Political corruption in the context of Corruption Eradication Commission

In ancient Roman law, ambitus was a crime of political corruption, mainly a candidate's attempt to influence the outcome (or direction) of an election through bribery or other forms of soft power. The Latin word ambitus is the origin of the English word "ambition" which is another of its original meanings; ambitus was the process of "going around and commending oneself or one's protégés to the people," an activity liable to unethical excesses. In practice, bringing a charge of ambitus against a public figure became a favored tactic for undermining a political opponent.

The Lex Baebia was the first law criminalizing electoral bribery, instituted by M. Baebius Tamphilus during his consulship in 181 BC. The passage of Rome's first sumptuary law the previous year suggests that the two forms of legislation are related; both were aimed at curbing wealth-based inequities of power and status within the governing classes. The temptation to indulge in bribery indicates that the traditional patron-client relationship was insufficient to gather enough votes to win election.

This is a list of sovereign states by their de jure systems of government, as specified by the incumbent regime's constitutional law. This list does not measure the degree of democracy, political corruption, or state capacity of governments.

Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities like bribery, influence peddling, embezzlement, and fraud as well as practices that are legal in many countries, such as lobbying. Political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain.

Historically, "corruption" had a broader meaning concerned with an activity's impact on morals and societal well-being: for example, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was condemned to death in part for "corrupting the young".

A politician is a person who participates in policy-making processes, usually holding a position in a political party or an elective position in government. Politicians make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles or duties that politicians perform vary depending on the level of government, whether local, state, or national. The ideological orientation that politicians adopt often stems from their previous experience, education, beliefs, the political parties they belong to. They try to shape public opinion accordingly.

Politicians sometimes face many challenges and mistakes that may affect their credibility and ability to persuade. These mistakes include political corruption resulting from their use and exploitation of power to achieve self interest. Ideally they prioritize the public interest over their own profit. Challenges include how to keep up with the development of social media and confronting opposition media, in addition to discrimination for or against them on the basis of gender or race.

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, art patronage refers to the support that princes, popes, and other wealthy and influential people have provided to artists such as musicians, painters, and sculptors. It can also refer to the right of bestowing offices or church benefices, the business given to a store by a regular customer, and the guardianship of saints. The word patron derives from the Latin patronus ('patron'), one who gives benefits to his clients (see patronage in ancient Rome).

In some countries, the term is used to describe political patronage or patronal politics, which is the use of state resources to reward individuals for their electoral support. Some patronage systems are legal, as in the Canadian tradition of the prime minister appointing senators and the heads of a number of commissions and agencies; in many cases, these appointments go to people who have supported the political party of the prime minister. The term is also used to refer to a type of corruption or favoritism in which a party in power rewards groups, families, or ethnicities for their electoral support illegally using gifts, appointments to positions, or government contracts.

The 2010–2012 Algerian protests were a series of protests taking place throughout Algeria, lasting from 28 December 2010 to 10 January 2012. The protests had been inspired by similar protests across the Middle East and North Africa. Causes cited by the protesters included unemployment, the lack of housing, food-price inflation, corruption, restrictions on freedom of speech and poor living conditions. While localized protests were already commonplace over previous years, extending into December 2010, an unprecedented wave of simultaneous protests and riots, sparked by sudden rises in staple food prices, erupted all over the country starting in January 2011. These were quelled by government measures to lower food prices, but were followed by a wave of self-immolations, most of them in front of government buildings. Opposition parties, unions, and human rights organisations then began to hold weekly demonstrations, despite these being illegal without government permission under the ongoing state of emergency; the government suppressed these demonstrations as far as possible, but in late February yielded to pressure and lifted the state of emergency. Meanwhile, protests by unemployed youth, typically citing unemployment, hogra (oppression), and infrastructure problems, resumed, occurring almost daily in towns scattered all over the country.

The values and ideals of republicanism are foundational in the constitution and history of the United States. As the United States constitution prohibits granting titles of nobility, republicanism in this context does not refer to a political movement to abolish such a social class, as it does in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Netherlands. Instead, it refers to the core values that citizenry in a republic have, or ought to have.

