The scholarly literature on corruption has developed in separate disciplines, each of which has produced important insights, but each of which also has some crucial limitations. We bring these existing approaches together, and then we confront them against an ethnographic literature on corruption that over the last two decades has become extensive, but has never before been synthesized into an overarching framework. We argue that any corruption reform must meet three challenges. First, corruption persists because people need to engage in corruption to meet their needs. This is the resource challenge. Second, corruption persists because there is uncertainty over what constitutes a gift and what constitutes a bribe, as well as confusion over what is private and what is public. This is the definitional challenge. And third, corruption persists because of pressure to behave in ways that are considered moral according to alternative criteria, such as taking care of one’s kin, or standing up to legacies of racism and oppression. This is the alternative moralities challenge. We examine the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches to corruption in meeting these three challenges.

中文翻译：

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腐败的途径：奖学金的综合

关于腐败的学术文献在不同学科中发展起来，每个学科都产生了重要的见解，但每个学科也有一些关键的局限性。我们将这些现有的方法结合在一起，然后我们将它们与关于腐败的民族志文献进行对抗，这些文献在过去二十年中变得广泛，但以前从未被综合到一个总体框架中。我们认为，任何腐败改革都必须应对三个挑战。首先，腐败持续存在，因为人们需要通过腐败来满足他们的需求。这就是资源挑战。其次，腐败持续存在，因为对于什么构成礼物和什么构成贿赂存在不确定性，以及对什么是私人的和什么是公共的混淆。这是定义上的挑战。第三，腐败之所以持续存在，是因为有压力要按照替代标准以被视为道德的方式行事，例如照顾自己的亲属，或直面种族主义和压迫的遗产。这是另类道德挑战。我们研究了现有解决腐败方法在应对这三个挑战方面的优势和劣势。