Corruption is a concept/practice common to most societies across time and space and as such is an intrinsically interdisciplinary subject. Corruption is of concern to anyone interested in governance, both in the present and in the past, and therefore a key theme for political scientists and historians. But it is not merely political. It is of intrinsic interest to economists and lawyers, and also provides a key metaphor for explaining almost any kind of decay: moral, linguistic, national, natural and medical world. Corruption also provides a major theme in literature and the desire to combat corruption excites imagined Utopias as well as reforming visions and practices. The interconnections between these types of corruption have seldom been explored and corruption has a long and rich history that has yet to be comprehensively written. It is also a subject that should have a considerable ‘impact’ on contemporary policy discussions.
OUR NEXT MEETING: 4 MAY
'Corruption around the world' with experts of Egypt, Uganda, China and with a film maker who worked in Italy and South Africa and other places. The event will take place on May 4, 12-2 PM, and I'll keep you informed.
We look forward to seeing you there
Mark Knights
Renske Doorenspleet
External events
The national Anti-Corruption Research Network that is co-ordinated from Oxford produces a monthly newsletter - the latest version is here
. It lists forthcoming events, recent publications and news.
Recent Meetings at Warwick:
On Wednesday, 18th Jan, we held a workshop on the theme of 'Bribery, past and present' with a keynote paper from Prof Peter Alldridge (QM, London), who was specialist adviser to the joint Parliamentary Committees on the draft Corruption Bill (2003) and the draft Bribery Bill (2009). The workshop also heard two shorter papers by Dr John Snape (Warwick) on ‘Bribery in Adam Smith’s System of Natural Jurisprudence’ and Prof Ralf Rogowski (Warwick) on 'Citizen Participation in Anticorruption Policies in Light of the Law of the European Union'.
On Tuesday 22nd November (week 8) Mark Philp (Oxford) talked to us about 'Defining Corruption'. The hand-out that he circulated offering a definition of political corruption and references to his work on the subject is available here.
On Wed 26th October (week 4) Robert Barrington, Director of External Affairs at Transparency International UK [http://www.transparency.org.uk/] led a discussion about how to measure corruption and how academics can contribute to policy debates. You can access his powerpoint presentation and a podcast of his very interesting and helpful talk.
We are also looking for
a) volunteers to offer papers of their own or to lead sessions focused on a particularly stimulating article or chapter in the autumn of 2011; please let us know before the end of term if possible.
b) members of the network to send me half a dozen titles of secondary literature from their discipline that they have found particularly useful or interesting. We will place these on a collaborative reading list. P please send us your titles as soon as you can.
c) suggestions for speakers to invite to talk to us.
d) suggestions for other members (from Warwick or elsewhere) to join the network.
Thanks for your contribution during our first meeting with stimulating and promising discussions,
Please do contact either Mark on m.j.knights@warwick.ac.uk or Renske on Renske.doorenspleet@warwick.ac.uk
Note about First meeting:
We had a very interesting and productive opening session on 18th May, with representatives from History, Politics, English, Law, Economics, and Italian. A list of people who have expressed interest in the network is to be found here. If there are others that you know of to add to this do please email m.j.knights@warwick.ac.uk
Going round the table there were a number of shared interests in: the definition of corruption and in how different disciplines viewed it; the terms associated with it; the roles of patronage and clientage; whether corruption was inherently negative and corrosive; how context shaped corruption; the rules governing corruption, who creates them and enforces them; how corruption was represented; how ideas about corruption developed in the past; and how regulation could constrain it.
