finance restrictions, whistleblower protections, and dedicated legislation. 17 The evidence so far shows that countries that adopt autonomous anticorruption agencies, restrictive party finance legislation, or whistleblower protection acts make no more progress on corruption than countries that do not. 18 The comprehensiveness of anticorruption regulation does not seem to matter either: in fact, the cleanest countries have moderate regulation and excessive regulation is actually associated with more corruption; what matters are the legal arrangements used to generate privileges and rents. In other words, it may well be that a country’s specific anticorruption legislation matters far less in ensuring good control of corruption than its overall “regulatory quality,” which might result precisely from a long process of controlled rent creation and profiteering. 19

Actually, as I have already argued, the empirical evidence suggests corruption control is best described as an equilibrium between opportunities (or resources) for corruption, such as natural resources, unconditional aid, lack of government transparency, administrative discretion, and obstacles to trade, and constraints on corruption, whether legal (an autonomous judiciary and audit) or normative (by the media and civil society). 20 Not only is each element highly influential on corruption, but statistical relationships between resources and constraints are highly significant. Examples include the inverse relationship between red tape and the independence of the judiciary and between transparency in any form (fiscal transparency, existence of an FOI, or financial disclosures) and the direct relationship between civil society activism and press freedom. Using this model, my colleagues and I designed an elegant composite index for public integrity for 109 countries based on policy determinants of control of corruption (which should be seen as the starting point of any diagnosis, since it shows at a first glance where the balance between opportunities and constraints goes wrong). While even evidence-based comparative measures can be criticized for ignoring cross-border corrupt behavior (like hiding corrupt income offshore), from a policy perspective, it still makes the most sense to keep national jurisdiction as the main comparison unit. Basically every anticorruption measure that would limit international resources for corruption is in the power of some national government.

Let’s take the well-known example of Tunisia, whose revolution was catalyzed in late 2010 by an unlicensed street vendor who immolated himself to protest against harassment by local police. Corruption – as inequity of social allocation induced and perpetuated by the government – was one of the main causes of protests. Has the fall of President Ben Ali and his cronies made Tunisians happy? No, because there are as many unemployed youths as before, equally lacking in jobs and hope, and the maze of obstructive regulation and rent seekers who profit by it are the same. If we check Tunisia against countries in its region and income group on the Index of Public Integrity, we see that the revolution has only brought significant progress on press freedom and trade openness. On items such as administrative burden, fiscal transparency, and quality of regulation, the country still has much to do to bring the economy out of the shadows and restore a social contract between society and the state (see Table 2). To get there, policies are needed both to bring the street vendors into the licensed, tax-paying world and to reduce the discretion of policemen.

Examples of specific, successful legislative initiatives exist in the handful of achievers we identified through our measurement index: Uruguay and Georgia, for instance, which have implemented soft formalization policies, tax simplification, and police reform. This is the correct path to follow to control corruption successfully. In a context of generalized lawbreaking fostered by unrealistic legislation, selective enforcement becomes inevitable, and then even anticorruption laws can generate new rents and protect existing ones, reproducing rather than changing the rules of the game. One cannot expect isolated anticorruption measures to work unless opportunities and constraints are brought into balance. For instance, one cannot ask Nigeria to create a register for foreign-owned businesses in order to trace beneficial ownership (as is the standard procedure for anticorruption consultants) without formalizing and registering (hopefully electronically) all property in Nigeria, a long-standing development goal with important implications for corruption. It is quite important, therefore, that we understand and act on both sides of this balance. Working on just one side only creates more distance between formal and informal institutions, which is already a serious problem in corrupt countries.

Figure 2 Control of Corruption as Interaction between Resources and Constraints

Source: Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Ramin Dadasov, “Measuring Control of Corruption by a New Index of Public Integrity,” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 22 (3) (2016).

Table 2 Tunisia’s Public Integrity Framework

Note: On the Index of Public Integrity, Tunisia scores 6.40 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 as the best, and ranks 59th out of 109 countries. Source: Index of Public Integrity, 2015, http://www.integrity-index.org .

The sixth step on the road map is for international donors to get together to implement a strategy to fix this imbalance. In the same way the Millennium Development goals required coordination and multiyear planning, making the majority of transactions clean rather than corrupt requires long-term strategic planning. The goals are not just to reduce corruption with isolated interventions, but to build public integrity in many countries – a clear development goal – and to refrain from punishing deviation. The joint planners of such efforts should begin by sponsoring a diagnostic effort using objective indicators and subsequently launch coordinated efforts to reduce resources and increase constraints. This collaboration-based approach also allows donors to diversify their efforts, as some may have strengths in building civil society, others in market development reforms, and others still in increasing Internet access. Freedom of the press receives insufficient support, and seldom the kind it needs (what media needs in corrupt countries is clean media investment, not training for investigative journalists).

Finally, international donors must set the example. They should publicize what they fund and how they structure the process of aid allocation itself. Those at the apex of the donor-coordination strategy ought to agree upon aid-related good-governance conditions and enforce them across the board. Aid recipients – including particular governments, subnational government units or agencies, and aid intermediaries – should qualify for receiving aid transfers only if they publish in advance all their calls for tenders and their awards, which would allow monitoring the percentage of transparent and competitive bids out of the total procurement budget. Why not make the full transparency of all recipients the main condition for selection? Such indicators could also be useful to trace evolution (or lack thereof) from one year to another. On top of this, using social accountability more decisively, for instance by involving pro-change local groups in planning and audits of aid projects, would also empower these groups and set an example for how local stakeholders should monitor public spending. These gestures of transparency and inclusiveness toward the societies that donors claim to help – and not just their rulers – would bring real benefits for both sides and enhance the reputation of development aid.

1 Count based on the Worldwide Governance Indicator Control of Corruption recoded on a scale of 1 to 10, with the best performer rated 10.

2 Ramin Dadasov, “European Aid and Governance: Does the Source Matter?” The European Journal of Development Research 29 (2) (2017): 269–288.

3 Cited in Alena V. Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices that Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006).

4 Arnaldo Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 8.

5 See Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, A Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

6 See Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Ramin Dadasov, “When Do Anticorruption Laws Matter? The Evidence on Public Integrity,” Crime, Law, and Social Change 68 (4) (2017): 1 – 16. I am grateful to Sweden’s Expert Group for Aid Studies (EBA) for funding this research and for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. See Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Seven Steps to Evidence-Based Anticorruption: A Roadmap (Stockholm: Swedish Expert Group for Aid Studies, 2017), http://eba.se/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017_10_final-webb.pdf .

7 An ampler discussion of this issue can be found in Robert Klitgaard, Addressing Corruption Together (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015), https://www.oecd.org/dac/conflict-fragility-resilience/publications/FINAL%20Addressing%20corruption%20together.pdf .

8 For the intellectual genealogy of these terms, see Mungiu-Pippidi, A Quest for Good Governance , chap. 1 – 2; and Talcott Parsons, Introduction to Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: The Free Press, 1997), 80–82.

9 Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (New York: Crown Business, 2012); Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014); and Douglass C. North, John J. Wallis, and Barry Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

10 A fuller argument roughly compatible with mine appears in North, Wallis, and Weingast, Violence and Social Orders .

11 For evidence, see Mungiu-Pippidi, A Quest for Good Governance , chap. 2; and Mungiu-Pippidi and Dadasov, “When Do Anticorruption Laws Matter?”

12 For a more extensive argument, see Robert Rotberg, “Good Governance Means Performance and Results,” Governance 27 (3) (2014): 511 – 518; and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, “For a New Generation of Objective Indicators in Governance and Corruption Studies,” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 22 (3) (2016): 363–367.

13 Rakesh Kochhar, A Global Middle Class Is More Promise than Reality (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, 2015), http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/07/08/a-global-middle-class-is-more-promise-than-reality/ .

14 See Niklas Kossow and Roberto M. B. Kukutschka, “Civil Society and Online Connectivity: Controlling Corruption on the Net?” Crime, Law and Social Change 68 (4) (2017): 1–18.

15 Lant Pritchett and Michael Woolcock, “Solutions when the Solution is the Problem: Arraying the Disarray in Development,” World Development 32 (2) (2004): 191–212.

16 Robert Rotberg makes a similar point in “Good Governance Means Performance and Results.”

17 See Mungiu-Pippidi and Dadasov, “When Do Anticorruption Laws Matter?”

19 See updated evidence in Mihaly Fazekas, “Red Tape, Bribery and Government Favouritism: Evidence from Europe,” Crime, Law & Social Change 68 (4) (2017): 403–429.

