corruption on essay

Essay on Corruption for Students and Children

500+ words essay on corruption.

Essay on Corruption – Corruption refers to a form of criminal activity or dishonesty. It refers to an evil act by an individual or a group. Most noteworthy, this act compromises the rights and privileges of others. Furthermore, Corruption primarily includes activities like bribery or embezzlement. However, Corruption can take place in many ways. Most probably, people in positions of authority are susceptible to Corruption. Corruption certainly reflects greedy and selfish behavior.

Methods of Corruption

First of all, Bribery is the most common method of Corruption. Bribery involves the improper use of favours and gifts in exchange for personal gain. Furthermore, the types of favours are diverse. Above all, the favours include money, gifts, company shares, sexual favours, employment , entertainment, and political benefits. Also, personal gain can be – giving preferential treatment and overlooking crime.

Embezzlement refers to the act of withholding assets for the purpose of theft. Furthermore, it takes place by one or more individuals who were entrusted with these assets. Above all, embezzlement is a type of financial fraud.

The graft is a global form of Corruption. Most noteworthy, it refers to the illegal use of a politician’s authority for personal gain. Furthermore, a popular way for the graft is misdirecting public funds for the benefit of politicians .

Extortion is another major method of Corruption. It means to obtain property, money or services illegally. Above all, this obtainment takes place by coercing individuals or organizations. Hence, Extortion is quite similar to blackmail.

Favouritism and nepotism is quite an old form of Corruption still in usage. This refers to a person favouring one’s own relatives and friends to jobs. This is certainly a very unfair practice. This is because many deserving candidates fail to get jobs.

Abuse of discretion is another method of Corruption. Here, a person misuses one’s power and authority. An example can be a judge unjustly dismissing a criminal’s case.

Finally, influence peddling is the last method here. This refers to illegally using one’s influence with the government or other authorized individuals. Furthermore, it takes place in order to obtain preferential treatment or favour.

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Ways of Stopping Corruption

One important way of preventing Corruption is to give a better salary in a government job. Many government employees receive pretty low salaries. Therefore, they resort to bribery to meet their expenses. So, government employees should receive higher salaries. Consequently, high salaries would reduce their motivation and resolve to engage in bribery.

Tough laws are very important for stopping Corruption. Above all, strict punishments need to be meted out to guilty individuals. Furthermore, there should be an efficient and quick implementation of strict laws.

Applying cameras in workplaces is an excellent way to prevent corruption. Above all, many individuals would refrain from indulging in Corruption due to fear of being caught. Furthermore, these individuals would have otherwise engaged in Corruption.

The government must make sure to keep inflation low. Due to the rise in prices, many people feel their incomes to be too low. Consequently, this increases Corruption among the masses. Businessmen raise prices to sell their stock of goods at higher prices. Furthermore, the politician supports them due to the benefits they receive.

To sum it up, Corruption is a great evil of society. This evil should be quickly eliminated from society. Corruption is the poison that has penetrated the minds of many individuals these days. Hopefully, with consistent political and social efforts, we can get rid of Corruption.

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Essay on Corruption

Here we have shared the Essay on Corruption in detail so you can use it in your exam or assignment of 150, 250, 400, 500, or 1000 words.

You can use this Essay on Corruption in any assignment or project whether you are in school (class 10th or 12th), college, or preparing for answer writing in competitive exams. 

Topics covered in this article.

Essay on Corruption in 150-250 words

Essay on corruption in 300-400 words, essay on corruption in 500-1000 words.

Corruption is a pervasive problem that plagues societies worldwide, undermining progress, eroding trust in institutions, and hindering economic development. It involves the abuse of entrusted power for personal gain, often through bribery, embezzlement, or nepotism.

Corruption has severe consequences for societies. It diverts public resources away from essential services such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure, exacerbating inequality and impeding socio-economic progress. It undermines the rule of law, erodes public trust in government institutions, and fosters a culture of impunity.

Addressing corruption requires a comprehensive approach. Transparency, accountability, and strong institutions are essential. Governments must enact and enforce stringent anti-corruption laws, establish independent oversight bodies, and promote transparency in public procurement and financial transactions. Strengthening the judicial system and providing protection to whistleblowers are also crucial steps.

Moreover, fostering a culture of integrity and ethical behavior is vital. Education and awareness campaigns should highlight the damaging effects of corruption and promote the values of honesty, fairness, and accountability. Civil society plays a crucial role in monitoring and advocating for anti-corruption measures, and individuals must reject corrupt practices and demand ethical conduct from their leaders.

In conclusion, corruption is a pervasive problem that undermines societal progress and hampers economic development. Combating corruption requires the concerted efforts of governments, institutions, and individuals. By promoting transparency, accountability, and a culture of integrity, we can build a society that upholds the values of honesty, fairness, and justice, fostering a brighter future for all.

Corruption is a deep-rooted issue that plagues societies worldwide, undermining trust in institutions, hindering economic growth, and perpetuating inequality. It refers to the misuse of power or position for personal gain, often through bribery, embezzlement, or nepotism.

Corruption has far-reaching consequences. It siphons public resources away from essential services such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure, leaving societies deprived of much-needed development. It perpetuates a culture of unfairness and inequality, as those with wealth and connections can manipulate systems for their advantage while the marginalized suffer the consequences.

Furthermore, corruption erodes the rule of law and weakens institutions meant to uphold justice and fairness. It erodes public trust in governments and fosters cynicism among citizens, leading to apathy and disengagement from civic life. Corruption also undermines investment and economic growth, as it deters both domestic and foreign investors who fear unfair competition and lack of accountability.

Addressing corruption requires a multi-faceted approach. Strong institutions, transparency, and accountability are crucial. Governments must enact and enforce robust anti-corruption laws, establish independent oversight bodies, and ensure the swift prosecution of offenders. Strengthening the judicial system and providing protection to whistleblowers are essential steps toward combating corruption effectively.

Promoting a culture of integrity and ethics is equally important. Education and awareness campaigns should emphasize the damaging effects of corruption and instill values of honesty, fairness, and accountability in individuals from an early age. Anti-corruption education should be integrated into school curricula, and training programs should be provided to public officials to promote ethical behavior and strengthen their resistance to corruption temptations.

Civil society plays a crucial role in fighting corruption. NGOs, media outlets, and citizen-led initiatives can monitor and expose corrupt practices, advocate for transparency, and hold public officials accountable. Empowering and protecting whistleblowers is vital to encourage reporting and ensure their safety.

Individuals also have a responsibility to reject corruption and demand ethical conduct from their leaders. By exercising their rights, participating in civic activities, and promoting transparency and accountability, citizens can contribute to building a corruption-free society.

In conclusion, corruption remains a grave challenge that hampers progress and undermines societal well-being. Tackling corruption requires a comprehensive approach involving strong institutions, transparency, education, and citizen participation. By promoting integrity, demanding accountability, and fostering a culture that values ethics and fairness, we can build a more just and prosperous society for all.

Title: Corruption – A Cancer Eating Away at Societal Progress

Introduction :

Corruption is a deeply rooted problem that plagues societies worldwide, hindering progress, eroding public trust, and perpetuating inequality. It refers to the misuse of power, position, or resources for personal gain, often through bribery, embezzlement, or nepotism. This essay explores the causes and consequences of corruption, its impact on society and development, effective measures to combat it, and the importance of promoting transparency, accountability, and ethical behavior.

Understanding Corruption

Corruption manifests in various forms, including grand corruption at the highest levels of government and petty corruption in everyday interactions. It arises from factors such as weak governance, lack of transparency, inadequate accountability mechanisms, and a culture of impunity. Additionally, socioeconomic factors, such as poverty and income inequality, can exacerbate corruption by creating opportunities for bribery and favoritism.

Consequences of Corruption

Corruption has severe consequences for societies. It diverts resources away from essential public services, leading to inadequate healthcare, education, and infrastructure. The marginalized and vulnerable bear the brunt of corruption, as it perpetuates inequality and undermines social justice. Moreover, corruption weakens institutions, erodes the rule of law, and fosters a culture of unfairness, eroding public trust in governments and democratic processes.

Economically, corruption hampers development and stifles investment. It distorts markets, creates an uneven playing field, and deters domestic and foreign investors who fear unfair competition and lack of transparency. The misallocation of resources and compromised governance systems hinder economic growth and perpetuate cycles of poverty.

Effective Measures to Combat Corruption

Combating corruption requires a multi-pronged approach at various levels:

a. Strengthening Institutions

B. legislation and enforcement, c. transparency and access to information, d. international cooperation, e. ethical leadership and political will.

Governments must establish strong, independent institutions and enforce the rule of law. This includes establishing robust anti-corruption agencies, promoting transparency and accountability, and ensuring the impartiality and efficiency of the judicial system.

Enacting comprehensive anti-corruption laws and enforcing them rigorously are vital. Governments should criminalize bribery, embezzlement, and illicit enrichment while providing protection for whistleblowers and witnesses.

Governments should promote transparency in public administration, budgeting processes, and procurement practices. Implementing freedom of information laws and establishing mechanisms for public scrutiny can curb corrupt practices and empower citizens to hold officials accountable.

Corruption often crosses borders, necessitating international cooperation in combating it. Governments should collaborate to trace and recover stolen assets, exchange information, and strengthen legal frameworks to prevent money laundering and illicit financial flows.

Leaders must lead by example, demonstrating a commitment to ethical behavior and the fight against corruption. Governments should promote a culture of integrity, fostering ethical conduct in public service and discouraging tolerance for corruption.

Promoting Transparency and Accountability

Transparency and accountability are essential in preventing corruption. Governments should establish mechanisms for public oversight, such as independent auditing bodies and ombudsman offices, to monitor the activities of public officials and ensure adherence to ethical standards. Promoting the use of technology, such as e-governance platforms and online portals for public information, can enhance transparency and reduce opportunities for corruption.

Civil society plays a crucial role in holding governments accountable and advocating for transparency. NGOs, media outlets, and citizen-led initiatives can monitor public spending, expose corrupt practices, and raise awareness about the damaging effects of corruption. Whistleblower protection laws should be enacted and enforced to encourage reporting and safeguard those who expose corruption.

Changing Attitudes and Promoting Ethics

Addressing corruption also requires a shift in societal attitudes and values. Education plays a vital role in promoting ethics, integrity, and responsible citizenship. Incorporating anti-corruption education into school curricula can foster a culture of transparency and ethical behavior from an early age.

Furthermore, promoting a culture of integrity in both public and private sectors is essential. Businesses should adopt robust anti-corruption policies, implement ethical practices, and adhere to international anti-corruption standards. Ethical behavior should be recognized, rewarded, and celebrated, while those engaged in corrupt practices should face consequences.

Conclusion :

Corruption remains a global challenge that undermines societal progress, perpetuates inequality, and hampers development. Addressing corruption requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses strong institutions, transparency, accountability, and a culture of integrity. By enacting and enforcing anti-corruption legislation, promoting transparency and access to information, and fostering ethical leadership, societies can root out corruption and build a more just and prosperous future for all.

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• Corruption Essay

Essay on Corruption

Corruption refers to any act performed by individuals or a group in lieu of some form of bribes. Corruption is considered to be a dishonest and criminal act. If proven, Corruption can lead to Legal Punishments. Oftentimes the act of Corruption comprises the rights and privileges of some. It is very hard to find a definition that takes into account all the characteristics and aspects of Corruption. However, as responsible citizens of the Nation, we all must be aware of the true meaning and manifestation of Corruption in its every form so that whenever we come across it we can raise our voice against it and fight for justice. 

Place and Process of Corruption

Corruption is very common in government or private offices. The most common acts of Corruption involve some form of Bribery. Bribery involves some use of improper favours and gifts exchanged for personal gains of some sort. Moreover, Corruption is often found to be intertwined with embezzlement. Corruption can take place in many ways and in any public and private office. It is observed that most people in a position of power or authority are more likely to be involved in corrupt acts.  

The actual reasons behind Corruption are believed to be greed and selfishness. Bribery can include a range of favours like money, gifts, company shares, sexual favours, entertainment, political benefits as well as personal gain. One or more of such favors can inspire people to indulge in Corruption and preferential treatment and also inspire them to overlook criminal activities. 

Embezzlement, on the other hand, is another form of Corruption. An embezzlement is an act of withholding or concealing information about personal assets for the purpose of illegal trading or threat. Embezzlement generally involves people who were entrusted with the assets in question in the first place. Apart from being an act of Corruption, embezzlement is also an act of financial fraud. 

Another important form of Corruption is the graft. It is a global form of Corruption. It is also one of the most noteworthy and widespread corrupt practices in existence. Grafting refers to illegally using a politician's authority to achieve personal gains or goals. An eminent Example of this would be politically influential people misdirecting public funds to meet their own selfish needs.

Another important form of Corruption is extortion. Extortion means obtaining property, money or services through illegal means. Extortion takes place by taking advantage of individuals through coercion, threats or influence. It is very similar to blackmail. One of the oldest forms of Corruption is nepotism and favoritism. Both of these practices involve people being favored for a position or task due to his or her filial or familial status or ties. 

Another form of favoritism includes influence peddling. In this case, one's influence on people in power is used to get work done. The last form of Corruption is an abuse of discretion, in this type the person is power uses his or her authority to bend legal proceedings.

How to End Corruption? 

Corruption not only hinders working in an organization but also affects the economy of a country and the efficiency of various services. To stop Corruption, the government must take stricter measures. Existing laws must be strictly implemented and if the need arises, new laws are introduced. Workplaces should be strictly monitored to prevent any unethical exchange of favors. Only an end to small forms of Corruption can result in a cumulative effect and bring a significant change in Society. 

FAQs on Corruption Essay

1. How to write an essay on Corruption?

To write an essay on Corruption, the writer needs to have an understanding and get some research done on the topic. After they know something about the topic, a broad topic line and the layout of the essay can be figured out based on the number of words required to write the essay. Students can then start writing by giving a quirky and compelling headline that captures the reader's attention. After giving the headline, come the major and most important paragraph of the essay, that is, the introduction of the essay. The introduction sets the feel of the essay and should be written keeping that in mind. 

Most people who will see the essay will go through the headline and the introduction paragraph and this will set the impression if the reader will read the complete essay or not. Students can then move on to writing three to four paragraphs or more in the body part where they can explain more about Corruption, why it happens and how to solve the problem of Corruption. This will be the main content part of the essay. Then the student can conclude the essay with a nice conclusion which the reader will take with them, it should include the gist of the whole article and its important points. This is how students can write an essay on Corruption. They can also refer to Vedantu's website where they can find essays on Corruption and other topics that they can use or refer to.

2. How to prepare to write an Exam?

Essays are a form of creative writing which is often tested in Exams for a good weightage of marks. Creative writing is a skill and like all skills, it can also be learned. To write long-form content like this, where minimum word limits are given, it's necessary to note the information, one knows about the topic and then divide the topic in optimum layout to cover the maximum and minimum word limit. 

Any essay should be divided into 3 parts- The Introduction, The Body, and The Conclusion. The introduction of any essay is very important as a good introduction can really impress a teacher. The body contains the main facts, data, and explanation of the introduction. Conclusion concludes an essay with a complete list of the topic. Good words and proper use of grammar will give a different shine to your essay and the complete English Exam. 

Essay writing can be difficult for some students, but students should remember that essay writing is an easy and high-scoring area in an English Exam or test. Students can learn more about Essay Writing at Vedantu's official website where they can browse from various Examples of essays written by our best English teachers to help the students to get full marks in content writing. This is how students can write an essay in an Exam and get full marks.

3. Why does Corruption exist in Society?

Corruption is the venom that can destroy any Society. Tackling Corruption is indirectly tackling people's mindset and handling their needs by keeping the system fair and equal for everyone. The last decades have shown a lot of growth in the overall condition of the country but the Corruption rates have also sky-rocketed. Corruption can also exist because greedy people have a good network and contacts that get the work done.  Corruption can give one temporary control over their time but they should remember that they'll eventually be caught one day.

4. How to write a good body in an essay?

Essays are long-form creative writing exercises that can be often difficult for many students. The most time-consuming and biggest element of an essay is the body which comprises all the facts, explanations, and examples of the essay.  After writing a perfect and compelling introduction, the writer has to start the main heart and soul of the essay; the body. 

The body can be started by explaining the introduction statements and explaining one's opinion on the topic. These explanations and opinions can be backed up by some evidence, facts, or theories. That's how one can write a good body element in an essay. To study more about essay writing, one can check Vedantu's official website where they can browse many Examples and sample written essays on several topics by the best English teachers. Students can master the skill of essay writing with some practice and guidance.

5. What makes a good conclusion in an essay?

Essays are divided into 3 parts where the conclusion comes last after an introduction and the body. Introduction and body are important but the conclusion will decide how much the reader will take back with the conclusion is the concluding paragraph or paragraphs which need an essay with the gist of the complete essay. Unlike the introductory paragraph, which outlines the general idea of the essay, the conclusion should precisely confirm why one's thesis is correct using the facts from your supportive body paragraphs. That's why a conclusion is an important part of an essay and should be written that way. To learn more about essay writing, one can check out Vedantu's official website where they can find the format, Examples, and tips to write a good essay and a good conclusion. They'll find essays written on numerous topics by the best English teachers at Vedantu.

Corruption is a Global Problem for Development. To Fight It, We All Have a Role to Play

Oped published in French in La Tribune Afrique, June 13, 2023.

Oped by Ousmane Diagana, World Bank Vice President for Western and Central Africa and Mouhamadou Diagne, World Bank Vice President for Integrity.

Every day, we hear about the onslaught of crises facing the world—from climate change to conflict, inflation and debt, and the ongoing recovery from a years-long pandemic. Add to them the prospect of slow economic growth , and our efforts to overcome these challenges seem rife with obstacles. For developing countries, many with limited and already stretched resources, the confluence of crises will be especially difficult to navigate.

But if we are to achieve success over the challenges of our time, there is one scourge we cannot fail to confront: corruption.

The unfortunate truth is that corruption persists in all countries. It manifests in many ways—from petty bribes and kickbacks to grand theft of public resources. With advances in technology, corruption has increasingly become a transnational challenge without respect for borders, as money can now move more easily in and out of countries to hide illicit gains.

Corruption is also a fundamental problem for development.

Corruption harms the poor and vulnerable the most, increasing costs and reducing access to basic services, such as health, education, social programs, and even justice. It exacerbates inequality and reduces private sector investment to the detriment of markets, job opportunities, and economies. Corruption can also undermine a country’s response to emergencies, leading to unnecessary suffering and, at worst, death. Over time, corruption can undermine the trust and confidence that citizens have for their leaders and institutions, creating social friction and in some contexts increasing the risk of fragility, conflict, and violence.

To prevent these negative impacts, we must confront corruption with determined and deliberate action. For the World Bank Group, fighting corruption in development has been a long-standing commitment in our operational work. This commitment is reflected in our support for countries in building transparent, inclusive, and accountable institutions , but also through initiatives that go beyond developing countries to also include financial centers, take on the politics of corruption more openly than before, and harness new technologies to understand, address, and prevent corruption.  

Indeed, across western and central Africa in particular, it is one of the World Bank Group’s strategic priorities to emphasize issues of good governance, accountability, and transparency among our partner countries, with the aim of reducing corruption. We recognize that transparency in public affairs and the accountability of high-level officials are fundamental to the trust of citizens in their government and the effective delivery of public services. Working to rebuild and bolster trust between citizens and the state is critical today, especially in countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence that make up half of the countries in this region alone.

Across Africa, World Bank Group support is helping countries face these challenges. Recent investments in the Republic of Congo , Ghana , and Morocco , for example, will support institutional governance reforms to improve the performance and transparency of service delivery. In Kenya, our support will further fiscal management reforms for greater transparency in public procurement , thereby reducing opportunities for corruption. Strengthening citizen-state engagement is key: In Burkina Faso, for example, a World Bank-funded project helped the national government improve citizen engagement and public sector accountability through the development of a digital tool to monitor the performance of municipal service delivery. 

The World Bank Group’s commitment to fighting corruption is also reflected in robust mechanisms across the institution that enhance the integrity of our operations. Our independent Integrity Vice Presidency (INT) works to detect, deter, and prevent fraud and corruption involving World Bank Group funds. Over two decades of INT’s work, the World Bank has sanctioned more than 1,100 firms and individuals, often imposing debarments that make them ineligible to participate in the projects and operations we finance. In addition, we have enforced more than 640 cross-debarments from other multilateral development banks, standing with our MDB partners to help keep corruption out of development projects everywhere. Nevertheless, we must remain vigilant to the risks of fraud and corruption that remain.

The World Bank Group also leverages its position as global convener to support anticorruption actors at all levels and from around the world. That is why we are pleased to have organized the next edition of the World Bank Group’s International Corruption Hunters Alliance (ICHA) to take place in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, on June 14-16, 2023.

The ICHA forum is an opportunity for front-line practitioners committed to fighting corruption as well as policy makers and representatives from the private sector and civil society, to come together to share knowledge, experience, and insights for confronting corruption. For the first time since its inception in 2010, we are hosting the ICHA forum in an African country. This reflects the reality that the negative impacts of corruption can be more devastating for developing countries, who face unique challenges and have fewer resources to overcome them. Yet, it also acknowledges that there is a wealth of anticorruption strengths, skills, and expertise from these countries that we must draw upon.

Together, we can affirm that through our collective action, we can advance the fight against corruption even in an era of crises.  

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Corruption Essay | Essay on Corruption for Students and Children in English

February 14, 2024 by Prasanna

Corruption Essay:  A form of dishonesty or criminal offense undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a power of authority is known as corruption. Corruption is practiced to abuse power for one’s gain or to acquire illicit benefit.

Corruption may include many activities, such as embezzlement or bribery. However, it may also include practices that are legal in many countries. Corruption is evil, decays trust, and showcases the dishonesty of the person in authority.

You can also find more  Essay Writing  articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long and Short Essays on Corruption for Students and Kids in English

We provide students with essay samples on a long essay of 500 words and a short essay of 150 words on the topic of corruption for reference.

Long Essay on Corruption 500 Words in English

Long Essay on Corruption is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power by a person or organization for personal gain. It is an act of dishonesty and a criminal offense. An act of corruption includes the exploitation of the rights and privileges of others. Activities like bribery and embezzlement are primarily included in the act of corruption.

Corruption can take place in ways. People in a position of authority are susceptible to corruption. Corruption reflects the greedy and selfish behavior of the person in authority. Bribery is the most common way of corruption. Bribery is the act of improper use of gifts and favors in exchange for the person’s gain. There are various ways in which people in authority accept ‘favours.’

Favors may include offers of huge amounts of money, materialistic gifts, company shares, entertainment, employment, sexual favors, and political benefits. Personal favor may also be a person’s preferential behavior overlooking crime or dishonesty. Embezzlement refers to an act of withholding of assets to prevent them mainly for theft. It is carried out by one or more individuals who are in charge of the asset. Embezzlement is typically a type of financial fraud.

