Political corruption in the world - 2017
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain.
Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though it is not restricted to these activities. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is also considered political corruption.
Over time, corruption has been defined differently. For example,
in a simple context, while performing work for a government or as a
representative, it is unethical to accept a gift. Any free gift could be
construed as a scheme to lure the recipient towards some biases. In
most cases, the gift is seen as an intention to seek certain favors such
as work promotion, tipping in order to win a contract, job or exemption
from certain tasks in the case of junior worker handing in the gift to a
senior employee who can be key in winning the favor.
Some forms of corruption – now called "institutional corruption"
– are distinguished from bribery and other kinds of obvious personal
gain. A similar problem of corruption arises in any institution that
depends on financial support from people who have interests that may
conflict with the primary purpose of the institution.
An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political
corruption only if the act is directly related to their official duties,
is done under color of law or involves trading in influence.
The activities that constitute illegal corruption differ depending on
the country or jurisdiction. For instance, some political funding
practices that are legal in one place may be illegal in another. In some
cases, government officials have broad or ill-defined powers, which
make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions.
Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US
dollars annually. A state of unrestrained political corruption is known as a kleptocracy, literally meaning "rule by thieves".
Effects
Effects on politics, administration, and institutions
Countries with politicians, public officials or close associates implicated in the Panama Papers leak on April 15, 2016
In politics, corruption undermines democracy and good governance
by flouting or even subverting formal processes. Corruption in
elections and in the legislature reduces accountability and distorts
representation in policymaking; corruption in the judiciary compromises
the rule of law; and corruption in public administration results in the inefficient provision of services. For republics, it violates a basic principle of republicanism regarding the centrality of civic virtue.
More generally, corruption erodes the institutional capacity of
government if procedures are disregarded, resources are siphoned off,
and public offices are bought and sold. Corruption undermines the
legitimacy of government and such democratic values as trust and
tolerance. Recent evidence suggests that variation in the levels of
corruption amongst high-income democracies can vary significantly
depending on the level of accountability of decision-makers. Evidence from fragile states also shows that corruption and bribery can adversely impact trust in institutions.
Corruption can also impact government's provision of goods and services.
It increases the costs of goods and services which arise from
efficiency loss. In the absence of corruption, governmental projects
might be cost-effective at their true costs, however, once corruption
costs are included projects may not be cost-effective so they are not
executed distorting the provision of goods and services.
Economic effects
In the private sector,
corruption increases the cost of business through the price of illicit
payments themselves, the management cost of negotiating with officials
and the risk of breached agreements or detection. Although some claim
corruption reduces costs by cutting bureaucracy,
the availability of bribes can also induce officials to contrive new
rules and delays. Openly removing costly and lengthy regulations are
better than covertly allowing them to be bypassed by using bribes. Where
corruption inflates the cost of business, it also distorts the field of
inquiry and action, shielding firms with connections from competition
and thereby sustaining inefficient firms.
Corruption may have a direct impact on the firm's effective
marginal tax rate. Bribing tax officials can reduce tax payments of the
firm if the marginal bribe rate is below the official marginal tax rate.
However, in Uganda, bribes have a higher negative impact on firms’
activity than taxation. Indeed, a one percentage point increase in
bribes reduces firm's annual growth by three percentage points, while an
increase in 1 percentage point on taxes reduces firm's growth by one
percentage point.
Corruption also generates economic distortion in the public sector by diverting public investment into capital projects where bribes and kickbacks
are more plentiful. Officials may increase the technical complexity of
public sector projects to conceal or pave the way for such dealings,
thus further distorting investment.
Corruption also lowers compliance with construction, environmental, or
other regulations, reduces the quality of government services and
infrastructure, and increases budgetary pressures on government.
Economists argue that one of the factors behind the differing economic development in Africa and Asia is that in Africa, corruption has primarily taken the form of rent extraction with the resulting financial capital moved overseas rather than invested at home (hence the stereotypical, but often accurate, image of African dictators having Swiss bank accounts). In Nigeria, for example, more than $400 billion was stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.
University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers estimated that from 1970 to 1996, capital flight from 30 Sub-Saharan countries totaled $187bn, exceeding those nations' external debts. (The results, expressed in retarded or suppressed development, have been modeled in theory by economist Mancur Olson.)
