NCJ Number
171170
Date Published
1996
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This article examines political and administrative corruption and various criteria to distinguish virtuous from corrupt behavior.
Abstract
The article cautions against a simplistic and evil view of corruption, and discusses broad distinctions, according to types of societies, between parochial corruption, concerned with the group, expressing traditional loyalties and providing vital protection against the aggression of outsiders or the aggression of the state; and market corruption, springing from personal interest, looking out for the best offer, devoid of rules. In the field of administrative and political corruption, one of the objectives of criminology is to study how it is handled rather than merely looking for causes. The moralist approach (scandal chasers), the functionalist approach (where the political machine is seen as a hybrid network of social assistance), and the revisionist approach (arguing for the social usefulness of corruption in economic development, national integration and government efficiency) have all reached philosophical dead ends. Researchers now are looking in a new direction, studying the conditions of disclosure and prosecution of corruption, studying the way the state evades and breaks up its own delinquency. Corruption, like many other topics in criminology, is not safe from partisan and ideological exploitation. Despite worthy international efforts, there will never be a consensus on the perception of the malady. It can be conceived only in terms of power and policy. Notes