The original meaning of corruption included “perversion or destruction of integrity”. However, corruption was defined narrowly as “the abuse of public position for private gain” in the early 1990s. The following discussions included similar misconducts in the private sector and indirect / legal forms of abuse of power as well as ‘state capture’. Now, corruption is generally defined as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Also, caution against ‘appearance of impropriety’ is requested to avoid any apparent conflict of interest. This study defines corruption as “the abuse of power for private gain against universal moral or ethical norms”.
The consequences of corruption can be outlined as injustice, violence, and destruction of creation. Corruption is a serious hindrance to fulfiling the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It can also become a wrong role model for people, thus a cause for the following corrupt behaviors and practices.
In a Christian ethical perspective, the current financial tsunami is not only economic but also moral, ethical, philosophical, and moreover a theological crisis. The cause of this turmoil is due to moral decay. In this thesis, that kind of systemic, legal and instititionalised form of corruption is termed as ‘macro-corruption’. Examples can be found in ‘state capture’, ‘international debt’, ‘the current economic crisis’, and ‘the abuse of pardon or impunity’.
It is needed not to set any arbitrary limitation on responsibility, because ignorance, silence, and negligence can easily become conspiracy, consent, or assistance to a wrong system. Furthermore, any institution or system itself cannot work perfectly without the positive influence from sound ethical infrastructure, that is, individual’s mind-set and the organisational culture. Thus, it should be emphasised that there are interrelatedness and intercomplementarity between ethical infrastructure and institutional framework. From this perspective of widened responsibility, some ethical debates on ‘abortion’, ‘pacifism vs. just war’, and ‘clean wealth’ should be revisited.
‘Moralist trauma’ is mentioned as one of the background reasons of the silence on ethical foundation in the past anti-corruption studies. ‘Short-termism’ in anti-corruption movement is also criticised. There are four interrelated factors affecting ethical decision making: 1) individual belief and moral values, 2) culture of society/organisation/country or regional/global trends, 3) legal/institutional framework including its enforcement and performance, and 4) expected returns and risks. In this framework, the current national integrity system idea and gap analysis of UNCAC are exposed as requiring some upgrades. For example, ‘pillars’ in NIS studies should be replaced by the concept of ‘components’. To overcome ‘short-termism’, youth integrity promotion should be one of priorities within various social actors.
World Council of Churches was mostly concerned with macro-corruption and the Western creditors of international debts who conspired with the Third world dictators or corrupt politicians. Christian churches did not perform due diligence on corruption in general meaning, corrupt culture and corrupt mindset in the past.
Especially, the initiative of The Decade to Overcome Corruption (DOC): Churches Seeking Integrity 2011-2020 is proposed to the WCC. As a bridge between anti-corruption movement and Christian churches, this DOC initiative can accelerate the dialogue and cooperation, and then cooperate to control corruption more effectively and to build a sustainable integrity system for making real differences in the future. Through this kind of dialogue and cooperation, anti-corruption movement and faiths can find more effective and concrete solutions to corruption and other global problems by having imagination to figure out what is happening in this corrupt society.
Key words: corruption, fraud, bribe, accountability, transparency, integrity, responsibility, ethical infrastructure, Christianity, ecumenical.
Read the dissertation: Dissertation_GSK: Bridging Christianity and Anti-Corruption…