Political corruption

During the last 30 years interest in corruption has increased tremendously which can be seen by the attention given to the issue by international organisations, governments and the media. The access to quantitative measurements of corruption has also encouraged more research. Moreover, the interest has widened from the previous focus on developing countries to also include established democracies in the west. Therefore corruption has become an important object of study in developing as well as developed democracies. This module will focus on empirical and theoretical studies of corruption and explore issues such as: How can corruption be effectively assessed and measured? What is the impact of corruption on public administration, political legitimacy and stability? Is the good governance approach an effective counter-measure to corruption? Students should derive from the module (a) an advanced understanding of the causes and pathologies of corruption and scandals in the contemporary democracies, (b) an awareness of key conceptual and methodological issues in the study of corruption, and (c) a familiarity with how these concepts and methodologies can be used in empirical research.