Vice or coping mechanism? Bridging political science and anthropological approaches to the study of corruption

Abstract

Political science and economics have dominated the study of corruption. Recently, anthropologists have questioned traditional definitions of corruption and have conducted a deeper inquiry into the interplay of cultural dynamics and corruption. However, despite the existence of two strands in anthropology—interpretive and political economy—anthropological contributions to the study of corruption have come primarily from interpretive anthropology. Anthropologists studying corruption have focused on narratives and on understanding corruption’s embeddedness in cultural logics. Ethnography, however, has also revealed the importance of fixed price in many instances of corruption. This paper argues that fixed price is an indicator of the systematization of corruption. Consequently, greater attention needs to be paid to how corruption is also embedded in political economy.