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Steven Sampson

Steven Sampson

Professor emeritus

Steven Sampson

The Dark Side of Policy: The Case of the Anti-corruption Industry

Author

  • Steven Sampson

Summary, in English

Anthropologists of policy have tended to highlight the grand organizational initiatives that are quantitative, standardized and bureaucratic. This article proposes to understand these processes using the term ‘industry’ (as in ‘development industry’ or ‘human rights industry’). Used here, ‘industry’ is not a pejorative but a collection of features, the opposite of which could be called ‘craft’ (local, qualitative, improvisational, etc.). This article describes the emergence of the anti-corruption industry, based on an ideology of anti-corruptionism and the agendas and unintended consequences embedded in the anti-corruption project. Anthropologists of policy can benefit by identifying those features of social problem solving that lead to an industry-style policies.

Department/s

  • Social Anthropology
  • Department of Sociology

Publishing year

2024-05-01

Language

English

Pages

385-411

Publication/Series

Revista de antropologia contemporanea

Volume

2023

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Societa Editrice Il Mulino

Topic

  • Social Anthropology

Keywords

  • Social anthropology
  • anthroplogy of policy
  • corruption
  • anti-corruptionism
  • anti-corruption
  • organization studies
  • anti-corruption industry
  • transparency
  • Transparency International

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2724-3168