essay on corruption in society

Corruption and Society: Critical Analysis Essay

Apparently, culture plays a significant role in the shaping of national beliefs, attitudes, and worldview in general. It underlies all political, economic, and social structures of society. Considering this, many people tend to believe that high corruption rates are natural to societies that have a long history of relationships based on reciprocity. That may be true; however, corruption should not be justified by the cultural characteristics of society. Although corruption may be the manifestation of a true other-regarding behavior, it may also be a means of obtaining some desired benefits, for example, politicians may corrupt the public with particular services in order to gain its support.

The idea that corruption has common features with gift-giving traditions seems to be logical. It is true that traditional societies whose culture has always been based on reciprocity have a different perception of corruption. Because of the latter, the political and social traditions of these societies are built on the beneficial effects of corruption (International Debate Education, 2011). However, it is a mistake to believe that the social structure of traditional societies will not survive without corruption. In the past, Western societies were highly corrupted; however, they only benefited from the shift of their perspective in which they started to consider corruption as an obstacle to their development.

Rose-Ackerman and Palifka (2016) studied the culture/corruption interface defining corruption, its types, and ways of how cultural aspects that are independent of corruption relate to corruption incidence. There is a difference between developed and developing market economies to the concept of bribes. While the former considers it inappropriate and have specific instruments and institutions to regulate the relationship between official functions and impersonal market trades, drawing numerous formal lines between them, the latter do not have distinct separation lines between the public and private sectors. The authors admit that in traditional societies, corruption may simply be determined by cultural mores and can be considered as other-regarding behavior; however, corruption may also be the result of strategic calculations of individuals that aim to obtain some benefit (Rose-Ackerman & Palifka, 2016). Therefore, society should not justify corruption by the cultural features of a country in which it occurs.

There are many examples of unscrupulous officials that strategically justify their bribes by gift-giving traditions. As a rule, these officials belong to the political sphere and offer money and services in order to provide themselves with public support during the elections. For example, a politician constructs an amusement park for children from low-income families making the public believe that they spend their own money on the construction. In fact, all the expenses are usually covered by public taxes. Thus, officials may make their bribes seem to be gifts, while all these “gifts” are funded from the public budget. In this case, unscrupulous officials use public funds in an embezzlement crime. Therefore, their gift-giving is a thoroughly calculated strategy aiming to obtain public support.

The positive perception of corruption may lead to mutual misunderstanding between individuals, organizations, and even countries, contributing to the instability of international and domestic political and social institutes. The positive perception of corruption is worse than corruption itself since it may generate a distrust towards officials as well as political and social systems. Developing countries and traditional societies should gradually change their attitude to corruption because it presents a significant obstacle to their development.

International Debate Education Association. (2004). The debatabase book: A must-have guide for successful debate . Web.

Rose-Ackerman, S., & Palifka, B. J. (2016). Corruption and government: Causes, consequences, and reform. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

The Concept of Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, and History
Protestantism, Capitalism, and Predestination
Maison Reciprocity in Sustainable Architecture
The PREE Model of Ethical Thinking Framework
Environmental Groups’ and Human Rights Organization Strategies
Multidimensionality of Politics
The Destructive Nature of Capitalism
Canadian Policing Issues: Black Lives Matter
Chilean Society's Religion and Politics
The European Union: John Weiler and Andrew Moravcsik Theories
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, October 19). Corruption and Society: Critical Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/corruption-and-society-critical-analysis/

"Corruption and Society: Critical Analysis." IvyPanda , 19 Oct. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/corruption-and-society-critical-analysis/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Corruption and Society: Critical Analysis'. 19 October.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Corruption and Society: Critical Analysis." October 19, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/corruption-and-society-critical-analysis/.

1. IvyPanda . "Corruption and Society: Critical Analysis." October 19, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/corruption-and-society-critical-analysis/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Corruption and Society: Critical Analysis." October 19, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/corruption-and-society-critical-analysis/.