20 For the full models, see Mungiu-Pippidi, A Quest for Good Governance , chap. 4; and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Ramin Dadasov, “Measuring Control of Corruption by a New Index of Public Integrity,” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 22 (3) (2016): 415–438.

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Essay on Corruption: 100 Words, 200 Words

• Updated on  
• Apr 3, 2024

Corruption is an act of bribery that involves taking gifts and favours in exchange for some gain in terms of services and acceptance. In easy words, corruption means the misuse of power and any positions for personal and financial gain. Whether it’s a public official accepting bribes, a company engaging in fraudulent practices, or a student cheating on an exam, corruption takes various forms. This blog sheds light on the term corruption and the effects of corruption and lists down essay on corruption in 100 and 200 words. 

This Blog Includes:

What is corruption, effects on corruption, essay on corruption in 100 words, essay on corruption in 200 words.

Also Read: How to Write an Essay in English

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Corruption in simple words means betraying the people and misusing the nominal power that is assigned to any individual. It is the misuse of public property or money for selfish reasons. It is only related to Government or public funds. Every country and every company, whether Public or private, faces some corruption in one form or the other. Corruption deteriorates the mind and thought process of the people of the country. Every developing nation faces corruption as its enemy. It gives rise to inequality, injustice, illegality, and inconsistency at all levels of the administration. Corruption can be in the form of money, gift, etc. In any form, the person taking bribe is equally guilty.

Here are some effects of corruption on individuals and society:

• When people in power are corrupt, people lose trust in them. People start doubting their decisions and intentions for everyone. People can also revolt against them and take any action.
• Corruption can make life unfair. Instead of the most deserving person getting a job or a chance, it might go to someone who paid a bribe. 
• Corruption slows down a country’s progress. Money that should be used to build roads, and schools and also the living conditions get worse. This means the country doesn’t become better and people’s lives stay hard.
• Corruption can block opportunities for many people. If anyone needs a job, education or any healthcare facility and is not able to afford to pay bribes, their opportunities get lost.

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Corruption is when people misuse power for their gain. It’s like cheating the system. Corruption hurts a lot of people. Corruption makes people lose interest and trust in leaders. 

Money meant for schools, hospitals, and roads gets stolen. Jobs might go to those who pay bribes, not the deserving. This may seem unfair to a lot of people. 

Corruption slows down progress and makes life tough. We must stop corruption by being honest and also taking a stand against it. When we fight corruption, we make our world a better place for everyone.

Corruption is a big problem that hurts everyone. It happens when people in power misuse their authority for personal gain. To a lot of people, it may seem unfair. 

The first cause can be that corruption breaks trust. People start doubting if their leaders are working for them personally or for themselves. It also makes them feel upset and also feel disappointed.

Second, corruption wastes money. Money that should help schools, hospitals, and roads ends up in the wrong hands. It means that people who do not get the things that they need for their betterment of life.

Corruption also creates unfairness. People who deserve opportunities might not get them if they can’t pay bribes. It also makes the life of people tough and lose a lot of opportunities. It can also impact the progress of the country and weaken the strong pillars of the country.

To fight corruption, the candidates need to be honest and take steps to stand against it. People can demand transparency and fairness in the country to make the issue sustainable. With the contribution of people, they can create a world where people in power are working for everyone not just for themselves. 

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Some of the adverse effects of corruption in today’s society are lost trust, lost opportunities, and slows down the country’s progress.

The negative emotions related to corruption are anxiety, anger and disappointment.

To write a short essay on corruption, make sure to include the effects of corruption and all the aspects of the term.

Hence, we hope that this blog has assisted you in comprehending what an essay on Corruption must include. If you are struggling with your career choices and need expert guidance, our Leverage Edu mentors are here to guide you at any point of your academic and professional journey thus ensuring that you take informed steps towards your dream career.

Simran Popli

An avid writer and a creative person. With an experience of 1.5 years content writing, Simran has worked with different areas. From medical to working in a marketing agency with different clients to Ed-tech company, the journey has been diverse. Creative, vivacious and patient are the words that describe her personality.

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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.

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• 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.
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• 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 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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.
• 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 […]
• 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.
• 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 […]
• 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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• Chicago (N-B)

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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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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.

ethics: virtue | integrity | moral dilemmas

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Corruption: A Very Short Introduction

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Corruption is one of the biggest global issues, ahead of extreme poverty, unemployment, the rising cost of food and energy, climate change, and terrorism. It is thought to be one of the principal causes of poverty around the globe. Its significance in the contemporary world cannot be overestimated. Corruption: A Very Short Introduction notes that corruption is as old as humanity itself, and then considers why the international community has only highlighted it as a problem in the past two decades. It explores the phenomenon from several different perspectives, from the cultural differences affecting how corruption is defined, its impact, its various causes, and the possible remedies.

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Essay on Corruption

Here we have shared the Essay on Corruption in detail so you can use it in your exam or assignment of 150, 250, 400, 500, or 1000 words.

You can use this Essay on Corruption in any assignment or project whether you are in school (class 10th or 12th), college, or preparing for answer writing in competitive exams. 

Topics covered in this article.

Essay on Corruption in 150-250 words

Essay on corruption in 300-400 words, essay on corruption in 500-1000 words.

Corruption is a pervasive problem that plagues societies worldwide, undermining progress, eroding trust in institutions, and hindering economic development. It involves the abuse of entrusted power for personal gain, often through bribery, embezzlement, or nepotism.

Corruption has severe consequences for societies. It diverts public resources away from essential services such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure, exacerbating inequality and impeding socio-economic progress. It undermines the rule of law, erodes public trust in government institutions, and fosters a culture of impunity.

Addressing corruption requires a comprehensive approach. Transparency, accountability, and strong institutions are essential. Governments must enact and enforce stringent anti-corruption laws, establish independent oversight bodies, and promote transparency in public procurement and financial transactions. Strengthening the judicial system and providing protection to whistleblowers are also crucial steps.

Moreover, fostering a culture of integrity and ethical behavior is vital. Education and awareness campaigns should highlight the damaging effects of corruption and promote the values of honesty, fairness, and accountability. Civil society plays a crucial role in monitoring and advocating for anti-corruption measures, and individuals must reject corrupt practices and demand ethical conduct from their leaders.

In conclusion, corruption is a pervasive problem that undermines societal progress and hampers economic development. Combating corruption requires the concerted efforts of governments, institutions, and individuals. By promoting transparency, accountability, and a culture of integrity, we can build a society that upholds the values of honesty, fairness, and justice, fostering a brighter future for all.

Corruption is a deep-rooted issue that plagues societies worldwide, undermining trust in institutions, hindering economic growth, and perpetuating inequality. It refers to the misuse of power or position for personal gain, often through bribery, embezzlement, or nepotism.

Corruption has far-reaching consequences. It siphons public resources away from essential services such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure, leaving societies deprived of much-needed development. It perpetuates a culture of unfairness and inequality, as those with wealth and connections can manipulate systems for their advantage while the marginalized suffer the consequences.

Furthermore, corruption erodes the rule of law and weakens institutions meant to uphold justice and fairness. It erodes public trust in governments and fosters cynicism among citizens, leading to apathy and disengagement from civic life. Corruption also undermines investment and economic growth, as it deters both domestic and foreign investors who fear unfair competition and lack of accountability.

Addressing corruption requires a multi-faceted approach. Strong institutions, transparency, and accountability are crucial. Governments must enact and enforce robust anti-corruption laws, establish independent oversight bodies, and ensure the swift prosecution of offenders. Strengthening the judicial system and providing protection to whistleblowers are essential steps toward combating corruption effectively.

Promoting a culture of integrity and ethics is equally important. Education and awareness campaigns should emphasize the damaging effects of corruption and instill values of honesty, fairness, and accountability in individuals from an early age. Anti-corruption education should be integrated into school curricula, and training programs should be provided to public officials to promote ethical behavior and strengthen their resistance to corruption temptations.

Civil society plays a crucial role in fighting corruption. NGOs, media outlets, and citizen-led initiatives can monitor and expose corrupt practices, advocate for transparency, and hold public officials accountable. Empowering and protecting whistleblowers is vital to encourage reporting and ensure their safety.

Individuals also have a responsibility to reject corruption and demand ethical conduct from their leaders. By exercising their rights, participating in civic activities, and promoting transparency and accountability, citizens can contribute to building a corruption-free society.