In the case of Africa, one of the factors for this behavior was
political instability and the fact that new governments often
confiscated previous government's corruptly obtained assets. This
encouraged officials to stash their wealth abroad, out of reach of any
future expropriation. In contrast, Asian administrations such as Suharto's New Order
often took a cut on business transactions or provided conditions for
development, through infrastructure investment, law and order, etc.
Environmental and social effects
Detail from Corrupt Legislation (1896) by Elihu Vedder. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.
Corruption is often most evident in countries with the smallest per
capita incomes, relying on foreign aid for health services. Local
political interception of donated money from overseas is especially
prevalent in Sub-Saharan African nations, where it was reported in the 2006 World Bank Report
that about half of the funds that were donated for health usages were
never invested into the health sectors or given to those needing medical
attention.
Instead, the donated money was expended through "counterfeit drugs,
siphoning off of drugs to the black market, and payments to ghost
employees". Ultimately, there is a sufficient amount of money for health
in developing countries, but local corruption denies the wider
citizenry the resource they require.
Corruption facilitates environmental destruction. While corrupt
societies may have formal legislation to protect the environment, it
cannot be enforced if officials can easily be bribed. The same applies
to social rights worker protection, unionization prevention, and child labor. Violation of these laws rights enables corrupt countries to gain illegitimate economic advantage in the international market.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen
has observed that "there is no such thing as an apolitical food
problem." While drought and other naturally occurring events may trigger
famine
conditions, it is government action or inaction that determines its
severity, and often even whether or not a famine will occur.
Governments with strong tendencies towards kleptocracy can undermine food security even when harvests are good. Officials often steal state property. In Bihar, India, more than 80% of the subsidized food aid to poor is stolen by corrupt officials.
Similarly, food aid is often robbed at gunpoint by governments,
criminals, and warlords alike, and sold for a profit. The 20th century
is full of many examples of governments undermining the food security of
their own nations – sometimes intentionally.
Effects on humanitarian aid
The scale of humanitarian aid to the poor and unstable regions of the world grows, but it is highly vulnerable to corruption, with food aid, construction and other highly valued assistance as the most at risk.
Food aid can be directly and physically diverted from its intended
destination, or indirectly through the manipulation of assessments,
targeting, registration and distributions to favor certain groups or
individuals.
In construction and shelter there are numerous opportunities for
diversion and profit through substandard workmanship, kickbacks for
contracts and favouritism in the provision of valuable shelter material.
Thus while humanitarian aid agencies are usually most concerned about
aid being diverted by including too many, recipients themselves are most
concerned about exclusion. Access to aid may be limited to those with connections, to those who pay bribes or are forced to give sexual favors.
Equally, those able to do so may manipulate statistics to inflate the
number of beneficiaries and siphon off additional assistance.
Malnutrition, illness, wounds, torture, harassment of specific
groups within the population, disappearances, extrajudicial executions
and the forcible displacement of people are all found in many armed
conflicts. Aside from their direct effects on the individuals concerned,
the consequences of these tragedies for local systems must also be
considered: the destruction of crops and places of cultural importance,
the breakdown of economic infrastructure and of health-care facilities
such as hospitals, etc., etc.
Effects on health
Corruption plays a huge role in health care system starting from the
hospital, to the government and lifted to the other institutions that
promote quality and affordable health care to the people. The efficiency
of health care delivery in any country is heavily dependent on
accountable and transparent systems, proper management of both financial
and human resources and timely supply of services to the vulnerable
populace of the nation.
At the basic level, greed skyrockets corruption. When the
structure of the health care system is not adequately addressed
beginning from oversight in healthcare delivery and supply of drugs and
tendering process, mismanagement and misappropriation of funds will
always be observed. Corruption also can undermine health care service
delivery which in turn disorients the lives of the poor. Corruption
leads to violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms as people
supposed to benefit from the basic health care from the governments are
denied due to unscrupulous processes driven by greed. Therefore, for a
country to keep citizens healthy there must be efficient systems and
proper resources that can tame the evils like corruption that underpin
it.