Political scientists and historians have described these central values as liberty and inalienable individual rights; recognizing the sovereignty of the people as the source of all authority in law; rejecting monarchy, aristocracy, and hereditary political power; virtue and faithfulness in the performance of civic duties; and vilification of corruption. These values are based on those of Ancient Greco-Roman, Renaissance, and English models and ideas. Articulated in the writings of the Founding Fathers (particularly Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams), they formed the intellectual basis for the American Revolution – the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Constitution (1787), and the Bill of Rights (1791), as well as the Gettysburg Address (1863).

The Chicago Outfit, also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or the Organization, is an Italian American Mafia crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, and throughout the Greater Chicago area, originating in the city's South Side in the early 1910s.

The Outfit rose to power in the 1920s under the control of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone, and the period was marked by bloody gang wars for control of the distribution of illegal alcohol during Prohibition. The Outfit's power was solidified by Capone's leadership, consolidating the family into the larger American Mafia. Since then, the Outfit has been involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including loansharking, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, political corruption and murder. Capone was convicted of income tax evasion in 1931 and the Outfit was next run by Paul Ricca. Ricca and Tony Accardo shared power from 1943 until Ricca's death in 1972; Accardo became the sole power in the Outfit upon Ricca's death and was one of the longest-sitting bosses of all time upon his death in 1992. The family’s longest-serving boss was Joey Aiuppa, serving from 1971 until 1986.

Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Its businesses include energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, entertainment, telecommunications, mass media, and textiles. Reliance is the largest public company in India by market capitalisation and revenue, and the 86th largest company worldwide. It is India's largest private tax payer and largest exporter, accounting for 7% of India's total merchandise exports.

The company has attracted controversy for reports of political corruption, cronyism, fraud, financial manipulation, and exploitation of its customers, Indian citizens, and natural resources. Its chairman, Mukesh Ambani, has been described as a plutocrat.

In United States history, the Gilded Age is the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was named by 1920s historians after Mark Twain's 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. Historians saw late 19th-century economic expansion as a time of materialistic excesses marked by widespread political corruption.

It was a time of rapid economic and capital growth, especially in the North and West. As American wages grew much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, and industrialization demanded an increasingly skilled labor force, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 40% from 1860 to 1890 and spread across the increasing labor force. The average annual wage per industrial worker, including men, women, and children, rose from $380 in 1880 ($12,381 in 2024 dollars) to $584 in 1890 ($19,738 in 2024 dollars), a gain of 59%. The Gilded Age was also an era of significant poverty, especially in the South, and growing inequality, as millions of immigrants poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.

Corruption in the United States is the act of government officials abusing their political powers for private gain, typically through bribery or other methods, in the United States government. Corruption in the United States has been a perennial political issue, peaking in the Jacksonian era and the Gilded Age before declining with the reforms of the Progressive Era.

As of November 2025, the United States scores 65 on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean") according to Transparency International's 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index. When ranked by score, the United States ranks 28th among the 180 countries in the index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector.

The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.

A wide coalition of mostly Protestants, prohibitionists first attempted to end the trade in alcoholic drinks during the 19th century. They aimed to heal what they saw as an ill society beset by alcohol-related problems such as alcoholism, domestic violence, and saloon-based political corruption. Many communities introduced alcohol bans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and enforcement of these new prohibition laws became a topic of debate. Prohibition supporters, called "drys", presented it as a battle for public morals and health. The movement was taken up by progressives in the Prohibition, Democratic, and Republican parties, and gained a national grassroots base through the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. After 1900, it was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League. Opposition from the beer industry mobilized "wet" supporters from the wealthy Catholic and German Lutheran communities, but the influence of these groups receded from 1917 following the entry of the U.S. into the First World War against Germany.

A party boss is a person who controls a faction or local branch of a political party. They do not necessarily hold public office themselves; most historical bosses did not, at least during the times of their greatest influence. Numerous officeholders in that unit are subordinate to the single boss in party affairs. Bosses may base their power on the support of numerous voters, usually organized voting blocs, and manage a coalition of these blocs and various other stakeholders. When the party wins, they typically control appointments in their unit, and have a voice at the higher levels.

Reformers typically allege that political bosses are corrupt. This corruption is usually tied to patronage: the exchange of jobs, lucrative contracts and other political favors for votes, campaign contributions and sometimes outright bribes.