Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 Wealth, power, and corruption
- 2 The international setting: power, consensus, and policy
- 3 Participation, institutions, and syndromes of corruption
- 4 Influence Markets: influence for rent, decisions for sale
- 5 Elite Cartels: how to buy friends and govern people
- 6 Oligarchs and Clans: we are family – and you're not
- 7 Official Moguls: reach out and squeeze someone
- 8 From analysis to reform
- Appendix A Countries in each cluster and distances from statistical cluster centers
- Appendix B Statistical indicators for country clusters
- References
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 Wealth, power, and corruption
- 2 The international setting: power, consensus, and policy
- 3 Participation, institutions, and syndromes of corruption
- 4 Influence Markets: influence for rent, decisions for sale
- 5 Elite Cartels: how to buy friends and govern people
- 6 Oligarchs and Clans: we are family – and you're not
- 7 Official Moguls: reach out and squeeze someone
- 8 From analysis to reform
- Appendix A Countries in each cluster and distances from statistical cluster centers
- Appendix B Statistical indicators for country clusters
- References
- Index
Summary
“I have seen the future, and it is very much like the present, only longer …”
Dan Quisenberry, critic, social commentator, and right-handed relieverThere was a time not long ago when few policymakers or scholars cared much about corruption. Whatever the reasons for that long dry spell – the scarcity of systematic evidence, a wish to avoid the appearance of naïveté, vested institutional interests, or just an honest reluctance to venture into a domain full of colorful stories and characters but seemingly devoid of theoretical interest – by the end of the 1980s corruption was climbing back onto the agenda. During the years that followed it became a certified “hot topic” drawing the attention of governments, international aid and lending agencies, business, and a growing number of scholars in many disciplines. By now we have learned a great deal about corruption, its links to development, and the complexities of reform, and possess a body of knowledge, data, and experience impossible to envision a generation ago.
For all that has been accomplished, however, we seem to have reached a plateau. As I suggest in the early chapters of this book, the dominant view of corruption is a partial one, treating bribery – usually involving international aid and trade, and often at high levels – as a synonym for corruption in general. Much empirical work focuses on statistical analysis of single-dimensional corruption indices, or case studies that are richly detailed but not integrated into a comparative framework.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Syndromes of CorruptionWealth, Power, and Democracy, pp. x - xivPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005