The ethnography of corruption: research themes in political anthropology

Abstract

One striking feature of the booming literature on corruption in the social sciences is the comparatively weak role played by anthropology. A recent World Bank review notices that anthropological studies dealing with corruption cover about 2% of the relevant scientific literature. The reasons for this “silence” can be investigated trough a multidimensional attention to the methodological, empirical and theoretical positions of the discipline. In this paper I argue that, although still scattered and relatively new, the ethnographic study of corruption provides original and empirically relevant contributions. This paper is the first attempt to provide a comprehensive thematic literature review that analyzes comparatively research results from ethnographic studies on corruption worldwide. The focus of the paper is on a number of themes which are relevant to all social science disciplines working in the field: the state, the relation between political power and public discourses, legitimacy, legality, social morality and cultural aspects.