Corruption, Inequality, and the Rule of Law
The Bulging Pocket Makes the Easy Life

In this book Uslaner suggests that the roots of corruption lie in economic and legal inequality and low levels of generalized trust.

Eric M. Uslaner (Author)

9780521874892, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 June 2008

360 pages
24.2 x 16.3 x 2.7 cm, 0.65 kg

"Eric M. Uslaner presents a statistical but nuanced take on corruption across nations and political groupings...Uslaner makes an effective and well-supported argument."
International Law and Politics, April Gu

Corruption flouts rules of fairness and gives some people advantages that others don't have. Corruption is persistent; there is little evidence that countries can escape the curse of corruption easily - or at all. Instead of focusing on institutional reform, in this book Eric M. Uslaner suggests that the roots of corruption lie in economic and legal inequality, low levels of generalized trust (which are not readily changed), and poor policy choices (which may be more likely to change). Economic inequality provides a fertile breeding ground for corruption, which, in turn, leads to further inequalities. Just as corruption is persistent, inequality and trust do not change much over time, according to Uslaner's cross-national aggregate analyses. He argues that high inequality leads to low trust and high corruption, and then to more inequality - an inequality trap - and identifies direct linkages between inequality and trust in surveys of the mass public and elites in transition countries.

1. Corruption: the basic story
2. Corruption and the inequality trap
3. Corruption, inequality, and trust: the linkages across nations
4. Transition and the road to the inequality trap
5. The rocky road to transition: the case of Romania
6. Half empty or almost full? Mass and elite perceptions of corruption in Estonia, Slovakia, and Romania
7. The easy and hard cases: Africa and Singapore and Hong Kong
8. Corruption isn't inevitable, but
9. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Comparative politics [JPB]