A global form of corruption is graft – which is the illegal use of a politician’s authority for their gain. Misguiding the funds of the public is a popular way of grafting for the benefit of politicians. Extortion is another method in which corruption is practiced, which refers to obtaining money and property service illegally. This obtainment takes place by pressurization from an organization or individual. Extortion is similar to an act of blackmail.

Nepotism and favoritism is an old form of corruption that is still practiced. In this process, the person in authority chooses or favors the individual who will be of personal gain, or the individual offers something in exchange for the favor. Preferring a friend or relative in the job is an act of favoritism. This is a very unfair practice for the people who deserve recognition and appreciation and are not given the opportunity. Another method of corruption I the abuse of discretion in which a person’s power or authority is misused, such as a judge unjustly discriminating the case of a criminal. Influence peddling is another method of corruption. It refers to illegally using one’s influence with any authorized individual or the government. This practice takes place to obtain favor or preferential treatment.

Corruption weakens trust, hampers economic development, erodes democracy, and further worsens pre-existing conditions like poverty, inequality, environmental crisis, and social division. Corruption can be prevented even if not stopped. Tough laws are very important for the prevention of corruption. Guilty individuals should be given strict punishment, and the laws should be efficient and quickly implemented.

The government must ensure that the inflow is kept low. Due to accelerating prices, many people feel that their income is low, this increases corruption among the masses. One important way of preventing corruption is by offering a better salary. However, these are just reasons. Anyone determined to stay loyal to their jobs and they will not practice corruption no matter how many opportunities they are given.

Short Essay on Corruption 150 Words in English

Short Essay on Corruption is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Corruption is dishonest behavior practiced by those who are in authority. It is the misuse of entrusted power for private gain. Corruption can happen anywhere – in businesses, offices, courts, media, and even civil society. Corruption can involve anyone – from government officials, politicians, public servants to business holders, or public members.

Exposing corruption and holding the corrupt accountable can only take place how corruption works, and the systems enable it is understood.

Corruption happens in the shadows away from everyone’s notice. Often professionals like lawyers, bankers, accountants, real estate agents, anonymous shell companies, and opaque financial systems allow corruption to flourish and hide illicit wealth.

Corruption can occur on different scales, ranging from small favors between a small number of people to acts of corruption that affect the government on a large scale. Corruption has become prevalent and a part of everyday life in society.

10 Lines on Corruption in English

• Corruption is a crime, and everyone should take proper steps in fighting against it.
• In India, corruption lies at every system level, in both the private and public sectors.
• Corruption has grown to such a level that it has given rise to criminal activities.
• According to the World Bank, only 40% of the grains intended for the poor reaches them.
• A great tool in fighting corruption is the Right to Information at every level.
• Unless strict steps are taken, corruption cannot be removed from India.
• A survey showed that 92% of Indians had paid a bribe to a government official to speed up or get the job done at some point in their life.
• Corruption is one of the most serious difficulties in the path of the constant growth of the country.
• Corruption is unfair and unethical means of earning benefits.
• Corruption directly affects the growth of a country.

FAQ’s on Corruption Essay

Question 1.  Which is the most corrupt country in the world?

Answer: The most corrupt country in the world is Somalia, followed by Sudan and Syria.

Question 2.  Which is the least corrupt country in the world?

Answer: As per the corruption index table, Denmark is the least corrupt country in the world.

Question 3.  What is one of the main causes of corruption?

Answer: The greediness of people in an authorizing position is one of the main causes of corruption.

Question 4.  Talk about corruption in India.

Answer: According to the Forbes list of the five most corrupt countries in Asia released in 2017, India ranks top. India has a bribery rate of 69%.

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How to Stop Corruption Essay: Guide & Topics [+4 Samples]

Corruption is an abuse of power that was entrusted to a person or group of people for personal gain. It can appear in various settings and affect different social classes, leading to unemployment and other economic issues. This is why writing an essay on corruption can become a challenge.

One “how to stop corruption” essay will require plenty of time and effort, as the topic is too broad. That’s why our experts have prepared this guide. It can help you with research and make the overall writing process easier. Besides, you will find free essays on corruption with outlines.

• ✍️ How to Write an Essay
• 💰 Essay Examples
• 🤑 How to Stop Corruption Essay
• 💲 Topics for Essay

✍️ How to Write an Essay on Corruption

Before writing on the issue, you have to understand a few things. First , corruption can take different forms, such as:

• Bribery – receiving money or other valuable items in exchange for using power or influence in an illegal way.
• Graft – using power or authority for personal goals.
• Extortion – threats or violence for the person’s advantage.
• Kickback – paying commission to a bribe-taker for some service.
• Cronyism – assigning unqualified friends or relatives to job positions.
• Embezzlement – stealing the government’s money.

Second , you should carefully think about the effects of corruption on the country. It seriously undermines democracy and the good name of political institutions. Its economic, political, and social impact is hard to estimate.

Let’s focus on writing about corruption. What are the features of your future paper? What elements should you include in your writing?

Below, we will show you the general essay on corruption sample and explain each part’s importance:

You already chose the paper topic. What’s next? Create an outline for your future writing. You’re better to compose a plan for your paper so that it won’t suffer from logic errors and discrepancies. Besides, you may be required to add your outline to your paper and compose a corruption essay with headings.

At this step, you sketch out the skeleton:

• what to write in the introduction;
• what points to discuss in the body section;
• what to put into the conclusion.

Take the notes during your research to use them later. They will help you to put your arguments in a logical order and show what points you can use in the essay.

For a long-form essay, we suggest you divide it into parts. Title each one and use headings to facilitate the reading process.

🔴 Introduction

The next step is to develop a corruption essay’s introduction. Here, you should give your readers a preview of what’s coming and state your position.

• Start with a catchy hook.
• Give a brief description of the problem context.
• Provide a thesis statement.

You can always update and change it when finishing the paper.

🔴 Body Paragraphs

In the body section, you will provide the central points and supporting evidence. When discussing the effects of this problem in your corruption essay, do not forget to include statistics and other significant data.

Every paragraph should include a topic sentence, explanation, and supporting evidence. To make them fit together, use analysis and critical thinking.

Use interesting facts and compelling arguments to earn your audience’s attention. It may drift while reading an essay about corruption, so don’t let it happen.

🔴 Quotations

Quotes are the essential elements of any paper. They support your claims and add credibility to your writing. Such items are exceptionally crucial for an essay on corruption as the issue can be controversial, so you may want to back up your arguments.

• You may incorporate direct quotes in your text. In this case, remember to use quotation marks and mark the page number for yourself. Don’t exceed the 30 words limit. Add the information about the source in the reference list.
• You may decide to use a whole paragraph from your source as supporting evidence. Then, quote indirectly—paraphrase, summarize, or synthesize the argument of interest. You still have to add relevant information to your reference list, though.

Check your professor’s guidelines regarding the preferred citation style.

🔴 Conclusion

In your corruption essay conclusion, you should restate the thesis and summarize your findings. You can also provide recommendations for future research on the topic. Keep it clear and short—it can be one paragraph long.

Don’t forget your references!

Include a list of all sources you used to write this paper. Read the citation guideline of your institution to do it correctly. By the way, some citation tools allow creating a reference list in pdf or Word formats.

💰 Corruption Essay Examples

If you strive to write a good how to stop a corruption essay, you should check a few relevant examples. They will show you the power of a proper outline and headings. Besides, you’ll see how to formulate your arguments and cite sources.

✔️ Essay on Corruption: 250 Words

If you were assigned a short paper of 250 words and have no idea where to start, you can check the example written by our academic experts. As you can see below, it is written in easy words. You can use simple English to explain to your readers the “black money” phenomenon.

Another point you should keep in mind when checking our short essay on corruption is that the structure remains the same. Despite the low word count, it has an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement, body section, and a conclusion.

Now, take a look at our corruption essay sample and inspire!

✔️ Essay on Corruption: 500 Words

Cause and effect essay is among the most common paper types for students. In case you’re composing this kind of paper, you should research the reasons for corruption. You can investigate factors that led to this phenomenon in a particular country.

Use the data from the official sources, for example, Transparency International . There is plenty of evidence for your thesis statement on corruption and points you will include in the body section. Also, you can use headlines to separate one cause from another. Doing so will help your readers to browse through the text easily.

Check our essay on corruption below to see how our experts utilize headlines.

🤑 How to Stop Corruption: Essay Prompts

Corruption is a complex issue that undermines the foundations of justice, fairness, and equality. If you want to address this problem, you can write a “How to Stop Corruption” essay using any of the following topic ideas.

The writing prompts below will provide valuable insights into this destructive phenomenon. Use them to analyze the root causes critically and propose effective solutions.

How to Prevent Corruption Essay Prompt

In this essay, you can discuss various strategies and measures to tackle corruption in society. Explore the impact of corruption on social, political, and economic systems and review possible solutions. Your paper can also highlight the importance of ethical leadership and transparent governance in curbing corruption.

Here are some more ideas to include:

• The role of education and public awareness in preventing corruption. In this essay, you can explain the importance of teaching ethical values and raising awareness about the adverse effects of corruption. It would be great to illustrate your essay with examples of successful anti-corruption campaigns and programs.
• How to implement strong anti-corruption laws and regulations. Your essay could discuss the steps governments should take in this regard, such as creating comprehensive legislation and independent anti-corruption agencies. Also, clarify how international cooperation can help combat corruption.
• Ways of promoting transparency in government and business operations. Do you agree that open data policies, whistleblower protection laws, independent oversight agencies, and transparent financial reporting are effective methods of ensuring transparency? What other strategies can you propose? Answer the questions in your essay.

How to Stop Corruption as a Student Essay Prompt

An essay on how to stop corruption as a student can focus on the role of young people in preventing corruption in their communities and society at large. Describe what students can do to raise awareness, promote ethical behavior, and advocate for transparency and accountability. The essay can also explore how instilling values of integrity and honesty among young people can help combat corruption.

Here’s what else you can talk about:

• How to encourage ethical behavior and integrity among students. Explain why it’s essential for teachers to be models of ethical behavior and create a culture of honesty and accountability in schools. Besides, discuss the role of parents and community members in reinforcing students’ moral values.
• Importance of participating in anti-corruption initiatives and campaigns from a young age. Your paper could study how participation in anti-corruption initiatives fosters young people’s sense of civic responsibility. Can youth engagement promote transparency and accountability?
• Ways of promoting accountability within educational institutions. What methods of fostering accountability are the most effective? Your essay might evaluate the efficacy of promoting direct communication, establishing a clear code of conduct, creating effective oversight mechanisms, holding all members of the educational process responsible for their actions, and other methods.

How to Stop Corruption in India Essay Prompt

In this essay, you can discuss the pervasive nature of corruption in various sectors of Indian society and its detrimental effects on the country’s development. Explore strategies and measures that can be implemented to address and prevent corruption, as well as the role of government, civil society, and citizens in combating this issue.

Your essay may also include the following:

• Analysis of the causes and consequences of corruption in India. You may discuss the bureaucratic red tape, weak enforcement mechanisms, and other causes. How do they affect the country’s development?
• Examination of the effectiveness of existing anti-corruption laws and measures. What are the existing anti-corruption laws and measures in India? Are they effective? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• Discussion of potential solutions and reforms to curb corruption. Propose practical solutions and reforms that can potentially stop corruption. Also, explain the importance of political will and international cooperation to implement reforms effectively.

Government Corruption Essay Prompt

A government corruption essay can discuss the prevalence of corruption within government institutions and its impact on the state’s functioning. You can explore various forms of corruption, such as bribery, embezzlement, and nepotism. Additionally, discuss their effects on public services, economic development, and social justice.

Here are some more ideas you can cover in your essay:

• The causes and manifestations of government corruption. Analyze political patronage, weak accountability systems, and other factors that stimulate corruption. Additionally, include real-life examples that showcase the manifestations of government corruption in your essay.
• The impact of corruption on public trust and governance. Corruption undermines people’s trust and increases social inequalities. In your paper, we suggest evaluating its long-term impact on countries’ development and social cohesion.
• Strategies and reforms to combat government corruption. Here, you can present and examine the best strategies and reforms to fight corruption in government. Also, consider the role of international organizations and media in advocating for anti-corruption initiatives.

How to Stop Police Corruption Essay Prompt

In this essay, you can explore strategies and reforms to address corruption within law enforcement agencies. Start by investigating the root causes of police corruption and its impact on public safety and trust. Then, propose effective measures to combat it.

Here’s what else you can discuss in your essay:

• The factors contributing to police corruption, such as lack of accountability and oversight. Your paper could research various factors that cause police corruption. Is it possible to mitigate their effect?
• The consequences of police corruption for community relations and public safety. Police corruption has a disastrous effect on public safety and community trust. Your essay can use real-life examples to show how corruption practices in law enforcement undermine their legitimacy and fuel social unrest.
• Potential solutions, such as improved training, transparency, and accountability measures. Can these measures solve the police corruption issue? What other strategies can be implemented to combat the problem? Consider these questions in your essay.

💲 40 Best Topics for Corruption Essay

Another key to a successful essay on corruption is choosing an intriguing topic. There are plenty of ideas to use in your paper. And here are some topic suggestions for your writing:

• What is corruption? An essay should tell the readers about the essentials of this phenomenon. Elaborate on the factors that impact its growth or reduce.
• How to fight corruption ? Your essay can provide ideas on how to reduce the effects of this problem. If you write an argumentative paper, state your arguments, and give supporting evidence. For example, you can research the countries with the lowest corruption index and how they fight with it.
• I say “no” to corruption . This can be an excellent topic for your narrative essay. Describe a situation from your life when you’re faced with this type of wrongdoing.
• Corruption in our country. An essay can be dedicated, for example, to corruption in India or Pakistan. Learn more about its causes and how different countries fight with it.
• Graft and corruption. We already mentioned the definition of graft. Explore various examples of grafts, e.g., using the personal influence of politicians to pressure public service journalists. Provide your vision of the causes of corruption. The essay should include strong evidence.
• Corruption in society. Investigate how the tolerance to “black money” crimes impact economics in developing countries.
• How can we stop corruption ? In your essay, provide suggestions on how society can prevent this problem. What efficient ways can you propose?
• The reasons that lead to the corruption of the police. Assess how bribery impacts the crime rate. You can use a case of Al Capone as supporting evidence.
• Literature and corruption. Choose a literary masterpiece and analyze how the author addresses the theme of crime. You can check a sample paper on Pushkin’s “ The Queen of Spades ”
• How does power affect politicians ? In your essay on corruption and its causes, provide your observations on ideas about why people who hold power allow the grafts.
• Systemic corruption in China. China has one of the strictest laws on this issue. However, crime still exists. Research this topic and provide your observations on the reasons.
• The success of Asian Tigers . Explore how the four countries reduced corruption crime rates. What is the secret of their success? What can we learn from them?
• Lee Kuan Yew and his fight against corruption. Research how Singapore’s legislation influenced the elimination of this crime.
• Corruption in education. Examine the types in higher education institutions. Why does corruption occur?
• Gifts and bribes . You may choose to analyze the ethical side of gifts in business. Can it be a bribe? In what cases?
• Cronyism and nepotism in business. Examine these forms of corruption as a part of Chinese culture.
• Kickbacks and bribery. How do these two terms are related, and what are the ways to prevent them?
• Corporate fraud. Examine the bribery, payoffs, and kickbacks as a phenomenon in the business world. Point out the similarities and differences.
• Anti-bribery compliance in corporations. Explore how transnational companies fight with the misuse of funds by contractors from developing countries.
• The ethical side of payoffs. How can payoffs harm someone’s reputation? Provide your point of view of why this type of corporate fraud is unethical.
• The reasons for corruption of public officials.
• Role of auditors in the fight against fraud and corruption.
• The outcomes of corruption in public administration .
• How to eliminate corruption in the field of criminal justice.
• Is there a connection between corruption and drug abuse ?
• The harm corruption does to the economic development of countries.
• The role of anti-bribery laws in fighting financial crimes.
• Populist party brawl against corruption and graft.
• An example of incorrigible corruption in business: Enron scandal .
• The effective ways to prevent corruption.
• The catastrophic consequences of corruption in healthcare.
• How regular auditing can prevent embezzlement and financial manipulation.
• Correlation between poverty and corruption .
• Unethical behavior and corruption in football business.
• Corruption in oil business: British Petroleum case.
• Are corruption and bribery socially acceptable in Central Asian states?
• What measures should a company take to prevent bribery among its employees?
• Ways to eliminate and prevent cases of police corruption.  
• Gift-giving traditions and corruption in the world’s culture.
• Breaking business obligations: embezzlement and fraud.

These invaluable tips will help you to get through any kind of essay. You are welcome to use these ideas and writing tips whenever you need to write this type of academic paper. Share the guide with those who may need it for their essay on corruption.

This might be interesting for you:

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🔗 References

• Public Corruption: FBI, U.S. Department of Justice
• Anti-Corruption and Transparency: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
• United Nations Convention against Corruption: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
• Corruption Essay: Cram
• How to Construct an Essay: Josh May
• Essay Writing: University College Birmingham
• Structuring the Essay: Research & Learning Online
• Insights from U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre: Medium
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What Contributes to the Corruption? Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Factors contributing to corruption, reference list.

Corruption is the abuse or misuse of public resources, power and or office for financial or other personal gains. It is the use of illegal and illegitimate means to acquire advantage in private or public positions. Corrupt people lack the virtues of integrity, honesty and moral principle.

Corruption has greatly increased in the world since the late 80s and the early 90s with many post-communist countries being greatly affected. There has been a lot of debate on the causes of corruption and factors that have led to its spread and increase around the world.

Neo-liberalism and corruption

One of the major factors that contributed to the apparent rise and spread of corruption and which is a subject of debate is neo-liberalism which started in the 1970s and the 1980s. Neo-liberalism is mainly about promoting free markets and trade, competition, consumption, reduction state regulation, control and other roles, more importance is placed on the end than the means.

There is lack of conceptuality and less emphasis on the rule of law in most corrupt societies where the process of liberalization has led to the weakening and delegitimizing of state powers and control. There have been many arguments about the relationship between neo-liberal measures and policies of free trade and investment and corruption especially in post-communist countries (Holmes, 1999).

Neo-liberalism has been highly credited with economic growth and increased investment; it is seen as an important factor for development in many countries.

However as globalization takes effect and local and international enterprises compete for new markets and business ventures, corruption practices are inevitable. There are restrictions, obstacles and barriers within bureaucratic systems of countries and international markets that can lead to these practices.

International quarters and trade tariffs which lead to varying prices of goods and other special treatments can lead to enterprises bribing in order to take advantage.

According to Williams and Beare (1999), the administration of exemptions and restrictions within countries involves complex and complicated procedures and only bureaucracies can perform such duties as a result this can encourage corruption practices in government offices.

Although there are organizations and agencies which act as watch dogs, without regulation and follow up, a lot can still be done to reduce the spread of this vice. The systems of corruption form a big web which includes local and international participants and it is hard to completely trace its course especially in developing countries, where efforts of fighting corruption are underfunded and not taken seriously.

Another factor that leads to corruption in most developing economies is poverty. The prevalence of poverty leads to lack of education, health and other basic necessities. This means that poor people do not have knowledge of their rights they are not aware of the responsibilities of the authorities.

Most of them are apathetic toward economic and social developments in their countries because they have to first deal with their own domestic challenges.

In many communities where public infrastructure and service delivery is extremely poor, mushrooming of the private enterprise leads to the exploitation of the meager resources of the poor as they seek better services especially in the health and education sectors. For example a doctor in a public health center receives salary every end of the month but only comes on appointment because he has his own private clinic (Das, 2006).

Most corrupt practices in poor countries take place without anyone reporting, either because nobody realizes it happening or people have the will to stop it but they are not strong enough to face the forces behind the vice.

The debate on the factors that lead to corruption and the ways through which it can be controlled continue across the world.

Measures that have been taken include controlling of the flow of foreign investment and the reduction or complete withdrawal of aid from developing countries that have corrupt systems. National and International media together with monitoring agencies like Transparency International have also played a big role on exposing corruption.

Das, R. (2006) Poverty and hunger: causes and consequences . New Delhi: Sarup and Sons.

Holmes, L. (1999) ‘Corruption, weak states and economic rationalism in Central and Eastern Europe’, Central European University Joint Conference on Corruption. Princeton University, Budapest , Hungary. Web.

Williams, J. and Beare, M. (1999) The business of bribery: globalization, economic liberalization and the “problem” of corruption’, crime, law and social change . New York, NY: Taylor and Francis.

• Article Synopsys on Public Administration
• Public Administration in the United States
• Historiography of East, West Frameworks on Eastern European Women During Communist Era
• “Neo-Liberalism as a Creative Destruction” by Harvey
• Neo-Liberalism in Theory and Practice
• Effective Hazard Mitigation
• Summary of Article on Public Administration
• The American Review of Public Administration
• Leadership Skills and Management Techniques in the Business World
• Review on the Discipline of Public Administration
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The causes and effects of corruption, and how to combat corruption, are issues that have been very much on the national and international agendas of politicians and other policymakers in recent decades (Heidenheimer and Johnston 2002; Heywood 2018). Moreover, various historically influential philosophers, notably Plato ( The Republic ), Aristotle ( The Politics ), Machiavelli ( The Prince and The Discourses ), Hobbes ( The Leviathan ) and Montesquieu ( The Spirit of the Laws ), have concerned themselves with political corruption in particular, albeit in somewhat general terms (Sparling 2019; Blau 2009). For these philosophers corruption consisted in large part in rulers governing in the service of their own individual or collective—or other factional—self-interest, rather than for the common good and in accordance with the law or, at least, in accordance with legally enshrined moral principles. They also emphasized the importance of virtues, where it was understood that the appropriate virtues for rulers might differ somewhat from the appropriate virtues for citizens. Indeed, Machiavelli, in particular, famously or, perhaps, infamously argued in The Prince that the rulers might need to cultivate dispositions, such as ruthlessness, that are inconsistent with common morality. [ 1 ] And Plato doubted that the majority of people were even capable of possessing the requisite moral and intellectual virtues required to play an important role in political institutions; hence his rejection in The Republic of democracy in favor of rule by philosopher-kings. Moreover, these historically important political philosophers were concerned about the corruption of the citizenry: the corrosion of the civic virtues. This theme of a corrupt citizenry, as opposed to a corrupt leadership or institution, has been notably absent in contemporary philosophical discussion of the corruption of political institutions until quite recently. However, recently the corruption of political institutions and of the citizenry as a consequence of the proliferation of disinformation, propaganda, conspiracy theories and hate speech on social media, in particular (Woolley and Howard 2019), has become an important phenomenon which philosophers have begun to address (Lynch 2017; Cocking and van den Hoven 2018; Miller and Bossomaier 2023: Ch. 4). Social media bots are used inter alia to automatically generate disinformation (as well as information), propagate ideologies (as well as non-ideologically based opinions), and function as fake accounts to inflate the followings of other accounts and to gain followers. The upshot is that the moral right of freedom to communicate has frequently not been exercised responsibly; moral obligations to seek and communicate truths rather than falsehoods have not been discharged, resulting in large-scale social, political and, in some cases, physical harm. One key set of ethical issues here pertains to an important form of institutional corruption: corruption of the democratic process. For instance, revelations concerning the data firm Cambridge Analytica’s illegitimate use of the data of millions of Facebook users to influence elections in the U.S. and elsewhere highlighted the ethical issues arising from the use of machine learning techniques for political purposes by malevolent foreign actors. The problem here is compounded by home-grown corruption of democratic institutions by people who wilfully undermine electoral and other institutional processes in the service of their own political and personal goals. For instance, Donald Trump consistently claimed, and continues to claim, that the 2020 U.S. presidential election which he demonstrably lost involved massive voter fraud. The problem has also been graphically illustrated in the U.S. by the rise of home-grown extremist political groups fed via social media on a diet of disinformation, conspiracy theories, hate speech, and propaganda; a process which led to the violent attack in January 2021 on the Capitol building which houses the U.S. Congress.