Effects on education
Education forms the basis and the fabric in which a society is
transformed and different facets of well-being are shaped.Corruption in
higher education has been prevalent and calls for immediate
intervention. Increased corruption in higher education has led to
growing global concern among governments, students and educators and
other stakeholders. Those offering services in the higher education
institutions are facing pressure that highly threatens the integral
value of higher education enterprise. Corruption in higher education has
a larger negative influence, it destroys the relation between personal
effort and reward anticipation. Moreover, employees and students develop
a belief that personal success does not come from hard work and merit
but through canvassing with teachers and taking other shortcuts.
Academic promotions in the higher education institutions have been
disabled by unlimited corruption. Presently, promotion is based on
personal connections than professional achievements. This has led to
dramatic increase in the number of professors and exhibits their rapid
status loss.
Utmost the flawed processes in the academic institutions has led to
unbaked graduates who are not well fit to the job market. Corruption
hinders the international standards of an education system.
Additionally, Plagiarism is a form of corruption in academic research,
where it affects originality and disables learning. Individual
violations are in close relation to the operation ways of a system.
Furthermore, the universities may be in relationships and dealings with
business and people in government, which majority of them enrol in
doctoral studies without the undergraduate program.Consequently, money,
power and related influence compromise education standards since they
are fueling factors. A Student may finish thesis report within a shorter
time upon which compromises the quality of work delivered and questions
the threshold of the higher education.
Other areas: public safety, trade unions, police corruption, etc.
Corruption is not specific to poor, developing, or transition
countries. In western countries, cases of bribery and other forms of
corruption in all possible fields exist: under-the-table payments made
to reputed surgeons by patients attempting to be on top of the list of
forthcoming surgeries,
bribes paid by suppliers to the automotive industry in order to sell
low-quality connectors used for instance in safety equipment such as
airbags, bribes paid by suppliers to manufacturers of defibrillators (to
sell low-quality capacitors), contributions paid by wealthy parents to
the "social and culture fund" of a prestigious university in exchange
for it to accept their children, bribes paid to obtain diplomas,
financial and other advantages granted to unionists by members of the
executive board of a car manufacturer in exchange for employer-friendly
positions and votes, etc. Examples are endless.
These various manifestations of corruption can ultimately present
a danger for public health; they can discredit specific, essential
institutions or social relationships. Osipian summarized a 2008 "study
of corruption perceptions among Russians ... .30 percent of the
respondents marked the level of corruption as very high, while another
44 percent as high. 19 percent considered it as average and only 1
percent as low. The most corrupt in people's minds are traffic police
(33 percent), local authorities (28 percent), police (26 percent),
healthcare (16 percent), and education (15 percent). 52 percent of the
respondents had experiences of giving money or gifts to
medical professionals while 36 percent made informal payments to
educators." He claimed that this corruption lowered the rate of economic
growth in Russia, because the students disadvantaged by this corruption
could not adopt better work methods as quickly, lowering thereby total factor productivity for Russia.
Corruption can also affect the various components of sports
activities (referees, players, medical and laboratory staff involved in
anti-doping controls, members of national sport federation and
international committees deciding about the allocation of contracts and
competition places).
Cases exist against (members of) various types of non-profit and
non-government organizations, as well as religious organizations.
Ultimately, the distinction between public and private sector
corruption sometimes appears rather artificial, and national
anti-corruption initiatives may need to avoid legal and other loopholes
in the coverage of the instruments.
Types
Bribery
American lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation
In the context of political corruption, a bribe may involve a payment
given to a government official in exchange of his use of official
powers. Bribery
requires two participants: one to give the bribe, and one to take it.
Either may initiate the corrupt offering; for example, a customs
official may demand bribes to let through allowed (or disallowed) goods,
or a smuggler might offer bribes to gain passage. In some countries the
culture of corruption extends to every aspect of public life, making it
extremely difficult for individuals to operate without resorting to
bribes. Bribes may be demanded in order for an official to do something
he is already paid to do. They may also be demanded in order to bypass
laws and regulations. In addition to their role in private financial
gain, bribes are also used to intentionally and maliciously cause harm
to another (i.e. no financial incentive). In some developing nations, up to half of the population has paid bribes during the past 12 months.
The Council of Europe dissociates active and passive bribery and to incriminates them as separate offences:
- One can define active bribery as "the promising, offering or giving by any person, directly or indirectly, of any undue advantage to any of its public officials, for himself or herself or for anyone else, for him or her to act or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her functions" (article 2 of the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173) of the Council of Europe).
