Call for Papers for an ephemera Special Issue on:
Critiquing
corruption: A turn to theory
Issue
Editors: Thomas Taro Lennerfors, Eric Breit and Lena Olaison
For this Special Issue of ephemera, we
want to explore the possibilities of turning to theory, instead of practice, to
critique corruption and anti-corruption. Corruption is often seen as a virus or
a cancer that is eating away at the core of contemporary society (Wolfensohn,
1998). Correspondingly, international anti-corruption measures have risen to prominence
over the last decade, exemplified by the UN Convention on Corruption and the UN
Global Compact. In the 2000s, corporate scandals, such as Enron, Worldcom, and
most recently the global banking crisis, have increasingly put corruption into
the spotlight.
Despite this, there have been few calls
for theoretical investigations into corruption – on the contrary, there seems
to be an aversion to such explorations. While there are various types of
corrupt practices (e.g. bribery, fraud, embezzlement, etc.) at different levels
(e.g. petty, grand, systemic), few are willing to theorize corruption beyond
the World Bank’s definition – ‘the misuse of public office for private gain’ (The World Bank Group) – or the one by Transparency International – ‘the misuse of
entrusted power for private gain’ (Transparency International). The argument
has even been made that it is unproductive to define and theorize corruption
(Johnston, 1996); it seems to be taken for granted that ‘we know it when we see
it’.
Such neglect of the complexity of both
theories and practices of corruption, we suggest, is a mistake. Studies have
shown, for example, that when portrayed in media, the meaning of corruption is
far from agreed upon (Breit, 2010; Hansen 1998). Further, the intrinsic nature
of corruption as ‘evil’ and anti-corruption as ‘good’ have been analysed. Such
studies broaden the view of corruption, suggesting that corrupt exchanges can
be functional in inefficient contexts and that corruption in some cases can be
conceived as a fifth factor of production (Ledeneva, 1998; Kameir and Kursany,
1985). Anti-corruption, on the other hand, has been critiqued not only for its
neoliberal spirit but also for its Western perspective positing corruption as
an attribute of the Other of Western civilization (Brown and Cloke, 2011; Doig,
2011; Haller and Shore, 2005; Sík, 2002). While recognising
the value of these studies, a common tendency in the aforementioned
critiques is to turn to practice and to stress the need for understanding the
complex context of corruption and anti-corruption.
To point towards a few potential avenues
for theoretical engagement, one of the most prevalent understanding of
corruption comes from classical agency theory. Here an
‘agent’, rather than acting in accordance with the will of a ‘principal’, acts
in his/her own interest (see Jain, 1998) or in the interest of his/her
organization (Pinto, Leana and Pil, 2008). As a response to such an understanding,
structural perspectives put less emphasis on the agency of the individual and instead
focus on the ‘barrel’ rather than the ‘rotten apples’ (Bakan, 2004). Furthering
such development, process-based approaches have tried to break with the
agency/structure theorising altogether (Ashforth and Anand, 2003; Fleming and
Zyglidopoulos, 2009).
Other, perhaps less pursued, paths that
could serve as inspiration for theoretical explorations are, for example,
attempts to theorise corruption with insights from psychoanalysis. In such
studies, corruption has been theorised as a symptom of the failure of the
public/private split (Batsis, 2006; see also Lennerfors, 2008; 2010) or as a
psychological disorder such as greed, arrogance or self-aggrandizement (Levine,
2005).
From a politico-philosophical
perspective, Hardt and Negri (2000) theorise corruption in terms of the absence
of ontology, conceived in terms of the revolutionary political subject. They
draw on the largely forgotten ancient notion of corruption, where it always
denotes corruption of and in relation to something. This stands in contrast to the contemporary view where it almost
seems that corruption is not corruption of
anything, but just exists. We might even see connections to Badiou’s critique
of present ethics as fighting Evil without any positive conception of the Good
(Badiou, 2001).
