I think it's just an acknowledgment and acceptance that the system is thoroughly fucked, and there's no public will to overthrow it or clean it up, so seeking incremental gains where possible is better than nothing.

If you do nothing, there corruption will still be there, but nothing will improve.

If you try to push things through, the corruption will still be there, but maybe small things will get built here and there.

What do you think is a better solution to corruption? Starve the state? We've been doing that for decades and that just further empowers private interests, the same people who've benefited from and furthered corruption in government. shrug No easy fix. Every country has corruption, but the highly functional governments tend to have less of it because they attract more well-intentioned career civil servants instead of powermongers.