Joakim Thelander

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Mutor i det godas tjänst

IN THIS DISSERTATION corruption and bribery are investigated as social and moral, rather than economic, phenomena. The analysis concentrates on the ways in which Swedish and Danish aid workers describe their experiences of everyday or 'petty' corruption. How do they view their encounters with everyday corruption in developing countries? In what ways are bribes condemned, excused, or justified? While aid workers may feel obliged to adhere to anticorruption norms, they are also expected to work as efficiently as possible in regions often described as corrupt. The empirical material consists of seventeen individual interviews with aid workers, of whom two were Danish and the rest Swedish, supplemented with a group interview with four participants. Eight of the interviewees were female and thirteen male. All the interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. The aid workers interviewed in the study have experience of practical aid work at different levels, be it voluntary work, consulting work, project management, or aid shipment work, in aid and charity organisations of all sizes. A range of regions is represented: Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In addition to studying the substance of the aid workers' stories, much of the analysis focuses on the rhetorical and interactional dimensions of the interviews. The analytical approach is inspired by research in fields such as social constructionism, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis. The aid workers describe a variety of 'avoidance tactics' for bribery or corruption in general. These tactics can be interactive or administrative. By portraying themselves as clever or 'tough' in dealing with difficult situations, they also paint an image of themselves as competent and moral aid workers. The aid workers do not only describe their successes in avoiding bribes and corruption; they talk about situations where in some way they got involved with everyday corruption. These passages are analysed by interpreting their descriptions as 'accounts'. By combining explanations that outline limited responsibilities with justifications, the aid workers' actions can be described as reasonable and acceptable. Another rhetorical dimension displayed during the interviews is 'boundary-work' and the use of contrasts. Corruption is dependant on a social definition process being understood as corruption; it is not a phenomenon with essential and objective properties. For example, the boundaries drawn between bribes (defined as corrupt) and gifts (defined as non-corrupt) are in a sense arbitrary. Also, the 'etiquette of bribes' is analysed. There are many elements in the interviews that tend to a definition of such an etiquette, the most salient being the importance of discretion. Many scholars have pointed to the problems of defining and measuring corruption, which makes it relevant to study the different ways in which corruption is conceived and constructed by various social actors. What corruption means is a valid and fundamental question, and as such is a necessary precondition for a fuller understanding of the subject.

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