ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author identifies a set of core criteria for political corruption and discusses the difficulties associated with each of the major existing definitions of corruption. He examines why the definition of political corruption raises such difficulties for political science and political theory. Despite the substantial problems raised in the definition of political corruption, there are cases which seem incontestably corrupt. Definitional disputes about political corruption are linked directly to arguments about the nature of the healthy or normal condition of politics. Most commonly, politics is understood as providing publicly endorsed practices, institutions and rules which effect an ordered resolution to conflicting individual or group interests. Corruption subverts this process in favour of rule to promote the interests of a single individual or group. The author concludes by indicating ways in which political corruption can be distinguished from other forms of political failure, such as incompetence.
