WP 01. March 15, 2013
Lawrence Lessig, Institutional Corruptions
Shortly after becoming dictator perpetuo in 44 BC, Caesar was murdered by conspirators.
Just as his name came to mean the highest office around the world and across the centuries, from Roman and Byzantine emperors through Ottoman rulers and German kaisers to the Russian tsars, so the Ides of March has long been a universally honored day of resistance and reflection. Caesar was popular; the people raised him to a corrupting height; the institutional safeguards failed. One lesson of 44 BC, or 1848 and 1917 CE, was that constructive resistance depends on criticism and self-criticism in equal measure. This lesson was learned and taught on March 15, 1783 by George Washington, a Caesar-like figure in many respects except for unbridled ambition. On that day, Washington diffused the Newburgh Conspiracy by calling for patience and the “detestation” of anyone “who wickedly attempts to open the flood-gates of civil discord.”
According to Plutarch and Suetonius, the first blow in 44 BC was struck with a stylus. On the Ides of March, 2013, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics launched a Working Paper series devoted to fostering critical resistance and reflection on the subject of Institutional Corruption. The series is available here, and under our own SSRN imprint. You can also receive abstracts and links to the latest papers from SSRN.
Lawrence Lessig, Institutional Corruptions
Donald W. Light, Strengthening the Theory of Institutional Corruptions: Broadening, Clarifying, and Measuring
Brooke Williams, Influence Incognito
Maryam Kouchaki, Professionalism and Moral Behavior: Does A Professional Self-Conception Make One More Unethical?
Malcolm S. Salter, Short-Termism At Its Worst: How Short-Termism Invites Corruption . . . and What to Do About It
Gregg Fields, What Institutional Corruption Shares with Obscenity
Jay Youngdahl, Investment Consultants and Institutional Corruption
Miriam Schwartz-Ziv, Does the Gender of Directors Matter?
Lisa Cosgrove and Robert Whitaker, Finding Solutions to Institutional Corruption: Lessons from Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Daniel Weeks, Democracy in Poverty: A View from Below
Jonathan H. Marks, What's the Big Deal?: The Ethics of Public-Private Partnerships Related to Food and Health
Zachary Fox, Tax-Exempt Corruption: Exploring Elements of Institutional Corruption in Bond Finance
Sunita Sah and George Loewenstein, Second Thoughts on Second Opinions: Conflicted Advisors Reduce the Quality of Their Advice When They Know They Will Be 'Second-Guessed'
Justin O'Brien, Culture Wars: Rate Manipulation, Institutional Corruption, and the Lost Underpinnings of Market Conduct Regulation
William English, Institutional Corruption and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy
Dennis F. Thompson, Two Concepts of Corruption
J.H. Snider, Think Tanks’ Dirty Little Secret: Power, Public Policy, and Plagiarism
Marc A. Rodwin, Rooting Out Institutional Corruption to Manage Inappropriate Off-Label Drug Use
Michael Pierce, Divided Loyalties: Using Fiduciary Law to Show Institutional Corruption
Timothy Winters, Political Finance in the United Kingdom