In conclusion, corruption remains a grave challenge that hampers progress and undermines societal well-being. Tackling corruption requires a comprehensive approach involving strong institutions, transparency, education, and citizen participation. By promoting integrity, demanding accountability, and fostering a culture that values ethics and fairness, we can build a more just and prosperous society for all.

Title: Corruption – A Cancer Eating Away at Societal Progress

Introduction :

Corruption is a deeply rooted problem that plagues societies worldwide, hindering progress, eroding public trust, and perpetuating inequality. It refers to the misuse of power, position, or resources for personal gain, often through bribery, embezzlement, or nepotism. This essay explores the causes and consequences of corruption, its impact on society and development, effective measures to combat it, and the importance of promoting transparency, accountability, and ethical behavior.

Understanding Corruption

Corruption manifests in various forms, including grand corruption at the highest levels of government and petty corruption in everyday interactions. It arises from factors such as weak governance, lack of transparency, inadequate accountability mechanisms, and a culture of impunity. Additionally, socioeconomic factors, such as poverty and income inequality, can exacerbate corruption by creating opportunities for bribery and favoritism.

Consequences of Corruption

Corruption has severe consequences for societies. It diverts resources away from essential public services, leading to inadequate healthcare, education, and infrastructure. The marginalized and vulnerable bear the brunt of corruption, as it perpetuates inequality and undermines social justice. Moreover, corruption weakens institutions, erodes the rule of law, and fosters a culture of unfairness, eroding public trust in governments and democratic processes.

Economically, corruption hampers development and stifles investment. It distorts markets, creates an uneven playing field, and deters domestic and foreign investors who fear unfair competition and lack of transparency. The misallocation of resources and compromised governance systems hinder economic growth and perpetuate cycles of poverty.

Effective Measures to Combat Corruption

Combating corruption requires a multi-pronged approach at various levels:

a. Strengthening Institutions

B. legislation and enforcement, c. transparency and access to information, d. international cooperation, e. ethical leadership and political will.

Governments must establish strong, independent institutions and enforce the rule of law. This includes establishing robust anti-corruption agencies, promoting transparency and accountability, and ensuring the impartiality and efficiency of the judicial system.

Enacting comprehensive anti-corruption laws and enforcing them rigorously are vital. Governments should criminalize bribery, embezzlement, and illicit enrichment while providing protection for whistleblowers and witnesses.

Governments should promote transparency in public administration, budgeting processes, and procurement practices. Implementing freedom of information laws and establishing mechanisms for public scrutiny can curb corrupt practices and empower citizens to hold officials accountable.

Corruption often crosses borders, necessitating international cooperation in combating it. Governments should collaborate to trace and recover stolen assets, exchange information, and strengthen legal frameworks to prevent money laundering and illicit financial flows.

Leaders must lead by example, demonstrating a commitment to ethical behavior and the fight against corruption. Governments should promote a culture of integrity, fostering ethical conduct in public service and discouraging tolerance for corruption.

Promoting Transparency and Accountability

Transparency and accountability are essential in preventing corruption. Governments should establish mechanisms for public oversight, such as independent auditing bodies and ombudsman offices, to monitor the activities of public officials and ensure adherence to ethical standards. Promoting the use of technology, such as e-governance platforms and online portals for public information, can enhance transparency and reduce opportunities for corruption.

Civil society plays a crucial role in holding governments accountable and advocating for transparency. NGOs, media outlets, and citizen-led initiatives can monitor public spending, expose corrupt practices, and raise awareness about the damaging effects of corruption. Whistleblower protection laws should be enacted and enforced to encourage reporting and safeguard those who expose corruption.

Changing Attitudes and Promoting Ethics

Addressing corruption also requires a shift in societal attitudes and values. Education plays a vital role in promoting ethics, integrity, and responsible citizenship. Incorporating anti-corruption education into school curricula can foster a culture of transparency and ethical behavior from an early age.

Furthermore, promoting a culture of integrity in both public and private sectors is essential. Businesses should adopt robust anti-corruption policies, implement ethical practices, and adhere to international anti-corruption standards. Ethical behavior should be recognized, rewarded, and celebrated, while those engaged in corrupt practices should face consequences.

Conclusion :

Corruption remains a global challenge that undermines societal progress, perpetuates inequality, and hampers development. Addressing corruption requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses strong institutions, transparency, accountability, and a culture of integrity. By enacting and enforcing anti-corruption legislation, promoting transparency and access to information, and fostering ethical leadership, societies can root out corruption and build a more just and prosperous future for all.

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• Corruption Essay

Essay on Corruption

Corruption refers to any act performed by individuals or a group in lieu of some form of bribes. Corruption is considered to be a dishonest and criminal act. If proven, Corruption can lead to Legal Punishments. Oftentimes the act of Corruption comprises the rights and privileges of some. It is very hard to find a definition that takes into account all the characteristics and aspects of Corruption. However, as responsible citizens of the Nation, we all must be aware of the true meaning and manifestation of Corruption in its every form so that whenever we come across it we can raise our voice against it and fight for justice. 

Place and Process of Corruption

Corruption is very common in government or private offices. The most common acts of Corruption involve some form of Bribery. Bribery involves some use of improper favours and gifts exchanged for personal gains of some sort. Moreover, Corruption is often found to be intertwined with embezzlement. Corruption can take place in many ways and in any public and private office. It is observed that most people in a position of power or authority are more likely to be involved in corrupt acts.  

The actual reasons behind Corruption are believed to be greed and selfishness. Bribery can include a range of favours like money, gifts, company shares, sexual favours, entertainment, political benefits as well as personal gain. One or more of such favors can inspire people to indulge in Corruption and preferential treatment and also inspire them to overlook criminal activities. 

Embezzlement, on the other hand, is another form of Corruption. An embezzlement is an act of withholding or concealing information about personal assets for the purpose of illegal trading or threat. Embezzlement generally involves people who were entrusted with the assets in question in the first place. Apart from being an act of Corruption, embezzlement is also an act of financial fraud. 

Another important form of Corruption is the graft. It is a global form of Corruption. It is also one of the most noteworthy and widespread corrupt practices in existence. Grafting refers to illegally using a politician's authority to achieve personal gains or goals. An eminent Example of this would be politically influential people misdirecting public funds to meet their own selfish needs.

Another important form of Corruption is extortion. Extortion means obtaining property, money or services through illegal means. Extortion takes place by taking advantage of individuals through coercion, threats or influence. It is very similar to blackmail. One of the oldest forms of Corruption is nepotism and favoritism. Both of these practices involve people being favored for a position or task due to his or her filial or familial status or ties. 

Another form of favoritism includes influence peddling. In this case, one's influence on people in power is used to get work done. The last form of Corruption is an abuse of discretion, in this type the person is power uses his or her authority to bend legal proceedings.

How to End Corruption? 

Corruption not only hinders working in an organization but also affects the economy of a country and the efficiency of various services. To stop Corruption, the government must take stricter measures. Existing laws must be strictly implemented and if the need arises, new laws are introduced. Workplaces should be strictly monitored to prevent any unethical exchange of favors. Only an end to small forms of Corruption can result in a cumulative effect and bring a significant change in Society. 

FAQs on Corruption Essay

1. How to write an essay on Corruption?

To write an essay on Corruption, the writer needs to have an understanding and get some research done on the topic. After they know something about the topic, a broad topic line and the layout of the essay can be figured out based on the number of words required to write the essay. Students can then start writing by giving a quirky and compelling headline that captures the reader's attention. After giving the headline, come the major and most important paragraph of the essay, that is, the introduction of the essay. The introduction sets the feel of the essay and should be written keeping that in mind. 

Most people who will see the essay will go through the headline and the introduction paragraph and this will set the impression if the reader will read the complete essay or not. Students can then move on to writing three to four paragraphs or more in the body part where they can explain more about Corruption, why it happens and how to solve the problem of Corruption. This will be the main content part of the essay. Then the student can conclude the essay with a nice conclusion which the reader will take with them, it should include the gist of the whole article and its important points. This is how students can write an essay on Corruption. They can also refer to Vedantu's website where they can find essays on Corruption and other topics that they can use or refer to.

2. How to prepare to write an Exam?

Essays are a form of creative writing which is often tested in Exams for a good weightage of marks. Creative writing is a skill and like all skills, it can also be learned. To write long-form content like this, where minimum word limits are given, it's necessary to note the information, one knows about the topic and then divide the topic in optimum layout to cover the maximum and minimum word limit. 