We invite papers that attempt to rethink
corruption theoretically, and to connect the concept of corruption to
theory more rigorously. The theoretical investigations highlighted in this
call might be used for inspiration, but even more, we invite papers that propose
novel and unconventional theoretical takes on corruption. Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following:
·
Thermodynamics: entropy, dissipative structures,
and corruption
Deadline for submissions: 30 October
2013
All contributions should be submitted to
one of the issue editors: Thomas Taro Lennerfors ([log in to unmask]),
Eric Breit ([log in to unmask]) or Lena Olaison ([log in to unmask]).
Please note that three categories of contributions are invited for the special
issue: articles, notes, and reviews. All submissions should follow ephemera’s submissions guidelines (www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/submit.htm).
Articles will undergo a double blind review process. This call for papers is associated with the
stream ‘Unmasking corruption: Critical perspectives on corruption and
anti-corruption’ at the EGOS 2013 conference in Montreal (July 4-6, 2013). The
special issue is open for contributions also outside the conference participants.
references
Ashforth, B.E. and V. Anand (2003) ‘The
normalization of corruption in organizations’, in R.M. Kramer and B. Staw
(eds.), Research in Organizational
Behavior, 25: 1-52.
Badiou, A. (2001) Ethics: An essay on the understanding of
evil. New York: Verso.
Bakan, J. (2004) The
corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power. New York: Free
Press.
Bratsis,
P. (2006) Everyday life and the state.
Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.
Breit, E. (2010) ‘On the
(re)construction of corruption in the media: A critical discursive approach’, Journal of Business Ethics, 92(4):
619-635.
Brown, E. and J. Cloke (2011)
‘Critical perspectives on corruption: An overview’, Critical Perspectives on International Business, 7(2): 116-124.
Doig, A. (2011) ‘Numbers, words
and KYC: Knowing your country and knowing your corruption’, Critical Perspectives on International
Business, 7(2): 142-158.
Fleming,
P. and S. Zyglidopoulos (2009) Chartering
corporate corruption: Agency, structure and escalation. London: Edward
Elgar.
Haller, D. and C. Shore (eds.)
(2005) Corruption: Anthropological
perspectives. London: Pluto Press.
Hansen, H.K. (1998) ‘Governmental
mismanagement and symbolic violence. Discourses on corruption in the Yucatán
of the 1990s’, Bulletin of Latin American
Research, 17(3): 367-386.
Hardt, M. and A. Negri (2000) Empire.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Jain, A. (1998a) ‘Models of corruption’, in A. Jain
(ed.) Economics of corruption. Boston; London, Kluwer Academic
Publishers.
Johnston, M. (1996) ‘The search
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Kameir, E. and I. Kursany, I.
(1985) Corruption as a “fifth” factor of
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Research Report no. 72. Uppsala, Sweden.
Ledeneva,
A.V. (1998) Russia’s economy of favours: Blat, networking and informal
exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Degeneration, transgression, jouissance. Stockholm: Arvinius (Ph.D.
Thesis).
Lennerfors, T.T (2010) ‘The
sublime object of corruption: Exploring the relevance of a psychoanalytical
two-bodies doctrine for understanding corruption’, in S.L. Muhr, B.M. Sørensen
and S. Vallentin (eds.) Ethics and
organizational practice: Questioning the moral foundations of management.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
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Pinto,
J., C. R. Leana and F. K. Pil: 2008, ‘Corrupt organizations or organizations of
corrupt individuals? Two types of organizational-level corruption’, Academy of Management Review, 33(3):
685–709.
Sík, E. (2002) ‘The bad, the worse and the worst:
Guesstimating the level of corruption’, in S. Kotkin and A. Sajó
(eds.) Political corruption in transition: A skeptic’s handbook. Budapest:
Central European University Press.
Transparency International (2012)
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Wolfensohn,
J. (1998) ‘A back-to-basics anti-corruption strategy: Economic perspectives’, Electronic Journals of the United States
Information Agency, 3(5): 17-19.
The
World Bank Group (2012) ‘Helping countries combat corruption: The role of the
World Bank’ [http://transparency.am/corruption.php].