There 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.