In the modern period, in addition to the corruption of political institutions, the corruption of other kinds of institutions, notably market-based institutions, has been recognised. For example, the World Bank (1997) some time back came around to the view that the health of economic institutions and progress in economic development is closely linked to corruption reduction. In this connection there have been numerous anti-corruption initiatives in multiple jurisdictions, albeit this is sometimes presented as politically motivated. Moreover, the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath have revealed financial corruption, including financial benchmark manipulation, and spurred regulators to consider various anti-corruption measures by way of response (Dobos, Pogge and Barry 2011). And in recent decades there have been ongoing efforts to analyze and devise means to combat corruption in in police organizations, in the professions, in the media, and even in universities and other research-focused institutions.

While contemporary philosophers, with some exceptions, have been slow to focus on corruption, the philosophical literature is increasing, especially in relation to political corruption (Thompson 1995; Dobel 2002; Warren 2006; Lessig 2011; Newhouse 2014; Philp and David-Barrett 2015; Miller 2017; Schmidtz 2018; Blau 2018; Philp 2018; Thompson 2018; Sparling 2019; Ceva & Ferretti 2021). For instance, until relatively recently the concept of corruption had not received much attention, and much of the conceptual work on corruption had consisted in little more than the presentation of brief definitions of corruption as a preliminary to extended accounts of the causes and effects of corruption and the ways to combat it. Moreover, most, but not all, of these definitions of corruption were unsatisfactory in fairly obvious ways. However, recently a number of more theoretically sophisticated definitions of corruption and related notions, such as bribery, have been provided by philosophers. Indeed, philosophers have also started to turn their minds to issues of anti-corruption, e.g., anti-corruption systems (often referred to as “integrity systems”), and in doing so theorizing the sources of corruption and the means to combat it.

1. Varieties of Corruption

2.1.1 personal corruption and institutional corruption, 2.1.2 institutional corrosion and structural corruption, 2.1.3 institutional actors and corruption, 2.2 causal theory of institutional corruption, 2.3.1 proceduralist theories of political corruption, 2.3.2 thompson: individual versus institutional corruption, 2.3.3 lessig’s dependence corruption, 2.3.4 ceva & ferretti: office accountability, 3. noble cause corruption, 4. integrity systems, 5. conclusion, other internet resources, related entries.

Consider one of the most popular of the standard longstanding definitions, namely, “Corruption is the abuse of power by a public official for private gain”. [ 2 ] No doubt the abuse of public offices for private gain is paradigmatic of corruption. But when a bettor bribes a boxer to “throw” a fight this is corruption for private gain, but it need not involve any public office holder; the roles of boxer and bettor are usually not public offices.

One response to this is to distinguish public corruption from private corruption, and to argue that the above definition is a definition only of public corruption. But if ordinary citizens lie when they give testimony in court, this is corruption; it is corruption of the criminal justice system. However, it does not involve abuse of a public office by a public official. And when police fabricate evidence out of a misplaced sense of justice, this is corruption of a public office, but not for private gain.

In the light of the failure of such analytical-style definitions it is tempting to try to sidestep the problem of providing a theoretical account of the concept of corruption by simply identifying corruption with specific legal and/or moral offences. However, attempts to identify corruption with specific legal/moral offences are unlikely to succeed. Perhaps the most plausible candidate is bribery; bribery is regarded by some as the quintessential form of corruption (Noonan 1984; Pritchard 1998; Green 2006). But what of nepotism (Bellow 2003)? Surely it is also a paradigmatic form of corruption, and one that is conceptually distinct from bribery. The person who accepts a bribe is understood as being required to provide a benefit to the briber, otherwise it is not a bribe; but the person who is the beneficiary of an act of nepotism is not necessarily understood as being required to return the favor.

In fact, corruption is exemplified by a very wide and diverse array of phenomena of which bribery is only one kind, and nepotism another. Paradigm cases of corruption include the following. The commissioner of taxation channels public monies into his personal bank account, thereby corrupting the public financial system. A political party secures a majority vote by arranging for ballot boxes to be stuffed with false voting papers, thereby corrupting the electoral process. A police officer fabricates evidence in order to secure convictions, thereby corrupting the judicial process. A number of doctors close ranks and refuse to testify against a colleague who they know has been negligent in relation to an unsuccessful surgical operation leading to loss of life; institutional accountability procedures are thereby undermined. A sports trainer provides the athletes he trains with banned substances in order to enhance their performance, thereby subverting the institutional rules laid down to ensure fair competition (Walsh and Giulianotti 2006). It is self-evident that none of these corrupt actions are instances of bribery.

Further, it is far from obvious that the way forward at this point is simply to add a few additional offences to the initial “list” consisting of the single offence of bribery. Candidates for being added to the list of offences would include nepotism, police fabricating evidence, cheating in sport by using drugs, fraudulent use of travel funds by politicians, and so on. However, any such list needs to be justified by recourse to some principle or principles. Ultimately, naming a set of offences that might be regarded as instances of corruption does not obviate the need for a theoretical, or quasi-theoretical, account of the concept of corruption.

As it happens, there is at least one further salient strategy for demarcating the boundaries of corrupt acts. Implicit in much of the literature on corruption is the view that corruption is essentially a legal offence, and essentially a legal offence in the economic sphere. Accordingly, one could seek to identify corruption with economic crimes, such as bribery, fraud, and insider trading.

But many acts of corruption are not unlawful. Bribery, a paradigm of corruption, is a case in point. Prior to 1977 it was not unlawful for U.S. companies to offer bribes to secure foreign contracts; indeed, elsewhere such bribery was not unlawful until much later. [ 3 ] So corruption is not necessarily unlawful. This is because corruption is not at bottom simply a matter of law; rather it is fundamentally a matter of morality.

Secondly, corruption is not necessarily economic in character. An academic who plagiarizes the work of others is not committing an economic crime or misdemeanor; and she might be committing plagiarism simply in order to increase her academic status. There might not be any financial benefit sought or gained.

We can conclude that many of the historically influential definitions of corruption, as well as attempts to circumscribe corruption by listing paradigmatic offences, fail. They fail in large part because the class of corrupt actions comprises an extremely diverse array of types of moral and legal offences undertaken in a wide variety of institutional contexts including, but by no means restricted to, political and economic institutions.

However, in recent times progress has been made. Philosophers, at least, have identified corruption as fundamentally a moral, as opposed to legal, phenomenon. Acts can be corrupt even though they are, and even ought to be, legal. Moreover, it is evident that not all acts of immorality are acts of corruption; corruption is only one species of immorality.

An important distinction in this regard is the distinction between human rights violations and corruption (see the entry on human rights ). Genocide is a profound moral wrong; but it is not corruption. This is not to say that there is not an important relationship between human rights violations and corruption; on the contrary, there is often a close and mutually reinforcing nexus between them (Pearson 2001; Pogge 2002 [2008]; Wenar 2016; Sharman 2017). Consider the endemic corruption and large-scale human rights abuse that have taken place in authoritarian regimes, such as that of Mobutu in Zaire, Suharto in Indonesia and Marcos in the Philippines (Sharman 2017). And there is increasing empirical evidence of an admittedly sometimes complex, but sometimes not so complex, causal connection between corruption and the infringement of both negative rights (such as the right not to be tortured, suffer arbitrary loss of one’s freedom, or have one’s property stolen) and positive rights, e.g., subsistence rights (such as the right to a sufficient supply of clean water to enable life and health); there is evidence, that is, of a causal relation between corruption and poverty. Consider corrupt authoritarian leaders in developing countries who sell the country’s natural resources cheaply and retain the profits for themselves and their families and supporters (Pogge 2002 [2008]: Chapter 6; Wenar 2016). As Wenar has forcefully argued (Wenar 2016), in the first place this is theft of the property (natural resources) of the people of the countries in question (e.g., Equatorial Guinea) by their own rulers (e.g., Obiang) and, therefore, western countries and others who import these resources are buying stolen goods; and, in the second place, this theft maintains these human rights-violating rulers in power and ensures that their populations continue to suffer in conditions of abject poverty, disease etc.

Thus far, examples of different types of corrupt action have been presented, and corrupt actions have been distinguished from some other types of immoral action. However, the class of corrupt actions has not been adequately demarcated within the more general class of immoral actions. To do so, a definition of corrupt actions is needed.

An initial distinction here is between single one-off actions of corruption and a pattern of corrupt actions. The despoiling of the moral character of a role occupant, or the undermining of institutional processes and purposes, would typically require a pattern of actions—and not merely a single one-off action. So a single free hamburger provided to a police officer on one occasion usually does not corrupt, and is not therefore an act of corruption. Nevertheless, a series of such gifts to a number of police officers might corrupt. They might corrupt, for example, if the hamburger joint in question ended up with (in effect) exclusive, round the clock police protection, and if the owner intended that this be the case.

Note here the pivotal role of habits (Langford & Tupper 1994). We have just seen that the corruption of persons and institutions typically requires a pattern of corrupt actions. More specifically, corrupt actions are typically habitual. Yet, as noted by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics , one’s habits are in large part constitutive of one’s moral character; habits make the man (and the woman). The coward is someone who habitually takes flight in the face of danger; by contrast, the courageous person has a habit of standing his or her ground. Accordingly, morally bad habits —including corrupt actions—are extremely corrosive of moral character, and therefore of institutional roles and ultimately institutions. Naturally, so-called systemic corruption would typically involve not simply the habitual performance of a corrupt action by a single individual but the habitual performance of a corrupt action by many individuals in an institution or, conceivably, an entire society or polity. Moreover, this pattern of individuals engaged in the performance of habitual corrupt actions might have a self-sustaining structure that gives rise to a collective action problem, if the pattern is to be broken. Consider widespread bribery in relation to competitive tenders for government contracts. Bribes are paid by competing companies in order to try influence the outcome of the tender process. Any firm that chooses not to pay a bribe is not given serious consideration. Thus, not to engage in corruption is to seriously disadvantage one’s company. Even those who do not want to engage in bribery do so. This is a collective action problem (Olson 1965).

Notwithstanding the habitual nature of most corrupt actions there are some cases in which a single, one-off action would be sufficient to corrupt an instance of an institutional process. Consider a specific tender. Suppose that one bribe is offered and accepted, and the tendering process is thereby undermined. Suppose that this is the first and only time that the person offering the bribe and the person receiving the bribe are involved in bribery. Is this one-off bribe an instance of corruption? Surely it is, since it corrupted that particular instance of a tendering process.

Ontologically speaking, there are different kinds of entities that can be corrupted. These include human beings, words of a language, artefacts, such as computer discs, and so on. However, our concern in this entry is with the corruption of institutions since this is the main focus of the philosophical and, for that matter, the non-philosophical, literature. Of course, institutions are comprised in large part of institutional roles occupied by human beings. So our focus on institutional corruption brings with it a focus on the corruption of individual human beings. (I refer to the corruption of individual human beings as personal corruption.) However in the case of institutional corruption, the focus on the corruption of human beings (personal corruption) is on human beings qua institutional actors (and on those who interact with institutional role occupants qua institutional role occupants)(Miller 2017: 65).

The upshot of this is that there are three sets of distinctions in play here. Firstly, there is the distinction between institutional corruption and non-institutional corruption—the latter being the corruption of entities other than institutions, e.g., corruption of artefacts. Secondly, there is the distinction between personal and non-personal corruption—the former being the corruption of human beings as opposed to, for instance, institutional processes. Thirdly, with respect to personal corruption, there is the distinction between the corruption of persons qua institutional actors and non-institutional personal corruption. Non-institutional personal corruption is corruption of persons outside institutional settings. Personal corruption pertains to the moral character of persons, and consists in the despoiling of their moral character. If an action has a corrupting effect on a person’s character, it will typically be corrosive of one or more of a person’s virtues. These virtues might be virtues that attach to the person qua human being, e.g., the virtues of compassion and fairness in one’s dealings with other human beings. Corrosion of these virtues amounts to non-institutional personal corruption. Alternatively—or in some cases, additionally—these virtues might attach to persons qua occupants of specific institutional roles, e.g., impartiality in a judge or objectivity in a journalist. Corrosion of these virtues amounts to institutional personal corruption, i.e., corruption of a person qua institutional role occupant.

In order to provide an adequate account of institutional corruption we need a serviceable notion of an institution: the thing corrupted. For our purposes here it is assumed that an institution is an organization or structure of organizations that reproduces itself (e.g., by training and recruitment processes) and is comprised of a structure of institutional roles defined in terms of tasks (Harré 1979; Giddens 1984; Miller 2010). Accordingly, the class of institutions is quite diverse and includes political institutions, (e.g., legislatures), market-based institutions, (e.g., corporations), institutions of learning, (e.g., universities), security agencies, (e.g., police and military organizations), and so on. Importantly, as we noted above, the various different types of, and even motives for, institutional corruption vary greatly from one kind of institution to another.

Note that in theorizing institutional corruption the distinction between an entire society or polity, on the one hand, and its constituent institutions, on the other, needs to be kept in mind. A theory of democracy, for instance, might be a theory not only of democratic government in the narrow sense of the legislature and senior members of the executive, but also of the public administration as a whole, the judiciary, the security agencies (police and military), civil society and so on. Obviously, a theory of the corruption of democratic political institutions (in the narrow sense of the legislature and the senior members of the executive) might not be generalizable to other sorts of institution within a democracy, e.g., to security agencies or market-based institutions. Moreover, fundamental differences regarding the specific form that a democracy ought to take, e.g., between those of a republican persuasion (Pettit 1997; Sandel 2012) and libertarians (Nozick 1974; Friedman 1970), might morph into disputes about what counts as institutional corruption. For instance, on one view market-based institutions exist to serve the common good, while on another they exist only to serve the individual self-interest of the participants in them. Thus on the latter, but not the former, view market intervention by the government in the service of the common good might be regarded as a species of corruption. Further, a theory of the corruption of democracy, and certainly of the corruption of one species of democracy such as liberal democracy, is not necessarily adequate for the understanding of the corruption of many of institutions within a democracy and, in particular, those institutions, such as military and police institutions, hierarchical bureaucracies and market-based institutions, which are not inherently democratic either in structure or purpose, notwithstanding that they exist within the framework of a democratic political system, are shaped in various ways by that framework and, conversely, might be necessary for the maintenance of that framework.

2. Institutional Corruption

2.1 general features of institutional corruption.

Our concern here is only with institutional corruption. Nevertheless, it is plausible that corruption in general, including institutional corruption frequently, if not typically, involves the despoiling of the moral character of persons and in particular, in the case of institutional corruption, the despoiling of the moral character of institutional role occupants qua institutional role occupants. To this extent institutional corruption involves personal corruption and, thereby, connects institutional corruption to moral character. If the moral character of particular institutional role occupants, (e.g., police detectives), consists in large part of their possession of certain virtues definitive of the role in question (e.g., honesty, independence of mind, impartiality) then institutional corruption will frequently involve the displacement of those virtues in these role occupants by corresponding vices, (e.g., dishonesty, weak mindedness, bias); that is, institutional corruption will frequently involve institutional personal corruption.

As noted above, the relationship between institutional corruption and personal corruption is something that has been emphasized historically, e.g., by Plato, Aristotle and Machiavelli. However, some recent theorists of structural corruption have tended to downplay this relationship. Lessig’s notion of dependence corruption (Lessig 2011), in particular, evidently decouples structural corruption from (institutional) personal corruption (see section 2.3.3 below).

Personal corruption, i.e., the state of having been corrupt ed , is not the same thing as performing a corrupt action, i.e., being a corrupt or . Typically, corruptors are themselves corrupted, but this is not necessarily the case. Consider, for example, a parent who pays a one-off bribe to an immigration official in order to be reunited with her child. The parent is a corruptor by virtue of performing a corrupt action, but she is not necessarily corrupted by her, let us assume, morally justifiable action.

Does personal corruption imply moral responsibility for one’s corrupt character? This issue is important in its own right but it also has implications for our understanding of structural corruption. Certainly, many, if not most, of those who are corrupted are morally responsible for being so. After all, they do or should know what it is to be corrupt and they could have avoided becoming corrupt. Consider, for instance, kleptocrats, such as Mobuto and Marcos, who have looted billions of dollars from the public purse (Sharman 2017), or senior members of multi-national corporations who have been engaged in ongoing massive bribery in China and elsewhere (Pei 2016). These kleptocrats and corporate leaders are not only corruptors, they are themselves corrupt; moreover, they are morally responsible for being in their state of corruption.

However, there appear to be exceptions to the claim that personal corruption necessarily or always brings with it moral responsibility for one’s corrupt character, e.g., adolescents who have been raised in criminal families and, as a result, participate in the corrupt enterprises of these families. These individuals perform actions which are an expression of their corrupt characters and which also have a corrupting effect.

What of the moral responsibility of corruptors for their corrupt actions? It is plausible that many, if not most, corruptors are morally responsible for their corrupt actions (e.g., the legions of those rightly convicted of corruption in criminal courts—and therefore, presumably, morally responsible for their actions—in jurisdictions around the world), but there appear to be exceptions, e.g., those who are coerced into offering bribes.

One school of thought in the theory of social institutions that might well reject the view that corruptors are necessarily or even typically morally responsible (or, therefore, blameworthy) for their corrupt actions is structuralism (Lévi-Strauss 1962 [1966]) and especially structural Marxism (Althusser 1971). According to the latter view institutional structure and, in particular, economic class-based relations largely determine institutional structures and cultures, and regularities in the actions of institutional actors. On this anti-individualist conception neither institutional corrosion nor institutional corruption—supposing the two notions can be distinguished (see below)—are ultimately to be understood by recourse to the actions of morally responsible individual human agents. Strong forms of structuralism are inconsistent with most contemporary philosophical accounts of institutional corruption, not the least because these accounts typically assume that institutions have an inherently normative—rather than merely ideological—dimension. However there are echoes of weaker forms of structuralism in some of these accounts when it comes to the issue of the moral responsibility of human persons for institutional corruption. One influential contemporary theorist of corruption who apparently does not accept the view that corruptors are necessarily or always morally responsible (or, therefore, blameworthy) for their corrupt actions is Lessig (Lessig 2011) (see section 2.3.3 below).

The upshot of our discussion of (institutional) personal corruption and moral responsibility is as follows. We now have, at least notionally, a fourfold distinction in relation to corruptors: (1) corruptors who are morally responsible for their corrupt action and blameworthy; (2) corruptors who are morally responsible for their corrupt action but not blameworthy; (3) corruptors who are not morally responsible for having a corrupt character, but whose actions: (a) are expressive of their corrupt character, and; (b) have a corrupting effect; (4) corruptors who do not have a corrupt character and are neither morally responsible nor blameworthy for their corrupt actions, yet whose actions have a corrupting effect, e.g., by virtue of some form of structural dependency for which individual human persons are not morally responsible.

Naturally, in the case of institutional corruption typically greater institutional damage is being done than simply the despoiling of the moral character of the institutional role occupants. Specifically, institutional processes are being undermined, and/or institutional purposes subverted. A further point is that the undermining of institutional purposes or processes typically requires the actions of multiple agents; the single action of a single agent is typically not sufficient. The multiple actions of the multiple agents in question could be a joint action(s) or they could be individual actions taken in aggregate. A joint action is one in which two or more agents perform a contributory individual action in the service of a common or collective end (Miller 2010: Chapter 1) or, according to some theorists, joint intention (Bratman 2016: Chapter 1). For instance, motivated by financial gain, a group of traders within the banking sector might cooperate with one another in order to manipulate a financial benchmark rate, such as LIBOR (London Interbank Borrowing Rate) (Wheatley 2012).

However, arguably, the undermining of institutional processes and/or purposes is not a sufficient condition for institutional corruption. Acts of institutional damage that are not performed by a corruptor and also do not corrupt persons might be thought to be better characterized as acts of institutional corrosion . Consider, for example, funding decisions that gradually reduce public monies allocated to the court system in some large jurisdiction. As a consequence, magistrates might be progressively less well trained and there might be fewer and fewer of them to deal with the gradually increasing workload of cases. This may well lead to a diminution over decades in the quality of the adjudications of these magistrates, and so the judicial processes are to an extent undermined. However, given the size of the jurisdiction and the incremental nature of these changes, neither the magistrates, nor anyone else, might be aware of this process of judicial corrosion, or even able to become aware of it (given heavy workloads, absence of statistical information, etc.). At any rate, if we assume that neither the judges nor anyone else can do anything to address the problem then, while there has clearly been judicial corrosion, arguably there has not been judicial corruption. Why is such corrosion not also corruption?

For institutional corrosion to constitute corruption, it might be claimed (Miller 2017: Chapter 3), the institutional damage done needs to be avoidable; indeed, it might also be claimed that the relevant agents must be capable of being held morally responsible for the damage, at least in the generality of cases. So if the magistrates in our example were to become aware of the diminution in the quality of their adjudications, could cause additional resources to be provided and yet chose to do nothing, then arguably the process of corrosion might have become a process of corruption.

An important question that arises here is whether or not institutional corruption is relative to a teleological or purpose-driven conception of institutions and, relatedly, whether the purposes in question are to be understood normatively. Arguably, the institutional purposes of universities include the acquisition of new knowledge and its transmission to students; moreover, arguably, knowledge acquisition is a human good since it enables (indirectly), for instance, health needs to be met. However, it has been suggested that the purposes of political institutions, in particular, are too vague or contested to be definitive of them (Ceva & Ferretti 2017; Warren 2004). One response to this is to claim that governments are in large part meta-institutions with the responsibility to ensure that society’s other institutions realize their distinctive institutional purposes. On this view, an important purpose of governments is provided, in effect, by the purposes of other fundamental institutions. For instance, an important purpose of governments might be to ensure market-based institutions operate in a free, fair, efficient and effective manner (Miller 2017: 14.1).

