40 Years of Corruption Research in China: Theory, Evidence, and Future Directions

Corruption is often referred to as the “cancer of politics” and it poses a severe challenge to a government’s foundation of governance and the legitimacy of its power. Since the launch of China’s reform and opening-up policy in 1978, alongside the institutional transition toward a market economy, corruption continues to proliferate in China and attracts increasing scholarly attention. This article systematically reviews the corruption research conducted by Chinese scholars during the past 40 years, and synthesizes the definitions, types, causes, and consequences of corruption, as well as the strategies and measures for combating and preventing corruption in China. Through a comprehensive literature search in the seven most influential Chinese journals, we identified a total 497 articles of corruption or anti-corruption studies, and found that Chinese scholars, while borrowing much existing knowledge from Western corruption literature, have already made significant progress in developing their own theoretical framework by incorporating cultural dimensions and also by adapting to the centralized political environment to address the unique challenges posed by corruption in contemporary China. This article concludes by summarizing the particular contributions of Chinese scholars and the limitations of current corruption research in China, and suggesting useful ways to improve the quality of corruption research and explore new research directions in the future.