Empirical Corruption Research: Beside The (Moral) Point?

Corruption implies a serious violation of the standards and expectations associated with a public role. This article will explain how empirical researchers have defined these standards and expectations in ways that are clear, measurable, and least likely to provoke a charge of normative bias. The resulting reliance on the law and/or public opinion to define corrupt activity allows for relatively precise measurement; it also helps account for why so few empirical studies of corruption speak to public administration's most basic normative commitments and concerns and why empirical research is so often regarded as irrelevant or even hostile to normative inquiry. The article examines the prospects for defining corruption in a way that restores the normative richness of the corruption concept and helps close the gap between empirical and normative research.