Whose Corruption? Which Law?: Law’s Authority and Social Power

Abstract

This chapter focuses on ‘legal but corrupt’ from a pluralist perspective. The plurality of state and non-state laws under which we are governed sets limits on any institutional capacity to name misconduct and from there to discover it. Law’s authority exists in the context of conventions about legitimate enforcement, measurement standards and meaningful compliance. Ideas of legality are as such often unclear and fluid. Legality is endogenous to the web of institutional formations through which people mediate their social lives. Visions of public conduct and integrity are constructed in and through the state’s ongoing project to build and legitimate sovereign authority and that project’s being limited by other equally active institutions.

Keywords: legal but corrupt, public ethics, Ireland

JEL Classification: JK2249