ABSTRACT
The ethics deficit and corruption are dialectically interconnected. Hence it is argued that corruption is a contextual phenomenon, which means that contextual distortions due to the ethics deficit in governance provoke citizens to raise their voices. In laymen’s perception, corruption is an abuse of public authority for personal gain that is largely attributed to the decline of ethics in public life. This is a commonly construed definition of corruption, which, despite being clearly spelt out, does not seem to be adequately equipped to conceptualize its complex character, given the fact that corruption is hydra-headed, and misuse of public office is only one of the forms in which it is articulated. Implicit here is the assumption that public and private interests are mutually exclusive and hence the pursuance of the latter in the name of the former will always be considered as deviant. This is well-captured by Joseph Nye, who defined corruption as ‘behaviour which deviates from the formal duties of a public role because of private-regarding (personal, close family, private clique) pecuniary or state gains; or violates rules to justify certain types of private-regarding influence’.1 Unlike the conventional conceptualization of the phenomenon, Nye sought to view corruption as a deviant function directed towards fulfilling partisan goals by resorting to means which are justified since they are connected with the public domain. In such circumstances, public servants misuse the trust reposed on them rather willingly, simply to meet private ends. In her understanding of the concept, Shumer highlighted this aspect by stating that ‘one dimension of … corruption is the privatization both of the average citizen and those in office. In the corrupt state’, she argues further, ‘men locate their values wholly within the private sphere and they use the public sphere to promote private interests’.2 So corruption is a socio-psychological idea, since it derives its sustenance from a specific psychological tilt towards corrupt practices, which a complementary social climate endorses.