- Passive bribery can be defined as "when committed intentionally, the request or receipt by any [...] public officials, directly or indirectly, of any undue advantage, for himself or herself or for anyone else, or the acceptance of an offer or a promise of such an advantage, to act or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her functions" (article 3 of the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173)).
This dissociation aims to make the early steps (offering, promising,
requesting an advantage) of a corrupt deal already an offence and, thus,
to give a clear signal (from a criminal-policy point-of-view) that
bribery is not acceptable.
Furthermore, such a dissociation makes the prosecution of bribery
offences easier since it can be very difficult to prove that two parties
(the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker) have formally agreed upon a
corrupt deal. In addition, there is often no such formal deal but only a
mutual understanding, for instance when it is common knowledge in a
municipality that to obtain a building permit one has to pay a "fee" to
the decision maker to obtain a favorable decision. A working definition
of corruption is also provided as follows in article 3 of the Civil Law
Convention on Corruption (ETS 174): For
the purpose of this Convention, "corruption" means requesting,
offering, giving or accepting, directly or indirectly, a bribe or any
other undue advantage or prospect thereof, which distorts the proper
performance of any duty or behavior required of the recipient of the
bribe, the undue advantage or the prospect thereof.
Trading in influence
Reformers like the American Joseph Keppler depicted the Senate as controlled by the giant moneybags, who represented the nation's financial trusts and monopolies.
Trading in influence, or influence peddling,
refers a person selling his/her influence over the decision making
process to benefit a third party (person or institution). The difference
with bribery is that this is a tri-lateral relation. From a legal point
of view, the role of the third party (who is the target of the
influence) does not really matter although he/she can be an accessory in
some instances. It can be difficult to make a distinction between this
form of corruption and some forms of extreme and loosely regulated lobbying
where for instance law- or decision-makers can freely "sell" their
vote, decision power or influence to those lobbyists who offer the
highest compensation, including where for instance the latter act on
behalf of powerful clients such as industrial groups who want to avoid
the passing of specific environmental, social, or other regulations
perceived as too stringent, etc. Where lobbying is (sufficiently)
regulated, it becomes possible to provide for a distinctive criteria and
to consider that trading in influence involves the use of "improper
influence", as in article 12 of the Criminal Law Convention on
Corruption (ETS 173) of the Council of Europe.
Patronage
Patronage
refers to favoring supporters, for example with government employment.
This may be legitimate, as when a newly elected government changes the
top officials in the administration in order to effectively implement
its policy. It can be seen as corruption if this means that incompetent
persons, as a payment for supporting the regime, are selected before
more able ones. In nondemocracies many government officials are often
selected for loyalty rather than ability. They may be almost exclusively
selected from a particular group (for example, Sunni Arabs in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the nomenklatura in the Soviet Union, or the Junkers in Imperial Germany) that support the regime in return for such favors. A similar problem can also be seen in Eastern Europe, for example in Romania, where the government is often accused of patronage (when a new government comes to power it rapidly changes most of the officials in the public sector).
Nepotism and cronyism
Favoring relatives (nepotism) or personal friends (cronyism) of an official is a form of illegitimate private gain. This may be combined with bribery, for example demanding that a business should employ a relative
of an official controlling regulations affecting the business. The most
extreme example is when the entire state is inherited, as in North Korea or Syria. A lesser form might be in the Southern United States with Good ol' boys, where women and minorities are excluded. A milder form of cronyism is an "old boy network",
in which appointees to official positions are selected only from a
closed and exclusive social network – such as the alumni of particular
universities – instead of appointing the most competent candidate.
Seeking to harm enemies becomes corruption when official powers
are illegitimately used as means to this end. For example, trumped-up
charges are often brought up against journalists or writers who bring up
politically sensitive issues, such as a politician's acceptance of
bribes.
Gombeenism and parochialism
Gombeenism refers to an individual who is dishonest and corrupt for the purpose of personal gain, more often through monetary, while, parochialism which is also known as parish pump politics relates to placing local or vanity projects ahead of the national interest. For instance in Irish politics, populist left wing political parties will often apply these terms to mainstream establishment political parties and will cite the many cases of Corruption in Ireland, such as the Irish Banking crisis, which found evidence of bribery, cronyism and collusion,
where in some cases politicians who were coming to the end of their
political careers would receive a senior management or committee
position in a company they had dealings with.
