(Assignment 3) Causes of Corruption- Bo Rothstein and Jan Teorell - Ashish

·      “Social scientists do not have a common understanding of what should count as a causal explanation of corruption” (Rothstein and Teorell 2015: 82)

·      “Causal effects oriented studies of what explains corruption can be inattentive to history and the role of dynamics” (Rothstein and Teorell 2015: 83)

·      “Maybe it is not the institutional forms as described that are important but instead how these are de facto implemented” (Rothstein and Teorell 2015: 85)

·      “Rather than focusing on the question of what causes corruption, what a mechanism- oriented  approach implies is to address the question of why certain factors cause corruption” (Rothstein and Teorell 2015: 86)

·      “Moreover, in a society with dishonest public officials, it will become ‘common knowledge’ that in order to get what you need from the authorities (security, health care, various permits, education), ordinary citizens will often have to engage in dishonest behaviour, like corruption”. (Rothstein and Teorell 2015: 87)

·      “As a causal factor behind corruption, ‘bad ethics’ is more problematic”. (Rothstein and Teorell 2015: 88)

·      “High levels of generalised trust are strongly correlated to low levels of corruption” (Rothstein and Teorell 2015: 89)

Therefore, we need to be very critical towards any universal definition that tries to explain causes of corruption and need to give importance to historical, cultural, temporal setting of corruption.

REFERENCE

Rothstein, Bo and Teorell, Jan: “Causes of Corruption” in Paul M. Heywood (ed), Routledge Handbook of Political Corruption, (New York: Routledge, 2015), pp. 79-90