(Assignment 4) Anand Sreekumar

In my first assignment I had written about corruption in Denmark and had concluded with subjectivity. In relation to this, I would like to point out that Heywood has also affirmed that the nation state as a unit of analysis is quite problematic, and so are the transparency indicator scores. In addition, the recent Panama scandal showed how corruption transcends national boundaries. Denmark wasn’t spared either. 51 Danes figure in the list and experts believe that two banks Jyske and Nordea have assisted people to evade paying taxes.

I had also mentioned the corruption practices prevalent in the Danish private sector. This again highlights another weakness in the recent literature with respect to corruption. Most recent mainstream literature on corruption highlights corruption as a public sector issue. The evidence here thius shows the need to incorporate sectoral considerations while considering corruption; i.e. corruption varies and is distributed across different sectors of the society.

Public legitimacy is another key axis of corruption, with public opinion and standards being the key indicators of what define public interest when it is ‘misused’. ( such a definition of corruption is of course, only for pragmatic purposes) This complicates the issue when one considers the fact that while the Iceland PM Gunnlaugsson was forced to resign following the expose, this news hardly caused a stir in Russia even when the money involved was several times higher. Denmark has also seen a swift response with a buzzing public as well as debate opposition parties demanding public hearing.

To conclude, I have sought to complement my earlier understanding of the corrupt practices in the ‘least corrupt nation’ with a few additional insights, especially in the wake of the Panama leaks. The consensus is that though it is common sense to suggest that the scale of corruption on Denmark may be much better when compared to many o f her counterparts, such  scores like that of Transparency International which are uni - dimensional don’t provide the whole picture. Sectoral  as well as what ought to be post-national considerations should be considered if one were to provide a nuanced understanding of corruption.

1.     http://cphpost.dk/news/danish-banks-linked-to-panama-papers.html

2.     http://universitypost.dk/article/panama-papers-51-danes-named-tax-shelter-scandal

3.     Heywood, Paul. Routledge Handbook of Corruption.