Any essay should be divided into 3 parts- The Introduction, The Body, and The Conclusion. The introduction of any essay is very important as a good introduction can really impress a teacher. The body contains the main facts, data, and explanation of the introduction. Conclusion concludes an essay with a complete list of the topic. Good words and proper use of grammar will give a different shine to your essay and the complete English Exam. 

Essay writing can be difficult for some students, but students should remember that essay writing is an easy and high-scoring area in an English Exam or test. Students can learn more about Essay Writing at Vedantu's official website where they can browse from various Examples of essays written by our best English teachers to help the students to get full marks in content writing. This is how students can write an essay in an Exam and get full marks.

3. Why does Corruption exist in Society?

Corruption is the venom that can destroy any Society. Tackling Corruption is indirectly tackling people's mindset and handling their needs by keeping the system fair and equal for everyone. The last decades have shown a lot of growth in the overall condition of the country but the Corruption rates have also sky-rocketed. Corruption can also exist because greedy people have a good network and contacts that get the work done.  Corruption can give one temporary control over their time but they should remember that they'll eventually be caught one day.

4. How to write a good body in an essay?

Essays are long-form creative writing exercises that can be often difficult for many students. The most time-consuming and biggest element of an essay is the body which comprises all the facts, explanations, and examples of the essay.  After writing a perfect and compelling introduction, the writer has to start the main heart and soul of the essay; the body. 

The body can be started by explaining the introduction statements and explaining one's opinion on the topic. These explanations and opinions can be backed up by some evidence, facts, or theories. That's how one can write a good body element in an essay. To study more about essay writing, one can check Vedantu's official website where they can browse many Examples and sample written essays on several topics by the best English teachers. Students can master the skill of essay writing with some practice and guidance.

5. What makes a good conclusion in an essay?

Essays are divided into 3 parts where the conclusion comes last after an introduction and the body. Introduction and body are important but the conclusion will decide how much the reader will take back with the conclusion is the concluding paragraph or paragraphs which need an essay with the gist of the complete essay. Unlike the introductory paragraph, which outlines the general idea of the essay, the conclusion should precisely confirm why one's thesis is correct using the facts from your supportive body paragraphs. That's why a conclusion is an important part of an essay and should be written that way. To learn more about essay writing, one can check out Vedantu's official website where they can find the format, Examples, and tips to write a good essay and a good conclusion. They'll find essays written on numerous topics by the best English teachers at Vedantu.

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Learn about What is Corruption, including Corruption Definition, various Types of Corruption, and effective Steps to Control Corruption and How to Control Corruption.

The Corruption Definition varies according to context, but always involves an abuse of power. The abuse can come in many forms, and is defined by the observer’s perspective, since there are different types of corruption, like the ones that are deliberate and others that are less so; there are acts that are considered illegal, immoral or both; and there are cases where there is no consensus about whether an act is corrupt or not. Corruption means different things in the private sector than it does in government, which makes an analysis of corruption’s causes and consequences very challenging.

Table of Content

What is the Impact of Corruption?

How to control corruption, types of corruption, civil society approaches to anti-corruption, some of the main causes of corruption, steps to control corruption, steps were taken by the government to reduce corruption, corruption in the indian context, legal framework for fighting corruption in india, reason for corruption in india, combatting corruption, transparency in government, corruption and democracy, economic development and corruption, bribery and corruption, corruption consequences, corruption causes, corruption cures, corruption and inequality, corruption and poverty, examples of corrupt behavior, corruption in power, anti-corruption measures, consequence of corruption.

Corruption, as defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. There are four types of corruption outlined by the UNODC: 

• Gaining Favor,
• Accepting Bribes,
• Misappropriating Property or Authority
• Breaching Public Trust.

Corruption can have devastating impacts on society at both an individual level and a national level.

Corruption Definition

• Misuse of power for private gain.
• Acts that undermine public interest for personal or group benefit.

Corruption is a huge problem in many countries. It can lead to an unfair distribution of wealth, social inequality, environmental degradation, poor public health, poor public education, and other negative effects. Corruption also leads to a decrease in the accountability of government officials as they are able to use their power for personal gain without being punished. This makes it difficult for citizens to trust the government or participate in their democracy. Corruption is exacerbated by poverty as people are more likely to accept bribes when they are struggling financially. It has been argued that governments should adopt anti-corruption policies that discourage bribery through strict enforcement of existing laws. However, these policies may not be effective because there is often low political will to enforce such laws and punishments are often inadequate to deter bribery.

Therefore, some argue that developing strong institutions with strong integrity mechanisms (e.g., audits) would be better way to control corruption than relying on law enforcement alone. Corruption is a major contributor to global poverty. Research estimates that 10% of developing countries’ gross domestic product per year, which equates to over $1 trillion annually, is lost due to bribery and other types of corruption. Bribery alone costs the world $1 trillion per year. The IMF estimates that the cost of all types of government malfeasance, including fraud, embezzlement, etc., is at least 5% of GDP in the poorest countries.

Corruption is widespread in today’s society. The prevalence of bribery, fraud, theft, and other dishonest actions makes it hard to provide a legitimate service that isn’t affected by these vices. However, there are ways to minimize the cost of doing business without succumbing to corrupt behavior. Transparency International (TI) helps businesses fight corruption through its Integrity Pacts. TI also provides support for high-risk situations like anti-corruption audits and investigations. These services help to ensure employees don’t engage in corrupt behaviors, as well as work with customers to ensure they’re not being taken advantage of. Other organizations like the Association for Corporate Growth and World Economic Forum are providing workshops on how businesses can avoid getting caught up in this scourge on society.

There are a number of different ways to categorize types of corrupt practices. These six categories include the misuse of public funds, bribery, cronyism, favoritism, nepotism, and sabotage. 

• Misuse of public money is when politicians use their power to steal money that they should be spending on their constituents. 
• Bribery is defined as giving something such as money or gifts in order to influence someone’s actions with an intent to either covertly extract information or blatantly gain favors. 
• Cronyism is often referred to as cozy relationships between businesspeople and government officials.
• Favoritism can take many forms but most commonly it refers to using your position for personal benefit. 
• Nepotism is when you give someone preferential treatment based on family relationships instead of merit. 
• Sabotage can take many forms, but one example would be wasting resources for malicious purposes.

A report in 2000 by the United Nations Development Programme states that the relationships between various actors in society (government, civil society, media, business) are important to anti-corruption efforts. One approach to promoting this healthy social dialogue is through training programs aimed at increasing public knowledge of government accountability and encouraging citizens to demand it. Additionally, many NGOs work on technical projects as well as advocacy campaigns that help increase transparency in government decision-making.

• Corruption is caused by Poverty or Lack of Resources: Some people have to take bribes for themselves, their families, or their villages because they are so poor that they have no resources. They might get a better education for themselves or a job for somebody in the family. They may be able to afford food, water, clothes, and housing. But when you can’t feed your children it is hard to think about anything else but money. For example, this causes some fathers to trade sexual favors with their daughters in exchange for money or gifts. Sometimes women will trade sex with strangers just to make ends meet.
• Corrupt Politicians exist because there is a lack of information among the general public who vote them into office: A lot of politicians come from wealthy backgrounds and don’t understand what poverty feels like as well as those who have lived through it firsthand. If a politician wants to help impoverished countries then he/she needs to have an understanding of the problems these countries face. It also helps if politicians listen more carefully to the people who are most affected by these problems and use less jargon when explaining things to them. Politicians should also work on reforming economic policies that keep countries in poverty such as unfair trade agreements or inadequate monetary support programs. In order to fix the system, we need to change how governments fund themselves which leads us to point 3.
• The third cause of corruption is an Inadequate Government Funding System: Governments must provide services (such as healthcare) to citizens- One way to do this is through taxes; however, it can be difficult for governments to collect taxes from their citizens in areas where tax evasion exists and large numbers of people live below the poverty line. Tax evasion includes not paying income taxes, buying items without paying sales tax, and not declaring all assets. Tax evasion reduces government revenue and funds needed for schools, hospitals, police forces, and other essential government institutions. By ensuring that everyone pays their fair share of taxes, governments would be able to give back services to those living in poverty.
• Transparency – This is the easiest way to approach corruption because it only requires the keeping of public records, but it does not prevent any actions from happening. This can also be used in conjunction with other methods, such as mandating that all transactions are handled online in order to provide a complete record. 
• Legislation – Laws can help prevent many forms of corruption by providing guidelines and limitations for what an individual or organization is able to do. However, even if laws exist to keep people honest, those who break them will not be caught unless they are investigated. 
• Education – Corruption starts at a young age when individuals become aware of how the world works and begin to see some adults taking advantage of others on behalf of their friends or family members. There need to be more education programs available on how corruption affects everyone as well as more monitoring systems within schools themselves to make sure teachers are teaching students rather than making money off bribes. 
• Self-interest – When someone has self-interest, they have the motivation to act without considering how their actions affect others. They care primarily about themselves and are likely to use bribery and extortion tactics in order to benefit themselves while harming anyone else who gets in their way. Although this type of person might appear selfish, they often neglect themselves in pursuit of short-term goals which ultimately harms them long-term.

