Curbing Corruption: The Elusive Search for a Cure

Abstract

early four decades ago, it was considered politically incorrect to undertake research on corruption, as it was almost taboo as a research topic and was rarely mentioned in scholarly discussions on the problems of government and planning (Myrdal 1968, 938-39). However, this taboo no longer exists, as research on corruption in many countries mushroomed into a growth industry in the 1990s. Indeed, Leiken notes that since the end of the Cold War, the number of news stories on corruption in the Economist, Financial Times, and New York Times quadrupled between 1984 and 1995 (1996-97, 58). This global corruption epidemic appears to be the result of two trends: the emergence of civil societies and the disclosure of corruption in many countries, as well as a trend toward democracy and markets, which paradoxically has increased both the opportunities for graft and the likelihood of exposure (Leiken 1996-97, 58).