A Comparative Historical Sociology of Corruption

What is corruption? Why is it so hard to get rid of? Why do some people call things corrupt, but not others? Why do these meanings shift? Drawing on sociological and historical tools, this volume proposes a novel framework to understand why and how corruption persists across history and today.

This volume renews the study of corruption as 'embedded' in ongoing social relations. Instead of treating corruption as a universal phenomenon, A Comparative Historical Sociology of Corruption shows how corruption is often morally ambiguous and deeply intertwined with the social, political and economic struggles of particular groups in specific times and places. Ranging from Early Modernity to the present day, and spanning across the globe, the book focuses on three recurring aspects of corruption: emergence or the origins and struggles over whether something is corrupt; institutionalization or how different definitions of corruption predominate; and mobilization or the sociopolitical functions that different definitions of corruption serve in times of social change. The volume includes a wide variety of historical and contemporary studies to show that corruption is embedded in its context, providing a novel framework for readers to understand how and why corruption persists across time and place.