The government of Myanmar has come up with various ways to tackle the issue of corruption. One way is to provide transparency in public contracting so that the information on bidders, evaluations, awardees, and award decisions will be available for anyone who wants to view it. Steps have also been taken to reduce bribery or gratuities in different sectors such as education, health care, media organizations, etc. These are some steps taken by the government of Myanmar to control corruption. Another approach which is called ‘targets-driven programs’ includes setting specific goals and expectations which need to be met before payment can take place. Under this approach, if a service provider fails to meet these targets then he/she will not get paid until they fulfill their obligations.

Corruption is a major problem in India. Recently, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi has taken measures to try and curb the rampant corruption that plagues the country’s public sector. These measures include a nationwide cleanliness campaign that aims to make sanitation a top priority for Indians, as well as a crackdown on illegal mining practices which are often used as a cover for extracting black money. Both of these efforts have resulted in great success so far. In addition, Mr. Modi plans to pass legislation aimed at making it more difficult for politicians and bureaucrats to take bribes or engage in corrupt activities while they’re working on behalf of the Indian people. It will also help lower corruption by changing how government contracts are awarded and monitored. The government claims these reforms will cut red tape and bring greater transparency, leading to better governance at all levels in society.

In India, the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (PCA) is a legislation which defines the offences of bribery and criminal misconduct by public servants. It also deals with punishment for such offences. The PCA provides for appointment of an investigating agency to investigate into allegations against public servant, provide protection to witnesses who are likely to be intimidated or harassed, or face any other difficulty in giving evidence in court proceedings. It has been amended several times to introduce new provisions on various aspects of combating corruption. For example, some amendments address prevention through education and awareness programmes while others relate to investigation of offences involving government contracts and auctions or bidding processes; some amendments also extend the jurisdiction of this law from Central Government employees to include those working in state governments as well.

There is no single factor that leads to corruption in India, but there are a number of factors that have contributed to the problem. India’s culture, history, society and economy have all played a part in making corruption the norm rather than the exception. The effects of this has been devastating for Indians as it has led to high crime rates and low levels of economic growth. In order to reduce the prevalence of corruption in India, various approaches need to be taken concurrently. For example, those at the top of government should be working to reduce bribery by refusing gifts and other benefits from their subordinates. On the other hand, ordinary people must become more aware of what constitutes corruption in their day-to-day lives so they can report such instances when they happen. Furthermore, public servants must not only disclose their assets but also those belonging to their family members.

Trustworthy Sources on Corruption

• Implementing strict laws and penalties.
• Promoting ethical standards and integrity in public service.
• Ensuring open access to government activities and decisions.
• Implementing systems for public oversight and accountability.
• Erodes trust in public institutions.
• Undermines fair and democratic processes.
• Hampers investment and growth.
• Creates an uneven playing field for businesses.
• Exchange of favors or gifts for undue advantages.
• A common form of corruption affecting all sectors.
• Loss of public funds.
• Deterioration of public services and infrastructure.
• Lack of transparency and accountability.
• Weak legal systems and enforcement.
• Strengthening institutions and governance.
• Encouraging public participation in anti-corruption efforts.
• Disproportionately affects the poor and marginalized.
• Widens the gap between rich and poor.
• Diverts resources meant for development.
• Contributes to persistent poverty levels.
• Embezzlement of public funds.
• Nepotism in job appointments.
• Leaders abusing their position for personal gain.
• Manipulation of policies to benefit a select few.
• Establishing independent anti-corruption bodies.
• Promoting international cooperation to tackle cross-border corruption.

Corruption is a major problem in many countries, because it undermines the foundations of democracy, good governance, social justice, and economic development. Corruption has many consequences. One of them is that it increases poverty by diverting public funds from programs like healthcare or education to pay for the lavish lifestyles of corrupt officials. Another consequence is that it undermines democracies because people don’t trust their governments. In addition, corruption discourages investment and slows economic growth by increasing uncertainty about the fairness of government actions. Finally, it can lead to social unrest when people are unable to meet their basic needs due to high levels of inequality brought on by widespread corruption

Way forward

Corruption is a major problem for many countries around the world, but there are various ways to try to control it. Governments can come up with new laws, like the Bribery Act 2010, which made it illegal for a UK citizen to bribe a foreign public official. This approach may be more effective in some parts of the world than others because bribery is accepted in some cultures. Another way to combat corruption is by promoting transparency, like when government officials publish their assets. Publicizing this information could make citizens feel that their government is fair, making them less likely to engage in corrupt activities themselves. More sophisticated tools have also been developed, such as anti-bribery software that keeps track of how much money an individual has spent on bribes.

Although it is hard to determine the effectiveness of many of these approaches, there is no doubt that all of them are necessary for fighting corruption. The government must take these measures now so that they may progress in developing their country.

What is Corruption – FAQs

What is the definition of corruption.

Corruption is dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery or the misuse of public funds or resources.

What are the main types of corruption?

Key types include bribery, embezzlement, fraud, extortion, cronyism, and nepotism.

How does corruption affect society?

It erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers economic development, and exacerbates inequality, poverty, and social division.

What steps can be taken to control corruption?

Steps include promoting transparency and accountability, enforcing strict legal penalties, encouraging public participation, and fostering ethical standards.

Why is it important to combat corruption?

Combating corruption is crucial for sustainable development, social justice, and the establishment of fair governance and rule of law.

Can corruption be completely eradicated?

While it’s challenging to completely eradicate corruption, concerted efforts can significantly reduce its prevalence and impact.

What role do individuals play in controlling corruption?

Individuals can help by staying informed, reporting corrupt practices, and supporting anti-corruption movements and policies.

How do international organizations contribute to the fight against corruption?

Organizations like Transparency International and the UNODC work globally to raise awareness, develop anti-corruption standards, and assist governments in implementing effective anti-corruption measures.

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Essay on Corruption 1000+ Words

Corruption is a grave issue that has plagued India for many years, hindering its progress and development. This essay will argue that corruption in India is a formidable challenge, undermining trust in institutions, siphoning resources away from essential services, and impeding the nation’s growth. We will delve into the causes and consequences of corruption, as well as potential solutions to address this pressing problem.

The Prevalence of Corruption

Corruption in India is alarmingly prevalent, with numerous cases reported at various levels of government and society. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, India consistently ranks low, indicating a high level of perceived corruption. This issue affects citizens from all walks of life.

Causes of Corruption

Corruption in India has deep-rooted causes, including the lack of transparency, bureaucratic red tape, and political influence. Experts opine that complex regulations and excessive discretion in decision-making provide fertile ground for corrupt practices. Additionally, poverty and low wages in some sectors may drive individuals to engage in corruption for financial gain.

Economic Impact

Corruption has a detrimental economic impact on India. Funds allocated for public projects and welfare schemes often get siphoned off through corrupt practices. This not only hampers the country’s economic growth but also perpetuates poverty and inequality, as resources meant for the marginalized are diverted.

Erosion of Trust in Institutions

Widespread corruption erodes trust in public institutions, including the government and the judiciary. When citizens lose faith in these institutions, it weakens the democratic fabric of the nation. People become disillusioned with the idea of justice and equitable governance.

Social Consequences

Corruption has severe social consequences, as it can lead to a breakdown of ethical values and moral degradation. When corruption becomes the norm, society suffers from a loss of integrity, hindering the nation’s social progress.

Impediment to Foreign Investment

Foreign investors may be hesitant to invest in a country known for its corruption. The perception of corruption can deter foreign investment, limiting opportunities for economic growth and job creation. This hinders India’s potential as a global economic player.

Legal Measures and Accountability

Efforts have been made to combat corruption through legal measures and accountability. Initiatives such as the Right to Information Act and the establishment of anti-corruption bodies like the Central Vigilance Commission aim to increase transparency and hold corrupt individuals accountable.