Electoral fraud
Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud
affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by
increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote
share of the rival candidates, or both. Also called voter fraud, the mechanisms involved include illegal voter registration, intimidation at polls, voting computer hacking, and improper vote counting.
Embezzlement
Embezzlement
is the theft of entrusted funds. It is political when it involves
public money taken by a public official for use by anyone not specified
by the public. A common type of embezzlement is that of personal use of
entrusted government resources; for example, when an official assigns
public employees to renovate his own house.
Kickbacks
A kickback is an official's share of misappropriated funds allocated from his or her organization to an organization involved in corrupt bidding. For example, suppose that a politician is in charge of choosing how to spend some public funds. He can give a contract to a company
that is not the best bidder, or allocate more than they deserve. In
this case, the company benefits, and in exchange for betraying the
public, the official receives a kickback payment, which is a portion of
the sum the company received. This sum itself may be all or a portion of
the difference between the actual (inflated) payment to the company and
the (lower) market-based price that would have been paid had the
bidding been competitive.
Another example of a kickback would be if a judge receives a
portion of the profits that a business makes in exchange for his
judicial decisions.
Kickbacks are not limited to government officials; any situation
in which people are entrusted to spend funds that do not belong to them
are susceptible to this kind of corruption.
Unholy alliance
An unholy alliance is a coalition among seemingly antagonistic groups for ad hoc
or hidden gain, generally some influential non-governmental group
forming ties with political parties, supplying funding in exchange for
the favorable treatment. Like patronage, unholy alliances are not
necessarily illegal, but unlike patronage, by its deceptive nature and
often great financial resources, an unholy alliance can be much more
dangerous to the public interest. An early use of the term was by former US President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt:
- "To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." – 1912 Progressive Party Platform, attributed to Roosevelt and quoted again in his autobiography, where he connects trusts and monopolies (sugar interests, Standard Oil, etc.) to Woodrow Wilson, Howard Taft, and consequently both major political parties.
Involvement in organized crime
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Montenegro's president Milo Đukanović is often described as having strong links to Montenegrin mafia.
An illustrative example of official involvement in organized crime can be found from the 1920s and 1930s Shanghai, where Huang Jinrong was a police chief in the French concession, while simultaneously being a gang boss and co-operating with Du Yuesheng, the local gang
ringleader. The relationship kept the flow of profits from the gang's
gambling dens, prostitution, and protection rackets undisturbed and safe
.
The United States accused Manuel Noriega's government in Panama of being a "narcokleptocracy", a corrupt government profiting on illegal drug trade. Later the U.S. invaded Panama and captured Noriega.
Conditions favorable for corruption
It is argued that the following conditions are favorable for corruption:
- Information deficits
- Lacking freedom of information legislation. In contrast, for example: The Indian Right to Information Act 2005 is perceived to have "already engendered mass movements in the country that is bringing the lethargic, often corrupt bureaucracy to its knees and changing power equations completely."
- Lack of investigative reporting in the local media.
- Contempt for or negligence of exercising freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
- Weak accounting practices, including lack of timely financial management.
- Lack of measurement of corruption. For example, using regular surveys of households and businesses in order to quantify the degree of perception of corruption in different parts of a nation or in different government institutions may increase awareness of corruption and create pressure to combat it. This will also enable an evaluation of the officials who are fighting corruption and the methods used.
- Tax havens which tax their own citizens and companies but not those from other nations and refuse to disclose information necessary for foreign taxation. This enables large-scale political corruption in the foreign nations.
- Lacking control of the government.
- Lacking civic society and non-governmental organizations which monitor the government.
- An individual voter may have a rational ignorance regarding politics, especially in nationwide elections, since each vote has little weight.
- Weak civil service, and slow pace of reform.
- Weak rule of law.
- Weak legal profession.
- Weak judicial independence.
- Lacking protection of whistleblowers.
