Bribery is only a form of corruption, but corruption also includes many other dishonest practices such as embezzlement, fraud, nepotism, collusion and abuse of power. This is the key difference between bribery and corruption.
Most people assume that bribery and corruption have the same meaning. But this is not exactly correct. Bribery involves dishonestly persuading someone to act in your favour by giving him or her a gift of money or another inducement. But corruption refers to dishonest or illegal behaviour in general, especially by those in a position of power.
CONTENTS
1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Bribery
3. What is Corruption
4. Relationship Between Bribery and Corruption
5. Side by Side Comparison – Bribery vs Corruption in Tabular Form
6. Summary
What is Bribery?
Bribery is the act of offering or receiving something of value in exchange for some kind of influence or action in return. It involves dishonestly persuading someone to act in your favour by giving him or her a gift of money or another inducement. Money is a very common type of bribe. In addition, many types of payments or favours can count as bribes: gift, promotion, funding, free food, free tickets, higher paying jobs, campaign contributions, etc.
Figure 01: Bribe
There are two types of bribery as active bribery and passive bribery. Active bribery is offering payment and asking for favour whereas passive bribery is accepting the bribe or asking for payment. Both giving and accepting bribes are illegal and are punishable by law. Examples of bribery include a motorist offering money to a policeman to avoid a speeding ticket and businessman offering a bribe to a politician in order to get a government contract. Here, all parties, i.e., the parties offering the bribe (motorist and businessman) and the parties accepting the bribe (policeman and politician) can be charged with bribery.
What is Corruption?
Corruption refers to wrongdoing on the part of a powerful party through illegitimate and immoral means, which are incompatible with ethical standards. In simple words, corruption is dishonest or illegal behavior, especially by powerful people such as politicians and government officials. Although corruption is often associated with bribery, it is not only limited to bribery. Corruption also includes other forms such as embezzlement, abuse of power, fraud, deception, nepotism, and collusion. In other words, bribery is only one form of corruption.
Corruption can occur in any sector, whether public or private. It also occurs in different scales. That is, it can range from small favors between few people to the massive-scale corruption that affects the whole government. Petty corruption, grand corruption and systemic corruption are three main scales of corruption. There are various tools and indices to measure the corruption accurately.
Figure 02: Corruption Perception index 2017 (100 – very clean, 0 – highly corrupt)
According to Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), New Zealand is the least corrupt country while Somalia is the most corrupt one.
What is the Relationship Between Bribery and Corruption?
- Bribery is a form of corruption.
What is the Difference Between Bribery and Corruption?
Bribery is the act of offering or receiving something of value in exchange for some kind of influence or action in return. In contrast, corruption is wrongdoing on the part of an authority through illegitimate and immoral means, which are incompatible with ethical standards. This is the key difference between bribery and corruption. However, bribery is also a form of corruption, while corruption includes other dishonest activities such as embezzlement, fraud, collusion, and abuse of power.
Summary – Bribery vs Corruption
Bribery basically means offering something like money or gifts as a payment to someone in return for a favor. Corruption, on the other hand, refers to dishonest or illegal behavior, especially by powerful people. Bribery is a form of corruption. This is the key difference between bribery and corruption.
Reference:
1.“Corruption.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Aug. 2018. Available here
2.“Bribery.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Aug. 2018. Available here
Image Courtesy:
1.”Bribe” By Eugene Pivovarov – Original work, (Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia
2.”Corruption Perception index 2017″ By Azerty82 (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia
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