Corruption: A Brief Review of Theoretical Approach

This paper provides a theoretical review of a topic that has become ubiquitous on the global agenda: corruption. An issue constantly present on the political agendas of countries integrated into the global economy, the study of aspects related to the phenomenon, its characteristics, and modalities, therefore, proves to be of utmost importance for the adequate understanding of the role of democratic governments, their relationship with society, as well as the strategies for addressing this problem. Corruption is a phenomenon that gains public visibility in democratic regimes because in such regimes there are freedom of press, freedom of expression, free party organizations, and opposition to the governments on duty. However, although democracy has the merit of not hiding corruption, not confronting and not containing acts that are harmful to the public interests can be lethal to democracy itself by generating autocratic governments that place themselves above political institutions (Ribeiro, 2000). Public distrust towards State institutions, and its negative effect on society’s appreciation of democracy, appear in the Report Can democracy deliver results? produced by the Open Society Barometer of Open Society (2023). In such research, carried out in 30 countries with more than 5 billion inhabitants, corruption, in terms of social concern, overcomes structural problems such as climate change, poverty and inequality, when respondents were asked about the most important challenges in their countries. This problem was seen as a priority in Africa, Latin America, and a top priority in Russia. Specific research with citizens from Latin America and the Caribbean also reveals citizens’ discontent with the ability of politicians and democracy to meet expectations of good public policies, improved quality of life, and the way of governing (Zechmeister, Lupu, & Cohen, 2017). With the purpose of providing better conditions for the adequate understanding of corruption, this article seeks to systematize some of the main theoretical reflections on the subject, highlighting attempts to conceptualize and classify it, as well as some of the approaches developed with the aim of understanding its causes and devising strategies for its control.