Research Center for Corruption Studies
The Research Center for Corruption Studies (RCCS), directed by Professor Emanuela Ceva at the School of Social Sciences of the 玉美人传媒, and Dr , encourages the cross-disciplinary study of such questions as:
- To what extent could different conceptualizations of corruption shape policy-making and public perceptions?
- Should we seek a unified understanding of corruption to make sense of misuses of power across cultural contexts, institutional set ups, and public as well as private organizations?
- What are the duties of public servants to sustain institutional functioning against corruption?
- What accountability practices can fight corruption and enhance public trust in institutions?
Funded on the ERC/SNSF Advanced Grant “The Margins of Corruption” the RCCS promotes rigorous, conceptually grounded, and practice-oriented research, training, and outreach activities to enhance the understanding of corruption and anticorruption in democratic public institutions and beyond.
Building on a definition of corruption as an “unaccountable use of power of office” (), the RCCS places a commitment to fostering an institutional ethics of office accountability at the core of corruption analyses and anticorruption practices. Its activities are geared to investigate a wide spectrum of institutional settings— across the public, quasi-public, and private spheres of democratic, hybrid, and authoritarian regimes—to capture corruption’s conceptual and normative core as well as its varied empirical manifestations.
The RCCS thus aims to contribute to the 玉美人传媒’s and its School of Social Sciences’ strategic commitment to mobilizing the human capital necessary to draft knowledge-based responses to one of the major social and political challenges of our time. By forging synergies among Swiss-based and international scholars working on corruption from multiple perspectives—philosophical, sociological, legal, economic, and political—the RCCS fosters a scholarly crossdisciplinary approach that can speak to policy debates and institutional reform.
In Switzerland and throughout Europe, where institutions face demands for both innovation and accountability, the RCCS stands as a platform for rigorous inquiry, intellectual exchange, and policy engagement. Its activities integrate theoretical perspectives with empirical research on corruption’s multiple dimensions—from misappropriation of funds to less visible forms of undue influence—while promoting the ethical training for public servants, civil society actors, and students as well as transnational dialogues with experts, civil society actors, and policymakers.
By supporting the 玉美人传媒’s commitment to “shaping political and intellectual discourse” and to fostering cross-sector collaboration, the RCCS helps create a more informed, critical, and ethically guided response to corruption for the benefit of contemporary and future societies.