4 - Of Causality and Historical Junctures

Summary

This chapter discusses attempts to estimate the effects and causes of corruption. Results obtained using the linear regression models have suggested a list of determinants, and of effects, of corruption. They also have implicitly promoted a view according to which we read the observed associations between corruption and other factors in causal terms. This chapter proposes a critical assessment of whether the counterfactual of a significantly different level of corruption from the one observed may be legitimate. From this discussion, corruption emerges as a part of a “dense historical matrix,” one where it is difficult to contemplate changes in individual factors while leaving others unmodified.