Introduction to PAR Symposium of Understanding and Reducing Public Corruption

• Author: David Jancsics,Adam Graycar,Yahong Zhang
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13086
• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Date: 01 July 2019

Introduction to PAR Symposium of Understanding and Reducing Public Corruption 519

A s public corruption continues to draw media

attention as a global concern, and as one

of the most pressing policy challenges to

tackle, scholarly investigation into this subject

has been relatively meager, especially in public

administration and related fields. Due to the literature

scarcity, several critical questions remain understudied

and are thus poorly understood. For instance,

although many countries have made great efforts to

fight corruption, why did many of them fail? We

argue that the success of anticorruption initiatives

depends on a better understanding of the problem at

all levels—national, organizational, and individual.

The PAR symposium of Understanding and Reducing

Public Corruption aims to advance research on public

corruption to extend the knowledge base for a deeper

understanding of this complex phenomenon.

The Theme of the Symposium

This symposium consists of seven articles, each

addressing diverse research questions around two

major topics—(1) how we can better understand

corruption, and (2) how we can reduce it. Jancsics’s

(2019) article provides an innovative conceptual

framework to classify corruption types and

anticorruption tools to match the two for more

desirable policy outcomes. Three articles in the

symposium pay close attention to the propensity of

individuals to engage in corruption, with Ni and Su

(2019) focusing on ordinary citizens, Zhang et al.

(2019) on low-level public employees, and Silitonga

et al. (2019) on senior- level civil servants. Araral et

al.’s (2019) article also explains the proclivity for

corruption at the micro level, but they use firms as the

units of analysis. The remaining two articles shift the

focus toward local governments. Nelson and Afonso

(2019) investigate the extent to which the council–

manager form of city government in the United States

contributes to anticorruption, whereas Ingrams and

Schachter (2019) take corruption as a predictor of

adopting e-participation in a South African context.

Overall, the symposium covers both conceptual and

empirical work; corruption issues at the micro to

meso levels; and data from multiple countries and

continents, including China, Indonesia, United States,

South Africa, and Sub-Saharan African countries.

The articles in the symposium contribute to the

literature by addressing and narrowing several

gaps. First, the articles shed light on corruption at

the micro and meso levels. The existing research

focuses primarily on macro-level investigations,

with countries as the units of analysis to identify

institutional factors, including democratization,

business freedom, transparency, a free press, and

judicial independence, among others, that may

determine the degree of corruption in a nation (e.g.,

Bauhr and Grimes 2014; Kwon 2013; Relly 2012).

Corruption research at the individual, organizational,

and local government levels is equally critical as these

levels are not free from corruption. Understanding

motivations for corruption and the conditions that

influence it at the micro and meso levels will help

develop diverse and omni- bearing mechanisms to

reduce corruption effectively.

Another literature gap pertains to the measurement

of corruption. Cross-country studies embracing the

macro approach predominantly use composite indices.

They conceptualize corruption as a “general thing,”

which makes it difficult to understand specific forms

of corruption in actual government institutions.

The articles of this symposium move closer to the

phenomenon by measuring corruption in a more

specific way. Of course, measuring corruption at

a lower level, especially at the individual level, is

challenging because people typically conceal their

unethical behaviors, and when asked about these

behaviors, they tend to provide nonresponses or

responses that are socially desirable (e.g., DeMaio

1984; Rubin and Whitford 2008). All six empirical

pieces in this symposium make efforts to measure

corruption in a robust manner, five of which use well-

designed survey questions and one that applies the

number of corruption convictions from the annual

government report.

Introduction to PAR Symposium of Understanding and

Reducing Public Corruption

Flinders University

Adam Graycar

Yahong Zhang

Rutgers University-Newark

David Jancsics

San Diego State University

Editorial

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 79, Iss. 4, pp. 519–522. © 2019 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13086.

Adam Graycar is professor of public

policy at Flinders University, Adelaide,

Australia. He has held senior academic

positions at the Australian National

University and at Rutgers University. He

spent 22years as a government official

(Federal and State) in Australia. His latest

book is

Understanding and Preventing

Corruption

(with Tim Prenzler) Palgrave

Macmillan, NY, 2013.

E-mail: adam.graycar@flinders.edu.au

David Jancsics is assistant professor in

the School of Public Affairs, San Diego State

University. His general fields of interest are

corruption, organizational wrongdoing,

and informal practices. His current research

agenda focuses on corruption in border

law enforcement agencies. In 2014, his

coauthored paper, “The Role of Power in

Organizational Corruption,” was selected

as the winner of the Best Article Award of

the Public and Nonprofit Division of the

Academy of Management.

E-mail: djancsics@sdsu.edu

Yahong Zhang is associate professor

in the School of Public Affairs and

Administration (SPAA) and director of

Rutgers Institute on Anti-Corruption

Studies (RIACS) at Rutgers University

in Newark. Her research focuses on the

politics–administration dichotomy, citizen

participation, and anticorruption. She is

editor of

Government Anti-Corruption

Strategies: A Cross-Cultural Perspective,

published by Taylor & Francis in 2015.

E-mail: yahongzh@newark.rutgers.edu