Pride and prejudice: Comparative corruption research and the British case

Abstract

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. Abstract In recent years, comparative corruption analysis has been fuelled by the growth of international survey data on related perceptions. Taking issue with the typological vein of such analysis, this article questions both the treatment of perceptions indices and the validity and pertinence of variables used to explain them. It is argued that perceptions are conflated with practice, whilst explanatory variables appear ungrounded in empirical reality. These limitations serve to reinforce expectations that corruption is a menace to be associated primarily with societies of the global periphery. Drawing on the supposedly paradigmatic case of Britain, the article suggests that the problem of bias in comparative scholarship is compounded by three factors: the failure of comparative and domestic-focused literatures to engage with one another in sufficient depth; the relative lack of qualitative research into corruption within core Western states; and the neglect of power in the study of perceptions and practices at comparative and domestic-focused levels of analysis.

International Criminology and International Connectivity: Reflections at a Pivotal Juncture

“…In a world that places great value on the use of numerical data as part of the repertoire of technocratic expertise, it is to be expected that some international criminological research will draw on global indicators that are made available on the basis of such data. Yet the quality of these indicators seems likely to remain highly variable, requiring critique, caution and contextualised interpretation (see Siems & Nelken, 2017 ; Merry, 2016 ; Nelken, 2015 ; Andreas, 2010 ; see also Cheliotis & Xenakis, 2016 ; Xenakis, 2010 ).…”

European Funds and the Hermeneutics of the Capitalist Crisis: Insights from within the Greek State

“…Its theorization along the lines of legal/illegal, public/private, or disinterested/interested certainly calls for further discussion in regards to its actual analytical validity (Bratsis ), while one is also invited to reflect on the unquestioned correlation of practices of corruption with the poor state of semiperipheral and peripheral capitalism. This builds on a lack of thorough comparative assessment of actual similar processes in Western countries (Xenakis ). I should point out that the topic of “corruption” has acquired a central position in the field of aid policies since the late 1970s (Guilhot ; Karagiannis ).…”

Political Corruption and Electoral Funding

“…A number of economic, institutional, and cultural variables have been reported to influence the incidence of corruption (see Lambsdorff, 2006 for literature review). This suggests that the set of possible controls is large as well as diverse; however, Xenakis (2010) has questioned the relevance of using certain control variables in cross-national studies on corruption, because they introduce biases in the political domain. With this limitation in mind, I have selected a set of control variables intended to represent background conditions.…”