Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis timely, wonderful book illuminates the many faces of political corruption, from the 'bad apple' to the dysfunctional institution, through the unified framework of a public ethics of office. Emanuela Ceva and Maria Paola Ferretti's incisive philosophical analysis of political corruption as a deficit of office accountability reconciles the phenomenon's individual and institutional dimensions. The authors elucidate the deontic wrong of political corruption in terms of an 'interactive injustice,' which consists of officeholders' violation of their duty of office accountability, and identify the practice of answerability as the key to fostering an organizational culture of anticorruption. Political Corruption's deeply significant contribution to political theory and public ethics is needed now more than ever. * Candice Delmas, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, Northeastern University *
Political Corruption: The Internal Enemy of Public Institutions offers an original account of political corruption which aims to understand how political corruption works and what is wrong with it. Restoring office accountability serves as a key focus which can help reorient anti-corruption efforts. This impressive work is essential reading for theorists interested in understanding why political corruption is problematic and how we might aim to combat it. * Gillian Brock, Professor of Philosophy, University of Auckland, New Zealand *
In this highly original study of political corruption, Ceva and Ferretti ask us to reflect on the wrong of corruption by looking beyond both individualist and structural accounts of institutional responsibility. Their analysis of corruption as an unaccountable use of the power conferred by holding public office is a crucial inter-disciplinary intervention. The book is essential reading for both an adequate diagnosis of the phenomenon, and identifying appropriate responses to it. * Lea Ypi, Professor of Political Theory, London School of Economics *
Ceva and Ferretti have written an important book on how we should understand political corruption. * Paul M. Heywood, Review of Politics *
Ceva and Ferretti provide rich, comprehensive, and thought-provoking answers to the question of what political corruption-understood as corruption that occurs in public institutions-is and when and why it is morally wrong. * Alice el-Wakil, Review of Politics *
Ceva and Ferretti's book offers an innovative account of political corruption as "a form of unaccountable use of entrusted power". * Chiara Destri, Review of Politics *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: What Political Corruption is Chapter 2: Political Corruption: Individual or Institutional? Chapter 3: How is Political Corruption Wrong? Chapter 4: Responsibility for Political Corruption Chapter 5: Opposing Political Corruption Conclusion References
