This paper focuses on local understandings of corrupt practices among indigenous groups in rural areas of Mexico and links the exercise of particular communitarian practices and social norms among those groups to the effectiveness of social accountability mechanisms in the Mexican health sector.
This study was undertaken as part of the Basel Institute's contribution to ANTICORRP WP4 "the ethnographic study of corruption."
Despite the growth in literature on political corruption, contributions from field research are still exiguous. This book edited by Davide Torsello, includes two chapters co-authored by Claudia Baez Camargo, head of the Institute’s research division. It provides a timely and much needed addition to current research, bridging the gap between macro level quantitative indicators of corruption and micro level qualitative evidence through an innovative ethnographic approach to the study of corruption and integrity in public administration.