- Lack of benchmarking, that is continual detailed evaluation of procedures and comparison to others who do similar things, in the same government or others, in particular comparison to those who do the best work. The Peruvian organization Ciudadanos al Dia has started to measure and compare transparency, costs, and efficiency in different government departments in Peru. It annually awards the best practices which has received widespread media attention. This has created competition among government agencies in order to improve.
- Individual officials routinely handle cash, instead of handling payments by giro or on a separate cash desk – illegitimate withdrawals from supervised bank accounts are much more difficult to conceal.
- Public funds are centralized rather than distributed. For example, if $1,000 is embezzled from a local agency that has $2,000 funds, it is easier to notice than from a national agency with $2,000,000 funds. See the principle of subsidiarity.
- Large, unsupervised public investments.
- Pay disproportionately lower than that of the average citizen.
- Government licenses needed to conduct business, e.g., import licenses, encourage bribing and kickbacks.
- Long-time work in the same position may create relationships inside and outside the government which encourage and help conceal corruption and favoritism. Rotating government officials to different positions and geographic areas may help prevent this; for instance certain high rank officials in French government services (e.g. treasurer-paymasters general) must rotate every few years.
- Costly political campaigns, with expenses exceeding normal sources of political funding, especially when funded with taxpayer money.
- A single group or family controlling most of the key government offices. Lack of laws forbidding and limiting number of members of the same family to be in office .
- Less interaction with officials reduces the opportunities for corruption. For example, using the Internet for sending in required information, like applications and tax forms, and then processing this with automated computer systems. This may also speed up the processing and reduce unintentional human errors. See e-Government.
- A windfall from exporting abundant natural resources may encourage corruption.
- War and other forms of conflict correlate with a breakdown of public security.
- Social conditions
- Self-interested closed cliques and "old boy networks".
- Family-, and clan-centered social structure, with a tradition of nepotism/favouritism being acceptable.
- A gift economy, such as the Soviet blat system, emerges in a Communist centrally planned economy.
- Lacking literacy and education among the population.
- Frequent discrimination and bullying among the population.
- Tribal solidarity, giving benefits to certain ethnic groups. In India for example, the political system, it has become common that the leadership of national and regional parties are passed from generation to generation.
- creating a system in which a family holds the center of power. Some examples are most of the Dravidian parties of south India and also the Nehru-Gandhi family of the Congress party, which is one of the two major political parties in India.
- Lack of strong laws which forbid members of the same family to contest elections and be in office as in India where local elections are often contested between members of the same powerful family by standing in opposite parties so that whoever is elected that particular family is at tremendous benefit.
Media
Thomas Jefferson
observed a tendency for "The functionaries of every government ... to
command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There
is no safe deposit [for liberty and property] ... without information.
Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe."
Recent research supports Jefferson's claim. Brunetti and Weder
found "evidence of a significant relationship between more press freedom
and less corruption in a large cross-section of countries." They also
presented "evidence which suggests that the direction of causation runs
from higher press freedom to lower corruption." Adserà, Boix, and Payne found that increases in newspaper readership led to increased political accountability and lower corruption in data from roughly 100 countries and from different states in the US.
Snyder and Strömberg found "that a poor fit between newspaper
markets and political districts reduces press coverage of politics. ...
Congressmen who are less covered by the local press work less for their
constituencies: they are less likely to stand witness before
congressional hearings ... . Federal spending is lower in areas where
there is less press coverage of the local members of congress." Schulhofer-Wohl and Garrido found that the year after the Cincinnati Post
closed in 2007, "fewer candidates ran for municipal office in the
Kentucky suburbs most reliant on the Post, incumbents became more likely
to win re-election, and voter turnout and campaign spending fell.
An analysis of the evolution of mass media in the United States and European Union
since World War II noted mixed results from the growth of the Internet:
"The digital revolution has been good for freedom of expression [and]
information [but] has had mixed effects on freedom of the press": It
has disrupted traditional sources of funding, and new forms of Internet
journalism have replaced only a tiny fraction of what's been lost.
Size of public sector
Extensive
and diverse public spending is, in itself, inherently at risk of
cronyism, kickbacks, and embezzlement. Complicated regulations and
arbitrary, unsupervised official conduct exacerbate the problem. This is
one argument for privatization and deregulation.
