Introduction. The article is devoted to the study of problems of corruption in foreign countries. Corruption is seen as the inefficiency of public administration associated with a violation in relations between the principal and the agent: the first receives services, the second provides them.It is noted that corruption is the abuse of state and municipal authorities for private gain. A sharp rise in corruption was noted by researchers in the XIX century. At the same time, the first attempts to counter it at the legislative level appeared. At the end of the 20th century (December 17, 1979), the UN General Assembly adopted the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials. The legal basis for the definition of corruption was the adoption in 2003 of the UN Convention against Corruption, and three years earlier the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. For the first time, the thesis was voiced that the fight against corruption is the responsibility of states, and for its effectiveness a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach is needed. In this regard, researchers decided to note the multiplicity of causes of corruption, highlighting the legal, economic, institutional and sociocultural factors, as well as dividing corruption into white, gray and black. According to the geographical classification and the statement that there are no non-corruption countries, they build several models of corruption: Asian, African, Latin American, European.Researchers agree that the level of corruption in all countries depends on the institutional environment and social conditions; it remains an important political phenomenon.Materials and methods. The methodological basis of the study was a set of general scientific methods, special methods of cognition of international practice, phenomena and processes (analytical examination, synthesis, system-oriented and functional-analytical approaches, interpretation and characteristics of legal norms, comparative legal analysis).Results. In the course of the analytical study, the resources involved in the orbit of corruption, the terms and definitions of this dangerous phenomenon, the legal basis of such definitions proposed by the international community were characterized. International documents of a recommendatory nature relating to the fight against corruption, state anticorruption programs of individual countries, formed some recommendations of an anti-corruption nature were considered.Discussions and conclusions. The application of an integrated interdisciplinary approach to the formation and implementation of systemic activities in which the democratization of public life and the transparency of the activities of all authorities are obvious and necessary is substantiated.