Public Awareness and Education

Educating the public about the negative consequences of corruption is crucial. Awareness campaigns and educational programs can empower citizens to resist corruption and report unethical practices.

Strengthening Institutions

To address corruption effectively, institutions must be strengthened. This includes reforms in the legal and judicial systems, as well as improvements in administrative processes to reduce bureaucratic red tape.

Encouraging Ethical Leadership

Promoting ethical leadership is vital to combat corruption. Leaders at all levels of government and society must lead by example, demonstrating integrity and accountability.

Conclusion of Essay on Corruption

In conclusion, corruption in India is a pressing issue that poses significant challenges to the nation’s progress and prosperity. It erodes trust in institutions, hampers economic growth, and has far-reaching social consequences. While legal measures and accountability mechanisms have been put in place, addressing corruption requires a collective effort. Public awareness, education, and strengthening institutions are essential steps toward curbing corruption in India. As a nation, India must unite to combat corruption, fostering a culture of integrity and accountability for a brighter future.

Also Check: 500+ Words Essay on Should Plastic be Banned

Corruption Essay

Corruption refers to an act performed by an individual or a group, which seriously compromises the rights and privileges of someone else or the public in general. “Corruption” includes a significant number of illegal and immoral activities from different arenas of governance and administration. Corruption is not only limited to the government and its agencies, but, it also includes private businesses and organizations. Corruption severely hampers the growth and development of a society and a nation as a whole. A corrupt system makes people loose general trust in the government, resulting in an environment of fear and chaos.

Long and Short Essay on Corruption in India in English

We have provided below some Essay on Corruption of varying lengths in English for your information and knowledge.

These corruption essay have been written in simple and easy language so that you don’t face any difficulty in understanding the sentences.

The essay will give you an in depth analysis of Corruption and its effects on the society and the country.

You will also know the measures taken by the government to counter corruption and subdue its effects.

Corruption Essay 1 (100 words)

Corruption is a poison which has been spread in the mind of wrong people of the society, community and country. It is the mistreatment of public resources just for getting some unfair advantage to fulfill little wish. It is concerned with the unnecessary and wrong use of both power and position by anyone whether in the government or non-government organization. It has affected the growth of the individual as we well as the nation and reduces income. It is a big reason of inequalities in the society and community. It affects the growth and development of the nation in all aspects like socially, economically and politically.

Corruption Essay 2 (150 words)

Corruption is the misuse of public property, position, power and authority for fulfilling the selfish purposes to gain personal satisfactions. Corruption is the misuse of authority for personal gain of an individual or group. It is the unfair use of public power for some private advantages by breaking some rules and regulations made by government. Now a day, it has been spread deeply in the society and has become very strong because of its lots of roots. It is like a cancer which once generated cannot be ended without medicine and spreading its roots continuously.

One common form of corruption in our country is receiving cash money, through online transfer or in the form of costly gift etc. Some people wrongly uses someone else money for their own sake. Some people recruited in the government or non-government offices have been involved in the corruption and can do anything to fulfil their wishes.

Corruption Essay 3 (200 words)

We all are well familiar of the corruption and as it is not a new phenomenon in our country. It has taken its roots so deeply in the people’s mind. It is a very common poison in the society since ancient time. It is available from the history time of the Mughal and Sultanate period. It is reaching to its new height. It has affected the mind of people to a great extent and become so common that wrong people can play with the public life. It is a type of greediness which corrupt human mind and destroy one’s humanity and naturalness.

Corruption is of different types which has been spread in every filed like education, sports, games, politics, etc. Because of the corruption, one does not understand his/her responsibilities at work place. Corruptions are like theft, dishonesty, wastage of public property, wastage of time unnecessarily, exploitation, scams, scandals, malpractice of responsibilities, etc are the various types of corruption. It has made its roots in both developing and well developed countries. We need to remove corruption from our society and country in order to get real freedom from the slavery. We all need to be loyal towards our responsibilities and strict for any type of greediness.

Corruption Essay 4 (250 words)

Now-a-days, corruption is seen everywhere in the society just like an infectious disease. The great leaders of the India who have fought their whole life for removing corruption and other social issues completely from the society. It is the very shameful condition for us that even after losing various great lives, we are not able to understand our real responsibilities. Corruption has been spread in the common public lives, politics, central governments, state governments, businesses, industries, etc. It has not left any field. Corruption is increasing day by day instead of decreasing or steadying because of the continuous increase in the appetite of people for money, power, position and luxury.

We have forgotten the real responsibility of being a human just because of the money. We need to understand that money is not everything and it is not a stable thing. We cannot keep it forever to us, it can only give us greediness and corruption. We should give importance to the value based life and not money based life. It is true that we need lot of money to live a common life however it is not true that just for our selfishness and greediness; we should play someone’s life or money in some unfair ways.

Corruption Essay 5 (300 words)

As we all know that corruption is very bad thing. It inhibits the individual growth as well as society and country growth and development. It is social evil which is playing humans body and mind socially, economically and intellectually. It is continuously making its roots so deeply because of the increasing human greediness towards money, power and position. Corruption is the misuse of authority, public position, natural or public resources, power, etc by someone to gain his/her personal gratifications. According to the sources, it has been identified that India ranks three in the highly corrupted countries.

Corruption is highly spread in the field of civil service, politics, business and other illegal fields. India is a famous country for its democracy but it is corruption which disturbs its democratic system. Politicians are highly responsible for all type of corruption in the country. We chose our leaders by having lots of expectations to them to lead our country in the right direction. In the starting they make us lots of promises however, just after the voting they forget all that and involve in corruption. We are sure that our India would be corruption free a day when our political leaders would be free of greediness and use their power, money, status and position in right direction to lead the country, not their own luxury and personal wishes.

We should select very honest and trustworthy leaders to lead our India just like our earlier Indian leaders such as Lal Bahadur Shastri, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, etc. Only such political leaders can reduce and finally end the corruption from India. Youths of the country should also need to be aware of all the reasons of corruption and get together to solve it in group. Increasing level of the corruption needs to take some heavy steps to get control over it.

Corruption Essay 6 (400 words)

Corruption is the highly infectious social disease which has spread its roots to the mind of the bad people. No one take birth to do such type of bad activities in the society however some bad conditions of their life forced them to do so. Gradually they become habitual for all of these bad activities. However, people suffering from any problem, disease, etc should keep patience and trust on themselves and never do anything bad in life. As, one negative step of anyone may harm the lives of many people. We are not a single entity on this earth, there are many like us, so we should think a little about others and live life happily and peacefully with positive thoughts.

Now-a-days, lots of benefits are given by the government of India to the poor people on the basis of various rules and regulations to bring social awareness among common people as well as equality in the society. However, poor people are not getting benefited of those advantages given by the government as many officers doing corruption secretly in between the channel before reaching to the poor people. They are doing corruption against law for just fulfilling their own pockets with money.

There are many causes of corruption in the society. Now-a-days political leaders are making interest oriented programmes and policies instead of nation oriented programmes and policies. They are just wishing to be famous politician for completing their own interests instead of citizen’s interests and requirement. There is increasing level of change in the value system in the human mind as well as decreasing ethical qualities of human being. The level of trust, faith and honesty is decreasing which gives rise to the corruption.

The number of common people with increased tolerance power towards corruption is increasing. There is a lack of strong public forum in the society in order to oppose the corruption, widespread illiteracy in rural areas, poor economic infrastructure, etc are the reasons of endemic corruption in the public life. Low salaries norms of the government employees force them towards channel of corruption. Complex laws and procedures of the government distract common people to get any type of help from government. During election time, corruption become at its highest peak. Politicians always take support of poor and illiterate people by dreaming them big in future during their governance however nothing happens after win.

Corruption Essay 7 (500 words)

Corruption has been spread like a disease all over the India as well as abroad. It has become one of the most speedily increasing social issues in the Indian society . It is generally initiated and promoted by the opportunistic leaders. They never think about the nation’s benefits and do lots of damage to the nation through their corruption even for their small advantage. They sell their country properties in the wrong hands and spread wrong beliefs about India in the people’s mind living in other countries.

They are spoiling the old traditions and cultures of India for their personal benefits. Now-a-days people who are working in right direction using right principles considered as foolish in the modern society and the people who are working wrong and making wrong promises are good for the society. However, in turn it is true that corrupted people cheating the simple, ordinary and innocent people. They are ruling the mind of innocent people.

