Corruption: Insights into Combating Corruption in Rural Development

Abstract

International development and aid agencies see corruption as an obstacle to development: the corrupt actor is an economic man, usually with dubious moralities, who misuses state resources, meant for the collective good, for his private economic gain. This chapter is about the complex moral economy regulating “corrupt” practices surrounding state-based welfare provision in rural Jharkhand, Eastern India. It argues that we need to understand how people talk about such practices in their own terms as economic action is underpinned by moral reasoning, situated within a particular normative context, and not necessarily matched by the standards of financial utility that have become prevalent with the spread of the neoliberal state. In rural Jharkhand, while the state is an abstract idea, it is also widely acknowledged to be formed by the personal agency of those that make it and shape it. As such the moral set up of everyday life in rural Jharkhand does not always agree with official norms. State development schemes are often thought to be inappropriate for the rural areas and targeting the “wrong” beneficiaries. A local discourse on rules and norms in implementing development construction schemes is prevalent in which monetary aspects of corrupt activities may be eclipsed by a whole range of other motivations, expressed as moral reasons for engaging in those activities.KeywordsMoral ReasoningInformal EconomyCorrupt PracticeMoral EconomyAnthropological PerspectiveThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.