IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ctwqxx/v35y2014i5p737-752.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What is the opposite of corruption?

Author

Listed:
  • Bo Rothstein

Abstract

Corruption has turned out to be difficult to define and what should be counted as the opposite to corruption remains widely disputed. If the goal for a post-conflict society is not only to become democratic and prevent a return to violence but also to reduce systemic corruption, we need to know what it is that should be fought and how the opposite to systemic corruption should be conceptualised. To define the opposite to corruption, choices have to be made along four conceptual dimensions. These are universalism vs relativism, uni- vs multidimensionality, normative vs empirical and whether the definition should relate to political procedures or policy substance. As a result of this conceptual analysis, it is argued, a universal, one-dimensional, normative and procedural definition should be preferred. The suggested definition is that of impartiality as the basic norm for the implementation of laws and policies. This conceptual analysis ends with a discussion of why such a norm has historically and in the contemporary world been hard to achieve and why it is especially problematic in post-conflict societies.

Suggested Citation

  • Bo Rothstein, 2014. "What is the opposite of corruption?," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(5), pages 737-752, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:35:y:2014:i:5:p:737-752
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2014.921424
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01436597.2014.921424
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01436597.2014.921424?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huishui Su & Yu Lu & Oleksii Lyulyov & Tetyana Pimonenko, 2023. "Good Governance within Public Participation and National Audit for Reducing Corruption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-17, April.
    2. Osei, Davina & Konte, Maty & Avenyo, Elvis Korku, 2024. "Escaping Corruption in the Demand for Public Services in Africa — The Dual Nature of Civic Networks," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    3. Adel Daoud, 2015. "Quality of Governance, Corruption and Absolute Child Poverty in India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 10(2), pages 148-167, August.
    4. Camilla Orjuela & Dhammika Herath & Jonas Lindberg, 2016. "Corrupt Peace? Corruption and Ethnic Divides in Post-war Sri Lanka," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 11(2), pages 149-174, August.
    5. Nicholas Charron, 2016. "Explaining the allocation of regional Structural Funds: The conditional effect of governance and self-rule," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(4), pages 638-659, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:35:y:2014:i:5:p:737-752. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/ctwq .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.