Korruptionsforschung, TU Darmstadt

Description

Korruptionsforschung is a research group at the Institute of History of the Technical University of Darmstadt that studies the history of corruption in Europe. It has worked on this topic since 2008, and since 2016 it has belonged to a network of European corruption historians funded by the French research agency ANR.

The group treats corruption as historically variable rather than constant. It studies which practices were criticized as bribery, favoritism or clientelism in different periods, on what grounds, and under which underlying norms. This approach lets researchers compare corruption across cultures and eras instead of treating it as always the same.

Its projects have been funded by the German Research Foundation, and later jointly by the DFG and ANR, working with partner universities in Frankfurt, Avignon, Metz, Paris and Marseille. Early projects, from 2008 to 2011, studied corruption communication during Prussian and Bavarian administrative reforms and around railway construction in Britain and France. A later project line, called POC/K, ran from 2011 to 2017 and covered corruption communication in the German Empire, micropolitics in the Weimar Republic, profiteers of the First World War, and corruption debates in the early Federal Republic of Germany.

The group publishes its findings as monographs and edited volumes, and lists these publications along with its staff and activities on its website.