En este artículo se propone una definición múltiple de corrupción que tome en consideración los tres tipos de corrupción -individual, institucional y sistémicasusceptibles de ser encontradas en cualquier régimen político. Se propone estudiar la corrupción en directa continuidad con la propensión a la cooperación y se procede a anclar la corrupción sistémica como causa del cambio de régimen político en la tradición política occidental, mostrando su relevancia para las democracias modernas. Se estudian los impactos de la corrupción, procediendo al cuestionamiento de la teoría del ciclo de vida de la corrupción y su relación con desarrollo económico. Se señala la necesidad de imaginar alternativas para abordar la corrupción sistémica, que incluyen diferentes y mejores mediciones de la corrupción, especialmente de la corrupción institucional y sistémica, imprescindibles para mejorar la eficacia de las intervenciones anticorrupción.

Interest in politics and acceptance of the pluralist basis of politics are essential to the maintenance of liberal democracy. Regardless of the actual existence of corruption, the perception of its prevalence is a negative incentive both for interest in politics and for acceptance of pluralism, as it’s embodied in political parties. With public data from a research conducted by the Spanish Center for Sociological Research, we empirically demonstrate these connections. From these results it can be concluded that both the real and phantasmagorical existence (created by the discourse of the media and the police and/or judicial networks) of corruption, provided that its existence is perceived as generalized, can be used as anti-political tools to destroy democracy

In this text appears the review of the book Interpreting the world. Essays on the crisis of contemporary societies written by German Carrillo-García (2022). This text proposes a reflection, firmly anchored in the best tradition of the social sciences, aimed at overcoming the veil of ignorance, largely induced, that prevents us from understanding our contemporary world and act to change it.

Understand what are the likely directions and underlying forces for the changes underway in the third decade of the 21st century. To do this, (i) we will start from the classical theory of democracy and describe, first of all, the internal threats it faces. Next, (ii) we will analyze what currency is and its transformations in recent years. Then (iii) we will show the relationship between democracy and currency in the context of sovereignty and the transition from national sovereignty to imperial sovereignty. We will summarize how, from all this, (iv) an imperial order results, with actors who animate and combat it. We will show which are (v) the alternatives for the maintenance and transformation of the world order thus generated. And finally, (vi) from a perspective of democratic realism, we will outline what are the opportunities for sustainable development in this context. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Entender cuáles son las direcciones probables y las fuerzas subyacentes a los cambios en curso en la tercera década del s xxi. Para ello, (i) partiremos de la teoría clásica de la democracia y describiremos, en primer lugar, las amenazas internas a las que se enfrenta. A continuación, (ii) analizaremos que es la moneda y sus transformaciones en los últimos años. Después (iii) mostraremos la relación entre democracia y moneda en el contexto de la soberanía y el paso de la soberanía nacional a la soberanía imperial. Resumiremos como, de todo ello, resulta (iv) un orden imperial, con actores que lo animan y lo combaten. Mostraremos cuales son (v) las alternativas de mantenimiento y transformación del orden mundial así generado. Y por último, (vi) desde una perspectiva de realismo democrático, delinearemos cuales son las oportunidades de desarrollo sostenible en ese contexto.

The aim of the document is to explain why the survival of democracy in its modern liberal version is in question and is increasingly incapable of managing the savage powers that undermine it at home and threaten it abroad. Unlike those who put the emphasis on allegedly external problems - a modern version of the old theories of the barbarians as responsible for the breakdown of political systems - our analysis focuses on structural breakdowns resulting from internal and external processes that mutually reinforce each other. oligarchy and imperial expansion. To show the process, we start from a conception, so to speak, pure of democracy, as shown in the classic texts, capable of masterfully solving the problem of political order. This pure form serves as a point of comparison for what liberal democracy has been abandoning, internally releasing uncontrollable forces impossible to hold under the apparent form of a pluralist state. This process of liberation from the inner savage powers becomes evident when moving from a closed state to open states and finally to an imperial structure. To show the nature of this imperial structure, different in essential aspects from previous empires, we closely follow the great moments of the currency. We show how, at the same time that this imperial expansion was taking place, other savage external powers were created, capable of marking the limits of the expansion of the empire (formally in the form of liberal democracy), so that it has lost its internal attractiveness, moving further and further away from the ideal of classic democracy, loss of attractiveness that is also perceived abroad, as well as its ability to impose its power through law and currency. At this point of unstable equilibrium, where the world finds itself today, where international institutions have lost much or all of their power, there are several options, which essentially, for the time being, are reduced to two: a world divided into spheres of influence or total war. The renegotiation of the order to accommodate all the actors under the same leadership is between improbable and impossible.