Real Politics and the Concept of Political Corruption

The author seeks to understand the concept of political corruption through foregoing the overreliance of scholars on “real politics”. The article inspects the notion of cultural particularity in the attempt to understand corruption. It investigates whether corruption can be understood as a uniform phenomenon across states and regions, and discusses the nature of political. The paper then delves into investigating the problems with the definition of “abuse of power” and “private gain.” Additionally, the paper identifies a further issue that emerges in understanding corruption as a concept: the existence or lack thereof of a ‘non-corrupt’ version of politics. An additional conceptualization of political corruption is presented through Lawrence Lessig’s notion of ‘dependence corruption’ where an individual or institution has developed improper dependence: this, however, is subject to contestation given the determinants of the degree of dependence.