Deconstructing Corruption through Its Aporias

Abstract

The dominant discourse of corruption (the idea that corruption is cancer, a social disease) has legitimized a particular and simplified overview of a rather intricate phenomenon. Thus, the strategies and instruments to deal with the disease have been a priority of several international organizations, creating a real anti-corruption industry with its own priorities, prognosis, and language. The instruments and policies created through this industry are proposed to several countries (basically developing ones) to face the malady they suffer. This dominant discourse has been crucial in creating a practical and political language that determines how corruption is conceived and treated through national and international policies. In this article, we seek to deconstruct the concept of corruption to identify several hidden dichotomies and contradictions, some of them already identified by different research projects which depart from the dominant discourse. Hence, five aporias are proposed to deconstruct the anti-corruption discourse. These aporias have been studied by different disciplines which have analyzed corruption. Each aporia shows critical contradictions endogenous to the dominant discourse urging to open its instruments and prognosis to further and thoughtful debate.