Corruption increases in India day by day because there is a strong connection between the officials, politicians and criminals who are making this country weak and so weak. India got independence in 1947 and it was slowly becoming strong and developing but in the mid way the disease of corruption started and stop India to grow ahead. In India there has been a trend of give and take means give some money in order to get your work done whether in the government offices or private sectors offices. And now the condition is getting worse and worse, as earlier, the money was paid for getting wrong works done or only work to be done, but currently money is paid for getting works done in right ways and at right time. Even after paying complete money according to the demand, there is no full chance of getting things done at time and in right way.

Corruption is everywhere in every department whether it hospitals, education, job, government offices, nothing is left of corruption. Everything has become a business and the source of earning money in wrong way. Educational institutions are also involved in the corruption and they give seat to those students only who have paid for, whether they are good students with good marks or not. Very weak students are given admission in the top colleges and universities only on the basis of money paid for wrong admission and the topper student with good marks and lack of money gets back in the life or take admission in any simple college.

Now-a-days, private sectors companies are so good in comparison to the governmental jobs. Private companies are giving job on the basis of candidate’s skills, ability, technical knowledge, good percentage of marks and all the educational records. However, it has become tough to get job in the government offices as they need lots of bribe to give any type of job (high level or low level) like teaching, clerk, babu, nurse, doctor, sweeper, etc. And the amount of bribe increases in the market as the level of job increase like IAS, PCC, police, etc ranks jobs.

All the essays given above are essay on corruption under various words limit according to the student’s need and requirement in the school. All the corruption essay are written to almost fulfill the current need of students. Corruption is a social issue and this topic is in vogue for the student’s awareness. Following are the other social issues on which we have provided varieties of essays:

Long Essay on Corruption – Essay 8 (1700 Words)

Introduction

A majority of us are probably aware of the term “corruption” and the situations in which the word perfectly fits in. The most plausible reference to the nature of corruption could be assessed by the words of Joe Bidden, 47 th Vice President of the United States of America, who quoted – “corruption is just another form of tyranny.” The statement weighs corruption as equivalent to that of cruel and oppressive rule of government. However, for a common man/woman, corruption is a challenge, that he/she faces every day, in protecting of his/her fundamental rights and privileges, otherwise guaranteed by the Constitution.

Corruption in India

Though, the ranking of India in Global Corruption Index 2018 has been improved by three places; at a global rank of 78 it’s still far from becoming a corruption free nation.

Corruption in India had been prevalent even under the subjugation of British Empire, when India was still far from gaining independence. How deeply rooted was the corruption in Indian society, can be assessed by the words of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The Muslim League Leader once stated – “One of the biggest curses from which India is suffering – I do not say that other countries are free from it, but I think our condition is much worse – is bribery and corruption. That really is a poison”.

This statement of Mr. Jinnah delivered while addressing the first Presidential address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 th August 1947, bares naked the truth of corruption in India, even before independence.

Even after 73 years of Independence, not much has changed on that front for the people of India. On the contrary, corruption has grown in dimension and today, it seriously hampers the economical, social and infrastructural progress of the nation as never before.

Corruption in political and administrative system of the country, is curtailing its progress and it devoid the people of India of their basic rights of equality, freedom, right to equal opportunity and right to compulsory education and health among others.

Factors Leading to or Responsible for Corruption

The corruption is rooted into several social, political and economical factors. Though, the most elaborate explanation for the cause of corruption could be estimated by the words of 19 th century British politician Lord Acten, who had famously said – “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The quote was a reference to relationship between power and corruption. Corruption is most like to occur with power as the powerful can successfully evade accountability, by using his/her power and influence.

The scenario explained above gels perfectly with the Indian political and administrative system of governance. Huge powers are vested upon our political representatives and administrative officials, by the Constitution. The motive behind bestowing them with power was the greater idea of empowering them to act as facilitators to the public, in general interest of the nation.

They are expected to exercise their powers in implementing several welfare schemes and projects, without any hindrance, for the overall welfare of the people and progress of the nation. However, the whole idea seems to backfiring with, the powerful wielding the powers to their own interests, seriously compromising the interest of the nation and its people.

This is when the corruption slowly seeps into otherwise honest political and administrative circles of India.

Another, most troubling factor behind the prevalence of corruption in India is the latter’s acceptance in society as a common phenomenon. Today, the voices against corruption are fainter than ever before and the people have accepted corruption as natural and unavoidable.

This is the reason why we tend to bribe public servants, to escape the legal formalities on issues those are of interest to us. Moreover, giving and taking bribe is today being considered as a wise act and is being applauded in private, if not publically.

Below is given a point wise narration of other social and economical factors that could escalate corruption –

• Inadequate compensation and monthly emoluments to the government employees could lead them to corruption.
• Illiteracy fuels corruption as it makes a person more submissive and likely to be exploited by greedy officials.
• Illiteracy, poverty and lack of a transparent grievance redressal system make people more vulnerable to political and other types of corruption.
• A decline of ethics and moral values in the society are also responsible for corruption.
• Lack of awareness among the people on their rights and privileges is acting as a fuel to the corruption.

Different Faces of Corruption

The demon of corruption has many faces, than could be imagined, like judicial corruption, governance corruption, corruption in education, corruption in enforcement of laws, financial corruption, political corruption etc. There could be thousands of other similar situations; those could act as examples of corruption. It wouldn’t be possible to elaborate all types of corruption in this essay; however, we will discuss a few of them below.

• The spectrum of corruption is vast enough to affect people from different walks of life. It involves situations like bribing to secure a government job, bribing to lodge a complaint in local police station, bribing the government doctor for treatment, bribing the official for swift movement of file, paying bribe to the official to get the cheque that you deserve anyway.
• Firstly, we will make an assessment of political corruption in India. We all know that the credibility of a political representative is based on the transparent and unbiased election that he or she faces in order to be elected. Despite the Election Commission of India doing a commendable job every time to conduct free and fair elections, there are still some cracks in the otherwise impeccable election system.
• More often than not, during elections, we get stray news from throughout the nation, of voters being influenced by money or by wielding powers, by the contestants in election. Such acts amount to political corruption of highest degree and can adversely influence the democratic structure of the nation.
• Now let’s consider the scenario of a government hospital which functions to provide free or subsidized medical facilities to all the citizens of India. The doctors deployed by the government in the hospitals are compensated adequately for their services; however, sometimes they are seen demanding money from patients to perform an operation or treatment, which should otherwise be performed free of cost. This is a perfect example of corruption in healthcare system.

Likewise there are several examples of corruption in different sectors, depending on their nature and outcome.

Corruption – An Act of Collusion or Not

Corruption is basically an act of collusion between two parties; however, more often than not one party might be forced into the agreement by another party.

Suppose, if a Public Works Department Engineer demands bribe from a civil contractor, for passing the bill for the portion of road constructed by the latter. In this case, though the demand is not obligatory on the contractor, he/she will mostly oblige considering the otherwise cumbersome process of proceeding legally against the demands. In this case the party who gives bribe is actually forced to do so by the party who demands it.

On the contrary, there could be situations in which both the opposite parties have colluded willingly in order to mutually benefit each other. For example a non deserving candidate for a government job, pays bribe to the recruiting official, in order to secure the job.

Nevertheless, whether forced or mutually agreed upon, corruption is an act of collusion, between two parties, which seriously compromises the privileges and rights of other individuals.

Measures to Counter/Control Corruption in India

The corruption in any sector could be effectively controlled by working on improving transparency and accountability in that particular sector. Transparency will ensure that each and every functioning, decision and its outcome is known to the public and all, so that the fairness of the deal could be ascertained. On the other hand accountability places responsibility of an undesirable outcome/loss on an individual.

• This has been done by the government of India under the Right to Information or the RTI act, which had been incorporated in 2005. RTI Act 2005 gives the power of questioning to the common citizen of India. Using the RTI Act anyone could now question any department by simply submitting a RTI application.
• You can now question and get answers on subjects like – how much of the taxes collected, did the government spend and on what mode; how many children in your neighboring school were provided admission under EWS (Economically Weaker Section); what was the cost incurred for the construction of road in your locality and what amount was paid to the contractor; what action did the government take against the official involved in corruption etc.
• The RTI law mandates the appointment of a Public Information Officer (PIO) in all the central and state runs departments and ministries. The provision of responding to the queries is binding on the PIO, who has to do so in a stipulated time, failing which s/he would attract departmental action or a hefty fine.
• The government has also established Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) in 1964 to look into the matters of governmental corruption. The CVC functions as an autonomous body, free from the influence of any executive authority.
• The Government has amended Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, to criminalize the party which pays bribe for undue advantages.
• The amendments have a provision to impose penalty on the organization of the person convicted for giving or taking bribery, if latter couldn’t be traced or has deliberately left the country to escape law.
• Another step that could well be taken to eliminate corruption is, setting up a fast and speedy judicial system, to address the corruption cases in the country.

