VU Research Portal The Good Cause. Theoretical Perspectives on Corruption de Graaf, G.; von Maravi, P.; Wagenaar, F.P. 2010 Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) de Graaf, G., von Maravi, P., & Wagenaar, F. P. (Eds.) (2010). The Good Cause. Theoretical Perspectives on Corruption. Barbara Budrich Publishers. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 17. Mar. 2023 The Good Cause Gjalt de Graaf Patrick von Maravić Pieter Wagenaar (eds.) The Good Cause Theoretical Perspectives on Corruption Barbara Budrich Publishers Opladen & Farmington Hills, MI 2010 © This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. © Dieses Werk ist bei Verlag Barbara Budrich erschienen und steht unter folgender Creative Commons Lizenz: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/de/ Verbreitung, Speicherung und Vervielfältigung erlaubt, kommerzielle Nutzung und Veränderung nur mit Genehmigung des Verlags Barbara Budrich. This book is available as a free download from www.barbara-budrich.net (http://dx.doi.org/10.3224/866492639). A paperback version is available at a charge. The page numbers of the open access edition correspond with the paperback edition. ISBN 978-3-86649-263-9 DOI 10.3224/866492639 Barbara Budrich Publishers Stauffenbergstr. 7. D-51379 Leverkusen Opladen, Germany 86 Delma Drive. Toronto, ON M8W 4P6 Canada www.barbara-budrich.net A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from Die Deutsche Bibliothek (The German Library) (http://dnb.d-nb.de) Jacket illustration by disegno, Wuppertal, Germany – www.disenjo.de Typesetting by R + S Beate Glaubitz, Leverkusen, Germany Index of content Acknowledgements .................................................................................. 7 Foreword by Gerald E. Caiden ................................................................ 9 1. Introduction: Causes of Corruption – The Right Question or the Right Perspective? Gjalt de Graaf, Patrick von Maravić and Pieter Wagenaar .............. 13 2. Max Weber, Bureaucracy, and Corruption, William D. Rubinstein and Patrick von Maravić ............................... 21 3. Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Prismatic Societies, Frank de Zwart .................................................................................. 36 4. The Institutional Economics of Corruption, Susan Rose-Ackerman ....................................................................... 47 5. Understanding Corruption: How Systems Theory Can Help, Petra Hiller ....................................................................................... 64 6. Institutional Design and Good Governance, B. Guy Peters .................................................................................... 83 7. Constructing Corruption, Gjalt de Graaf, Pieter Wagenaar and Michel Hoenderboom ............ 98 8. The Criminology of Corruption, Wim Huisman and Gudrun Vande Walle ........................................... 115 6 Index of content 9. A Multi Approach in Corruption Research: Towards a More Comprehensive Multi-Level Framework to Study Corruption and its Causes Leo Huberts ....................................................................................... 146 10. Concepts, Causes, and the Neglected Third Party: the Victim of Corruption Gjalt de Graaf, Patrick von Maravić and Pieter Wagenaar .............. 166 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 175 List of Authors ......................................................................................... 201 Credentials ............................................................................................... 205 Acknowledgments The project was initiated after the editors learned of each other’s work on dif- ferent approaches to the study of corruption during a workshop of the Study Group of Ethics and Integrity of Governance at the annual conference of the European Group of Public Administration in 2005. It finally started in March 2006 when the three editors decided in a brewery in Cologne to invite a num- ber of persons who would have the expertise to cover the different ap- proaches to the study of the causes of corruption. A publication project that lasts more than four years and is finally brought to a good end is not only the function of the motivation and expertise of a number of collaborators and the physical endurance to follow a clear aim but also the academic spirit and good comradeship that accompanied the whole process. Having said this, we would like to express our great appreciation to the authors for their dedication to standards of scholarly excellence evident throughout. Furthermore, we would like to express our gratitude for Michael Johnston’s unselfish and highly appreciated support in organizing the double-blind review process and the two anonymous reviewers who read the whole manuscript and provided constructive advise to the authors and editors. Last but not least it is Gerald Caiden, whom we would like to thank. He did not only write the Foreword but read critically and patiently over our draft versions and made us profit from his deep knowledge of this subject. Furthermore, we are grateful for fi- nancial assistance in the preparation of this volume to the Research Fund of Zeppelin University for making possible an author’s meeting in January 2009 and in debt to the Stadt-Friedrichshafen-Chair for Administrative Science in financially supporting the editorial process. Gjalt de Graaf, Patrick von Maravić, Pieter Wagenaar Amsterdam & Friedrichshafen, May 2010 Foreword If only corruption were confined to occasional lapses in personal integrity, we might be able to come to terms with it. But, alas, it assumes countless forms with multiple causes and unintended consequences, some of which are quite severe and irreversible. Theorizing about it much resembles exploring a complicated maze replete with dead ends and surprising turns enough to frustrate the hardiest venturer. The quest, like so many other puzzles in the social sciences, is to better understand ourselves, in this case, to discover why people and organizations act counter to what they profess in public to be their cultural ideals. What they do quite openly too belies what they claim they hold dear in their hearts. This is not necessarily just putting themselves first above everything else or acting purely in their own self-interest. They prize collective survival, stability, and security even higher, and in the pursuit, preservation and protection of these ultimate values, they act pragmatically. They become devoted to good (in their own eyes) causes that justify (to themselves) their use of questionable means. They come to believe in ad- vances and innovations that get around obstructive social norms and resistant institutions. In short, they see themselves as enlightened, not just villains, de- ceivers, evil-doers, and immoral egoists in the eyes of others. Theorizing about corruption, like theorizing about most things, is a haz- ardous venture but probably even more so. It requires speculation and con- jecture, conclusive proof based on the evidence, and universal acceptance. Speculation can be wide of the mark. Accumulated facts can be quite decep- tive and misleading. Universal acceptance can be impossible to achieve given the variety of belief systems that exist at any one time. This is the case in virtually every field of research, even in such successful disciplines as mathematics, physics, astronomy, and medicine where the human senses have been fortified by wondrous inventions of detection and total objectivity. The social sciences lag so far behind these, and still lack such sophisticated tools as the physical sciences now possess. Furthermore, the more social sci- entists delve into human behavior, the more complications arise and the more contradictions appear. This complexity just clutters up the picture even more.