Naturally, there are many different kinds of entities which might causally undermine institutions, including other collective entities. However, collectivist accounts of institutions go beyond the ascription of causal responsibility and, in some cases, ascribe moral responsibility. Firstly, such collectivist accounts of institutions ascribe intentions, beliefs and so on to organizations and other collective entities per se. Secondly, this ascription of mindedness to collective entities leaves the way open to ascribe moral agency to these entities (French 1979; List & Pettit 2011). On such collectivist accounts corruptors include collective entities; indeed, corruptors who are morally responsible for their corrupt actions. Thus Lockheed Corporation, on this view, was a moral agent (or, at least, an immoral agent) which corrupted the Japanese government (a second moral agent) by way of bribery. Other theorists, typically referred to as individualists, reject minded collective entities (Ludwig 2017; Miller 2010). Accordingly to individualists, only human agents are possessed of minds and moral agency. [ 4 ] Thus collective entities, such as organizations, do not have minds and are not per se moral agents. Accordingly, it is only human agents who culpably perform actions that undermine legitimate institutional processes or purposes.

An important related issue that arises at this point pertains to the human agents who perform acts of corruption. Are they necessarily institutional actors? It might be thought that this was not the case. Supposing a criminal bribes a public official in order to get a permit to own a gun. The criminal is not an institutional actor and yet he has performed an act of institutional corruption. However, in this example the public official has accepted the bribe and she is an institutional actor. So the example does not show that institutional corruption does not necessarily involve the participation of an institutional actor. What if the criminal offered the bribe but it was not accepted? While this may well be a crime and is certainly an attempt at institutional corruption, arguably, it is not an actual instance of an act of institutional corruption but rather a failed attempt. Moreover, it is presumably not an instance of institutional corruption because the institutional actor approached refused to participate in the attempted corrupt action. Let us pursue this issue further.

As we saw in section 1 , corruption, even if it involves the abuse of public office, is not necessarily pursued for private gain. However, according to many definitions of corruption institutional corruption necessarily involves abuse of public office. Moreover, our example of an attempted bribe to secure a gun permit involves a public official. However, we have canvassed arguments in section 1 that contra this view acts of corruption might be actions performed by persons who do not hold public office, e.g., price-fixing by market actors, a witness who gives false testimony in a law court. At this point in the argument we need to invoke a distinction between persons who hold a public office and persons who have an institutional role. CEOs of corporations do not hold public office but they do have an institutional role. Hence a CEO who embezzles his company’s money is engaged in corruption. Again, citizens are not necessarily holders of public offices, but they do have an institutional role qua citizens, e.g., as voters. Hence a voter who breaks into the electoral office and stuffs the ballot boxes with falsified voting papers in order to ensure the election of her favored candidate is engaged in corruption, notwithstanding the fact that she does not hold public office.

The causal theory of institutional corruption (Miller 2017) presupposes a normative teleological conception of institutions according to which institutions are defined not only as organizations or systems of organizations with a purpose(s), but organizations or systems of organizations the purpose(s) of which is a human good. The goods in question are either intrinsic or instrumental goods. For instance, universities are held to have as their purpose the discovery and transmission of knowledge, where knowledge is at the very least an instrumental good. (For criticisms see Thompson 2018 and Ceva & Ferretti 2021.)

If a serviceable definition of the concept of a corrupt action is to be found—and specifically, one that does not collapse into the more general notion of an immoral action—then attention needs to be focused on the moral effects that some actions have on persons and institutions. An action is corrupt only if it corrupts something or someone—so corruption is not only a moral concept, but also a causal or quasi-causal concept. That is, an action is corrupt by virtue of having a corrupting effect on a person’s moral character or on an institutional process or purpose. If an action has a corrupting effect on an institution, undermining institutional processes or purposes, then typically—but not necessarily—it has a corrupting effect also on persons qua role occupants in the affected institutions.

Accordingly, an action is corrupt only if it has the effect of undermining an institutional process or of subverting an institutional purpose or of despoiling the character of some role occupant qua role occupant. In light of the possibility that some acts of corruption have negligible effects, such as a small one-off bribe paid for a minor service, this defining feature needs to be qualified so as to include acts that are of a type or kind that tends to undermine institutional processes, purposes or persons ( qua institutional role occupants)—as well as individual or token acts that actually have the untoward effects in question. Thus qualified, the causal character of corruption provides the second main feature of the causal theory of institutional corruption, the first feature being the normative teleological conception of institutions. I note accounts predicated on these two assumptions have ancient origins, notably in Aristotle (Hindess 2001).

In keeping with the causal account, an infringement of a specific law or institutional rule does not in and of itself constitute an act of institutional corruption. In order to do so, any such infringement needs to have an institutionally undermining effect , or be of a kind that has a tendency to cause such an effect, e.g., to defeat the institutional purpose of the rule, to subvert the institutional process governed by the rule, or to contribute to the despoiling of the moral character of a role occupant qua role occupant. In short, we need to distinguish between the offence considered in itself and the institutional effect of committing that offence. Considered in itself the offence of, say, lying is an infringement of a law, rule, and/or a moral principle. However, the offence is only an act of institutional corruption if it has some institutionally undermining effect, or is of a kind that has such a tendency, e.g., it is performed in a courtroom setting and thereby subverts the judicial process.

A third feature of the causal theory of institutional corruption pertains to the agents who cause the corruption. As noted in section 2.1.3 , there are many different kinds of entities which might causally undermine institutions, including other collective entities. However, it is an assumption of the causal theory of corruption that only human agents are possessed of minds and moral agency. Accordingly, on the causal theory it is only human agents who culpably perform actions that undermine legitimate institutional processes or purposes.

A fourth and final feature of the causal theory also pertains to the agents who cause corruption. It is a further assumption of the causal theory that the human agents who perform acts of corruption (the corruptors) and/or the human agents who are corrupted (the corrupted) are necessarily institutional actors (see discussion above in section 2.1.3 ). More precisely, acts of institutional corruption necessarily involve a corruptor who performs the corrupt action qua occupant of an institutional role and/or someone who is corrupted qua occupant of an institutional role .

In light of the above discussion the following normative theory of corruption suggests itself: the causal theory of institutional corruption (Miller 2017: Chapter 3).

An act x (whether a single or joint action) performed by an agent (or set of agents) A is an act of institutional corruption if and only if:

• x has an effect, or is an instance of a kind of act that has a tendency to have an effect, of undermining, or contributing to the undermining of, some institutional process and/or purpose (understood as a collective good) of some institution, I , and/or an effect of contributing to the despoiling of the moral character of some role occupant of I , agent (or set of agents) B , qua role occupant of I ;
• A is a role occupant of I who used the opportunities afforded by their role to perform x , and in so doing A intended or foresaw the untoward effects in question, or should have foreseen them;
• B could have avoided the untoward effects, if B had chosen to do so. [ 5 ]

Note that (2) (a) tells us that A is a corruptor and is, therefore, either (straightforwardly) morally responsible for the corrupt action, or A is not morally responsible for A ’s corrupt character and the corrupt action is an expression of A ’s corrupt character.

Notice also that the causal theory being cast in general terms, i.e., the undermining of institutional purposes, processes and/or persons ( qua institutional role occupants), can accommodate a diversity of corruption in a wide range of institutions in different social, political and economic settings, past and present, and accommodate also a wide range of mechanisms or structures of corruption, including structural relations of dependency, collective action problems and so on.

A controversial feature of the causal account is that organizations that are entirely morally and legally illegitimate, such as criminal organizations, (e.g., the mafia), are not able to be corrupted (Lessig 2013b). For on the causal account the condition of corruption exists only relative to an uncorrupted condition, which is the condition of being a morally legitimate institution or sub-element thereof. Consider the uncorrupted judicial process. It consists of the presentation of objective evidence that has been gathered lawfully, of testimony in court being presented truthfully, of the rights of the accused being respected, and so on. This otherwise morally legitimate judicial process may be corrupted, if one or more of its constitutive actions are not performed in accordance with the process as it ought to be. Thus to present fabricated evidence, to lie under oath, and so on, are all corrupt actions. In relation to moral character, consider an honest accountant who begins to “doctor the books” under the twin pressures of a corrupt senior management and a desire to maintain a lifestyle that is only possible if he is funded by the very high salary he receives for doctoring the books. By engaging in such a practice he risks the erosion of his moral character; he is undermining his disposition to act honestly.

2.3 Theories of Political Corruption

Let us term theories of corruption which focus on the undermining of institutional procedures or processes, as opposed to institutional purposes, proceduralist theories of institutional corruption. Mark Warren has elaborated a proceduralist theory of the corruption of democracies, in particular; a theory which he terms “duplicitous exclusion” (Warren 2006). (Relatedly and more recently, Ceva & Ferretti speak of bending public rules in the service of “surreptitious agendas” as definitive of corruption (Ceva & Ferretti 2017: 6), although in a recent work they have shifted to a notion of corruption in terms of lack of accountability (Ceva & Ferretti 2018; Ceva & Ferretti 2021). See discussion below in 2.3.4.)

Democratic political institutions are characterized by equality (in some sense) with respect to these processes. Warren offers a particular account of democratic equality and derives his notion of corruption of democratic political institutions from this. According to Warren, democracies involve a norm of equal inclusion such that

every individual potentially affected by a collective decision should have an opportunity to affect the decision proportional to his or her stake in the outcome. (Warren 2004: 333)

Corruption of democracies occurs under two conditions: (1) this norm is violated and; (2) violators claim to be complying with the norm (Warren 2004: 337). Warren contrasts his theory of duplicitous exclusion with what he terms “office-based” accounts (Warren 2004:329–32).The latter might be serviceable for administrative agencies and roles but is, according to Warren, inadequate for democratic representatives attempting to “define the public interest” (Warren 2006: 10) and relying essentially on the political process, rather than pre-existing agreement on specific ends or purposes, to do so. This latter point is made in one way of another by other theorists of modern representative democracies, such as Thompson (2013) and Ceva & Ferretti (2017: 5), and is an objection to teleological accounts (such as the causal account— section 2.2 above).

Warren’s other necessary condition for the corruption of institutions, namely duplicity, resonates with the emphasis in the contemporary anti-corruption literature and, for that matter, in much public policy on transparency; transparency can reveal duplicity and thereby thwart corruptors. Moreover, the duplicity condition—and the related surreptitious agenda condition of Ceva & Ferretti—is reminiscent of Plato’s ring of Gyges (Plato Gorgias ); corruption is something done under a cloak of secrecy and typically involves deception to try to ensure the cloak is not removed. Unquestionably, corruption often flourishes under conditions of secrecy. Moreover, corruptors frequently seek to deceive by presenting themselves a committed to the standards that they are (secretly) violating. But contra Warren—and, for that matter, Ceva & Ferretti—corruption does not necessarily or always need to be hidden in order to flourish. Indeed, in polities and institutions suffering from the most serious and widespread forms of corruption at the hands of the very powerful, there is often little or no need for secrecy or deception in relation to the pursuit of corrupt practices; corruption is out in the open. Consider Colombia during the period of the drug lord, Pablo Escobar’s, “reign”; the period of the so-called “narcocracy”. His avowed and well-advertised policy was “silver or lead”, meaning that politicians, judges, journalists and so on either accepted a bribe or risked being killed (Bowden 2012). Against this it might be suggested that at least corruption in democracies always involves hiding one’s corrupt practices. Unfortunately, this seems not to be the case either. As Plato pointed out long ago in The Republic , democracies can suffer a serious problem of corruption among the citizenry and when this happens all manner of corrupt practices on the part of leaders and others will not only be visible, they will be tolerated, and even celebrated.

Warren’s theory is evidently not generalizable to many other institutions, namely, those that are not centrally governed by democratic norms and, in particular, by his norm of equal inclusion. Consider, for instance, military institutions. Most important decisions made by military personal in wartime—as opposed to those made by their political masters, such as whether to go to war in the first place—are made in the context of a hierarchical structure; they are not collective decisions, if the notion of a collective decision is to be understood on a democratic model of decision-making, e.g., representative democracy. Moreover, with respect to, for instance, the decision to retreat or stand and fight a combatant does not and cannot reasonably expect to have “an opportunity to affect the decision proportional to her stake in the outcome”. The combatant’s personal stake might be very high; his life is at risk if he stands and fights and, therefore, he might prefer to retreat. However, military necessity in a just war might dictate that he and his comrades stand and fight and, therefore, they are ordered to do so by their superiors back at headquarters and, as virtuous combatants, they obey. I note that Machiavelli contrasts combatants possessed of the martial virtues with corruptible mercenaries who only fight for money and who desert when their lives are threatened (Machiavelli The Prince : Chapter 12).

Thompson’s groundbreaking and influential theory of institutional corruption takes as its starting point a distinction between what Thompson refers to as individual corruption and institutional corruption. When an official accepts a bribe in return for providing a service to the briber, this is individual corruption since the official is accepting a personal benefit or gain in exchange for promoting private interests (Thompson 2013: 6). Moreover, the following two conditions evidently obtain: (i) the official intends to provide the service (or, at least, intends to give the impression that he will provide the service) to the bribee; (ii) the official and the bribee intentionally create the link between the bribe and the service, i.e., it is a quid quo pro . By contrast, institutional corruption involves political benefits or gains, e.g., campaign contributions (that do not go into the political candidates’ own pockets but are actually spent on the campaigns) by public officials under conditions that tend to promote private interests (Thompson 2013: 6). The reference to a tendency entails that there is some kind of causal regularity in the link between acceptance of the political benefits and promotion of the private interests (including greater access to politicians than is available to others (Thompson 2018)). However, the officials in question do not intend that there be such a link between the political benefits they accept and their promotion of the private interests of the provider of the political benefits. Rather

the fact that an official acts under conditions that tend to create improper influence is sufficient to establish corruption, whatever the official’s motive. (Thompson 2013: 13)

I note that in the case of institutional corruption and, presumably, individual corruption (in so far as it involves the bribery of public or private officials) the actions in question must undermine some institutional process or purpose (and/or perhaps institutional role occupant qua role occupant). Thus Thompson says of institutional corruption:

It is not corrupt if the practice promotes (or at least does not damage) political competition, citizenship representation, or other core processes of the institution. But it is corrupt if it is of a type that tends to undermine such processes and thereby frustrate the primary purposes of the institution. (Thompson 2013: 7)

While Thompson has provided an important analysis of an important species of institutional corruption, his additional claim that officials who accept personal benefits in exchange for promoting private interests, i.e., a common form of bribery, is not a species of institutional corruption is open to question (and a point of difference with the causal theory). As mentioned in section 1 , this species of bribery of institutional actors utilizing their position—whether that position be one in the public sector or in the private sector—can be systemic and, therefore, extremely damaging to institutions. Consider the endemic bribery of police in India with its attendant undermining of the provision of impartial (Kurer 2005; Rothstein & Varraich 2017), obligatory (Kolstad 2012) and effective police services, not to mention of public trust in the police. Some police stations in part of India are little more than unlawful “tax” collection or, better, extortion agencies; local business people have to pay the local police if they are to guarantee effective police protection, truck drivers have to pay bribes to the police at transport checkpoints, if they are to transit expeditiously through congested areas, speeding tickets are avoided by those who pay bribes, and so on. Moreover, endemic bribery of this kind is endemic in many police forces and other public sector agencies throughout so-called developing countries, even if it is no longer present in most developed countries.

Thompson invokes the distinction between systemic and episodic services provided by a public official in support of his distinction between individual and institutional corruption. By “systemic” Thompson means that the service provided by the official

is provided through a persistent pattern of relationships, rather than in episodic or one-time interactions. (The particular relationships do not themselves have to be ongoing: a recurrent set of one-time interactions by the same politician with different recipients could create a similar pattern.) (Thompson 2013: 11)

However, as our above example of bribery of police in India makes clear, Thompson’s individual corruption can be, and often is, systemic in precisely this sense. In more recent work Thompson has drawn attention to mixed cases involving, for instance, both a personal and a political gain—the political gain not necessarily being a motive—and suggested that if the dominant gain is political rather than personal then it is institutional corruption or perhaps a mix of individual and institutional corruption (Thompson 2018). Fair enough. However, this does not remove the objection that systemic bribery (for instance) involving only personal gain (both as a motive and an outcome) are, nevertheless, cases of institutional corruption.

Thompson uses the case of Charles Keating to outline his theory (Thompson 1995 and 2013). Keating was a property developer who made generous contributions to the election campaigns of various U.S. politicians, notably five senators, and then at a couple of meetings called on a number of these to do him a favor in return. Specifically, Keating wanted the senators to get a regulatory authority to refrain from seizing the assets of a subsidiary of a company owned by Keating. The chair of the regulatory authority was replaced. However, two years later the assets of the company in question were seized and authorities filed a civil racketeering and fraud suit against Keating accusing him of diverting funds from the company to his family and to political campaigns. Thompson argues that the Keating case involved: (1) the provision or, at least, the appearance of the provision of an improper service on the part of legislators (the senators) to a constituent (Keating), i.e., interfering with the role of a regulator on his behalf; (2) a political gain in the form of campaign contributions (from Keating to the senators), and; (3) a link or, at least, the appearance of a link between (1) and (2), i.e., the tendency under these conditions for the service to be performed because of the political gain.

Accordingly, the case study involves at least the appearance of corrupt activity on the part of the senators. Moreover, Thompson claims that such an appearance might be sufficient for institutional corruption in that damage has been done to a political institution by virtue of a diminution in public trust in that institution. Thus the appearance of a conflict of interest undermines public trust which in turn damages the institution. The appearance of a conflict of interest arises when legislators use their office to provide a questionable “service” to a person upon whom they are, or have been, heavily reliant for campaign contributions. Evidently, on Thompson’s account of institutional (as opposed to individual) corruption it is not necessary that the legislators in these kinds of circumstance ought to know that their actions might well have the appearance of a conflict of interest, ought to know that they might have a resulting damaging effect, and ought to know, therefore, that they ought not to have performed those actions. Certainly, the senators in the Keating case ought to have known that they ought not to perform these actions. However, the more general point is that it is not clear that it would be a case of corruption, if it were not the case that the legislators in question ought to have known that they ought not to perform the institutionally damaging actions in question. On the causal account ( section 2.2 above), if legislators or other officials perform institutionally damaging actions that they could not reasonably be expected to know would be institutionally damaging then they have not engaged in corruption but rather incidental institutional damage (and perhaps corrosion if the actions are ongoing).

As outlined above, Thompson has made a detailed application of his theory to political institutions and, especially to campaign financing in the U.S.. However, he views the theory as generalizable to institutions other than political ones. It is generalizable, he argues, in so far as “public purposes” can be replaced by “institutional purposes” and “democratic process” with “legitimate institutional procedures” (Thompson 2013: 5). Certainly, if the theory is to be generalizable then it is necessary that these replacements be made. The question is whether making these replacements is sufficient. Moreover, the particular species of institutional corruption that he has identified and analyzed might exist in other institutions but do so alongside a wide range of other species to which his analysis does not apply—including, but not restricted to, what he refers to as individual corruption. Thompson has recently identified some other forms of institutional corruption to which he claims his theory applies (Thompson 2018). For instance, the close relationship that might obtain between corporations and their auditing firms. The salient such relationships are those consisting of auditing firms undertaking profitable financial consultancy work for the very corporations which they are auditing; hence the potential for the independent auditing process to be compromised. These relationships certainly have the potential for corruption. However, they do not appear to be paradigms of institutional corruption in Thompson’s sense since, arguably, undertaking such consultancy work is not prima facie an integral function of auditing firms qua auditors in the manner in which, for instance, securing campaign finance is integral to political parties competing in an election (to mention Thompson’s paradigmatic example of institutional corruption).

Newhouse has attempted to generalize Thompson’ theory, but in doing so also narrows it. Newhouse argues that Thompson’s theory is best understood in terms of breach of organizational fiduciary duties (Newhouse 2014). An important underlying reason for this, says Newhouse, is that Thompson’s (and, for that matter, Lessig’s) account of institutional corruption presuppose that institutions have an “obligatory purpose” (Newhouse 2014: 555) Fiduciary duties are, of course, obligatory. Moreover, they are widespread in both the public and private sector; hence the theory would be generalized. On the other hand, there are many institutional actors who do not have fiduciary duties. Thus if Newhouse is correct in thinking that Thompson’s theory of institutional corruption provides a model for breach of organizational fiduciary duty and only for breach of organizational fiduciary duty, the ambition to generalize Thompson’s theory will remain substantially unrealized.

Lawrence Lessig has argued that the U.S. democratic political process and, indeed, Congress itself, is institutionally corrupt and that the corruption in question is a species of what he calls “dependency corruption” (Lessig 2011 and 2013a). Lessig argues that although U.S. citizens as a whole vote in the election of, say, the U.S. President, nevertheless, the outcome is not wholly dependent on these citizens as it should be in a democracy or, at least, as is required by the U.S. Constitution. For the outcome is importantly dependent on a small group of “Funders” who bankroll particular candidates and without whose funding no candidate could hope to win office. Accordingly, there are really two elections. In the first election only the Funders get to “vote” since only they have sufficient funds to support a political candidate. Once these candidate have been “elected” then there is a second election, a general election, in which all the citizens get to vote. However, they can only vote on the list of candidates “pre-selected” by the Funders. Lessig’s account of the U.S. election is complicated, but not vitiated, by the existence of a minority of candidates, such as Bernie Sanders, who rely on funding consisting of small amounts of money from a very large number of Funders. It is further complicated but not necessarily vitiated by the rise of demagogues such as Donald Trump who, as mentioned above, can utilise social media and computational propaganda to have an electoral influence much greater than otherwise might have been the case (Woolley and Howard 2019).

On Lessig’s view there are two dependencies in play, namely, the dependency of the outcome of the election on the citizenry and the dependency of this outcome on the Funders. However, these two dependencies are inconsistent. Therefore, the question that now arises is which dependency is legitimate. Clearly, the dependency on the citizenry as a whole is legitimate since this is what the Constitution clearly intended. Since these funders are not representative of the U.S. citizenry the dependency on the Funders is illegitimate and a corruption of the democratic process in the U.S..

Lessig states that his notion of dependency corruption cuts across Thompson’s notions of individual and institutional corruption (Lessig 2013a: 14). Regarding the relation to Thompson’s notion of institutional corruption: On the one hand, dependence corruption involves a tendency, as does Thompson’s notion of institutional corruption (see above section 2.3.2 ). On the other hand, on Thompson’s theory, a politician, or set of politicians, can receive campaign contributions from Funders and further their private interests without being dependent on them. So in this respect Thompson’s notion of institutional corruption is wider than Lessig’s notion of dependence corruption. Regarding the relation to Thompson’s notion of individual corruption: A politician, or set of politicians, may come to depend on personal benefits from Funders. This is dependence corruption but on Thompson’s theory it is presumably individual corruption. (Although, perhaps, it might not be individual corruption in Thompson’s sense, if it involves a regularity and hence tendency).

