Corruption, a one-way street? Internalization of bribery in Mexican Companies

Authors

Keywords:

Bribes, Corruption, Public sector and administration, Normalization of corruption

Abstract

In a country that suffers from systemic corruption, the interaction between companies and public servants is usually permeated by diverse acts that can go from bribery to the capture of the state by powerful private actors. That is, corruption is a two-way street where government and companies reinforce themselves. Through a survey of private companies in a Mexican city and after a series of in-depth interviews in two of them, this article shows how companies build routines and internal solutions that allow them to meet the demand of bribery from public officials. In other words, companies create stable and organized internal processes to pay bribes as a normalized act. Companies, facing requests for bribes, build an organizational process in which diverse internal actors participate and justify their actions, making these processes normal and stable routines for the company. These findings support the argument that in order to understand the phenomenon of corruption, it is necessary to link both the perspectives of the corrupt individuals and the one that observes it as a social phenomenon of exchanges, favors and reciprocities.

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Author Biography

David Arellano Gault, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas A.C. (CIDE)

David Arellano Gault es doctor en Administración Pública por la Universidad de Colorado en Denver. Es miembro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores Nivel 3. Profesor investigador del Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) desde 1986. Ha publicado diversos libros en editoriales como FCE y CIDE, y artículos en revistas arbitradas nacionales y extranjeras como Public Administration Review, Organization Studies y Revista Mexicana de Sociología. Su perspectiva principal está en introducir los elementos o variables organizacionales en diversos temas propios del sector público. Es miembro de diversos comités editoriales de revistas como Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory y American Review of Public Administration, entre varias otras. Ha sido editor y coeditor de revistas como Gestión y Política Pública y Organization Studies, de la cual es actualmente Senior Editor.

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Published

2017-12-16

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