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Endemic corruption in developing countries often seems intractable. Yet most countries that currently have relatively high public integrity were, at an earlier point in their history, afflicted with similarly pervasive corruption. Studying the history of these countries may therefore make a valuable contribution to modern debates about anti-corruption reform. This paper considers the experience of the United States, focusing principally on the period between 1865 and 1941. We find that the U.S. experience calls into question a number of commonly-held views about the struggle against corruption in modern developing countries. First, although some argue that entrenched cultures of corruption are virtually impossible to dislodge, the U.S. experience demonstrates that it is possible to make a transition from a systemically corrupt political system to a system in which public corruption is aberrational. Second, although some have argued that tackling systemic corruption requires a “big bang” approach, the U.S. transition away from endemic corruption would be better characterized as incremental, uneven, and slow. Third, although some have argued that fighting corruption requires shrinking the state, in the U.S. reductions in systemic corruption coincided with a substantial expansion of government size and power. Fourth, some commentators have argued that “direct” anti-corruption measures that emphasize monitoring and punishment do not do much good in societies where corruption is pervasive. On this point, the lessons from U.S. history are more nuanced. Institutional reforms played a key role in the U.S. fight against corruption, but investigations and prosecutions of corrupt actors were also crucial, not only because of deterrence effects, but because these enforcement efforts signaled a broader shift in political norms. The U.S. anti-corruption experience involved a combination of “direct strategies,” such as aggressive law enforcement, and “indirect strategies,” such as civil service reform and other institutional changes.
A bold new approach to combatting the inherent corruption of representative democracy This provocative book reveals how the majority of modern liberal democracies have become increasingly oligarchic, suffering from a form of structural political decay first conceptualized by ancient philosophers. Systemic Corruption argues that the problem cannot be blamed on the actions of corrupt politicians but is built into the very fabric of our representative systems. Camila Vergara provides a compelling and original genealogy of political corruption from ancient to modern thought, and shows how representative democracy was designed to protect the interests of the already rich and powerful to the detriment of the majority. Unable to contain the unrelenting force of oligarchy, especially after experimenting with neoliberal policies, most democracies have been corrupted into oligarchic democracies. Vergara explains how to reverse this corrupting trajectory by establishing a new counterpower strong enough to control the ruling elites. Building on the anti-oligarchic institutional innovations proposed by plebeian philosophers, she rethinks the republic as a mixed order in which popular power is institutionalized to check the power of oligarchy. Vergara demonstrates how a plebeian republic would establish a network of local assemblies with the power to push for reform from the grassroots, independent of political parties and representative government. Drawing on neglected insights from Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolas de Condorcet, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt, Systemic Corruption proposes to reverse the decay of democracy with the establishment of anti-oligarchic institutions through which common people can collectively resist the domination of the few.
From the days of Athenian democracy to the back rooms of Chicago politics today, corruption has plagued all political systems for all time. It is ubiquitous, vexing, and at times, threatens the very fabric of society. No culture, no system of government, no code of ethics has been able to eliminate political corruption. While the United States generally ranks comparatively low in measures of political corruption (Transparency International rates the U.S. as the 18th "least" corrupt nation in the world, with Denmark at number one, New Zealand, second, and Sweden third, the U.K. 16, France 23, Spain 28, Israel 33, South Korea 40, Italy 55, Cuba 65, with Somalia last at 180), yet it too continues to confront the sting of political corruption. For something to count as political corruption in the United States, it must have a public impact, be a part of some violation of public trust. As such, another useful distinction can be drawn between individual corruption and systemic corruption. The former is individual wrongdoing. An officeholder on the take, a legislator who sells his vote, would be examples of "bad apples." Systemic corruption encompasses a broader sphere. Instead of bad apples, here you have a "bad system." The undermining of democratic legitimacy or equality might be considered examples of systemic corruption, as might campaign financing practices. Such corruption runs deeper than mere individual transgression. Corruption is embedded into the day-to-day operation of the system. In focusing on the individual, we often overlook the systemic. It is easier, and in the short run, more gratifying to catch, punish, and condemn an individual like Governor Blagojevich. Yet what of the systemic forces that led the governor to behave in such a manner? Is there undue systemic pressure to accumulate money, so much so that the system pushes politicians "over the edge"? A politician need not "sell" offices to enter into a Faustian bargain. It may be perfectly legal to collect campaign contributions, yet it may also have a corrosive or corrupting effect on the integrity of the democratic process. With so many issues of corruption swirling around in the current American political climate, it is timely that there is new scholarship that casts much-needed light on these systemic forces. The brilliant discussions by a stellar list of distinguished scholars, led by Michael A. Genovese and Victoria A. Farrar-Meyers, in the insightful edited volume, Corruption and American Politics, delivers the best and most up-to-date thinking by some of the finest political minds in the nation. This will be an essential resource for all collections in political science and American studies.
Corruption robs the public of precious resources, distorts the incentives to engage in productive activities, destroys confidence in public institutions, and spurs political instability. It disproportionately harms the poor and vulnerable. In turn, corruption is the result of perverse incentives, concentration of power, and lack of accountability. Countries are not condemned to suffer from corruption. They can break the vicious cycle with a comprehensive approach that tackles country-specific governance gaps. This approach should include streamlining rules and regulations; building a meritocratic and well-paid civil service; promoting transparency in public employment, procurement, and services; enabling citizen voice and government accountability; and enforcing anti-corruption laws and penalties.
