Corruption, Inequality, and the Rule of Law: The Bulging Pocket Makes the Easy Life. By Eric M Uslaner

Extract

Eric Uslaner's ambitious book argues that—across a wide range of countries and contexts—the fundamental underlying engine and explanation for corruption is inequality. Mustering an array of sources, including survey data, comparative literatures, and personal anecdotes, Uslaner makes a compelling case that the faith often placed in relatively simplistic institutional changes as a means for combating corruption is misguided. Such approaches ignore the deeply embedded economic and social underpinnings of corruption, which, he argues, are tied less to political institutions (narrowly conceived) and more to systematic inequality and the economic and cultural processes that support it.