Lessig offers a plausible analysis of the corruption of the U.S. electoral system by the Funders. Two related questions now arise. Is Lessig’s theory of dependence corruption correct? Is the notion of dependence corruption generalizable to institutions other than political institutions and, if so, to what extent?

The extent to which Lessig’s notion of dependence corruption is generalizable is ultimately an empirical question; it is a matter of seeking to apply it widely and waiting on the outcome (see, for instance, Light’s analysis of corruption in the pharmaceutical industry (Light, Lexchin, & Darrow 2013)). However, as mentioned above in the comparison of Lessig’s account with that of Thompson, Lessig does not see his dependence account as entirely generalizable.

Unlike the causal account of corruption (see section 2.2 above), Lessig’s notion of institutional corruption commits him only to normatively neutral institutional purposes (Lessig 2014; Lessig 2013b: 14) rather than to morally good or otherwise valuable institutional purposes. Accordingly, by Lessig’s lights, to say of a university that it has as a fundamental purpose to educate (to some objectively acceptable, minimum standard) is merely to say that this is a de facto fundamental purpose. Therefore, being market-based it could change its order of priorities; i.e., it would be perfectly entitled to prioritize profit over educational standards, just as, for instance, a retail store is perfectly entitled to prioritize profit over its standards of service to its customers.

According to Lessig, dependence corruption does not necessarily involve corrupt persons. As we have seen, Lessig’s favored example of dependence corruption is the dependency of the outcome of U.S. elections on a small group of large funders of those campaigning for political office rather than on the American people. Lessig suggests that those who engage in dependence corruption could be “good souls” (Lessig 2011: 17). Here we need to keep in mind distinctions between being evil and being corrupt, and between being corrupt and being morally responsible for one’s corruption. A corrupt person is not necessarily an evil person. After all, as we have seen, a corrupt person might only be corrupt qua institutional actor. Thus a corrupt police officer might be a good father and husband. Moreover, corruption admits of degrees. So a corrupt police officer might be a so-called grass-eater rather than a so-called meat-eater; their corrupt character might only manifest itself in relatively minor forms of corruption, e.g., minor bribe-taking, rather than in major forms of corruption, e.g., on-selling large quantities of heroin seized from drug dealers.

What of moral responsibility and corruption? Consider Lessig’s own favored example of dependence corruption. Surely, moral responsibility for corruption of the U.S. electoral system can be assigned to U.S. legislators, in particular, as well as the Funders who finance campaigns in the expectation (presumably) of favorable legislation if their candidates are elected. Lessig distinguishes between

responsibility for changing individual behavior within the system and responsibility for changing the system itself. (Lessig 2013a: 15)

According to Lessig

the sin of a Congressman within such a system is not that she raises campaign money. It is that she doesn’t work to change the corruption that this dependence upon a small set of funders produced. (Lessig 2013a: 15)

So apparently direct participation in the corruption of the electoral system by legislators and (?) Funders is not a sin. Lessig’s claim here might be that the corruptors of the U.S. electoral system are not engaged in sinful acts because they are not morally responsible for this wrongdoing. This claim is open to question. The actions of the legislators and Funders (and, for that matter, the lobbyists) that are constitutive of dependence corruption (offering and receiving (directly and indirectly) campaign funds) are avoidable and the legislators and Funders are, or ought to be, aware of the institutional damage being done by their combined actions. Moreover, in suggesting that the legislators have a moral responsibility to change the system, Lessig, in effect, concedes as much. How could they have a moral responsibility to change the system if they were not aware of it and their role in it?

What might be influencing Lessig at this point is the degree of the moral responsibility, specifically, full and partial responsibility. It is the combined effect of the many individual actions of a large number of legislators (and Funders and lobbyists) that does the institutional damage. Therefore, each only makes a small causal contribution and each, therefore, only has a small share in the moral responsibility for the outcome. Moreover, in relation to changing the system, there is a need for joint action; it is a joint moral responsibility involving shared partial individual responsibility. Thus legislators could, and know they could, jointly act to enact campaign finance reform to address the problem of dependency by, for example, restricting campaign contributions. Accordingly, the moral responsibility in play is a species of collective responsibility; specifically, joint moral responsibility (Miller 2010: Chapter 4).

Ceva & Ferretti understand political corruption widely to include not only the corruption of politicians but of public officials in general, including police officers, members of the professions, such as doctors and teachers, and others in the public sector. They define political corruption in terms of two individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions: “There must be a public official who (1) acts in her institutional capacity as an officeholder (office condition) (2) for the pursuit of an agenda whose rationale may not be vindicated as coherent with the terms of the mandate of her power of office (mandate condition)” (Ceva & Ferretti 2021: 19). The first condition, namely that political corruption involves a public official who acts in her institutional capacity, is familiar (see above). What of condition (2), the mandate condition?

The mandate condition concerns the motive or reason guiding the office holder’s action; the action is performed for the pursuit of an agenda with a rationale. So the officeholder’s action considered in itself might or might not be an exercise of a constitutive institutional right or duty of the office in question. But what is this rationale that would render the action corrupt? The rationale in question is one that “may not be vindicated as coherent with the terms of the mandate of her power of office”. The key notion here is that of coherence with the mandate of the powers of office. Here the powers of office are presumably simply the institutional rights and duties constitutive of an office, e.g., the right of legislators to vote on legislation, the duty not to take bribes. So, in summary, corruption involves the performance of an action(s) the motivating reason for which does not cohere with the mandate authorizing an office holder’s rights and duties qua office holder.

Ceva & Ferretti further argue that the relations between organizational roles generate a deontic dimension. For instance, they say: “Office accountability governs the institutional relations between office holders. As participants in these relations, officeholders are established with the authority to require that one another ‘gives an account’ of their actions” (Ceva & Ferretti 2021: 25). They provide the example of a physician: “By following this course of action, the physician is also in the position of justifying her conduct to her colleagues with reference to the terms of her power mandate, thus fulfilling office accountability. By her action, the physician is accountable not only to the other doctors…but also to the hospital staff” (Ceva & Ferretti 2021:26).

Ceva & Ferretti also address the question, What is wrong with corruption? In doing so they offer a distinctive theory. According to them political corruption is inherently wrong (as opposed to wrong by virtue of its consequences) because it is “a specific form of interactive injustice consisting in a violation of the duty of office accountability” (Ceva & Ferretti 2021: 122). Thus, it turns out that political corruption is inherently wrong because it is unjust. More specifically, political corruption involves an action by an institutional member which is unjust to his colleagues since each member owes it to every other member to do his duty.

A question might arise at this point in relation to the scope of the notion of an institution that Ceva & Ferretti’s employ in their account of political corruption (understood as corruption of public institutions). For instance, are those who are entitled to vote in a democracy themselves institutional role occupants of the institution of government? Are patients in a public hospital themselves role occupants of the hospital or students in a public school role occupants of the school? Ceva & Ferretti deploy an account of a public institution according to which the answer to these questions is in each case in the negative. For on their account of the corruption of public institutions there must be an officeholder possessed of a mandate who engages in corruption. But citizens, hospital patients and school students are not office holders with mandates. Indeed, citizens are the source of the mandate as, arguably (supposing there is a mandate), are patients and if not students, at least their parents (on the students’ behalf). One untoward consequence of this view is that evidently citizens, patients and students cannot themselves directly engage in acts of corruption (understood as corruption of public institutions) or, at least, if they can their actions would fall outside Ceva & Ferretti’s theory of institutional corruption.

At any rate, to return to the question of the wrongness of corruption, we saw above that on Ceva & Ferretti’s view this consists in corruption being a form of interactive injustice. Accordingly, interactive justice goes hand in glove with office accountability. On this view a teacher who fails students who do not provide her with sexual favors, and gives high marks to those who do, is performing corrupt actions by virtue of her unjust treatment of her teaching colleagues. Ceva & Ferretti argue that the normative source (relevant to the inherent wrongness of corrupt actions) of the principle of impartiality in the practice of the assessment by teachers of their students’ work lies in the role-based relations that the teacher has with her fellow teachers (and other school staff) (Ceva & Ferretti 2021: 98). So this teacher’s action is not corrupt by virtue of the injustice done to the students (although Ceva & Ferretti agree that it would be unfair to the students), but rather by virtue of the injustice done to the teacher’s colleagues. Contrary to Ceva & Ferretti it could reasonably be claimed that the primary form of institutional corruption involved here lies in the corruption of the teacher-student relationship (and its harmful consequences). More generally, Ceva & Ferretti’s theory of political corruption evidently privileges relationships between office holders at the expense of those whom they serve.

As we saw earlier, in the paradigm cases corrupt actions are a species of morally wrong, habitual, actions. What of the motive for corrupt actions? We saw above that there are many motives for corrupt actions, including desires for wealth, status, and power. However, there is apparently at least one motive that we might think ought not to be associated with corruption, namely, acting for the sake of the good. Here we need to be careful. For sometimes actions that are done for the sake of the good are, nevertheless, morally wrong actions. Indeed, some actions that are done out of a desire to achieve the good are corrupt actions, namely, acts of so-called noble cause corruption.

This is not the place to provide a detailed treatment of the phenomenon of noble cause corruption (Kleinig 2002; Miller 2016: Chapter 3). Rather let us simply note that even in cases of noble cause corruption—contra what the person who performs the action thinks—it may well be the case that the corrupt action morally ought not to be performed; or at least the corrupt action is pro tanto morally wrong, even if it is morally permissible all things considered. Accordingly, the person who performs it may well be deceiving him or herself, or be simply mistaken when they judge that the action morally ought to be performed. So their motive, i.e., to act for the sake of what is right, has a moral deficiency. They are only acting for the sake of what they believe is morally right, but in fact it is not morally right; their belief is a false belief. So we can conclude that corrupt actions are habitual actions that are at the very least pro tanto morally wrong and quite possibly morally wrong all things considered, and therefore in all probability not motivated by the true belief that they are morally right.

Here there are more complex excuses and justifications available for what might first appear to be an act of noble cause corruption. Perhaps a police officer did not know that some form of evidence was not admissible. The police officer’s false belief that an action is right (putting forward the evidence in a court of law) was rationally dependent on some false non-moral belief (that the evidence was admissible); and the police officer came to hold that non-moral belief as a result of a rational process (he was informed, or at least misinformed, that the evidence was admissible by a senior officer). This would incline us to say that the putative act of noble cause corruption was not really an act of corruption—although it might serve to undermine a morally legitimate institutional process—and therefore not an act of noble cause corruption. This intuition is consistent with the causal account of corruption in particular. The police officer in question did perform an action that undermined a legitimate criminal justice process. However, his action was not corrupt because he is not a corruptor. He did not intend to undermine the process, he did not foresee that the process would be undermined, and (let us assume) he could not reasonably have been expected to foresee that it would be undermined. Nor is his action the expression of a corrupt character.

Earlier, it was suggested that acts of noble cause corruption are pro tanto morally wrong and that this is typically contra what the actor believes. However, it is conceivable that some acts of noble cause corruption are morally justified all things considered. Perhaps the act of noble cause corruption while wrong in itself , nevertheless, was morally justified from an all things considered standpoint. If so, we might conclude that the action was not an act of corruption (and therefore not an act of noble cause corruption). Alternatively, we might conclude that it was an act of corruption, but one of those few acts of corruption that was justified in the circumstances. Perhaps both options are possibilities.

Suppose an undercover police officer offers a “bribe” to a corrupt judge for the purpose, supposedly, of getting the judge to pass a lenient sentence on a known mafia crime boss. The police officer is actually engaged in a so-called “sting” operation as part of an anti-corruption strategy. The judge accepts the bribe and is duly convicted of a criminal offence and jailed. (Let us also assume that the judge is already so corrupt that he will not be further corrupted by being offered the bribe.) The police officer offers the bribe for the purpose of achieving a moral good, i.e., convicting a corrupt official. However, we are disinclined to call this a case of corruption. Presumably the reason for this is that in this context the “bribe” does not have a corrupting effect; in particular, it does not succeed in undermining the judicial process of sentencing the crime boss. So this is a case in which a prima facie act of noble cause corruption turns out not be an act of corruption, and therefore not an act of noble cause corruption. A less straightforward case is the one where the action does have a corrupting effect. Consider two possibilities: (i) The sting is continued for a while (to catch other corrupt judges) and paid for (by bribes) verdicts are temporarily enforced during the sting; (ii) The process of considering and accepting the money offered by the disguised police officer further despoils the judge’s character but has no further effect on court proceedings (because the judge is arrested within minutes). In both cases, arguably, the officer conducting the sting operations committed an act of corruption.

What of morally justified acts of noble cause corruption. Suppose someone bribes an immigration official in order to ensure that his friend—who is ineligible to enter Australia—can in fact enter Australia, and thereby have access to life-saving hospital treatment. This act of bribery is evidently an act of institutional corruption; a legitimate institutional process has been subverted. However, the person acted for the sake of doing what he believed to be morally right; his action was an instance of noble cause corruption. Moreover, from an all things considered standpoint—and in particular, in the light of the strength of the moral obligations owed to close friends when their lives are at risk—his action may well be morally justified. Accordingly, his act of corruption may well not have a corrupting effect on himself. Plausibly, this explains any tendency we might have not to describe his action as an action of corruption. But from the fact that the person was not corrupted it does not follow that the act did not corrupt. Moreover, it does not even follow that some person or other was not corrupted. Clearly, in our example, the immigration official was corrupted and, therefore, the action was pro tanto morally wrong, even if the action was morally right all things considered.

In this section the following propositions have been advanced: (a) the phenomenon of noble cause corruption is a species of corruption, and it is seen to be so by the lights of the causal account of corruption in particular; (b) conceivably, some acts of noble cause corruption are morally justified all things considered; (c) instances of structural corruption favored by Lessig and/or Thompson are potentially cases of noble cause corruption, but this is not necessarily the case.

Thus far our concern has been with theorizing institutional corruption. Indeed, most of the philosophical work undertaken to date has consisted in such theorizing. However, there are some salient exceptions to this. For instance, Pogge has suggested undermining the international borrowing privileges of authoritarian governments who have removed democratic governments (Pogge 2002 [2008]: Chapter 10); Wenar (2016) argues for the enforcement of property rights (popular resource sovereignty) in relation to the resources curse; Lessig (Lessig 2011) has elaborated a raft of specific measures to reform the system of campaign contributions in the U.S.; Alexandra and Miller (2010) have outlined ways to utilize reputational devices in some sectors in which reputational loss hurts the “bottom line” (see also Brennan & Pettit 2005 for an account of the theoretical underpinnings of such practical reforms).

However, at a more general level there is an apparent need on the part of philosophers to conceptualize the notion of an anti-corruption system or, more broadly, an integrity system for institutions (Klitgaard 1988; Pope 1997; Anechiarico & Jacobs 1998; Klitgaard et al. 2000; Preston & Sampford 2002; Baker 2005; Miller 2017). An integrity system is an institutional arrangement the purpose of which is to promote ethical attitudes and behavior and, crucially, to prevent or, at least, reduce institutional corruption. For instance, an integrity system for a police organization might consist of a set of laws and regulations, an internal affairs department comprised of corruption investigators, an external oversight body, professional reporting mechanisms, an enforceable code of ethics, a complaints and discipline process, and so on. The contribution of philosophers to integrity systems has been threefold. Firstly, they have offered synoptic or “birds-eye” views of the architecture of such systems and in so doing determined whether they are fit for normative institutional purpose. Naturally, this work presupposes theories of the normative institutional purposes of the institutions in question (Lessig 2011; Thompson 1995). Secondly, they have addressed a variety of ethical issues that have arisen in the design and implementation of integrity systems and their various institutional components. Consider, for instance, the range of ethical issues that arise in relation to anti-corruption systems for police organizations, e.g., entrapment, privacy/surveillance (Miller 2016). Thirdly, they have identified the underlying causal and/or rational basis of the corruption and, in light of this, designed appropriate anti-corruption measures. (Pogge 2002 [2008]: Chapter 6; Lessig 2011); van den Hoven, Miller, & Pogge 2017). An important set of structural problems facilitating corruption are collective action problems, e.g., regulatory arbitrage in the global financial system and tax havens (Obermayer & Obermaier 2016; Rothstein & Varraich 2017). One kind of solution proposed is that of an enforceable cooperative scheme at the international level (Eatwell & Taylor 2000).

Integrity systems can be thought of as being either predominantly reactive or predominantly preventive, albeit the distinction is somewhat artificial since there is always a need for both reactive elements, e.g., investigations of corrupt actions, and preventive elements, e.g., ethics training and transparency mechanisms. Reactive systems are fundamentally linear. They frame laws and regulation that set out a series of offences, wait for transgressions, investigate, adjudicate and take punitive measures. In many areas, including institutional corruption, resources are limited and, thus, ethically informed decisions have to be made in relation to the prioritization of corrupt activity to be investigated and to what extent. This ethical problem is to be distinguished from the problem of under-resourcing motivated by a desire to hamstring anti-corruption initiatives. Moreover, both problems are to be distinguished from the debate between those who favor increased laws and regulations to combat, for instance, financial corruption, and those who argue for a decrease in such laws and regulations since they unnecessarily increase the cost of doing business.

Preventive institutional mechanisms for combating corruption can be divided into four categories. Mechanisms designed to reduce the motivation to engage in corruption, e.g., ethics education programs; mechanisms to reduce the capacity of those motivated to engage in corruption, e.g., legislation to downsize oligopolies to prevent cartels (Rose-Ackerman 1999), exploitation of the lack of trust between corruptors (Lambsdorff 2007), democratization and the separation of powers (“power corrupts” (Acton 1887 [1948: 364]) to reign in powerful, corrupt governments (Johnston 2014); mechanisms to eliminate or reduce the opportunity to engage in corruption, e.g., conflict of interest provisions; mechanisms to expose corrupt behavior, e.g., oversight bodies, media organizations (Pope 1997; Spence et al. 2011).

It is self-evident that there is need for both reactive and preventive elements if an integrity system is to be adequate. This point obtains whether or not the integrity system in question pertains to a single organization, an industry, an occupational group, or an entire society. However, the reactive and preventive elements need to cohere in an overall holistic integrity system (Miller 2017). A further point often overlooked is that if an integrity system is to be effective it presupposes a framework of accepted social norms in the sense of socially accepted moral principles. Social norms provide the standards which determine what counts as corruption. Moreover, in so doing they determine whether or not such behavior will be tolerated or not. Revealing corruption has very little effect if the wider community to whom the corruption is revealed are tolerant or otherwise accepting of it.

Corruption is a highly diverse phenomenon, including bribery, nepotism, false testimony, cheating, abuse of authority and so on. Moreover, corruption takes different forms across the spectrum of institutions giving rise to political corruption, financial corruption, police corruption, academic corruption and so on. The causal theory of corruption is a sustained attempt to provide an account which accommodates this diversity. In doing so it emphasizes the causal as well as the normative dimension of institutional corruption. The most influential contemporary philosophical theories of political corruption are those of Dennis Thompson and Lawrence Lessig. Moreover, Lessig’s notion of dependence corruptions looks to be generalizable to a degree to institutions other than political institutions. Likewise the mechanism that lies at the heart of Thompson’s theory may be generalizable to a degree to institutions other than political institutions. However, as they stand, neither of these theories provides a general or comprehensive theory of institutional corruption (and Lessig’s theory, at least, is not intended to do so). The wide diversity of corrupt actions implies that there may well need to be a correspondingly wide and diverse range of specific anti-corruption measures to combat corruption in its different forms, and indeed in its possibly very different contexts. Recent decades have seen the rise of whole systems of anti-corruptions mechanisms encased in what are referred to as integrity systems. Here we can distinguish reactive from preventive elements of an integrity or anti-corruption system and, arguably, an effective integrity system should integrate reactive and preventive elements in an overall holistic system.

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Convention Against the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions , Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 15 February 1999.

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Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Corruption — Corruption: Causes, Effects, And Ways To Prevent

Corruption: Causes, Effects, and Ways to Prevent

• Categories: Corruption

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Published: Dec 3, 2020

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Works Cited

• Altbach, P. G., Reisberg, L., & Rumbley, L. E. (2019). Trends in global higher education: Tracking an academic revolution. UNESCO Publishing.
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• Klitgaard, R. (1988). Controlling corruption. University of California Press.
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• Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission. (2016). Rasuah: Apa itu Rasuah? [Corruption: What is Corruption?]. https://www.sprm.gov.my/ms/pengetahuan-am/rasuah
• Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2015). The quest for good governance: How societies develop control of corruption. Cambridge University Press.
• 15 effects of corruption. (2019). University of Kent. https://www.kent.ac.uk/integrityoffice/policies-and-procedures/bribery-and-corruption/preventing-corruption/15-effects-of-corruption
• 5 ways to reduce corruption and places where it exists. (2016). The Star Online. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/09/12/five-ways-to-reduce-corruption-and-places-where-it-exists/
• Transparency International. (n.d.). Corruption perceptions index.

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Essay on Corruption: 100 Words, 200 Words

• Updated on  
• Apr 3, 2024

Corruption is an act of bribery that involves taking gifts and favours in exchange for some gain in terms of services and acceptance. In easy words, corruption means the misuse of power and any positions for personal and financial gain. Whether it’s a public official accepting bribes, a company engaging in fraudulent practices, or a student cheating on an exam, corruption takes various forms. This blog sheds light on the term corruption and the effects of corruption and lists down essay on corruption in 100 and 200 words. 

Table of Contents

• 1 What is corruption?
• 2 Effects on Corruption
• 3 Essay On Corruption in 100 Words
• 4 Essay On Corruption in 200 Words

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What is corruption?

Corruption in simple words means betraying the people and misusing the nominal power that is assigned to any individual. It is the misuse of public property or money for selfish reasons. It is only related to Government or public funds. Every country and every company, whether Public or private, faces some corruption in one form or the other. Corruption deteriorates the mind and thought process of the people of the country. Every developing nation faces corruption as its enemy. It gives rise to inequality, injustice, illegality, and inconsistency at all levels of the administration. Corruption can be in the form of money, gift, etc. In any form, the person taking bribe is equally guilty.

Effects on Corruption

Here are some effects of corruption on individuals and society:

• When people in power are corrupt, people lose trust in them. People start doubting their decisions and intentions for everyone. People can also revolt against them and take any action.
• Corruption can make life unfair. Instead of the most deserving person getting a job or a chance, it might go to someone who paid a bribe. 
• Corruption slows down a country’s progress. Money that should be used to build roads, and schools and also the living conditions get worse. This means the country doesn’t become better and people’s lives stay hard.
• Corruption can block opportunities for many people. If anyone needs a job, education or any healthcare facility and is not able to afford to pay bribes, their opportunities get lost.

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Essay On Corruption in 100 Words

Corruption is when people misuse power for their gain. It’s like cheating the system. Corruption hurts a lot of people. Corruption makes people lose interest and trust in leaders. 