This book presents a variety of perspectives on the phenomenon of political and economic corruption—and the link between them—through focused and theoretical analysis. While grounded in the intellectual tradition of classical writers such as Edmund Burke, the volume presents an updated profile of corrupted practices in the contemporary world.
After three volumes presenting the desolate scenario of corruption around the world, volume 4 (of the four-volume reference) focuses on anti-corruption strategies, including a wide variety of approaches that illustrate the scale and difficulty of the task and offer no simple answers. Twenty-nine articles discuss general issues, control via codes of conduct and legal and formal means, anti-corruption measures in civil service and government agencies, prevention and sanctions, people and reform, and whistleblowing. The articles (reproduced in facsimile) are from journals such as Comparative Politics, Crime, Law, and Social Change, Corruption Reform, and European Journal of Development Research. Editors Williams (politics, U. of Durham, UK) and Doig (public services management, Liverpool John Moores U., UK) made the selections. The volume is not indexed, except by name. c. Book News Inc.
This research was motivated by the prevalence and persistence of corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) despite high-profile anti-corruption efforts. The standard theory of corruption is that it is produced primarily by government officials who abuse discretionary powers over state rules and resources to demand bribes for self-enrichment. The demand-side theory of corruption, which assumes that bribe payers are passive victims of avaricious bureaucrats, has dominated research and anti-corruption policymaking over the past two decades. This dissertation, however, departs from the demand-side orthodoxy to examine supply-side bribery - those who pay bribes. It aims a novel lens at three discrete but interrelated levels of corruption praxis - individual, firm and industry - to understand why and how bribery is enacted and routinized as the way of doing business in SSA. Accordingly, three comprehensive empirical studies investigated (1) how individuals enact bribery, factors that motivate enactment and the rewards obtained, (2) why firms engage in bribery and the effect on firm performance and (3) factors that produce and routinize bribery across industries. The dissertation appealed to multidisciplinary perspectives encompassing institutional, agency, reward and structuration theories and employed sequential mixed methods approaches to yield a multi-level theory of corruption. At the individual level, a qualitative study of 32 founders/CEOs reveals that (1) business owners are active initiators and perpetrators of bribery rather than passive victims of it, (2) business owners exercise strategic agency to identify, evaluate, decide and exploit bribery opportunities based on expected rewards, (3) enactment of bribery rewards business owners with unmerited and lucrative contracts and economic rights, (4) rewards reinforce bribery behavior, and (5) bribery is socially embedded, guided by simple rules of reciprocity, gain-sharing and promise-keeping and involves zconnectors"--Ex-military officers, retired politicians and top government officials - who grease its wheels. At the firm level, a quantitative analysis of 2,599 firms provides evidence of significant and positive relationships between enactment of bribery and the level of institutional constraints (i.e., excessive taxation, financing obstacles, red tape and onerous regulations) imposed on firm activities. Further, the data supports a positive and significant relationship between managerial agency and enactment of bribery. Also, the link between bribery and firm performance (measured by sales and employee growth) is positive and significant, evidencing bribery as performance-enhancing. At the industry level, a quantitative evaluation of bribery across three focal industries provides support for direct positive links between bribery and (1) the perception that bribery is commonly anticipated and frequently practiced in the industry (a zmimetic isomorphic effecty), (2) institutional constraints exerted on industry (a zcoercive isomorphic effecty), and (3) the extent of competitive rivalry among industry members for government contracts and services (a zcompetitive isomorphic effecty). Triangulation of results across levels yielded four significant relationships that undergird a multi-level theory of corruption: First, institutional constraints (rules and resources) predict opportunity for bribery. Second, managerial agency is exercised to discover, evaluate, select and enact bribery opportunities based on expected rewards. Third, enactment of bribery is rewarded with lucrative contracts and unmerited economic rights. Finally, imitation of successful bribery practices and competitive rivalry for government resources routinize bribery as the way of doing business in SSA. These findings should pique the interest of business executives, helping them understand pressures their firms face when operating in pervasively corrupt countries and how they might reduce exposure to local institutional norms and constraints. Anti-corruption policies must address the role of CEOs and the institutionalized mechanisms that routinize firm bribery as accepted business practice in the region. For development experts, the results highlight the perverse incentive bribery provides for business owners and firms to forsake productive for unproductive rent-seeking entrepreneurship that ultimately undermines economic growth. Scholars may benefit from the zbig tenty approach used here when investigating a complex social phenomenon like corruption.
This paper argues that corruption patterns are endogenous to political structures. Thus, corruption can be systemic and planned rather than decentralized and coincidental. In an economic system without law or property rights, a kleptocratic state may arise as a predatory hierarchy from a state of pure anarchy. A dictator minimizes the probability of a palace revolution by creating a system of patronage and loyalty through corrupt bureaucracy. Competitive corruption patterns are associated with anarchy and weak dictators, while strong dictators implement a system of monopolistic corruption. Efforts at public sector reform may meet resistance in countries featuring such systemic corruption.
Author : World Bank Publisher : World Bank Publications Page : 127 pages File Size : 42,77 MB Release : 2012-02-01 Category : Political Science ISBN : 0821394762
This book chronicles the anti-corruption reforms in public services in Georgia since the Rose Revolution in late 2003. Through a series of case studies, the book draws out the how of these reforms and distills the key success factors.