Institutional Corruption: A Study in Applied Philosophy

Description

In this book, Seumas Miller develops distinctive philosophical analyses of corruption, collective responsibility and integrity systems, and applies them to cases in both the public and the private sectors. Using numerous well-known examples of institutional corruption, he explores a variety of actual and potential anti-corruption measures. The result is a wide-ranging, theoretically sophisticated and empirically informed work on institutional corruption and how to combat it. Part I defines the key concepts of corruption, power, collective responsibility, bribery, abuse of authority and nepotism; Part II discusses anti-corruption and integrity systems, corruption investigations and whistle-blowing; and Part III focuses on corruption and anti-corruption in specific institutional settings, namely policing, finance, business and government. Integrating theory with practical approaches, this book will be important for those interested in the philosophy and ethics of corruption as well as for those who work to combat it.

Seumas Miller has research appointments at Charles Sturt University, New South Wales, Technische Universiteit Delft, The Netherlands, and the University of Oxford. His publications include The Moral Foundations of Social Institutions (Cambridge, 2010), Shooting to Kill: The Ethics of Police and Military Use of Lethal Force (2016), and Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Policing (2016).

'In Institutional Corruption, Miller has offered a critically important engagement with past and ongoing instances of corruption in our institutions, and uses these engagements to offer a theoretically sophisticated (though incredibly clear and engaging) philosophical account. I applaud Miller on this timely work, which will prove to be an important grounding point for the continuing discussions of corruption taking place in our current political climate.' Heather Stewart, Philosophy in Review 'Seumas Miller has written a necessary book for our current political era. Institutional Corruption: A Study in Applied Philosophy offers a philosophical taxonomy and diagnostic for what is probably the most intractable problem in human politics, the corruption of public and private institutions ... The most important and most radical concept in his creative work here is that of joint rights ... The concept of joint rights is ... a powerful rebuke to the dominant concept in the thinking of many contemporary politicians, state leaders, and the corporate barons who lobby them: that a right can be held and manifest only by an individual.' Adam Riggio, Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective