The United States’ global campaign against foreign bribery: bound to fail

Abstract

This dissertation examines the United States’ global campaign against foreign bribery in international business and argues that this campaign is bound to fail. This thesis is grounded in the claim that the dominant, liberal rationales underpinning this campaign are no match against states’ countervailing national interests in matters of ‘grand corruption’. This claim is advanced through a critical analysis of the history, development, and rationales of laws prohibiting foreign bribery in the United States, France and the United Kingdom. Drawing on realist and liberal theories of international relations, this dissertation considers the genesis of the US prohibition of foreign bribery, and subsequent US measures to export this prohibition through a campaign of liberal, values-laden rhetoric and realist tactics to compel OECD member states to ban foreign bribery. The limits of this campaign are revealed through select case studies of foreign bribery in which claimed liberal values against this conduct yield to states’ realist national interests.