ABSTRACT
Corruption, ethics, and integrity have become important issues in the practice and theory of politics and public administration. This has led to more awareness and knowledge of the ethical or moral dimension of politics and the causes of and solutions for corruption in politics and administration at the national as well as the international levels. Elements of that knowledge and awareness are discussed, including the meaning of concepts, such as corruption, ethics, and integrity; the content of the moral dimension (the values at stake); the causes of (the level of) corruption in different nations; the solutions proposed to curb corruption and to safeguard integrity; and the initiatives by international actors that aim to contribute to that purpose. While on the one hand there has been increasing interest and reflection on “global ethics and corruption,” on the other hand critical reflection on possible biases (Western perspective) as well as on the limitations of the state of the art in present research needs to occur. Although scientific knowledge has clearly increased, more comparative research will be necessary to come to more reliable conclusions.