Money meant for schools, hospitals, and roads gets stolen. Jobs might go to those who pay bribes, not the deserving. This may seem unfair to a lot of people. 

Corruption slows down progress and makes life tough. We must stop corruption by being honest and also taking a stand against it. When we fight corruption, we make our world a better place for everyone.

Essay On Corruption in 200 Words

Corruption is a big problem that hurts everyone. It happens when people in power misuse their authority for personal gain. To a lot of people, it may seem unfair. 

The first cause can be that corruption breaks trust. People start doubting if their leaders are working for them personally or for themselves. It also makes them feel upset and also feel disappointed.

Second, corruption wastes money. Money that should help schools, hospitals, and roads ends up in the wrong hands. It means that people who do not get the things that they need for their betterment of life.

Corruption also creates unfairness. People who deserve opportunities might not get them if they can’t pay bribes. It also makes the life of people tough and lose a lot of opportunities. It can also impact the progress of the country and weaken the strong pillars of the country.

To fight corruption, the candidates need to be honest and take steps to stand against it. People can demand transparency and fairness in the country to make the issue sustainable. With the contribution of people, they can create a world where people in power are working for everyone not just for themselves. 

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Some of the adverse effects of corruption in today’s society are lost trust, lost opportunities, and slows down the country’s progress.

The negative emotions related to corruption are anxiety, anger and disappointment.

To write a short essay on corruption, make sure to include the effects of corruption and all the aspects of the term.

Hence, we hope that this blog has assisted you in comprehending what an essay on Corruption must include. If you are struggling with your career choices and need expert guidance, our Leverage Edu mentors are here to guide you at any point of your academic and professional journey thus ensuring that you take informed steps towards your dream career.

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Essay on Corruption

Updated February 14, 2023

Corruption is the misuse of public or private resources for personal gain. It is a widespread problem affecting governments, businesses, and individuals worldwide. In this essay on corruption you get all the information about corruption and how it was dangerous to our life. Corruption can take many forms, such as bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, fraud, embezzlement, and money laundering. It can lead to economic stagnation, inequality, and political instability and erode trust in institutions.

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The consequences of corruption can be devastating, particularly in developing countries. It can prevent economic growth, entrench poverty, and weaken the rule of law. It can also lead to environmental degradation and human rights abuses.

Combating corruptions requires a comprehensive approach that strengthens the rule of law, improves public sector transparency and accountability, and creates a more equitable society. Governments and institutions can enact legislation and policies to reduce corruption, such as anti-corruption laws, public procurement rules, and whistleblower protections. Civil society and citizens can also play an important role by engaging in advocacy, monitoring public officials, and reporting corruption.

Causes of Corruption

It occurs when individuals or organizations misuse their power or influence for private gain. It can take many forms, from bribery and embezzlement to fraud and extortion. In this essay on corruption or in real life you got opportunity to stop someone from doing it you have to do it for not only  yourself but also for others who affected by corruption. It undermines the rule of law, erodes trust in government, and hinders economic growth and development. It can also lead to instability, poverty, and inequality.

Multiple factors cause corruption, but the most common causes are:

• Weak governance systems.
• Political and economic instability.
• Lack of transparency and accountability.
• Lack of access to resources.

Poor governance systems and lack of accountability allow corrupt actors to take advantage of the system and gain access to resources that should be available to everyone. Political and economic instability can also create the conditions for corruption to thrive. In countries where corruption is rampant, citizens lack access to essential services, and political and economic freedoms are limited.

In addition to these factors, the cause of corruption can also be a lack of education and awareness, weak legal frameworks and enforcement, and incentives for corrupt behavior. Failure to enforce laws properly results in corrupt individuals taking advantage of the system and engaging in corrupt behavior without facing significant consequences. Finally, it is also the result of a culture of impunity, where unscrupulous actors are not held accountable for their actions.

It is an illegal practice in which individuals or businesses use their influence to gain an unfair advantage for themselves or others. It can take many forms, such as bribery, extortion, nepotism, cronyism, fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, and misappropriation of funds. It often occurs through the abuse of power and authority involving public and private entities. Bribery is a common form of corruption involving offering money or other forms of incentive in exchange for a particular favor or service. Other forms of it include:

• Extortion is the use of threats or coercion to obtain money or favors.
• Nepotism is the awarding of jobs and promotions based on family relationships.
• Cronyism, which is the favoring of friends and associates.
• Fraud is the intentional misrepresentation of facts.
• Money laundering is the concealment of illegally obtained funds.
• Embezzlement is the misappropriation of funds.
• Misuse of funds, which is the unauthorized use of funds.

In all cases, corruption is a severe violation of the law, and those found guilty of such practices can be subject to criminal penalties.

• It involves a combination of tactics and strategies to reduce the risk of corruption and improve public trust. It includes measures that promote transparency, integrity, and accountability, as well as those that reduce the opportunities for corruption.
• Firstly, corruption prevention requires a strong and effective legal framework. It includes laws, regulations, and policies that are enforced by an independent and impartial judiciary. These laws must strive to address all types of corrupt activities, including bribery, embezzlement, and conflicts of interest. Its legal framework should also create solid sanctions for those who violate it.
• Secondly, corruption prevention also requires strong institutions and systems of checks and balances. It includes establishing independent anti-corruption bodies to monitor and investigate cases of suspected corruption. These bodies must be able to operate independently and have the power to impose sanctions on those found guilty of corruption.
• Thirdly, corruption prevention requires a culture of integrity. It should include promoting values such as honesty, accountability, and transparency. We should incorporate these values in all levels of society, from the highest levels of government to the smallest businesses. Society should develop educational and training programs to help people understand the consequences of engaging in corrupt activities.
• Fourthly, corruption prevention requires robust mechanisms of public oversight and participation. It includes the establishment of whistleblower protection laws and the promotion of public access to information. It will help citizens identify and report any corruptions they may encounter.
• Finally, it requires an effective system of monitoring and enforcement. It should include regular audits and inspections to ensure everyone follows the proper procedure. It also provides for the prosecution of those found guilty of corruption.
• By implementing these measures, governments and organizations can effectively reduce the risk of corruption and maintain public trust.

It is an endemic problem in many countries worldwide, and it can have profound implications for individuals and societies. It can lead to various adverse outcomes, such as economic stagnation, political instability, and social injustice. In this essay on Corruption you got all the useful information about corruption and how to stop it. To combat corruption, governments must take a multi-faceted approach that includes strengthening the rule of law, creating more transparent systems of governance, and increasing public awareness of the issue. Additionally, individuals must take responsibility for their actions and avoid corrupt practices. Only with a concerted effort from both government and citizens can we address the corruption problem.

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Corruption in India

• 06 Oct 2023
• 20 min read
• GS Paper - 4
• GS Paper - 2
• Transparency & Accountability
• Ethics and Human Interface
• Ethics in Human Actions
• Ethics in Private & Public Relationships

For Prelims: Corruption Perception Index , Transparency International , Democracy , Corruption

For Mains:  Transparency & Accountability in Governance,Common Causes of Corruption and its Prevention in India.

What is the Context?

The Prime Minister of India, in his 76 th Independence Day address, targeted the twin challenges of corruption and nepotism and raised the urgent need to curb them . Also, Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2023 was released by Transparency International.

• Overall, the index shows that control of corruption has stagnated or worsened in most countries over the last decade. India Corruption Perceptions Index was 40 index points in 2023.

What is Corruption?

Corruption is dishonest behaviour by those in positions of power . It starts with the tendency of using public office for some personal benefit.

• Moreover, it is unfortunate that corruption has, for many, become a matter of habit. It is so deeply entrenched that corruption is now considered a social norm. Hence, corruption implies the failure of ethics.

What are the Reasons Behind Corruption in India?

• L ack of Transparency : A lack of transparency in government processes, decision-making, and public administration provides fertile ground for corrupt practices. When actions and decisions are shielded from public scrutiny, officials may engage in corrupt activities with reduced fear of exposure.
• A perception of impunity due to the inadequate punishment of corrupt individuals can encourage further corruption. When individuals believe they can get away with corrupt practices, they are more likely to engage in them.
• Low Salaries and Incentives: Public officials, especially those in lower-ranking positions, are sometimes paid low salaries. This can make them more susceptible to bribery and other corrupt practices, as they may see corruption as a means to supplement their income.
• India's complex economic environment, which involves various licences, permits, and approvals, can create opportunities for corruption. Businesses may resort to bribery to navigate this environment.
• Political Interference: Political interference in administrative matters can compromise the autonomy of government institutions. Political leaders may pressure officials to engage in corrupt activities for personal or party gain.
• Cultural Factors: There can be a cultural acceptance of corrupt behaviour in certain contexts, which perpetuates corruption. The notion that "everyone does it" can lead individuals to engage in corruption without feeling morally compromised.
• Lack of Whistleblower Protection: Inadequate protection for whistleblowers can deter individuals from reporting corruption. The fear of retaliation can silence potential whistleblowers and allow corruption to thrive.
• Social Inequality: Social and economic disparities can contribute to corruption, as individuals with wealth and power may use their influence to secure preferential treatment and engage in corrupt practices without repercussions.

What are the Reasons for the Prevalence of Corruption in Civil Services?

• Politicisation of Civil Services: When civil service positions are used as rewards for political support or swapped for bribes , the opportunities for high levels of corruption increase significantly.
• Lower Wages: Lowering wages for civil servants compared to those in the private sector. Certain employees may resort to taking bribes in order to compensate for the difference in wages.
• Administrative Delays: Delays in the clearance of files are the root cause of corruption as common citizens are coerced to grease the palm of erring officials and authorities for expedited clearance of the files.
• Colonial Legacy of Unchallenged Authority: In a society which worships power, it is easy for public officials to deviate from ethical conduct.
• Weak Enforcement of Law: Various laws have been made to curb the evil of corruption but their weak enforcement has acted as a hindrance in curbing corruption .

What can be the Impact of Corruption?

• To demand quality, one might need to pay for it. This is seen in many areas like municipality, electricity, distribution of relief funds, etc.
• A crime may be proved as a benefit of the doubt due to a lack of evidence or even the evidence erased.
• These low-quality services are all done to save money by the contractors and the officials who are involved.
• These people sanction the funds for research to those investigators who are ready to bribe them.
• Disregard for Officials: People start disregarding the officials involved in corruption and also the administrative set up which creates distrust in the system.
• Lack of Respect for Government: Top brass leaders of the nation like the President or Prime Ministers lose respect among the public. Respect is the main criteria in social life.
• Lack of Faith and Trust in Governments: People vote for a leader based on their faith in him/ her, but if leaders are found to be involved in corruption, people lose faith in them and may not vote next time.
• Aversion for Joining the Posts Linked to Corruption : Sincere, honest, and hardworking people develop an aversion for the particular posts deemed corrupt.
• A Decrease in Foreign Investment : Corruption in government bodies has led to many foreign investments going back from developing countries.
• This leads to delays in investments, the starting of industries, and also growth.
• Due to lack of proper roads, water, and electricity, the companies do not wish to start up there, which hinders the economic progress of that region.

Image: Changes in Levels of Corruption In India and Other Countries as per the Corruption Perceptions Index over the past decade.

What are the Legal and Regulatory Frameworks for Fighting Corruption in India?

• Amendment of 2018 criminalised both bribe-taking by public servants as well as bribe-giving by any person.
• Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 aims to prevent instances of money laundering and prohibits use of the 'proceeds of crime' in India.
• The Companies Act, 2013 provides for corporate governance and prevention of corruption and fraud in the corporate sector. The term 'fraud' has been given a broad definition and is a criminal offence under the Companies Act.
• The Indian Penal Code, 1860 sets out provisions which can be interpreted to cover bribery and fraud matters, including offences relating to criminal breach of trust and cheating.
• The  Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 the Act precludes the person who acquired the property in the name of another person from claiming it as his own.
• They perform the function of an "ombudsman” and inquire into allegations of corruption against certain public functionaries and for related matters.
• Central Vigilance Commission: Its mandate is to oversee the vigilance administration and to advise and assist the executive in matters relating to corruption.
• Amendments in 1964: The definition of ‘Public Servant’ under the IPC was expanded. The definition of ‘criminal misconduct’ was expanded and possession of assets disproportionate to the known sources of income of a public servant was made an offence.

What is the Importance of Ethics in Preventing Corruption?

• Establishing Moral Boundaries: Ethical principles provide a framework for defining what is right and wrong. In the context of corruption, ethics set clear boundaries that distinguish acceptable behaviour from unethical or corrupt conduct.
• Promoting Accountability: Ethics demand that individuals take responsibility for their actions and decisions. When people are guided by ethical principles, they are more likely to be transparent and accountable for their actions, reducing the likelihood of engaging in corrupt behaviour that could harm others.
• Fostering Transparency: Transparency is a core ethical principle. Ethical organisations and individuals are more likely to operate openly and honestly, making it difficult for corruption to thrive in an environment where actions and decisions are subject to scrutiny.
• Building Trust: Trust is a cornerstone of ethical behaviour. When individuals and institutions are perceived as trustworthy, they are less likely to engage in or tolerate corruption. A high level of trust in society reduces the temptation for corruption.
• Encouraging Civic Virtue: Ethical values promote civic virtue, which encourages individuals to act in the best interest of society rather than pursuing personal gain at the expense of others. Civic virtue is a powerful deterrent to corruption.
• Supporting Rule of Law: Ethical behaviour upholds the rule of law and respect for legal and regulatory frameworks. Corrupt practices often involve circumventing or violating the law, and adherence to ethics reinforces respect for legal norms.
• Whistleblower Protection : Ethical organisations and governments prioritise protecting whistleblowers who report corruption. Ethical values encourage reporting unethical behaviour, which is vital for uncovering and addressing corruption.
• Global Reputation: On an international scale, ethical behaviour is essential for a nation's reputation. Countries known for ethical governance and low corruption levels are more attractive to foreign investment and collaboration.
• Long-Term Sustainability : Corrupt practices often provide short-term gains but can lead to long-term harm. Ethical behaviour is essential for the sustainable development and prosperity of societies.

What are Nolan Committee Recommendations on Standards in Public Life and Prevention of Corruption?

Nolan Committee in 1995 in United Kingdom outlined Seven Ethical and Moral values to be incorporated by the Public functionaries, Officials, Civil Servants, Bureaucrats, Civil Society and Citizens in order to weed out corruption:

• Selflessness: Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of public interest.
• Integrity: Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties.
• Objectivity: In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, holders of public office should make choices on merit.
• Accountability: Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.
• Openness: Holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands.
• Honesty: Holders of public office have a duty to declare any private interests relating to their public duties and to take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest.
• Leadership: Holders of public office should promote and support these principles by leadership and example.

What are the Recommendations of the Second ARC to Tackle Corruption?

The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2nd ARC), an advisory body in India, made several comprehensive recommendations to address the issue of corruption and improve the integrity and efficiency of the public administration. These recommendations aim to prevent corruption and enhance transparency and accountability in government operations. Here are some of the key recommendations made by the 2nd ARC:

• Whistleblower Protection Act, 2014: The 2nd ARC recommended amendments to the Whistleblowers Protection Act to enhance protection and incentives for whistleblowers. This includes safeguarding them from harassment and providing financial rewards.
• Central Vigilance Commission (CVC): The 2 nd ARC recommended strengthening the CVC's role in preventing and combating corruption by giving it more independence, resources, and authority.
• Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI): The commission suggested measures to ensure the CBI's autonomy and effectiveness in handling corruption cases.
• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): The 2 nd ARC recommended the development of clear SOPs for government processes and services to minimise the discretionary powers of officials. This reduces the scope for corruption and arbitrary decision-making.
• Use of Technology: Leveraging technology and e-governance can reduce human interface and discretion in government transactions. The commission encouraged the adoption of electronic methods to reduce corruption opportunities.
• Police Accountability: The commission highlighted the need for comprehensive police reforms to enhance the integrity and effectiveness of law enforcement agencies. This includes measures to increase transparency, accountability, and professionalism in the police force.
• Community Policing: Promoting community policing can build trust between the police and the public, reducing opportunities for corruption and abuse of power.
• Code of Ethics: The commission recommended the development of a code of ethics for public officials and employees to promote ethical behaviour.
• Citizen Charters: Encouraging government departments to adopt citizen charters can enhance accountability and improve public service delivery.
• Media and Education: The commission suggested using media and educational institutions to create awareness about the detrimental effects of corruption and the importance of ethical conduct.
• Parliamentary Committees: Strengthening the role of parliamentary committees in scrutinising government operations and expenditure can help detect and prevent corruption.
• Digital Transformation: The 2 nd ARC recommended a comprehensive digital transformation of government processes to reduce human intervention and opportunities for corruption.

UPSC Civil Services Examination, Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

Q1. With reference to the ‘Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988 (PBPT Act)’, consider the following statements: (2017)

• A property transaction is not treated as a benami transaction if the owner of the property is not aware of the transaction.
• Properties held benami are liable for confiscation by the Government.
• The Act provides for three authorities for investigations but does not provide for any appellate mechanism.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 2 and 3 only

Q.2 Discuss how emerging technologies and globalisation contribute to money laundering. Elaborate measures to tackle the problem of money laundering both at national and international levels. (2021)

5 Essays About Corruption

Internationally, there is no legal definition of corruption, but it includes bribery, illegal profit, abuse of power, embezzlement, and more. Corrupt activities are illegal, so they are discreet and done in secrecy. Depending on how deep the corruption goes, there may be many people aware of what’s going on, but they choose to do nothing because they’ve been bribed or they’re afraid of retaliation. Any system can become corrupt. Here are five essays that explore where corruption exists, its effects, and how it can be addressed.

Learn more about anti-corruption in a free course .

Corruption in Global Health: The Open Secret

Dr. Patricia J. Garcia The Lancet (2019)

In this published lecture, Dr. Garcia uses her experience as a researcher, public health worker, and Minister of Health to draw attention to corruption in health systems. She explores the extent of the problem, its origins, and what’s happening in the present day. Additional topics include ideas on how to address the problem and why players like policymakers and researchers need to think about corruption as a disease. Dr. Garcia states that corruption is one of the most significant barriers to global universal health coverage.

Dr. Garcia is the former Minister of Health of Peru and a leader in global health. She also works as a professor and researcher/trainer in global health, STI/HIV, HPV, medical informatics, and reproductive health. She’s the first Peruvian to be appointed as a member to the United States National Academy of Medicine

‘Are women leaders less corrupt? No, but they shake things up”

Stella Dawson Reuters (2012)

This piece takes a closer look at the idea that more women in power will mean less corruption. Reality is more complicated than that. Women are not less vulnerable to corruption in terms of their resistance to greed, but there is a link between more female politicians and less corruption. The reason appears to be that women are simply more likely to achieve more power in democratic, open systems that are less tolerant of corruption. A better gender balance also means more effective problem-solving. This piece goes on to give some examples of lower corruption in systems with more women and the complexities. While this particular essay is old, newer research still supports that more women in power is linked to better ethics and lower corruption levels into systems, though women are not inherently less corrupt.

Stella Dawson left Reuters in 2015, where she worked as a global editor for economics and markets. At the Thomson Reuters Foundation and 100Reporters, she headed a network of reporters focusing on corruption issues. Dawson has been featured as a commentator for BBC, CNB, C-Span, and public radio.

“Transparency isn’t the solution to corruption – here’s why”

David Riverios Garcia One Young World

Many believe that corruption can be solved with transparency, but in this piece, Garcia explains why that isn’t the case. He writes that governments have exploited new technology (like open data platforms and government-monitoring acts) to appear like they care about corruption, but, in Garcia’s words, “transparency means nothing without accountability.” Garcia focuses on corruption in Latin America, including Paraguay where Garcia is originally from. He describes his background as a young anti-corruption activist, what he’s learned, and what he considers the real solution to corruption.

At the time of this essay’s publication, David Riverios Garcia was an Open Young World Ambassador. He ran a large-scale anti-corruption campaign (reAccion Paraguay), stopping corruption among local high school authorities. He’s also worked on poverty relief and education reform. The Ministry of Education recognized him for his achievements and in 2009, he was selected by the US Department of State as one of 10 Paraguayan Youth Ambassadors.

“What the World Could Teach America About Policing”

Yasmeen Serhan The Atlantic (2020)

The American police system has faced significant challenges with public trust for decades. In 2020, those issues have erupted and the country is at a tipping point. Corruption is rampant through the system. What can be done? In this piece, the author gives examples of how other countries have managed reform. These reforms include first dismantling the existing system, then providing better training. Once that system is off the ground, there needs to be oversight. Looking at other places in the world that have successfully made radical changes is essential for real change in the United States.

Atlantic staff writer Yasmeen Serhan is based in London.

“$2.6 Trillion Is Lost to Corruption Every Year — And It Hurts the Poor the Most”

Joe McCarthy Global Citizen (2018)

This short piece is a good introduction to just how significant the effects of corruption are. Schools, hospitals, and other essential services suffer, while the poorest and most vulnerable society carry the heaviest burdens. Because of corruption, these services don’t get the funding they need. Cycles of corruption erode citizens’ trust in systems and powerful government entities. What can be done to end the cycle?

Joe McCarthy is a staff writer for Global Citizen. He writes about global events and environmental issues.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

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Essay on Corruption for Students in English [Easy Words]

January 5, 2021 by Sandeep

Essay on Corruption: Breach of honesty and immoral practices of compromising on ethical rights by an individual or group is rightly called corruption. It is a criminal activity involving bribery or improper favours/ gifts for personal gains. Providing or seeking preferential treatment by offering or receiving money by forcefully coercing individuals against lawful means happens in corruption.

Essay on Corruption 500 Words in English

Below we have provided a Corruption Essay in English, suitable for class 5 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10.

Corruption has become a world phenomenon, and it’s even a bigger challenge for under-development countries like India to handle it. In simple words, corruption can be defined as “illegal or dishonest behaviour, especially by the people in power”. Corruption affects the government is all levels from central to the district. Former Prime Minister Late Rajiv Gandhi once said “only 15 paise of every rupee for the welfare of the downtrodden reaches them” and we all know that this magic happens because of corruption.

Here the irony is that Mr. Gandhi said this in 1990 but still, the situation is the same. Indian people are now so used to this corruption practice that they take it easy and use it as a tool to get their things done without any hassle. Many people believe that Indian politicians are the root of corruption in India but in reality, the network of corruption is too vast and it has following main towers; politicians, bureaucrats, and criminals.

Causes of Corruption

Corruption is present in all spheres of our life; politics, judiciary, public, administration, and all the services. Almost all the departments, connected with the welfare of common Indians, are infected with the virus of corruption. When we dig down to know the reason for corruption in India, we find some common reasons like weak management and lack of control system. These reason wee behind the birth of corruption at a smaller scale. Lack of good leadership let the corruption flourished at a larger scale. There is a famous saying in India that if the character is gone, everything is gone, but most of Indians are involved in giving and taking the bribe .

