灰色地带:反腐败法律的文化分析

法人类学对腐败和反腐败法律的分析做出了重要贡献。指出了法律界定为"腐败"的行为的社会根基以及腐败行为的两个规范框架:国家的法律和社会惯例;评估腐败问题时存在的双重标准:国际组织和西方国家常常认为"南方"和"东方"国家的腐败问题比"发达"国家更严重;反腐败与政治稳定常常难以求得平衡,媒体对腐败的报道带来了一系列棘手的问题,在处理反腐败问题时常常采用过于简单的两分法。法律人应当对这些卓识给予更多的关注。这对于理解英国的几个重大案件具有重要的意义。

Unclear Boundaries: Cultural Analysis and Anti-Corruption Law

Legal anthropology has contributed insights to the legal analysis of corruption and anti-corruption law. It emphasises the socially embedded nature of many practices which the law has come to define as "corrupt," giving rise to competing normative frameworks: state law on the one hand, and social practice on the other. It also points to the double standards sometimes found in the assessment of the problem of corruption, with international organisations and western governments assuming that corruption is more serious in the "South" and the "East" than it is in the "developed" world. In addition, it points to the difficult balance that often must be struck between anti-corruption law and political stability, the complications caused by mass media reporting of corruption, and the tendency of anti-corruption discourse to rely on over-simple conceptual dichotomies. Lawyers should pay greater attention to these insights, and such insights are helpful in our understanding of several major cases in the United Kingdom.