Redefining Corruption How Systems of Power and Privilege Survive Reform

The standard treatment of corruption thrives on simplifications: indices, rankings, and moral judgments promise clarity but flatten reality. This book takes another route. By setting aside these distortions, it opens a window onto the unspoken rules and hidden orders that shape social life under conditions of widespread corruption.

Challenging conventional perspectives, Michael Derrer develops an alternative framework for analyzing contexts where corruption is structural. Corrupt practices are treated not simply as a legal or ethical lapse but as a patterned social order that distributes privilege through unequal exposure to the law.

The book draws on post-Soviet countries as paradigmatic cases -societies where informal practices are not peripheral but central to how institutions function. At the same time, its arguments reach beyond these contexts, offering insights into the dynamics of corruption across many parts of the world.