Towards a ‘Sociological Turn’ in Corruption Studies: Or Why Fighting Graft in the Developing World is (mostly) Infeasible, (largely) Unnecessary, and (sometimes) Counterproductive

Since the mid-1990s, an anti-corruption consensus has consolidated in the international development community: corruption is both seen as highly detrimental to economic growth and feasibly eradicable through appropriate institutional fixes. This paper casts doubt on the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of both propositions. The neo-classical and institutionalist theories upon which the consensus relies prove unable to explain the large variability in corruption levels observed in countries undergoing similar anti-corruption/good-governance reforms, as well as the large performance variability amongst equally corrupt countries. To explain these residuals, the paper reviews and codifies an emerging body of literature that theorises the distribution of power in society, the structure of patron-client networks and the configuration of state-society relations as the key determinants of corruption and its variable effects. This literature, which heralds a “sociological turn” in corruption studies, is shown to imply that fighting corruption may be infeasible, unnecessary for development, and even counterproductive.