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Corruption: Anthropological Perspectives
Edited by Dieter Haller and Cris Shore, ISBN: 0745321577
General description: Corruption in politics and business is, after war, perhaps the greatest threat to democracy. Academic studies of corruption tend to come from the field of International Relations, analysing systems of formal rules and institutions. This book offers a radically different perspective -- it shows how anthropology can throw light on aspects of corruption that remain unexamined in international relations.
The contributors reveal how corruption operates through informal rules, personal connections and the wider social contexts that govern everyday practices. They argue that patterns of corruption are part of the fabric of everyday life -- wherever we live -- and subsequently they are often endemic in our key institutions.
This book that is edited by edited by Dieter Haller and Cris Shore, ISBN: 0745321577, published in May 2005 examines corruption across a range of different contexts from transitional societies such as post-Soviet Russia and Romania, to efforts to reform or regulate institutions that are perceived to be potentially corrupt, such as the European Commission. The book also covers the Enron and WorldCom scandals, the mafia in Sicily and the U.S,, and the world of anti-corruption as represented by NGOs like Transparency International.
Dieter Haller is Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His focus is on political anthropology, borderland studies, gender, and the Mediterranean. Cris Shore is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Auckland. He is author of Building Europe: The Cultural Politics of European Integration (Routledge) and co-editor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies (Pluto Press).
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