Consequences of Corruption

Corruption is the key factor behind the lack of development in several parts of the country. When the corruption gets high, the economy of the country touches the bottom of the graph. The effects of corruption can be seen on the daily based commodities as with high corruption rate these commodities become out of reach from poor citizens of the country. The country loses some taxpayers when corruption is present in its economy. And the money those taxpayers who pay the tax land in the pocket of corrupted people.

Since independence, India’s government has launched many schemes to throw the poverty out from the country. However, it still shows its presence here, and it’s happening because of corruption only. As Mr Rajiv Gandhi said 15 paise out of 1 rupee, the needy person gets. So the poor became poorer and corrupted become richer.

Cures for Corruption in India

Essay on Corruption in English for Children and Students

Table of Contents

Essay on Corruption: Corruption is the use of power or position for personal gain. It can take many forms, from bribery and embezzlement to nepotism and cronyism. It can be found in both the public and private sectors, and its effects can be devastating to both individuals and society as a whole.

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Target Exam ---

Corruption refers to an act performed by an individual or a group, which seriously compromises the rights and privileges of someone else or the public in general. “Corruption” includes a significant number of illegal and immoral activities from different arenas of governance and administration. Corruption is not only limited to the government and its agencies, but, it also includes private businesses and organizations. Corruption severely hampers the growth and development of a society and a nation as a whole. A corrupt system makes people loose general trust in the government, resulting in an environment of fear and chaos.

Long and Short Essay on Corruption in India in English

We have provided below some Essay on Corruption of varying lengths in English for your information and knowledge.

These corruption essay have been written in simple and easy language so that you don’t face any difficulty in understanding the sentences.

The essay will give you an in depth analysis of Corruption and its effects on the society and the country.

You will also know the measures taken by the government to counter corruption and subdue its effects.

Essay on Corruption 100 words

Corruption is a poison which has been spread in the mind of wrong people of the society, community and country. It is the mistreatment of public resources just for getting some unfair advantage to fulfill little wish. It is concerned with the unnecessary and wrong use of both power and position by anyone whether in the government or non-government organization. It has affected the growth of the individual as we well as the nation and reduces income. It is a big reason of inequalities in the society and community. It affects the growth and development of the nation in all aspects like socially, economically and politically.

Essay on Corruption 150 words

Corruption is the misuse of public property, position, power and authority for fulfilling the selfish purposes to gain personal satisfactions. Corruption is the misuse of authority for personal gain of an individual or group. It is the unfair use of public power for some private advantages by breaking some rules and regulations made by government. Now a day, it has been spread deeply in the society and has become very strong because of its lots of roots. It is like a cancer which once generated cannot be ended without medicine and spreading its roots continuously.

One common form of corruption in our country is receiving cash money, through online transfer or in the form of costly gift etc. Some people wrongly uses someone else money for their own sake. Some people recruited in the government or non-government offices have been involved in the corruption and can do anything to fulfil their wishes.

The saying goes, “It’s a problem that affects everyone, from the least wealthy to the wealthiest. Corruption in India comes in different forms, like giving and taking bribes, stealing money, favoritism, and misusing public resources. The main reason for corruption in India is the absence of clear rules, responsibility, and a strong legal system.

Essay on Corruption 200 words

We all are well familiar of the corruption and as it is not a new phenomenon in our country. It has taken its roots so deeply in the people’s mind. It is a very common poison in the society since ancient time. It is available from the history time of the Mughal and Sultanate period. It is reaching to its new height. It has affected the mind of people to a great extent and become so common that wrong people can play with the public life. It is a type of greediness which corrupt human mind and destroy one’s humanity and naturalness.

Corruption is of different types which has been spread in every filed like education, sports, games, politics, etc. Because of the corruption, one does not understand his/her responsibilities at work place. Corruptions are like theft, dishonesty, wastage of public property, wastage of time unnecessarily, exploitation, scams, scandals, malpractice of responsibilities, etc are the various types of corruption. It has made its roots in both developing and well developed countries. We need to remove corruption from our society and country in order to get real freedom from the slavery. We all need to be loyal towards our responsibilities and strict for any type of greediness.

Essay on Corruption 250 words

Now-a-days, corruption is seen everywhere in the society just like an infectious disease. The great leaders of the India who have fought their whole life for removing corruption and other social issues completely from the society. It is the very shameful condition for us that even after losing various great lives, we are not able to understand our real responsibilities. Corruption has been spread in the common public lives, politics, central governments, state governments, businesses, industries, etc. It has not left any field. Corruption is increasing day by day instead of decreasing or steadying because of the continuous increase in the appetite of people for money, power, position and luxury.

We have forgotten the real responsibility of being a human just because of the money. We need to understand that money is not everything and it is not a stable thing. We cannot keep it forever to us, it can only give us greediness and corruption. We should give importance to the value based life and not money based life. It is true that we need lot of money to live a common life however it is not true that just for our selfishness and greediness; we should play someone’s life or money in some unfair ways.

Essay on Corruption 300 words

As we all know that corruption is very bad thing. It inhibits the individual growth as well as society and country growth and development. It is social evil which is playing humans body and mind socially, economically and intellectually. It is continuously making its roots so deeply because of the increasing human greediness towards money, power and position. Corruption is the misuse of authority, public position, natural or public resources, power, etc by someone to gain his/her personal gratifications. According to the sources, it has been identified that India ranks three in the highly corrupted countries.

Corruption is highly spread in the field of civil service, politics, business and other illegal fields. India is a famous country for its democracy but it is corruption which disturbs its democratic system. Politicians are highly responsible for all type of corruption in the country. We chose our leaders by having lots of expectations to them to lead our country in the right direction. In the starting they make us lots of promises however, just after the voting they forget all that and involve in corruption. We are sure that our India would be corruption free a day when our political leaders would be free of greediness and use their power, money, status and position in right direction to lead the country, not their own luxury and personal wishes.

We should select very honest and trustworthy leaders to lead our India just like our earlier Indian leaders such as Lal Bahadur Shastri, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, etc. Only such political leaders can reduce and finally end the corruption from India. Youths of the country should also need to be aware of all the reasons of corruption and get together to solve it in group. Increasing level of the corruption needs to take some heavy steps to get control over it.

Essay on Corruption 400 words

Corruption is the highly infectious social disease which has spread its roots to the mind of the bad people. No one take birth to do such type of bad activities in the society however some bad conditions of their life forced them to do so. Gradually they become habitual for all of these bad activities. However, people suffering from any problem, disease, etc should keep patience and trust on themselves and never do anything bad in life. As, one negative step of anyone may harm the lives of many people. We are not a single entity on this earth, there are many like us, so we should think a little about others and live life happily and peacefully with positive thoughts.

Now-a-days, lots of benefits are given by the government of India to the poor people on the basis of various rules and regulations to bring social awareness among common people as well as equality in the society. However, poor people are not getting benefited of those advantages given by the government as many officers doing corruption secretly in between the channel before reaching to the poor people. They are doing corruption against law for just fulfilling their own pockets with money.

There are many causes of corruption in the society. Now-a-days political leaders are making interest oriented programmes and policies instead of nation oriented programmes and policies. They are just wishing to be famous politician for completing their own interests instead of citizen’s interests and requirement. There is increasing level of change in the value system in the human mind as well as decreasing ethical qualities of human being. The level of trust, faith and honesty is decreasing which gives rise to the corruption.

The number of common people with increased tolerance power towards corruption is increasing. There is a lack of strong public forum in the society in order to oppose the corruption, widespread illiteracy in rural areas, poor economic infrastructure, etc are the reasons of endemic corruption in the public life. Low salaries norms of the government employees force them towards channel of corruption. Complex laws and procedures of the government distract common people to get any type of help from government. During election time, corruption become at its highest peak. Politicians always take support of poor and illiterate people by dreaming them big in future during their governance however nothing happens after win.

Essay on Corruption 500 words

Corruption has been spread like a disease all over the India as well as abroad. It has become one of the most speedily increasing social issues in the Indian society . It is generally initiated and promoted by the opportunistic leaders. They never think about the nation’s benefits and do lots of damage to the nation through their corruption even for their small advantage. They sell their country properties in the wrong hands and spread wrong beliefs about India in the people’s mind living in other countries.

They are spoiling the old traditions and cultures of India for their personal benefits. Now-a-days people who are working in right direction using right principles considered as foolish in the modern society and the people who are working wrong and making wrong promises are good for the society. However, in turn it is true that corrupted people cheating the simple, ordinary and innocent people. They are ruling the mind of innocent people.

Corruption increases in India day by day because there is a strong connection between the officials, politicians and criminals who are making this country weak and so weak. India got independence in 1947 and it was slowly becoming strong and developing but in the mid way the disease of corruption started and stop India to grow ahead. In India there has been a trend of give and take means give some money in order to get your work done whether in the government offices or private sectors offices. And now the condition is getting worse and worse, as earlier, the money was paid for getting wrong works done or only work to be done, but currently money is paid for getting works done in right ways and at right time. Even after paying complete money according to the demand, there is no full chance of getting things done at time and in right way.

Corruption is everywhere in every department whether it hospitals, education, job, government offices, nothing is left of corruption. Everything has become a business and the source of earning money in wrong way. Educational institutions are also involved in the corruption and they give seat to those students only who have paid for, whether they are good students with good marks or not. Very weak students are given admission in the top colleges and universities only on the basis of money paid for wrong admission and the topper student with good marks and lack of money gets back in the life or take admission in any simple college.

Now-a-days, private sectors companies are so good in comparison to the governmental jobs. Private companies are giving job on the basis of candidate’s skills, ability, technical knowledge, good percentage of marks and all the educational records. However, it has become tough to get job in the government offices as they need lots of bribe to give any type of job (high level or low level) like teaching, clerk, babu, nurse, doctor, sweeper, etc. And the amount of bribe increases in the market as the level of job increase like IAS, PCC, police, etc ranks jobs.

All the essays given above are essay on corruption under various words limit according to the student’s need and requirement in the school. All the corruption essay are written to almost fulfill the current need of students. Corruption is a social issue and this topic is in vogue for the student’s awareness. Following are the other social issues on which we have provided varieties of essays:

Long Essay on Corruption – 1700 words

A majority of us are probably aware of the term “corruption” and the situations in which the word perfectly fits in. The most plausible reference to the nature of corruption could be assessed by the words of Joe Bidden, 47 th Vice President of the United States of America, who quoted – “corruption is just another form of tyranny.” The statement weighs corruption as equivalent to that of cruel and oppressive rule of government. However, for a common man/woman, corruption is a challenge, that he/she faces every day, in protecting of his/her fundamental rights and privileges, otherwise guaranteed by the Constitution.

Corruption in India

Though, the ranking of India in Global Corruption Index 2018 has been improved by three places; at a global rank of 78 it’s still far from becoming a corruption free nation.

Corruption in India had been prevalent even under the subjugation of British Empire, when India was still far from gaining independence. How deeply rooted was the corruption in Indian society, can be assessed by the words of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The Muslim League Leader once stated – “One of the biggest curses from which India is suffering – I do not say that other countries are free from it, but I think our condition is much worse – is bribery and corruption. That really is a poison”.

This statement of Mr. Jinnah delivered while addressing the first Presidential address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 th August 1947, bares naked the truth of corruption in India, even before independence.

Even after 73 years of Independence, not much has changed on that front for the people of India. On the contrary, corruption has grown in dimension and today, it seriously hampers the economical, social and infrastructural progress of the nation as never before.

Corruption in political and administrative system of the country, is curtailing its progress and it devoid the people of India of their basic rights of equality, freedom, right to equal opportunity and right to compulsory education and health among others.

Factors Leading to or Responsible for Corruption

The corruption is rooted into several social, political and economical factors. Though, the most elaborate explanation for the cause of corruption could be estimated by the words of 19 th century British politician Lord Acten, who had famously said – “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The quote was a reference to relationship between power and corruption. Corruption is most like to occur with power as the powerful can successfully evade accountability, by using his/her power and influence.

The scenario explained above gels perfectly with the Indian political and administrative system of governance. Huge powers are vested upon our political representatives and administrative officials, by the Constitution. The motive behind bestowing them with power was the greater idea of empowering them to act as facilitators to the public, in general interest of the nation.

They are expected to exercise their powers in implementing several welfare schemes and projects, without any hindrance, for the overall welfare of the people and progress of the nation. However, the whole idea seems to backfiring with, the powerful wielding the powers to their own interests, seriously compromising the interest of the nation and its people.

This is when the corruption slowly seeps into otherwise honest political and administrative circles of India.

Another, most troubling factor behind the prevalence of corruption in India is the latter’s acceptance in society as a common phenomenon. Today, the voices against corruption are fainter than ever before and the people have accepted corruption as natural and unavoidable.

This is the reason why we tend to bribe public servants, to escape the legal formalities on issues those are of interest to us. Moreover, giving and taking bribe is today being considered as a wise act and is being applauded in private, if not publically.

Below is given a point wise narration of other social and economical factors that could escalate corruption –

• Inadequate compensation and monthly emoluments to the government employees could lead them to corruption.
• Illiteracy fuels corruption as it makes a person more submissive and likely to be exploited by greedy officials.
• Illiteracy, poverty and lack of a transparent grievance redressal system make people more vulnerable to political and other types of corruption.
• A decline of ethics and moral values in the society are also responsible for corruption.
• Lack of awareness among the people on their rights and privileges is acting as a fuel to the corruption.

Different Faces of Corruption

The demon of corruption has many faces, than could be imagined, like judicial corruption, governance corruption, corruption in education, corruption in enforcement of laws, financial corruption, political corruption etc. There could be thousands of other similar situations; those could act as examples of corruption. It wouldn’t be possible to elaborate all types of corruption in this essay; however, we will discuss a few of them below.

• The spectrum of corruption is vast enough to affect people from different walks of life. It involves situations like bribing to secure a government job, bribing to lodge a complaint in local police station, bribing the government doctor for treatment, bribing the official for swift movement of file, paying bribe to the official to get the cheque that you deserve anyway.
• Firstly, we will make an assessment of political corruption in India. We all know that the credibility of a political representative is based on the transparent and unbiased election that he or she faces in order to be elected. Despite the Election Commission of India doing a commendable job every time to conduct free and fair elections, there are still some cracks in the otherwise impeccable election system.
• More often than not, during elections, we get stray news from throughout the nation, of voters being influenced by money or by wielding powers, by the contestants in election. Such acts amount to political corruption of highest degree and can adversely influence the democratic structure of the nation.
• Now let’s consider the scenario of a government hospital which functions to provide free or subsidized medical facilities to all the citizens of India. The doctors deployed by the government in the hospitals are compensated adequately for their services; however, sometimes they are seen demanding money from patients to perform an operation or treatment, which should otherwise be performed free of cost. This is a perfect example of corruption in healthcare system.

Likewise there are several examples of corruption in different sectors, depending on their nature and outcome.

Corruption – An Act of Collusion or Not

Corruption is basically an act of collusion between two parties; however, more often than not one party might be forced into the agreement by another party.

Suppose, if a Public Works Department Engineer demands bribe from a civil contractor, for passing the bill for the portion of road constructed by the latter. In this case, though the demand is not obligatory on the contractor, he/she will mostly oblige considering the otherwise cumbersome process of proceeding legally against the demands. In this case the party who gives bribe is actually forced to do so by the party who demands it.

On the contrary, there could be situations in which both the opposite parties have colluded willingly in order to mutually benefit each other. For example a non deserving candidate for a government job, pays bribe to the recruiting official, in order to secure the job.

Nevertheless, whether forced or mutually agreed upon, corruption is an act of collusion, between two parties, which seriously compromises the privileges and rights of other individuals.

Measures to Counter/Control Corruption in India

The corruption in any sector could be effectively controlled by working on improving transparency and accountability in that particular sector. Transparency will ensure that each and every functioning, decision and its outcome is known to the public and all, so that the fairness of the deal could be ascertained. On the other hand accountability places responsibility of an undesirable outcome/loss on an individual.

• This has been done by the government of India under the Right to Information or the RTI act, which had been incorporated in 2005. RTI Act 2005 gives the power of questioning to the common citizen of India. Using the RTI Act anyone could now question any department by simply submitting a RTI application.
• You can now question and get answers on subjects like – how much of the taxes collected, did the government spend and on what mode; how many children in your neighboring school were provided admission under EWS (Economically Weaker Section); what was the cost incurred for the construction of road in your locality and what amount was paid to the contractor; what action did the government take against the official involved in corruption etc.
• The RTI law mandates the appointment of a Public Information Officer (PIO) in all the central and state runs departments and ministries. The provision of responding to the queries is binding on the PIO, who has to do so in a stipulated time, failing which s/he would attract departmental action or a hefty fine.
• The government has also established Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) in 1964 to look into the matters of governmental corruption. The CVC functions as an autonomous body, free from the influence of any executive authority.
• The Government has amended Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, to criminalize the party which pays bribe for undue advantages.
• The amendments have a provision to impose penalty on the organization of the person convicted for giving or taking bribery, if latter couldn’t be traced or has deliberately left the country to escape law.
• Another step that could well be taken to eliminate corruption is, setting up a fast and speedy judicial system, to address the corruption cases in the country.

Though, the corruption is rampant in India, it is also true that by and large the common men and women of India are honest and have an evident dislike for corruption. However, deep rooted the corruption might be, it could be successfully eliminated with political will and public awareness.

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Essay on Corruption FAQs

What is corruption in an essay.

Corruption in an essay refers to the act of dishonesty or misuse of power for personal gain, often involving bribery, embezzlement, or unethical behavior.

How do you write a corruption essay?

To write a corruption essay, start with an introduction, discuss its forms and impact, provide real-life examples, and conclude with solutions to tackle this issue.

What is corruption in 200 words?

Corruption is a dishonest act where individuals misuse their authority for personal benefit, leading to societal harm and mistrust. It includes bribery, fraud, and embezzlement.

What are the points of corruption in India?

Corruption in India involves bribery, political scandals, irregularities in government contracts, and a lack of transparency, leading to social and economic problems.

What is corruption in India in simple words?

Corruption in India means people in power using their position for personal gain, leading to unfairness and inequality.

What is corruption in very simple words?

Corruption, in the simplest terms, is when people with authority do bad things for their own benefit, causing harm to others and breaking the rules.

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Corruption Essay

In this Corruption Essay , we had described corruption in simple words, types and causes of corruption & solution of corruption.

Corruption is the immoral act done by a group of people who use the power or status or authority to gain personal benefits; it is a social issue that adversely affects the economic growth of the nation.

It is the use of immoral procedures by others to achieve some benefits, and it has become significant factors obstructing the development of the individual and the country.

In this article  Essay on Corruption , we had provided the essays in different word limits, which you can use as per your need:

Essay on Corruption 100 words:

Corruption is a poison that spreads in the minds of people in the society, community, and country.

It is the misbehaviour of the individual or group of individuals to obtain some unfair advantage to satisfy the small desires.

It deals with the unnecessary and improper use of both power and position by someone in government or non-government organisations.

As it affected the development of the individual and nation, it is a significant cause of disparities in society and the community.

It affects the growth and development of the nation in all aspects, socially, economically, and politically.

Corruption Essay 150 words:

Corruption is the misuse of public property, status, power, and authority to fulfil the selfish motives and to gain personal satisfaction.

It is the misuse of authority for the personal benefit of an individual or group & it is an improper use of public power for some private benefit by breaking specific rules and laws made by the government.

Nowadays, it has spread deeply in society, and it is like cancer that, once produced, cannot be removed without medication and continues to spread its roots regularly.

A common form of corruption in our country is to obtain cash through online transfer or in the form of expensive gifts etc.

Some people wrongly use someone’s money for themselves. Some people recruited in government, or non-government offices, indulge the corruption and can do anything to fulfil their dreams.

Essay on Corruption 200 words:

We are aware of the effects of corruption, and this is not a new phenomenon in our country, it has taken its roots in people’s minds.

It is a widespread poison in society since ancient times, i.e., Mughal and Sultanate times.

Also, reaching its new height & affected people’s minds to a great extent, and it has become so common that some selfish people can play with public life.

It is a type of greed that corrupts the human mind and destroys one’s humanity and genuineness.

Corruption has numerous types, and it has spread in every filed like education, sports, sports, politics, etc. Due to fraud, the person does not understand their responsibilities at the workplace.

It has occupied roots in both developing and developed countries. We need to fight against corruption in our society and country to get real freedom from slavery.

We all need to be loyal to our responsibilities and strict for any greed.

Corruption Essay 250 words:

Nowadays, corruption is everywhere in a society like an infectious disease.

Great leaders of India had fought their entire lives against corruption and other social issues from society.

It is a very embarrassing situation for us that even after losing many great lives, we are not able to understand our real responsibilities.

Corruption has spread in the politics, central governments, state governments, businesses, industries, etc. of the general public sector & it has left no field.

Due to the continuous increase in people’s hunger for wealth, power, position, and luxury, corruption is increasing day by day rather than reduced or stagnant.

We have forgotten the real responsibility of being human just because of money & need to understand that money is not everything, and it is not a static thing.

We cannot keep it forever; it can only give us greed and corruption.

Also, we should give importance to life based on morality and not life-based on wealth.

We indeed need a lot of money to live a healthy life, but it is not true that just for our selfishness and greed, we should play with one’s life in some wrong ways.

Essay on Corruption 300 words:

Corruption is a terrible thing; obstructs the personal development, growth and development of society in the country.

It is a social evil that is playing with the human body & mind socially, economically, and intellectually.

It is frequently deepening its roots due to an increase in human greed towards paying bribes, power, and status.

Corruption is the misuse of the natural, public resources, power by any individual to achieve his welfare.

According to sources, India ranks three among the most corrupt countries, corrupt practices in the fields of civil service, politics, business, and other illegal sectors.

India is a country known for its democracy, but corruption disturbs its democratic system.

Political corruption is responsible for all types of corruption in the country.

We had nominated our leaders and predict them to lead our country in the right direction. Primarily, they make a lot of promises, but after voting, they forget and get involved in corruption.

Also, ensure that the country will be free from corruption, and our political leaders are free from greed. They will use their power, wealth, status, and position to take the country in the right direction, not for their luxury and personal desires.

We should choose sincere and trustworthy leaders to lead our India like our first Indian leaders like Lal Bahadur Shastri, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, etc., such political leaders can reduced corruption from India.

The youth of the country should also be aware of all the causes of corruption and should unite in the group to solve it.

Some significant steps must be taken seriously to control the rising level of corruption.

Corruption Essay 400 words:

Corruption is a highly contagious social disease that has spread its roots in the minds of evil people, No one was born to do such immoral activities in society, but some adverse conditions of his life compelled him to do so.

Gradually they become familiar with all these evil activities. However, people suffering from any problem or disease should be patient, must have faith in themselves and never do anything wrong in life.

As such, a negative step of someone can harm the lives of many people.

