Corruption

Abstract

The most general meaning of corruption is that of impurity, infection, or decay. Corruption can happen to anything – a piece of fruit, a sporting event, a religious community, or a university – but the term is now most commonly used to suggest that there is something rotten in the government of the state. Thus, as conceptions of the naturally sound condition of government change, so too does the focus of concern regarding its corruption. In the social thought of western classical antiquity and early modern Europe, for example, corruption was seen as a disease of the body politic. It was a destructive social condition whose effects included improper behavior on the part of many individuals. During the modern period, however, politics has come to be seen in individualistic and economistic terms, with the result that corruption now tends to refer to the improper behavior itself, and especially to conduct which involves the use of public office for the purposes of illicit private gain. Some commentators (e.g., Euben 1989) deplore this change in usage, seeing it as reflecting the triumph of liberal individualism and a corresponding loss of concern with the public good.