Making sense of corruption by Bo Rothstein and Aiysha Varraich (Cambridge University Press 2017)

Looking back at the period before the 1990s, it is possible to note that corruption-related issues tended not to be part of the news schedule, much less an element of everyday conversation. In contemporaneity, this perspective has changed, since the theme has gained space in the social repertoire and in empirical research through the related diversity of terms, whereby corruption can be deemed an “umbrella concept” due to its multidimensional mode in relation to its universality and effects. In this context, the presentation of a map of the evolution and universalization of the term, in dialogue with the perspectives of the sociological, anthropological and political sciences, can help with understanding the intricacies of the topic of corruption since the 1990s. In several studies, corruption is perceived not only as a form of backwardness in societies, but also as a barrier to democracy. Emphasizing this, one of the difficulties is that the term in academia and even in society in general is broadly framed by various conceptualizations and definitions, such as patronage, patrimonialism, particularism, and state capture, which reflect the multidimensionality of corruption and its universality and effects. In addition to this we may contribute the relationship between the biblical concept and its religious and moral foundations, as well as that defined by the Oxford English Dictionary. In an attempt to answer the question that they raise about the importance of conceptualizing and theorizing corruption, Bo Rothstein and Aiysha Varraich reflect on the various multidimensional senses of corruption through a deep analysis that discusses the revolution and ramification of the concept. Bearing in mind that the possibility of creating a universal understanding of the concept of corruption becomes increasingly distant because languages do not share the