I really enjoyed the Michael Johnston reading and felt like he tactfully filled in a lot of the holes and small nuances that surround the literature around corruption and anti-corruption policy. He criticizes having a general consensus definition for corruption, rank-order scaling, and its synonymity with the word bribery because it ignores how it can differ from country to country and downplays its inherent complexity. To order to better model and create better and more targeted policy he breaks country’s down by type and discusses what form corruption most commonly takes in countries with varying levels economic institutions and state capacity. I think this ready was really helpful for me in getting a more wholistic view of corruption, where many of the readings like Li’s, admit to using bribery and corruption synonymously.
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