Petty corruption

The term “petty corruption” is often used to describe routine abuse of entrusted power by low- and mid-level public officials in the form of bribes or kickbacks of relatively small amounts when interacting with ordinary citizens and small businesses whose access to basic goods or services such as healthcare; education; water and sewage; and electricity is either barred or dealt with in a discretionary manner. The most common difference between “grand” and “petty” corruption is often expressed in the form of unequally or inefficiently distributed and accessed state services. A number of new approaches to the study of petty corruption have been developed by the ethnographic and sociological literature.