In honour of International Anti-Corruption Day, a seminar titled “Rethinking Corruption” took place as part of the course "Fairness and Justice: Grappling with Ethical Challenges in a Changing World," taught by Prof. Emanuela Ceva for the Geneva Graduate Institute's MINT programme 2024–2025. The seminar welcomed guest speakers Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Professor of Comparative Public Policy at Luiss Guido Carli and author of Rethinking Corruption (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2003). The event also included comments by Anna Caroline Müller, World Trade Organisation, and Emanuela Ceva, Professor of Political Theory at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of Geneva.
The seminar was co-organised within the framework of the SNSF Advanced Grant "The Margin of Corruption" project, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant No: TMAG-1_209380).
Emanuela Ceva shares her insight on the event:
"The special lecture Rethinking Corruption delivered by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi on the occasion of International Corruption Day has been organised within the context of the MINT course on Global Justice and Fairness taught by Professor Emanuela Ceva. During the course, many specialists engaged students on crucial ethical challenges in a globalised world including: the duties to future generations to counteract climate change; multiculturalism and the protection of human rights; global migration; and the prospects for democratic governance.
This special lecture addressed the topic of corruption, its measurement at an international level and how anti-corruption policies should be rethought to tackle corruption across states. A large space was given to discussing the measurement of transparency provisions as an indication for risks of corruption. The discussion brought to light the fundamental link between transparency provisions and accountability practices. Transparency is particularly important to realise accountability as answerability. This commitment intersects with that to promote accountability as ‘normative address’ , the idea that citizens and members of institutions should respond to each other as partners in the same joint project of making their polity work. This idea is purported by the Margins of Corruption project, an ERC-SNSF Advanced Grant coordinated by Prof Ceva at the School of Social Sciences of the University of Geneva, partner in the organization of this lecture.”