Abstract: ABSTRACT. The theory that I shall seek to elaborate here puts considerable emphasis on the effect of inequality on corruption, the corrupt and rent-seeking behavior of public officials, the efficiency of anti-corruption institutions, the causes and patterns of corruption, and the efficiency of institutions in uncovering corruption. The paper generates insights about underlying political causes of corruption, the relationship between government size and corruption, the effect of transparency on corruption, the current international regimes on anti-corruption, and the international legal framework governing bribery and corruption.JEL Classification: D72, D73Keywords: political corruption, inequality, international regime, institution1. IntroductionThis study is grounded in the considerable body of scholarship examining the trends and levels of corruption, the negative consequences of corruption on social, political and economic systems, the prevention and combating of corruption, the fight against corruption at the international level, and the effect of inequality on norms and perceptions of corruption. In the present paper, I focus on economic factors as the prime causes of corruption, the relationship between inequality and corruption, the social acceptance of corrupt practices, the quality of the anti-corruption measures, and the efficacy of the fight against corruption. The purpose of this study is to examine the social and economic impact of large-scale corruption, the importance of fighting corruption, the vulnerability to corruption, the wide-range of corruption tactics used by organized crime, the systemic use of corruption, and the negative effects of corruption on economic development.2. Political Explanations of CorruptionYou discusses corruption as a problem of justice,1 analyzing the conditions under which corruption can be justified and whether corruption can be ever justified by its functional role for efficiency, and examining the effect of corruption on development, apart from its implications for justice. The concept of is useful in defining and understanding corruption more precisely. Corruption is a subset of injustice, is about formal justice (it involves the violation of formal justice), involves the violation of formal justice for private gain and produces substantive injustice (violation of formal justice does not necessarily involve corruption), and occurs when the rule or law is not regularly and fairly administered, requiring actions of the individuals (there are circumstances in which certain laws are extremely unjust but civil disobedience is not practically possible). You explores the conditions under which corruption can be justifiable, examines the concept of institutional corruption, discusses whether abuse oi private power can be part of corruption, analyzes the question about functionality of corruption, and investigates a mutually reinforcing relationship between formal justice (i.e., the control of corruption) and substantive justice (i.e., equal distribution of income and democracy).It is worth emphasizing that corruption adversely affects the equal distribution of income, and equal liberties and participation, increases the inequality of participation by allowing unduly large influence of corrupt individuals in political processes, can be justified by its functional role under certain conditions (it cannot be justified whenever it increases efficiency), is a violation of the principle (obligations) of fairness, occurs when the relevant individuals violate the obligations of fairness for private gain, is a way of defection that deviates from the rules and norms of social cooperation, and has a negative effect on economic development (it is generally harmful for social development as well as economic development). You argues that under socially inefficient regulations,2 the total effect of corruption on efficiency is ambiguous, in order to prevent widespread corruption, rules and institutions should be designed such that they are substantively just, correctly implementable, and not too hard or costly to observe, whereas there may be trade-offs between public sector corruption and private sector corruption depending on the scope of regulation. …
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 13
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