ABSTRACT
As part of an overall focus on governance in international political economy, the
corruption issue has catapulted from the margins of academic and policy discourse on
international affairs to a position as one of the central problems facing transition
economies and the developing world today. But the irreducibly normative character of
anti-corruption discourse is in tension with the predominantly rationalist, technical and
instrumental justifications for open markets which have come to dominate the academic
and institutional discourse on international political economy. The omissions and
oversights of neo-liberal discourse lead analysts to evade and obscure, rather than
directly engage, core problems of politics and ethics; this may have practical
consequences for anti-corruption efforts.
Convention