We are not the same entity on this earth; there are many like us, so we should think a little about others and live life with happiness and peace with positive thoughts.

Nowadays, poor people have been given a lot of benefits by Government officials to bring social awareness to ordinary people as well as to bring equality in a society based on various rules and regulations.

However, the poor people are not getting the benefit of those benefits given by the government, as many officials are secretly corruption among the channels before reaching the poor people.

They are anti-corruption committee against the law to fill their pockets with money.

There are many reasons for corruption in society. Nowadays, political leaders are creating assurance programs and policies rather than nation oriented programs and policies.

They want to become famous politicians to serve their interests rather than just the interests and needs of the citizens.

The level of change in the value system in the human mind has increased, and at the same time, the moral qualities of humans are decreasing.

The level of trust and honesty is decreasing, which gives rise to corruption.

As tolerance for corruption increases, the number of ordinary people is increasing. The society lacks a robust public platform to resist corruption, widespread illiterate in rural areas, poor economic infrastructure, etc. are the cause of endemic corruption in public life.

The low salary norms of government employees lead them to the channel of corruption. The complex laws and procedures of the government distract ordinary people from getting any assistance from the government.

At the time of the election, corruption becomes at its peak, political parties always support poor and illiterate people during their election by showing big dreams in the future, but nothing happens after victory.

Essay on Corruption 500 words:

Corruption has spread like a disease throughout India as well as abroad. It has become one of the fastest-growing social issues in Indian society. It usually begins and promoted by aggressive leaders.

They will never think about the benefits of the nation and do not harm the country through their corruption, even for their small gains.

Also sells the wealth of their country in the wrong hands and spread misconceptions about India in the minds of people living in other countries.

They are spoiling India’s old traditions and cultures for their benefits.

Nowadays, people who are working in the right direction using the correct principles considered foolish in modern society, and those who are doing the wrong things and making false promises are good for society.

However, in turn, corrupt people indeed cheat ordinary and innocent people. They rule the minds of innocent people.

In India, corruption increases day by day because there is a secure connection between the officials, politicians, and criminals who are making this country weaker and weaker.

India got independence in the year 1947, and it was gradually strengthening and developing, but in the meantime, the disease of corruption started and stopped India from moving forward.

There is a trend in India to pay and receive some money to get work done in government offices or private sector offices.

Now the condition is getting worse and worse, as before, money h paid for doing work, but currently, money is paid for doing the incorrect job and at the right time.

Even after giving full money as per demand, there is no complete confidence of work on time and in the right manner, and peoples are engaged in corruption in every department.

Everything has become a business and a source of making money in the wrong way.

Educational institutions are also involved in corruption, and they only give seats to students who have paid, whether they are students with good marks or not.

Students are given admission to the top colleges and universities based on corruption, and the topper student gets only difficulties in life even after scoring good marks.

Now private sector companies have become much better than government jobs. Private companies are hiring based on the candidate’s skills, ability, technical knowledge, a good percentage of marks, and all academic records.

However, getting a job in government offices has become complicated as they need a lot of bribe for any position (high level or low level) like teaching, clerk, nurse, doctor, sweeper, etc.

Also, read 1. Corruption Free India Essay 2. Terrorism Essay 3. Corruption in India Essay

Conclusion:

Corruption means corrupt + ethics; Corrupt means bad or impaired and conduct means conduct.

That is, corruption literally means conduct that is in any way immoral and unfair.

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Essay on Stop Corruption

Students are often asked to write an essay on Stop Corruption in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Stop Corruption

Understanding corruption.

Corruption is a dishonest act by those in power. It involves misuse of authority for personal gain. This hampers the growth of a nation.

Effects of Corruption

Corruption leads to economic downfall and social inequality. It creates a gap between the rich and the poor, causing societal imbalance.

Stopping Corruption

To stop corruption, we must promote honesty and integrity. Strict laws should be implemented and the guilty should be punished.

Role of Education

Education plays a key role in curbing corruption. It teaches us to differentiate between right and wrong, thus helping to stop corruption.

250 Words Essay on Stop Corruption

Introduction, the impact of corruption.

Corruption hampers progress in myriad ways. It exacerbates inequality by diverting public resources into private hands, impeding fair distribution of wealth. Furthermore, it undermines the rule of law, as corrupt practices often go unpunished, fostering a culture of impunity.

Strategies to Curb Corruption

To combat corruption, we need to foster transparency and accountability. Governments should implement stringent anti-corruption laws and ensure their enforcement. Furthermore, fostering a culture of integrity and ethics, both in public and private sectors, is imperative.

The Role of Education

Education plays a crucial role in curbing corruption. Developing a curriculum that instills the values of honesty, integrity, and responsibility can help shape a generation that is less susceptible to corrupt practices.

Corruption is a significant hurdle to societal progress. However, with concerted efforts from individuals, institutions, and governments, it can be curbed. By fostering transparency, accountability, and a culture of ethics, we can pave the way for a corruption-free society.

500 Words Essay on Stop Corruption

Corruption, a pervasive and long-standing issue, is a complex socio-economic phenomenon that plagues nations across the world. It is a multifaceted problem that transcends social, political, and economic boundaries, undermining the fundamental principles of fairness, justice, and the rule of law.

The Nature of Corruption

The socio-economic impact of corruption.

Corruption is a deterrent to economic growth and development. It creates a system of inefficiency and inequity, where resources are misallocated, and investments are discouraged. It erodes public trust in the government and its institutions, leading to social instability and unrest. By distorting national and international economic relations, corruption often leads to a vicious cycle of poverty and underdevelopment.

Effective Measures to Curb Corruption

To effectively curb corruption, a holistic approach is necessary. This includes strengthening legal frameworks and institutions, promoting transparency and accountability, and fostering a culture of ethics and integrity.

Transparency and accountability are key to preventing corruption. This can be achieved through measures such as open government initiatives, enhancing public participation in decision-making processes, and promoting the use of technology to increase transparency.

A culture of ethics and integrity is essential in the fight against corruption. Education and awareness-raising can play a crucial role in promoting such a culture. It is important to instill in individuals the values of honesty, responsibility, and public service, and to foster an environment where these values are respected and upheld.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Three decades of international cooperation against corruption—looking ahead

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Leonardo Borlini, Anne Peters, Three decades of international cooperation against corruption—looking ahead, International Journal of Constitutional Law , 2024;, moae031, https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moae031

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Corruption, a ubiquitous phenomenon throughout history and societies, has been long criminalized in many countries. However, international cooperation against corruption only gained momentum in the 1990s. Since then, the international legal framework has expanded significantly through conventions like the Organisation on Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention and the UN Convention against Corruption. Nearly all states have now ratified at least one anticorruption treaty. However, implementation and enforcement of these standards has been uneven across states. Domestic reforms have also lagged in some areas like prevention. Corruption remains widespread, and its socioeconomic costs have not appreciably decreased. This Symposium aims at assessing the outcomes of three decades of international cooperation in combating corruption, while also exploring the future directions of international anticorruption rules and cooperation. Through a positive, critical, and normative legal analysis, complemented by empirical research and behavioral science, it focuses on the dynamic interactions between international anticorruption instruments and municipal law, highlighting understudied problems, both substantive and methodological. After discussing the origins and evolution of international anticorruption law, this introductory article presents the state of the art on the questions tackled by this Symposium and highlights its contribution to existing literature on the topic. In doing so, it brings together various trends emerging from the articles contained in this Symposium and explores avenues for further research and reflection.

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Companion articles.

• Monitoring and compliance mechanisms as a diagnostic and prognostic tool of international anti-corruption cooperation: A data-driven study
• Corruption and foreign investments: Empirical lessons from treaties and arbitration cases
• The normative development of laws on asset preservation and confiscation: An examination of emerging best practices
• Human rights and corruption: Problems and potential of individualizing a systemic problem
• Effectuating international law against corruption: Behavioral insights

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Politics | Boodlers and bandits: In Illinois and Chicago,…

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Politics | Boodlers, bandits and notorious politicians

In chicago, corruption is a source of both shame and perverse pride.

On many nights during his long career as alderman of the 43rd Ward, Mathias “Paddy” Bauler would hold court in the North Avenue tavern that served as his headquarters from the 1930s into the 1960s. Often with a beer in hand, he would loudly proclaim, “Chicago ain’t ready for reform.”

He might as well have said or added, “Chicago is always ready for corruption.”

This city, and by extension the state, have long been and remain what a University of Chicago political science professor – and many others, from writers to late-night television hosts – have derided as “the only completely corrupt city in America.” As one local, the late Studs Terkel, charmingly put it in 1986: “Chicago is not the most corrupt of cities. The state of New Jersey has a couple. Need we mention Nevada? Chicago, though, is the Big Daddy. Not more corrupt, just more theatrical, more colorful in its shadiness.”

How did we get so “lucky”?

Political wrongdoers have come at us in a steady stream just about from the time the first settlers arrived. Since then, we have watched (or withstood) all manner of scandals and crimes, orchestrated by boodlers, bandits and outright crooks.

According to a report the University of Illinois at Chicago’s political science department issued last year, Chicago was the country’s most corrupt city for the fourth year in a row. The most recent examples of infamy – convicted former Ald. Ed Burke and accused former Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, two of the most powerful politicians in this city’s long history – have been prominent in newspaper headlines and on television. And, depending on your age, you surely remember some of the better-known names of scandals and those involved.

Burke and Madigan are the latest additions to a l ist the Tribune has compiled of roughly 200 convicted, indicted or otherwise notorious politicians. It is a stunning gathering really, almost exclusively men elected or appointed to varying positions – most predominantly aldermen (more than three dozen of them convicted of crimes since the early 1970s), but other offices too. Have a look .

Historian Richard Lindberg told me: “This was a city and state that first drew people who were adventurers, rogues and men of large ambitions and this was for a time a place with no rules and flexible morals and ethics. And as each succeeding wave of immigrants arrived they would look at what others had done before them and wanted to grab a slice of the action by whatever means they could concoct.”

One obvious road to such “success” was getting elected to public office, and it is here one can hear the echo of something said by a long-gone English historian, Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

True enough, and it’s important to remember that temptation is all around us and has the ability to touch not only politicians but also those in the realms of business, sports, religion, law enforcement, the military and on and on.

With variations and embellishments, political corruption takes two principal forms. There’s using public authority or resources for political gain (such as buying votes or rewarding campaign workers with taxpayer-funded jobs), and there’s using one’s position for private gain (think of taking bribes, or of putting Uncle Harry into a ghost-payrolling job where he doesn’t even have to show up to get paid).

Many see political corruption as an inevitability, a fact of Chicago life, tied to the patronage system that began in the early 20th century and flourished during the decades that followed.

“You’ve got to mention Lorimer,” said Mike Flannery, a political reporter for newspapers and television for more than three decades. He retired last year but was called back for Democratic National Convention duty for WFLD-Ch. 32.

His mention of William Lorimer goes back to the early years of the 20th century, when U.S. senators were still not elected by the popular vote of citizens but rather appointed by state lawmakers. That ended forever in 1913 with the ratification of the 17th Amendment, which provided for direct election of U.S. senators by vote of the people. Part of the impetus was the revelation Lorimer attained his Senate post in 1909 by bribing legislators. His “election” deemed invalid, he was booted from the Senate.

Jail? Are you kidding? He came back to Chicago and was greeted with a parade.

“Lorimer was one of the first statewide bad guys,” Flannery said. “But you can see how past corruption echoes and has influenced generations, convincing many that they could get away with plenty. Much of it has been nickel-and-dime stuff but with some big-name crooks. It’s really been a culture of corruption .”

Since the city’s earliest days, there have always been people who railed against the corruption they were witnessing, with some of the loudest voices coming from the pages of various publications.

In the early 1890s, the Herald newspaper put it this way: “The average representative in the City Council is a tramp, if not worse. … He is in nine cases out of ten a bummer and disreputable who can be bought and sold as hogs are bought and sold at the stockyards.”

Around this same time, the weekly magazine Graphic complained: “It has been an open secret for many months that the council is controlled by a gang of corruptionists and that municipal franchises are as clearly matters of bargain and sale as goods at a bargain counter … from year to year men of notorious official and political corruption have been reelected as lawmakers for the people.”

The men who set the bar for aldermanic corruption were a couple of characters named John “Bathhouse John” Coughlin and Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna, who served as aldermen of the First Ward at a time when the city was divided into 35 wards and each was run by two elected aldermen.

The tiny, cigar-chomping Kenna was a genius at political organization and the owner of the Workingman’s Exchange, a popular saloon near Clark and Van Buren streets. Coughlin had been a bathhouse masseur, wrote terrible poetry and wore garish clothes. He blustered while Kenna said little. They shared the duties for an area that included dwellings of the rich, tenements for the poor and the notorious Levee, home to pimps, prostitutes and pickpockets. (The area is bordered today roughly between 18th and 22nd streets and Wabash Avenue and Clark Street.)

In City Council, the two were eagerly abetted by others who included Ald. John “Johnny de Pow” Powers of the 19th Ward, about whom the Times-Herald newspaper wrote, “He is bloodless, personally unattractive … autocratic, arrogant and insolent.”

Dubbed “the gray wolves” by muckraking reporter Lincoln Steffens “for the color of their hair and the rapacious cunning and greed of their natures,” these men and a few cronies exercised wicked control of the City Council.

Corruption continued and thrived with the 1915 election of Republican Mayor William Hale Thompson, a former cowboy and athlete, who launched the city into one of its most politically raucous eras. The day after his election, he bellowed: “The crooks had better move out of Chicago. In no manner is this to be a political machine-building organization. I am my own man!”

Well, nonsense. My father, Herman, and his newspaper pal Lloyd Wendt wrote a Thompson biography, 1953’s “Big Bill of Chicago,” and in it one can read about the close alliance Thompson had with a fellow named Al Capone.

“From the start, Capone’s money rolled into Big Bill’s campaign coffers,” they wrote. One of Capone’s associates, “an oily pimp and gambler named Jack Zuta proudly proclaimed, ‘Big Bill’s for me hook, line and sinker.’”

I read “Big Bill” when I was 12, when I already knew my 43rd Ward alderman, Bauler, and our precinct captain. I was like many who grew up here, living where politics was close by and knowledge of corruption came early. Who among you did not learn, when you were old enough to drive, how to beat a speeding ticket?

“If you’re caught, just wrap your driver’s license in a $5 or $10 bill when you hand it to the cop,” your father, uncle, big brother or maybe even your mom would tell you. “Do that, smile and say, ‘Sorry,’ and you’ll soon drive away.”

Few knew the pervasiveness of political corruption better than columnist Mike Royko. He knew it from its humblest level, growing up above his parents’ Milwaukee Avenue tavern, the Blue Sky Lounge. He knew the aldermanic foot soldiers known as precinct captains and would later write: “A decent precinct captain used to be out there with a wad of bills big enough to choke his clout, handing a few dollars to every needy voter. And there was nothing wrong with that. With the kind of aldermen Chicago has had, people should be paid to vote for them.”

Royko also noted, “I wouldn’t call any alderman a loudmouth because it wouldn’t be accurate. Most of them have prudently learned to talk in a whisper. A whisper is harder for a listening device to pick up.”

And he once suggested that the city’s motto be changed from the Latin phrase “Urbs In Horto,” meaning “City in a Garden,” to “Ube Est Mea,” which means “Where’s mine?”

You will notice that the Tribune’s “Dishonor Roll” is dominated by aldermen, but you should also know that many on the list have never been convicted of a crime. Some of them, including Bauler, Kenna and Coughlin, are filed under the label “notorious,” which is also to say “colorful.” Bauler, for instance, used to amuse Mayor Anton Cermak, who laid the foundation for the city’s Democratic machine, by rolling around the City Hall floor in wrestling matches with his 275-pound self.

John Davies made a recent movie about corruption, an hour-long documentary, called “Lincoln Is Crying: The Grifters, Grafters and Governors of Illinois.” It covers a lot of bases and bad deeds and does so in a purposefully lighthearted way. One critic called it an “entertaining take on the state’s history of systemic political corruption.”

“When people from other states see this film they are shocked,” Davies said. “The idea came to me over the years. Look, I am not a serious news producer, so with some advice from people at The Second City, we decided to take a humorous look at corruption. Yes, it is a serious matter, and there are many places and sources where that can be explored.”

He continued, “This could easily have been a 10-hour miniseries with endless cases of bribery and thievery or attempted bribery and thievery by Illinois politicians representing both parties.

“But many of my friends and those who live here have become so used to this corruption they just think it’s the way it’s been done for years so why worry about it? ‘Besides, it’s funny,’ one friend told me. That’s the comment that made me decide to tell this story with a sense of humor. It’s so ugly and so depressing you probably couldn’t watch or listen to it otherwise.”

Writer Bill Bryson once wrote that “Chicago was to corruption what Pittsburgh was to steel or Hollywood to motion pictures. It refined and cultivated it, and embraced it without embarrassment.”

There are undoubtedly people who take a strange pride in the city and state’s blatant wickedness. But others have fought for reform.

“There is great value in being loudly anti-corruption,” Flannery said. “And those on the federal level have more tools, power and resources.”

James Thompson, after becoming a federal prosecutor in the early 1970s, energetically went after political corruption and, among other high-profile targets, obtained a conviction against former governor Otto Kerner for his use of improper influence on behalf of the horse-racing industry.

He also secured the indictments of powerful alderman Thomas Keane, County Clerk Matt Danaher and others, setting the corruption-seeking tone for those who followed him into the office of U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

His cases established a heroic image that helped keep him in the Illinois governor’s office for four terms. But other reformers have not been particularly effective. The first ethics reform ordinance in the history of Chicago wasn’t passed until 1987, and progress has been incremental at best.

Many fine books detail the dark side of the city. The aforementioned Richard Lindberg has a shelf full, including such titles as “To Serve and Collect,” “Gangland Chicago” and “Whiskey Breakfast.”

Dick Simpson was a reform-minded alderman of the 44th Ward from 1971 to 1979. He also was a professor of political science (now emeritus) and the author of many fine books, among them 2001’s “Rogues, Rebels, And Rubber Stamps: The Politics of the Chicago City Council from 1863 to the Present” in 2001.

Few have observed city and state politics more closely or spoken about them more articulately.

Some years ago, sitting with me in a bygone local tavern, he said, “I have always been – and remain – hopeful that our better angels will win out. There is great power in the people, and we must trust the people to help make Chicago not just a global city but a livable and humane city.”

The new edition of “Illinois Politics: A Citizen’s Guide to Power, Politics, and Government,” published by the University of Illinois Press, has a fine chapter titled “Political Corruption.” In it the authors write, “Illinois cannot change its history of political corruption, but it does not have to constantly repeat it.”

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US lags on financial transparency compared to other developed nations, researchers say

A new global study mapping illicit financial flows reveals Dubai and Hong Kong are now dirty money hotspots, while the U.S. is becoming a go-to destination for banking bribes.

The United States has fallen behind other developed countries in curbing financial secrecy, surpassing Switzerland as the “international banking center of choice for corrupt transactions,” according to a new report from the University of Sussex.

The findings , based on data that spans four decades and more than 70 jurisdictions, provide “an unprecedented view of how the structure of different types of illicit global financial networks have evolved” in response to changing regulations, the report said.

The researchers identified several long-term trends, including the U.S.’s transformation into a financial transparency scold — and scourge.

Over the past two decades, Washington has successfully lobbied its peers to reform their financial systems while failing to implement similar measures at home, the researchers said.

The U.S. has “been very aggressive at imposing unilateral financial transparency in other places, especially Switzerland, but it really hasn’t reciprocated in banking information exchange,” Daniel Haberly, a professor of human geography at the university who led the research, told ICIJ. “It’s got fairly high financial secrecy, but it also seems to have pretty lax anti-money laundering compliance on top of that.”

Starting around 2013, the researchers said, there was a notable uptick in the use of U.S. bank accounts in bribery cases recorded under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a law meant to prevent corrupt payments to foreign officials. By comparison, the use of Swiss bank accounts in FCPA cases declined, the report said.

In addition to becoming a more popular conduit for the proceeds of corruption, the U.S. has also become a hub for shell companies, Haberly added, citing states such as Delaware and Florida that have made it easy to set up corporate entities without disclosing the true owners.

As a result, the U.S. in 2022 climbed to the top of advocacy group the Tax Justice Network’s global ranking of “countries most complicit in helping individuals to hide their wealth from the rule of law, earning the worst rating ever recorded since the ranking began in 2009.”

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Haberly said another factor in the U.S.’s poor scores on financial secrecy and anti-money laundering compliance was the country’s failure to adopt the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Common Reporting Standard for the automatic exchange of information about financial accounts between jurisdictions. Switzerland is one of more than 100 countries that have adopted the standard since it was developed by the OECD in 2014. Haberly said the subsequent discrepancy in standards is “the most important/relevant factor in the apparent shift in corruption-linked banking from Switzerland to the USA.”

The data used by the University of Sussex researchers goes up to 2023, before the U.S. began implementing its long-awaited registry of company owners this year . But Haberly said the U.S. registry compares poorly to that of other countries because access to the database is restricted to law enforcement agencies, government authorities and financial institutions.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom has ceased to be a leading destination globally for financial networks in countries looking to avoid sanctions, as a result of years of reforms, the report said. But its network of former colonies, including Hong Kong and Dubai, and overseas territories, such as the British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar, have become more important as offshore tax havens, thanks to their legal systems and close connections to emerging markets that generate significant amounts of illicit funds in addition to the wealth created by their burgeoning legal economies.

“These jurisdictions offer access to English common law and leading Western financial centers and service providers, while falling outside of Western political jurisdiction,” the report said.

At the same time, the researchers found evidence suggesting organized crime networks increasingly move their money through Hong Kong and Dubai, instead of Panama. Panama’s role as an illicit finance hub has decreased since the publication of ICIJ’s Panama Papers investigation in 2016, replaced by what the researchers dubbed the “Dubai-Kong axis.”

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Haberly said that researchers also found “a split” between different types of illicit finance “which seems to be largely based on politics.” Funds linked to corruption and organized crime continue to have connections to the West, chiefly the U.K.’s overseas territories and the U.S., he said, while Russian and Iranian-linked money has found a home in places that have not adopted sanctions, such as Dubai and Hong Kong, which themselves have channels into the global financial system.

The conclusions presented by the academics are based on their analysis of three datasets, containing regulatory data from 70 jurisdictions between 1990 and 2020, information on bank accounts, shell companies and professional middlemen from 262 U.S. foreign bribery cases between 1978 and 2023, and the location of more than 10,000 entities placed under U.S. sanctions, cross-referenced with additional information from other sources.

The researchers also relied in part on leaked data made publicly available by ICIJ following its global investigations, Haberly said, as well as samples from the Tax Justice Network. The paper found that “anti-corruption initiatives” across the jurisdictions tended to be led not by governments but by NGOs and journalists. Haberly said official institutions should collaborate more with investigative media and grant wider access to data for journalists.

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