ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter examines how conventions and policy documents originating from transnational organisations in recent years define corruption and their proposals for dealing with it. First it presents a brief overview of problems the academic literature has found in defining and operationalising the concept of corruption. In doing so, the chapter takes a deliberately interdisciplinary approach, drawing primarily on political science and economic theory and, to a lesser extent, other social science approaches. The aim of this interdisciplinary approach is to show how recent developments in political and economic thought may help in understanding corruption in a global context. Work focusing on the role of the state, development, game theory and trust, and economic models of criminality may help in the consideration of policy and its probable effectiveness, but these separate concepts cannot deal adequately with ‘transnational corruption’. The chapter also examines the definitions and assumptions built into a number of efforts at transnational policy development and argues that there is some way to go before policy reflects the state of academic analysis.
