Designing a Network Corruption Study Framework in Metropolis Management

To date, widespread scientific research has been carried out that focuses on the definition of corruption, its dimensions and strategies to prevent and combat it. These studies can be classified in a range of micro-scale studies about administrator’s activities to complicated studies that focus on identifying and combating systemic corruption. This paper aims to, in the first step, clarify the network corruption and differentiate it from other forms of corruption and then, pursue network corruption in metropolis management. Accordingly, network corruption in metropolis management is defined as a network of independent and dependent actors in government, public, and private sectors and NGOs which are formed around a set of corrupted activities in several missions of metropolis management and it can be seen on different levels of urban policymaking, planning s well as implementing urban plans and projects. The key point in network corruption is the trade-off between members around corrupted activities that benefit all the members and damage the public interest. Also, this paper aims to resolve the lack of a base study framework in network corruption in process of policymaking of metropolis management by presenting a base framework on this subject as the main finding of this research. This research is a qualitative study and an integrated/critical literature review methodology is used to review related library resources and documents. Regarding the definition of corruption, there is no universal agreement. Despite the many definitions and contextual uses of corruption, the most used definition of corruption is the abuse of public resources and administrative authority for private gain, however, since this definition is mainly focused on the public sphere, Transparency International (TI) has redefined it as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. This new definition encompasses other sectors such as the private sector and NGOs. In this paper, the Karklins' definition of corruption is used which is defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain at the expense of the public good, although the latter is implicit in the notion of misuse, since the focus in this paper is on metropolis management and its missions, this thorough definition has been chosen. Also, in this paper, network corruption is pursued as a notion concept like Carvajal's research in which he classified the four steps to explain network corruption from creation to stabilization, including: 1. Setting of the corrupt nucleus 2. Expansion through a network of accomplices, 3. Exponential growth, and 4. Stabilization, however, we have also added 5. Termination to complete the circulation from birth to death of a network corruption. In addition to elaborating on the definition and process of creating and developing a network corruption, policymaking process in metropolis management is discussed in this paper. Several authors like Brouwer and Deleon (1983), Howlett and Ramesh (2020), Brewer, May and Wildavsky (1978), Anderson (1975), and Jenkins (1978) tried to explain this process, therefore public policy processes are consisted of: 1. Agenda-setting, 2.Policy formulation, 3. Implementation, 4. Evaluation and 5.Termination. In this research, these two theoretical frameworks have been combined to design a network corruption study framework in metropolis management. This framework can be applied in different fields and missions of metropolis management like architecture and urban planning, recycling management, and traffic and public transportation programs and projects.