@article{651cb01936b24c238083dad90cd2744b,
title = "The Corruption Game: Health Systems, International Agencies, and the State in South Asia",
abstract = "Drawing on ethnographic material collected in Pakistan, India, and Nepal, this article analyzes patterns of corruption in vaccination programs in South Asia. Corrupt practices—which required substantial work—were deeply shaped by both the money and systems of accountability of the global health system. Bilateral and multilateral donors provided substantial funding for immunization programs across South Asia. International agencies and governments instituted systems of accountability, including documentation requirements and a parallel UN bureaucracy in problematic districts, to try to ensure that health workers did what they wanted. Some immunization program staff skillfully bent these systems of accountability to their own ends, diverting vaccination funding into their own pockets. Corruption operates not in opposition to the official rules, but in spaces opened up by them. These practices sometimes transform Weber's rational bureaucracy into a sophisticated game with many players, whose aims are more complex than the stated goals of the bureaucracy.",
keywords = "South Asia, corruption, health systems, vaccination",
author = "Svea Closser",
note = "Funding Information: The ethnographic material in this article was pulled from a number of different research projects, none focusing specifically on corruption. Funding support for those research projects was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner‐Gren Foundation, Emory University, Middlebury College, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I am deeply grateful to my colleagues and collaborators in these projects, including Judith Justice, Adam Koon, Patricia Omidian, Emma Varley, Aftab Pasha, Jessie Ebersole, and others who I have not listed here to more fully protect the identity of research subjects. I am grateful to the students in Middlebury College's SOAN 358, Anthropology of Corruption. Vincanne Adams and two anonymous reviewers offered unusually thoughtful and useful advice in the peer review process. Conversations with and feedback from Judith Justice, Anat Rosenthal, Elenah Uretsky, Ellen Oxfeld, David Stoll, and Rebecca Tiger deeply shaped the thinking reflected in this manuscript. Funding Information: The ethnographic material in this article was pulled from a number of different research projects, none focusing specifically on corruption. Funding support for those research projects was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Emory University, Middlebury College, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I am deeply grateful to my colleagues and collaborators in these projects, including Judith Justice, Adam Koon, Patricia Omidian, Emma Varley, Aftab Pasha, Jessie Ebersole, and others who I have not listed here to more fully protect the identity of research subjects. I am grateful to the students in Middlebury College's SOAN 358, Anthropology of Corruption. Vincanne Adams and two anonymous reviewers offered unusually thoughtful and useful advice in the peer review process. Conversations with and feedback from Judith Justice, Anat Rosenthal, Elenah Uretsky, Ellen Oxfeld, David Stoll, and Rebecca Tiger deeply shaped the thinking reflected in this manuscript. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 by the American Anthropological Association",
year = "2020",
month = jun,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1111/maq.12549",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "34",
pages = "268--285",
journal = "Medical anthropology quarterly",
issn = "0745-5194",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "2",
}