Corruption

media type="custom" key="24593552" In a way corruption can be defined easily, in dictionary corruption is defined in the following terms (relating to this topic, there is alternative uses of the term that don’t relate to topic at hand): “dishonest or illegal behavior especially by powerful people (such as government officials or police officers)” and also “the act of corrupting someone…” But if we look at the map of corruption, we can see that defining corruption is not that easy, for example according to Tax justice network, some institutions tend to be bit blind and narrow on their definition of corruption, over-looking the impact of enabling actions that relate to corruption by allowing secrecy.


 * Actions considered corrupt **

In World Banks and many other institutions definition the concept of corruption is restricted to bribery, in order an action to be corruption there needs to be a change of bribery. According to Tax justice network, this definition over-looks other actions that may be considered corruption, but do not involve any kind of change of bribery, for example market-rigging or allocating fund to tax-havens. In other words corruption can be seen more broadly that just exchange of money to gain personal advantage, in some ways these more hidden corruption actions are more damaging to global economy that the exchange of bribery. (Christensen)


 * Alternative definitions of corruption **

Tax justice network suggests two more broader definitions of corruption in order to tackle the issues not related to bribery. These are // “corruption is the abuse of the public interest by narrow sectional interests” // and // “an activity which undermines public confidence in the integrity of the rules, systems and institutions that govern society is corrupt.” //// Tax justice network is trying to highlight that the problem of corruption is not only related to corruption among public officials, but also the secrecy in allocating fund in global market.


 * Conclusion **

Defining corruption may seem easy, but in our current form of economy, there are so many ways to be corrupt without even breaking the law. Defining corruption is in many ways a political question and in many ways our current definition is over-looking the problems in our own society and considering in the corruption in developing countries(look at the map in the begining) By over-looking the problems, we create a system where corruption is embedded into the functions of market economy and capital flight is accepted. The more broader definitions of corruption are trying to tackle this issue and highlight that the problem is much bigger than just exchange of bribery in developing countries among public officials.