This study is an empirical approach to answering the question: are there any universal factors that account for the origin, diffusion and persistence of corruption in human societies? The paper enquires whether the perception of corruption in politics and economics can be tackled as a form of cultural adaptation, driven by exogenous and endogenous forces. These are respectively: freedom of access and management of economic resources, and the pressures towards human grouping. Following the analytical insights of cultural theory, developed by (...) Mary Douglas and later Aaron Wildavsky, variation is introduced through the ways in which corruption is perceived through the different behavioral and cultural biases that prevail in societies. This research introduces a cross-country comparative analysis of 57 countries attempting to test quantitatively whether institutional pressure and emphasis towards social grouping are correlated with corruption perception at country levels. (shrink)

The idea of civil society is one of the oldest and most contested in Western political and sociological thought. Among the social sciences, anthropology has been the discipline that has prompted the boldest critiques of the concept. This paper argues that the “revival” of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe in one particular field—that of environmental activism—has been contingent with the outcomes of EU enlargement policies. I introduce the case study of one of the most complex and contested transport (...) development projects in Central Eastern Europe: the Budapest Ring Road. I maintain that within the EU enlargement project alternative forms of political power have been built from below and that they eventually come to compete with the state to influence decision-making processes. These forms, to be individuated in the emergence of environmental activism, take shape at local, state and transnational levels and aim, although often contradictorily, at restituting political agency under the condition of lowering public participation in decision-making processes. (shrink)