A Case Study of Institutional Corruption

Abstract

In a democratic society, we hope and expect that institutions that serve a public interest will adhere to ethical and legal standards. However, in recent years, we have seen numerous institutions failing to meet that obligation. Greed on Wall Street nearly led to the collapse of our public banking system. Congress is beholden to special interests. We have seen a religious institution, the Catholic Church, systematically fail to protect children from sexual abuse. What these scandals share in common is that they cause social harm and erode the public’s faith in its institutions, and thus weaken the democratic core of society.

Institutional corruption, as a field of inquiry, does not shy away from challenging powerful institutions—from Congress and the professions to the academy itself … and it leads us to interrogate them in important ways.

—Jonathan H. Marks, 2012¹