Overview

This volume renews the study of corruption as 'embedded' in ongoing social relations. Instead of treating corruption as a universal phenomenon, A Comparative Historical Sociology of Corruption shows how corruption is often morally ambiguous and deeply intertwined with the social, political and economic struggles of particular groups in specific times and places. Ranging from Early Modernity to the present day, and spanning across the globe, the book focuses on three recurring aspects of corruption: emergence or the origins and struggles over whether something is corrupt; institutionalization or how different definitions of corruption predominate; and mobilization or the sociopolitical functions that different definitions of corruption serve in times of social change. The volume includes a wide variety of historical and contemporary studies to show that corruption is embedded in its context, providing a novel framework for readers to understand how and why corruption persists across time and place.

Full Product Details

Author:   Marco Garrido (University of Chicago) ,  Marina Zaloznaya (University of Iowa) ,  Nicholas Hoover Wilson (State University of New York, Stony Brook)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Weight:   0.500kg
ISBN:  

9781009669146

ISBN 10:   1009669141
Pages:   294
Publication Date:   22 January 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD  
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Table of Contents

List of figures; List of contributors; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: a comparative historical sociology of corruption Marco Garrido, Marina Zaloznaya and Nicholas Hoover Wilson; Part I. Emergence: 2. The emergence of corruption in the Cambodian land market Marco Garrido; 3. The changing meaning of corruption and anti-corruption in Postwar China Juan Wang; 4. Corruption and the rule of difference in late-colonial Hong Kong Jack Jin Gary Lee and Kwai Hang Ng; 5. Governing difference: corruption, empire, and the founding of east India college Anurag Sinha; Part II. Institutionalization: 6. Brokers and bribery in urban India Sneha Annavarapu; 7. Can the same organization be corrupt and clean?: The changing contours of corruption under the metropolitan police of Buenos Aires Leslie MacColman; 8. The civic life of bribe-givers: bureaucratic corruption and political activity in Russia Marina Zaloznaya and William Reisinger; Part III. Mobilization: 9. Mobilization from above and below: the corruption narratives of Latin American free-market think tank elites and Colombian farmers Alex Diamond, and Tomás Gold; 10. Mobilization as promiscuous: unstable corruption allegations and the 'Negro Plot' of 1741 in New York City Nick Wilson; 11. The contingency of mobilization: the social contexts of operation Lava Jato in Brazil Fernando Forattini; 12. The structure of the anti-corruption field Byron Villacis; 13. Conclusion: deep analogies across different configurations of corruption Nicholas Hoover Wilson, Marco Garrido and Marina Zaloznaya.

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Author Information

Marco Garrido is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Patchwork City: Class, Space, and Politics in Metro Manila (2019). Marina Zaloznaya is Associate Professor of Criminology at Arizona State University and Executive Director of Corruption in the Global South Research Consortium. Her research explores political, gender and network dimensions of corruption in non-democracies. She is the author of The Politics of Bureaucratic Corruption (2017). Nicholas Hoover Wilson is Associate Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University. He is the author of Modernity's Corruption: Empire, Morality, and the Making of British India (2023), which traces how the category of corruption shifted within the English East India Company.

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