Matthew Stephenson sits down with Bo Rothstein, who holds the holds the August Röhss Chair in Political Science and the co-founder of the Quality of Government Institute at the University of Gothenburg. The Kickback interview kicks off with the reasons how Bo got interested in corruption when working on the inefficiencies in public procurement and how these experiences led him to put “human well-being as the dependent variable” of his research.

As was to be expected when of the world’s leading thinkers on corruption talk it out, the interview touches on many of the debates within corruption research. How to define corruption? What have we learned about corruption in the past decades of research? How are these insights applicable to practitioners aiming to reduce corruption?

The answers range from

- an impartiality based definitions of corruption and how it relates to the concept of rule of law

- how to define corruption by first specifying what the opposite of corruption is

- how reducing corruption might not be achieved via quick fixes but needs long term solutions, e.g. fostering gender equality

- how corruption and democracy relate to each other when it comes to achieving human well-being and happiness

- … and many more

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