The question of how corrupt the United States is has no single answer. After all, we lack an accepted definition of corruption and cannot directly measure what is usually a clandestine or contested kind of activity. Some corruption is clearly illegal, but other activities widely seen as corrupt, or corrupting, are legal – in some cases, constitutionally protected. There are different categories of corruption – at a minimum, it is important to distinguish between illegal and legal corruption – and the country is comprised of fifty different states, each (as Daniel Elazar has argued) a civil society in its own right, and each with multiple institutions where corruption might take root. Finally, the causes and consequences of corruption can differ significantly from one policy area or economic sector to the next. In this chapter, we lay out our agenda for analyzing American corruption, with an emphasis on the diversity of the federal system and the importance of looking carefully at different aspects of policy and politics.