Publisher: Columbia Business School Publishing
Anticipated publication date: mid 2026
Themes: An investigation into the characteristics and mechanics of bribery.
“Bribery Humanized” includes cautionary tales of bribery derived from real events. Its case studies provide insights into the all-too-human motivations in the commissioning and acceptance of bribes. The portrayal of bribery through concrete instances unveils both the mechanics and the effects of this most socially damaging of corrupt practices.
The author invites the reader to walk with him through normally opaque institutional doors, to participate vicariously in underhand transactions. The reader might almost smell the leather of squeaky boardroom chairs, hear the clatter of factory machinery, and touch the plush drapes of hushed hotel rooms in which furtive handshakes are exchanged, stuffed envelopes handed over, and secret trysts attempted and sometimes betrayed.
In addition to taking the reader “backstage” to contextualize the scrappy roots of bribery, the author provides a theoretical summary of bribery’s main characteristics – its harmful impact on our socio-economic fabric; the difficulty of both prevention and detection; its uniquely unnerving quality arising from its uncanny relationship with gift exchange; and its seeming ineradicability.
Bribes arise at the shifting intersections of need, greed, and opportunity. The bribe is the quintessential anti-gift - it undermines our sense of collective solidarity, misallocates economic resources, and diminishes social trust. The book is not merely an exploration of the heart of darkness of corruption in our institutions; it also offers glimpses into the shadowy potentialities that dwell in the human psyche.
Updates to follow...
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