Comparative corruption research and the case of Britain

In recent years, comparative corruption analysis has been fuelled by thegrowth of international survey data on related perceptions. Taking issue with thetypological vein of such analysis, this article questions both the treatment of perceptions indices and the validity and pertinence of variables used to explain them.It is argued that perceptions are conflated with practice, whilst explanatory variablesappear ungrounded in empirical reality. These limitations serve to reinforceexpectations that corruption is a menace to be associated primarily with societiesof the global periphery. Drawing on the supposedly paradigmatic case of Britain, thearticle suggests that the problem of bias in comparative scholarship is compounded by three factors: the failure of comparative and domestic-focused literatures toengage with one another in sufficient depth; the relative lack of qualitative researchinto corruption within core Western states; and the neglect of power in the study of perceptions and practices at comparative and domestic-focused levels of analysis