Roundtable on “Political Corruption: the Internal Enemy of Public Institutions” by Emanuela Ceva and Maria Paola Ferretti (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021)

Abstract

In this roundtable we will discuss the book “Political Corruption: the Internal Enemy of Public Institutions” by Emanuela Ceva and Maria Paola Ferretti. This book makes political corruption an object of public ethics by demonstrating how it is an internal enemy—a Trojan horse—of public institutions. To understand political corruption, Emanuela Ceva and Maria Paola Ferretti argue, we must adopt an internal point of view and look at how officeholders’ interrelated conduct may fail the functioning of their institution because of their unaccountable use of their office’s powers. Even well-designed institutions may be derailed if the officeholders fail to uphold by their conduct a public ethics of office accountability. Political corruption is one such failure, and it is wrong even when its negative consequences are unclear or debatable. To correct this failure, the book calls on officeholders to oppose political corruption from the inside by engaging in practices of mutual answerability.

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