Corruption - HIS00126H

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Module summary

Today, it is commonplace amongst politicians, journalists, policy wonks and scholars to regard corruption as a major problem that undermines trust in government, financial institutions and the rule of law. It promotes economic inefficiency, damages the environment and erodes wellbeing, directly and indirectly. From such a perspective, corruption is an obstacle to countries the world over achieving a supposed Nordic nirvana and therefore something to be struggled against. This module places contemporary concern about the supposedly cross-temporal, cross-systemic and cross-cultural phenomenon of corruption in its historical contexts. Along the way we’ll meet kleptocrats, ancient and modern, dodgy entrepreneurs, shady financiers and professional criminals a plenty. You’ll also learn how to calculate and offer a bribe appropriate to whatever past societies your time machine takes you to.

Organised around three questions, we first consider what past societies understood corruption to mean and what they thought were its causes. We compare these to one another and a universalist definition of corrupt practices as involving three agents (the truster, the fiduciary who acts on behalf of the former, and the corrupter). In the second part of the module, we look at the consequences of corruption, understood variously, for political, economic and social life, and ask the troubling question: has corruption always been a problem? The final part of the module looks at past anti-corruption movements, their efforts to combat corruption and the prospects for contemporary corruption and anti-corruption. 

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2024-25

Module aims

The aims of this module are:

• To introduce students to the practice of comparative history;
• To enable students to acquire skills and understanding of that practice by studying a particular topic or theme; and
• To enable students to reflect on the possibilities and difficulties involved in comparative history
   

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

• Grasp the key approaches and challenges involved in comparative history;
• Understand a range of aspects of the topic or theme which they have studied;
• Be able to use and evaluate comparative approaches to that topic or theme; and
• Have learned to discuss and write about comparative history
   

Module content

Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1, then a 1-hour plenary/lecture and a 2-hour seminar in each of weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of the semester. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW). Students prepare for and participate in eight 1-hour plenaries/lectures and eight 2-hour seminars in all.
 
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
What is corruption?

• In Antiquity and the Middle Ages
• In the Renaissance and Early Modern periods
• In the Modern and Contemporary periods

Is corruption a problem? 

• For governments
• For economies 
• For societies

Can corruption be stopped?

• Anti-corruption    
• Corruption’s Past, Present and Future
   

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Open Examination	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

For formative assessment work, students will produce an essay plan relating to the themes and issues of the module.
 
For summative assessment students will complete an Open Exam in the assessment period.
 

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Open Examination	100.0

Module feedback

Following their formative assessment task, students will receive written feedback, which may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss their feedback during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.

For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission. For semester 1 assessments, the tutor will be available during student hours of the following semester for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For semester time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading: 

• Bridenthal, Renate, ed. The Hidden History of Crime, Corruption, and States. (Oxford: Berghahn, 2013.)
• Buchan, Bruce, and Lisa Hill. An Intellectual History of Political Corruption. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.)
• Kroeze, Ronald, André Vitória and Guy Geltner, ed. Anti-corruption in History: From Antiquity to the Modern Era. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.)