Special edition : corruption downunder : guest editors' introduction

This special issue gathers and enlarges upon papers that were first presented at the interdisciplinary ‘Corruption Downunder’ symposium held at the University of Auckland in November 2015; most of the papers published here stem from the lively and collegial discussions at the symposium. At that time New Zealand was authoritatively measured (by Transparency International) to be Number 2 ‘least corrupt’ nation in the world; it is now tied at Number 1 with Denmark. What this rank, as measured by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), actually counts for is something that we explore in this special issue. On the face of it, it would seem perverse to be focusing on corruption in such a place as New Zealand. With its larger northern neighbour Australia listed at a respectable 11th out of 175 that same year (2014 data), why would a bunch of academics want to engage in serious discussions about the problem of corruption ‘downunder’? New Zealand has never been ranked outside of the top four, and has been ranked Number 1 in a total of 12 out of 22 years since the survey began. Australia is generally ranked in the top ten and has never been out of the top 13 least corrupt countries since the survey began