Introductory description

The module offers a comprehensive, critical, contextual and interdisciplinary analysis to some key questions concerning corruption, law and development and their recent framing as a governance discourse. As well as exploring development, capital accumulation and law in historical perspective (imperialism, primitive accumulation and gilded ages of rapid growth and rampant corruption), the module examines contemporary settings as diverse as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. As part of its critical approach to development the module also examines financialised accumulation prevalent in Europe and North America and its relationship to so-called 'institutional' and 'legal corruption'.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Introduction: thinking about corruption, law and development.
2. Corruption law and development in historical perspective. Applying modern concepts of corruption to varieties of imperialism and primitive accumulation of the past.
3. Revitalising anti-corruption as an economic and governance discourse as well as policy tool. From the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index
4. From the Global to the Local: Embedding anti-corruption discourse in international treaties, national laws and institutions.
5. The political economy of corruption and capital accumulation part one: Russia’s post-communist and China’s ongoing communist transitions.
6. The political economy of corruption and capital accumulation part two: the cases of Brazil, India and South Africa.
7. The negation of the negation: anti-corruption as an authoritarian discourse.
8. Re-imagining the problem of corruption, development and legality: the cases of legal and institutional corruption in the finance and politics of advanced capitalist economies.
9. Module Summary, Conclusions and Discussion

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• 1. Understand how corruption and governance discourses have emerged and evolved over the past 50 years.
• 2. Critically evaluate recent public debate about corruption, governance and development.
• 3. Find and use research materials, drawn from multiple disciplines, to construct a more nuanced contextual understanding of the constitutive elements of corruption, law and development.
• 4. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the international and national legal frameworks designed to combat corruption.
• 5. Critically assess the success of anti-corruption frameworks and potential risks arising from anti-corruption discourses.
• 6. Critically assess corruption as a state-centred phenomenon demanding market-based solutions.
• 7. Ability to theorise and understand the practical challenges arising differing country contexts.
• 8. Combine insights from legal, economic, development, sociological and political science literatures.

Indicative reading list

Acemoğlu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2012) Why Nations Fail: the origins of power, prosperity and poverty, London, Profile Books.

Ackerman, Susan Rose, 1978. Corruption: A Study in Political Economy. New York: Academic Press.

Andreas, J., Kale, S. S., Levien, M., & Zhang, Q. F. (2020). Rural land dispossession in China and India. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 47(6), 1109–1142.

Andvig, J. (2006) Corruption in China and Russia compared: different legacies of central planning. In Rose-Ackerman, S. (Ed.). International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption (pp. 278-319). Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.

Ang, Y.Y. (2020) China's Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Bratsis, Peter, ‘The Construction of Corruption, or Rules of Separation and Illusions of Purity in Bourgeois Societies’, Social Text, 77 (Volume 21, Number 4), Winter 2003, pp. 9-33

Davis, Kevin E. and Trebilcock, Michael J., The Relationship Between Law and Development: Optimists versus Skeptics (May 1, 2008). American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 56, No. 4, 2008, NYU Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 08-14, NYU Law and Economics Research Paper No. 08-24, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1124045

De Schutter, Olivier (2017) Tainted Lands Corruption in Large Scale Land Deals
Global Witness/ICAR, available at: https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/land-deals/tainted-lands-corruption-large-scale-land-deals/

De Soto, Hernando, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, New York, Basic Books, 2000.

González, Michel Levien, Goldstone, Justice Richard, ‘The case for an international anti-corruption court’, International Bar Association, 13 Sept, 2022, available at: https://www.ibanet.org/the-case-for-an-international-anti-corruption-court

Graycar, A. & Smith R (Eds.). (2011) Handbook in Global Research and Practice in Corruption, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.

Heidenheimer, Arnold J., and Johnston, M. (2011) Political Corruption: Concepts and Contexts. Rutgers, NJ.

Holstrom, N., and Smith, R. (2000), The Necessity of Gangster Capitalism: Primitive Accumulation in Russia and China’, Monthly Review, 51(9). Available at https://monthlyreview.org/2000/02/01/the-necessity-of-gangster-capitalism/

Huntingdon, Samuel P. ‘Modernisation and Corruption’ in Heidenheimer, Arnold J., and Johnston, M. (2011) Political Corruption: Concepts and Contexts. Rutgers, NJ.

International Monetary Fund, Governance and Anti-Corruption, IMF, 2023, available at: https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/governance-and-anti-corruption [Extensive resource list]

Johnston, Michael (2006) Syndromes of Corruption: Wealth, Power and Corruption, Cambridge University Press.