Though, the corruption is rampant in India, it is also true that by and large the common men and women of India are honest and have an evident dislike for corruption. However, deep rooted the corruption might be, it could be successfully eliminated with political will and public awareness.

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Guest Essay

The Two-State Solution Is an Unjust, Impossible Fantasy

By Tareq Baconi

Mr. Baconi is the author of “Hamas Contained” and the president of the board of al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

After 176 days, Israel’s assault on Gaza has not stopped and has expanded into what Human Rights Watch has declared to be a policy of starvation as a weapon of war. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the international community has reverted to a deeply familiar call for a two-state solution, under which Palestinians and Israelis can coexist in peace and security. President Biden even declared “the only real solution is a two-state solution” in his State of the Union address last month.

But the call rings hollow. The language that surrounds a two-state solution has lost all meaning. Over the years, I’ve encountered many Western diplomats who privately roll their eyes at the prospect of two states — given Israel’s staunch opposition to it, the lack of interest in the West in exerting enough pressure on Israel to change its behavior and Palestinian political ossification — even as their politicians repeat the phrase ad nauseam. Yet in the shadow of what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be genocide, everyone has returned to the chorus line, stressing that the gravity of the situation means that this time will be different.

It will not be. Repeating the two-state solution mantra has allowed policymakers to avoid confronting the reality that partition is unattainable in the case of Israel and Palestine, and illegitimate as an arrangement originally imposed on Palestinians without their consent in 1947. And fundamentally, the concept of the two-state solution has evolved to become a central pillar of sustaining Palestinian subjugation and Israeli impunity. The idea of two states as a pathway to justice has in and of itself normalized the daily violence meted out against Palestinians by Israel’s regime of apartheid.

The circumstances facing Palestinians before Oct. 7, 2023, exemplified how deadly the status quo had become. In 2022, Israeli violence killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank, the most in 15 years, and by mid-2023, that rate was on track to exceed those levels. Yet the Biden administration still saw fit to further legitimize Israel, expanding its diplomatic relations in the region and rewarding it with a U.S. visa waiver . Palestine was largely absent from the international agenda until Israeli Jews were killed on Oct. 7. The fact that Israel and its allies were ill prepared for any kind of challenge to Israeli rule underscores just how invisible the Palestinians were and how sustainable their oppression was deemed to be on the global stage.

This moment of historical rupture offers blood-soaked proof that policies to date have failed, yet countries seek to resurrect them all the same. Instead of taking measures showing a genuine commitment to peace — like meaningfully pressuring Israel to end settlement building and lift the blockade on Gaza or discontinuing America’s expansive military support — Washington is doing the opposite. The United States has aggressively wielded its use of its veto at the United Nations Security Council, and even when it abstains, as it did in the recent vote leading to the first resolution for a cease-fire since Oct. 7, it claims such resolutions are nonbinding. The United States is funding Israel’s military while defunding the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, a critical institution for Palestinians, bolstering the deeply unpopular and illegitimate Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians now consider to be a subcontractor to the occupation, and subverting international law by limiting avenues of accountability for Israel. In effect, these actions safeguard Israeli impunity.

The vacuity of the two-state solution mantra is most obvious in how often policymakers speak of recognizing a Palestinian state without discussing an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Quite the contrary: With the United States reportedly exploring initiatives to recognize Palestinian statehood, it is simultaneously defending Israel’s prolonged occupation at the International Court of Justice, arguing that Israel faces “very real security needs” that justify its continued control over Palestinian territories.

What might explain this seeming contradiction?

The concept of partition has long been used as a blunt policy tool by colonial powers to manage the affairs of their colonies, and Palestine was no exception. The Zionist movement emerged within the era of European colonialism and was given its most important imprimatur by the British Empire. The Balfour Declaration, issued by the British in 1917, called for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine without adequately accounting for the Palestinians who constituted a vast majority in the region and whom Balfour referred to simply as “non-Jewish communities.” This declaration was then imposed on the Palestinians, who by 1922 had become Britain’s colonized subjects and were not asked to give consent to the partitioning of their homeland. Three decades later, the United Nations institutionalized partition with the passage of the 1947 plan, which called for partitioning Palestine into two independent states, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish.

All of Palestine’s neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa that had achieved independence from their colonial rulers and joined the United Nations voted against the 1947 plan. The Palestinians were not formally considered in a vote that many saw as illegitimate; it partitioned their homeland to accommodate Zionist immigration, which they had resisted from the onset. The Palestine Liberation Organization, established more than a decade later, formalized this opposition, insisting that Palestine as defined within the boundaries that existed during the British Mandate was “an indivisible territorial unit”; it forcefully refused two states and by the late 1970s was fighting for a secular, democratic state. By the 1980s, however, the P.L.O. chairman, Yasir Arafat, along with most of the organization’s leadership, had come to accept that partition was the pragmatic choice, and many Palestinians who had by then been ground down by the machinery of the occupation accepted it as a way of achieving separateness from Israeli settlers and the creation of their own state.

It took more than three decades for Palestinians to understand that separateness would never come, that the goal of this policy was to maintain the illusion of partition in some distant future indefinitely. In that twilight zone, Israel’s expansionist violence increased and became more forthright, as Israeli leaders became more brazen in their commitment to full control from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel also relied on discredited Palestinian leaders to sustain their control — primarily those who lead the Palestinian Authority and who collaborate with Israel’s machinations and make do with nonsovereign, noncontiguous Bantustans that never challenge Israel’s overarching domination. This kind of demographic engineering, which entails geographic isolation of unwanted populations behind walls, is central to apartheid regimes. Repeating the aspiration for two states and arguing that partition remains viable presents Israel as a Jewish and democratic state — separate from its occupation — giving it a veneer of palatability and obfuscating the reality that it rules over more non-Jews than Jews .

Seen in this light, the failed attempts at a two-state solution are not a failure for Israel at all but a resounding success, as they have fortified Israel’s grip over this territory while peace negotiations ebbed and flowed but never concluded. In recent years, international and Israeli human rights organizations have acknowledged what many Palestinians have long argued: that Israel is a perpetrator of apartheid. B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, concluded that Israel is a singular regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea.

Now, with international attention once again focused on the region, many Palestinians understand the dangers of discussing partition, even as a pragmatic option. Many refuse to resuscitate this hollowed-out policy-speak. In a message recently published anonymously, a group of Palestinians on the ground and in the diaspora state wrote: “The partition of Palestine is nothing but a legitimation of Zionism, a betrayal of our people and the final completion of the nakba,” or catastrophe, which refers to the expulsion and flight of about 750,000 Palestinians with Israel’s founding. “Our liberation can only be achieved through a unity of struggle, built upon a unity of people and a unity of land.”

For them, the Palestinian state that their inept leaders continue to peddle, even if achievable, would fail to undo the fact that Palestinian refugees are unable to return to their homes, now in Israel, and that Palestinian citizens of Israel would continue to reside as second-class citizens within a so-called Jewish state.

Global powers might choose to ignore this sentiment as unrealistic, if they even take note of it. They might also choose to ignore Israeli rejection of a two-state solution, as Israeli leaders drop any pretenses and explicitly oppose any pathway to Palestinian statehood. As recently as January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.” He added, “That collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can we do?”

And yet the two-state solution continues to be at the forefront for policymakers who have returned to contorting the reality of an expansionist regime into a policy prescription they can hold on to. They cycle through provisions that the Palestinian state must be demilitarized, that Israel will maintain security oversight, that not every state in the world has the same level of sovereignty. It is like watching a century of failure, culminating in the train wreck of the peace process, replay itself in the span of the past five months.

This will not be the first time that Palestinian demands are not taken into account as far as their own future is concerned. But all policymakers should heed the lesson of Oct. 7: There will be neither peace nor justice while Palestinians are subjugated behind walls and under Israeli domination.

A single state from the river to the sea might appear unrealistic or fantastical or a recipe for further bloodshed. But it is the only state that exists in the real world — not in the fantasies of policymakers. The question, then, is: How can it be transformed into one that is just?

Source photographs by Jose A. Bernat Bacete, Daily Herald Archive and Lior Mizrahi, via Getty Images.

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