ABSTRACT
Corruption is one of the most high-profi le issues in the contem por ary world. According to the 2011 ‘World Speaks’ surveys, conduc ted by GlobeScan for the BBC World Service, corrup tion was the world’s most talked-about problem, ahead of extreme poverty, unem ploy ment, the cost of living and crime, viol ence and secur ity. In low GDP coun tries, the focus on corrup tion was even higher, a fi nding rein forced in a December 2013 state ment by World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim, that ‘in the devel op ing world, corrup tion is public enemy number one’. Understandably, then, the issue of corrup tion has been attract ing signi fi c antly increased atten tion from politi cians and policy-makers, inter na tional agen cies, polit ical activ ists and, not least, academ ics. This recent surge in interest dates back to the early 1990s, promp ted in part by the end of the Cold War, but more espe cially by a growing real isa tion that corrup tion carries very signi fi c ant costs. Indeed, accord ing to some estim ates, corrup tion costs 5 per cent of global GDP (US$2.6 tril lion), with some US$1 tril lion paid in bribes each year (CleanGovBiz 2014). It is hardly surpris ing that ever more has been published on corrup tion: Figure 0.1 overleaf charts the rise in the number of articles published each year between 1990 and 2010 on the topic of corrup tion, a cumu lat ive total of more than 6,000.
