Global, national, and local communities have struggled with individuals unfairly exploiting their positions for personal gain. Today, corruption seems more ubiquitous than ever, and the consequences are similarly vast. Corruption creates financial crises, allows terrorist attacks, facilitates WMD trafficking, sends innocent people to jail while letting guilty ones walk free, destroys the environment, wastes collective resources, causes unnecessary death and disease, damages markets, distorts news and information, increases poverty, fuels conflict, supports organized crime, and eviscerates public policy. This seminar covers corruption’s causes and consequences, the various ways to define and measure it, economic and political models vulnerable to it (and those capable of withstanding it), influencing structural and individual factors, and possible solutions to corruption. Students will leave this class with an understanding of corruption’s presentation and effects on international development, security, domestic politics, and financial systems.