ABSTRACT
The corruption of public officials and institutions is one of the most obvious problems that affect developed and developing countries alike. But how is this kind of corruption wrong exactly? With special reference to the democratic context, this chapter expounds a public accountability-based account of the wrongness of political corruption. In this account, political corruption is inherently wrong irrespective of whether it has negative social, political, or economic consequences. This has important implications for the development of anti-corruption policies by determining their target in the light of the kind of wrong they are meant to prevent and/or correct.
