Toon Kerkhoff / Ronald Kroeze / Pieter Wagenaar Corruption and the Rise of Modern Politics in Europe in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries : A Comparison between France , the Netherlands , Germany and England Introduction
نویسندگان
چکیده
1 The editors wish to thank the Netherlands Institute of Government (NIG) for a generous grant for the editing and correction work involved in this special issue. 2 For a recent volume on theoretical perceptions of political corruption, see G. de Graaff / P. von Maravic / F.P. Wagenaar (eds.), The Good Cause. Theoretical Perspectives on Corruption, Opladen 2010. For historical studies on corruption, see, for instance, J. I. Engels / A. Fahrmeir / A. Nützenadel (eds.), Geld – Geschenke – Politik: Korruption im neuzeitlichen Europa, München 2009; N. Grüne / S. Slanička (eds.), Korruption. Historische Annäherungen an eine Grundfigur politischer Kommunikation, Göttingen 2010; F. P. Wagenaar / O. van der Meij / M. van den Heijden, «Corruptie in de Nederlanden, 1400–1800», in: Tijdschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis 2 (2009) 4, 3–21 and R. G. Asch / B. Emich / J. I. Engels (eds.), Integration – Legitimation – Korruption. Politische Patronage in Früher Neuzeit und Moderne, Frankfurt am Main 2011. 3 See for instance R. M. Dekker, «Corruptie en ambtelijke ethiek in historisch perspectief», in: De Gids (1986) 149, 116–121; J. van Klaveren, «Corruption as a Historical Phenomenon», in: A. J. Heidenheimer / M. Johnston / V. T. LeVine (eds.), Political Corruption: A Handbook, New Brunswick 1989, 73–86; D.P. Moynihan, «Our Usable Past: A Historical Contextual Approach to Administrative Values», in: Public Administration Review 69 (2009) 5, 813–822 and S. Tiihonen (ed.), The History of Corruption in Central Government, Amsterdam 2003. In recent years, political corruption has received widespread attention from a historical perspective.2 Historical questions regarding political corruption range from finding out what exactly constituted corrupt behaviour at certain moments and in certain contexts to the questions of when, how and why assumptions about and expectations of (public) officials may have changed.3 The importance of historical questions concerning political corruption cannot be overestimated, for they allow us to better understand fundamental issues of human political and social interaction. The very term «corruption» immediately reflects the assumptions, interests and values held by countless actors in an ever-changing political environment. Investigating corruption enables us (directly or indirectly) to determine changes in implicit or explicit ideas about such contested issues as ‹the good life›, ‹the common good›, ‹the public interest› or the necessity of a delineation between a public and a private sphere. The historical study of corruption can indeed help us to better understand the purpose and function of government, and to place these in a historical perspective. Which acts are condemned or condoned, after all, has as much to say about Toon Kerkhoff / Ronald Kroeze / Pieter Wagenaar
منابع مشابه
Around the Tables – Contextual Factors in Healthcare Coverage Decisions Across Western Europe
Background Across Western Europe, procedures and formalised criteria for taking decisions on the coverage (inclusion in the benefits basket or equivalent) of healthcare technologies vary substantially. In the decision documents, which display the justification of, the rationale for, these decisions, national healthcare institutes ma...
متن کامل7. The Continuing Problem of Poverty: Welfare after the Industrial Revolution
INTRODUCTION We saw above the substantial increase in output per person that occurred in Britain in the Industrial Revolution, and the rapid spread of the new techniques of the Industrial Revolution to other countries in Western Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. We also saw that the increase in output led to at least modest gains in real wages by the 1840s. Yet one of the most acute social ...
متن کاملWeapons of Mass Destruction in Context; Investigating the Links between Militarization and Godlessness of Modern Politics
Modern brutality, which found its culmination in using weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against humanity, is the dark side of the principal teachings of the Enlightenment. The great thinkers of the Enlightenment, blaming religion as the main source of violence, removed God from the center of Western political and social thought to replace it with human. Although they were not conscious of the ...
متن کاملThe Role of the German Researchers in the Formation of Islamic Art Studies
In the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the increasing interest of the Europeans in the culture of the East, the first articles on the Islamic art and culture were appeared in German-speaking countries. In the mid nineteenth century, some entries in German encyclopedias were devoted to Islamic art, and from the end of the century, the first monographs on Islamic architecture and orname...
متن کاملThe Relationship Between the Scope of Essential Health Benefits and Statutory Financing: An International Comparison Across Eight European Countries
Background Both rising healthcare costs and the global financial crisis have fueled a search for policy tools in order to avoid unsustainable future financing of essential health benefits. The scope of essential health benefits (the range of services covered) and depth of coverage (the proportion of costs of the covered benefits that is covered publicly) are corresponding variables in determini...
متن کامل