Sociological Review of Inequality and Corruption

Sociological Review

Reference:

A Comparative Study of Inequality and Corruption

By Jong-sung You and Sanjeev Khagram

From American Sociological Review Vol. 70, No. 1, 2005

I. Objectives of Study

• To give a theoretical account of why income inequality increases corruption

• To show the explanatory ability of income inequality and the interaction between inequality and democracy tested empirically against competing conventional explanations of corruption

• To conduct a methodological study, using statistical techniques, in finding the causes of corruption.

II. Methodology

The study tackles the issue on corruption using both theoretical and methodological techniques to approach the hypotheses. The first part of the paper gives a detailed account of instances of corruption all throughout the world and all throughout history, citing trends that have prevailed throughout the course of history. Moreover, the author makes an argument that corruption and inequality are somehow correlated, much more than previous works have shown. It points out the cyclical nature of the two, that the presence of corruption eventually leads to inequality, and that experiencing inequality would lead one to succumbing to corruption.

The second and the more dominantly used approach to discuss the issues raised was the use of methodological techinques,