, và tất cả những người đàn ông và phụ nữ, những người đã bảo vệ những gì đã giành chiến thắng trên các chiến trường: giáo viên, nhà thơ, nghệ sĩ, doanh nhân, sức khỏe công nhân, người lao động thủ công . bạn và tôi. Giờ là của chúng ta. | 42 Laura S. Underkuffler Understandings of corruption that are advanced by academic theorists capture important pieces of the idea of corruption. Public corruption generally involves in the predominant understandings the violation of law the breach of prescribed duties the subversion of the public interest and the violation of other broad normative standards. Corruption may also involve in a more particularized sense betrayal secrecy inequality and private rentseeking by public actors. However as useful as these understandings are something is missing. All such understandings fail to capture what is the deeply emotive quality and loathsomeness of corruption s core. Corruption in its popular conception is more than the breaking of rules or even selfseeking by public actors to the detriment of others. It is an expressly moral notion that challenges belief in a shared moral fabric. It expresses the transgression of some deeply held and asserted universal norm. When one attempts to understand the phenomenon of corruption and the public response to it the power of this popular conception must be recognized. It must be recognized because it is a critical part of public attitudes toward corruption and because it reminds theorists and practitioners that corruption often has deeper moral foundations. This view tells us that until we come to grips with the moral dimensions of this problem our prescriptions for attacking this phenomenon will miss the essence of what popular attitudes may correctly recognize as the underlying problem and the composition of the distinctly corrupt core. Notes 1. The effects of cultural practices on corruption norms are discussed in several chapters in this volume. See for example Sarah Dix and Emmanuel Pok Combating Corruption in Traditional Societies Papua New Guinea chapter 9 in this volume Robert Legvold Corruption the Criminalized State and Post-Soviet Transitions chapter 8 in this volume Daniel Jordan Smith The Paradoxes of Popular .
