Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain.
Corruption may involve many activities which include bribery , influence peddling and embezzlement and it may also involve practices which are legal in many countries. Corruption is perceived as most common in kleptocracies , oligarchies , narco-states , and mafia states [ citation needed ] , however, more recent research and policy statements acknowledge that it also exists in wealthy capitalist economies.
Responding to Whyte's book, George Monbiot criticized the CPI for its narrow definition of corruption that surveys mostly only Western executives about bribery. Corruption and crime are endemic sociological occurrences which appear with regular frequency in virtually all countries on a global scale in varying degrees and proportions.
Recent data suggests corruption is on the rise. Strategies which are undertaken in order to counter corruption are often summarized under the umbrella term anti-corruption. Stephen D. Morris, [10] a professor of politics , wrote that political corruption is the illegitimate use of public power to benefit a private interest.
Economist Ian Senior defined corruption as an action to secretly provide a good or a service to a third party to influence certain actions which benefit the corrupt, a third party, or both in which the corrupt agent has authority. The effect of corruption in infrastructure is to increase costs and construction time, lower the quality and decrease the benefit. Corruption is a complex phenomenon and can occur on different scales.