Katzarova, E. (2019) The Social Construction of Global Corruption: From Utopia to Neoliberalism, Palgrave Macmillan.

Kaufmann, Daniel, and Pedro C. Vicente. 2011. ‘Legal Corruption.’ Economics & Politics 23 (2): 195–219.

Khan, Mushtaq, Andreoni, Antonio and Roy, Pallavi (2016) Anti-Corruption in Adverse Contexts: A Strategic Approach

Leff, Nathaniel H., (1964), “Economic development through bureaucratic corruption”, American Behavioural Scientist 8 (3): 8-14

Lessig, Lawrence, Foreword: 'Institutional Corruption' Defined (July 14, 2013). Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, Vol. 41, No. 3

Levien, M. (2018) Dispossession without Development: Land Grabs in Neoliberal India, Oxford University Press.

Lund, Christian. (2020) Nine tenths of the law: enduring dispossession in Indonesia, Yale University Press, New Haven,

Mauro, P. (1995) Corruption and growth. The quarterly journal of economics, 110(3), 681-712.

Meszaros, George (2020) ‘Caught in an authoritarian trap of its own making? Brazil’s Lava Jato anti-corruption investigation and the politics of prosecutorial overreach’. Journal of Law and Society, 47 (S1) pp. 54-73

Nicholas Hildyard, ‘Corrupt but Legal: Institutionalised corruption and development finance’, The Corner House, UK,
https://counter-balance.org/uploads/files/Reports/Flagship-Reports-Files/2016-Corrupt-but-Legal.pdf

North, Douglass, ‘Economic Performance through Time’, Prize Lecture
Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 9, 1993, available at: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1993/north/lecture/

OECD (2013) Issues Paper On Corruption And Economic Growth, OECD, available at https://www.oecd.org/g20/topics/anti-corruption/issues-paper-on-corruption-and-economic-growth.htm

Pistor, Katharina. (2019) The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Rubinstein, W. D. ‘The End of 'Old Corruption' in Britain, 1780-1860’, Past and Present, no. 101 (Nov. 1983), pp. 55-86.

Shihata, Ibrahim F.I., (1997) ‘Corruption: A General Review with an Emphasis on the Role of the World Bank’, Journal of Financial Crime, Vol 5. No. 1., pp. 12-29.

Toms, S. (2019). Financial scandals: a historical overview. Accounting and Business Research, 49(5), 477–499. https://doi.org/10.1080/00014788.2019.1610591

Uberti, L.J. (2016) The ‘sociological turn’ in corruption studies: Why fighting graft in the developing world is often unnecessary, and sometimes counterproductive. Progress in Development Studies 16 (3) (261–277).

United Nations Development Programme, Corruption and Development: Anti-corruption Interventions for Poverty Reduction, Realization of the MDGs and Promoting Sustainable Development, UNDP, 2008, available at: https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publications/Corruption_and_Development_Primer_2008.pdf

World Bank (1994) Governance the World Bank’s Experience, Development in Practice, World Bank, Washington D.C., available at: https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/711471468765285964/pdf/multi0page.pdf

Wolfensohn, J. (2005) The Right Wheel: An Agenda for Economic Development, Voice for the World's Poor: Selected Speeches and Writings of World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn1995-2005. World Bank Books. (138-144). Available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/7304/343620PAPER0Vo101OFFICIAL0USE0ONLY1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Research element

100 per cent of the summative assessment is constituted by a research essay.

Interdisciplinary

The readings are drawn from a wide range of disciplines, methodologies and there is a significant historical as well as contemporary focus. The texts will encourage critical thinking across a range of disciplines.

International

The module examines international treaties directly; encourages consideration of national adherence to treaties; and examines country cases comparatively.

Subject specific skills

Understanding economic and political bases behind conceptual constructions of corruption and legal institutionalisations (international treaties, regulatory and law enforcement agencies) for combatting corruption. Awareness of relevant international treaties as well as legislation and institutions combatting corruption. Awareness of contemporary debates around definitions of corruption and development. Awareness of contextual settings; and efficacy of legal approaches to the issue. Deeper understanding of corruption as a developmental issue.

Transferable skills

Critical reflection, learning adaptability, development of personal worldview.
Identifying, clarifying, questioning, interpreting, analysing, contextualising and synthesising issues, data and arguments.
Creating discourse, including appropriate research and writing skills, and presentation of findings, public speaking to peers. Ability to articulate arguments orally and in writing.