Opponents of privatization see the argument as ideological. The
argument that corruption necessarily follows from the opportunity is
weakened by the existence of countries with low to non-existent
corruption but large public sectors, like the Nordic countries. These countries score high on the Ease of Doing Business Index, due to good and often simple regulations and have rule of law
firmly established. Therefore, due to their lack of corruption in the
first place, they can run large public sectors without inducing
political corruption. Recent evidence that takes both the size of
expenditures and regulatory complexity into account has found that
high-income democracies with more expansive state sectors do indeed have
higher levels of corruption.
Like other governmental economic activities, also privatization,
such as in the sale of government-owned property, is particularly at the
risk of cronyism. Privatizations in Russia, Latin America, and East
Germany were accompanied by large-scale corruption during the sale of
the state-owned companies. Those with political connections unfairly
gained large wealth, which has discredited privatization in these
regions. While media have reported widely the grand corruption that
accompanied the sales, studies have argued that in addition to increased
operating efficiency, daily petty corruption is, or would be, larger
without privatization and that corruption is more prevalent in
non-privatized sectors. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that
extralegal and unofficial activities are more prevalent in countries
that privatized less.
In the European Union, the principle of subsidiarity is applied: a
government service should be provided by the lowest, most local
authority that can competently provide it. An effect is that
distribution of funds in multiple instances discourages embezzlement
because even small sums missing will be noticed. In contrast, in a
centralized authority, even minute proportions of public funds can be
large sums of money.
Governmental corruption
Ferdinand Marcos was a Philippine dictator and kleptocrat. His regime was infamous for its corruption.
If the highest echelons of the governments also take advantage of
corruption or embezzlement from the state's treasury, it is sometimes
referred to the neologism kleptocracy. Members of the government can take advantage of the natural resources
(e.g., diamonds and oil in a few prominent cases) or state-owned
productive industries. A number of corrupt governments have enriched
themselves via foreign aid. Indeed, there is a positive correlation
between aid flows and high levels of corruption within recipient
countries.
Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa consists primarily of extracting economic rent and moving the resulting financial capital overseas instead of investing at home. Authors Leonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce estimate that from 1970 to 2008, capital flight from 33 sub-Saharan countries totalled $700 billion.
A corrupt dictatorship typically results in many years of general hardship and suffering for the vast majority of citizens as civil society and the rule of law disintegrate. In addition, corrupt dictators routinely ignore economic and social problems in their quest to amass ever more wealth and power.
The classic case of a corrupt, exploitive dictator often given is the regime of Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which he renamed Zaire) from 1965 to 1997. It is said that usage of the term kleptocracy gained popularity largely in response to a need to accurately describe Mobutu's regime. Another classic case is Nigeria, especially under the rule of General Sani Abacha who was de facto president of Nigeria from 1993 until his death in 1998. He is reputed to have stolen some US$3–4 billion. He and his relatives are often mentioned in Nigerian 419 letter scams claiming to offer vast fortunes for "help" in laundering his stolen "fortunes", which in reality turn out not to exist. More than $400 billion was stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.
More recently, articles in various financial periodicals, most notably Forbes magazine, have pointed to Fidel Castro, General Secretary of the Republic of Cuba
from 1959 until his death in 2016, of likely being the beneficiary of
up to $900 million, based on "his control" of state-owned companies.
Opponents of his regime claim that he has used money amassed through
weapons sales, narcotics, international loans, and confiscation of
private property to enrich himself and his political cronies who hold
his dictatorship together, and that the $900 million published by Forbes is merely a portion of his assets, although that needs to be proven.
Judiciary corruption
There
are two methods of corruption of the judiciary: the state (through
budget planning and various privileges), and the private. Budget of the judiciary in many transitional and developing countries
is almost completely controlled by the executive. The latter undermines
the separation of powers, as it creates a critical financial dependence
of the judiciary. The proper national wealth distribution including the
government spending on the judiciary is subject of the constitutional economics. Judicial corruption can be difficult to completely eradicate, even in developed countries.
Opposing corruption
Mobile telecommunications and radio broadcasting help to fight corruption, especially in developing regions like Africa, where other forms of communications are limited.
In India, the anti-corruption bureau fights against corruption, and a new ombudsman bill called Jan Lokpal Bill is being prepared.
In the 1990s, initiatives were taken at an international level (in particular by the European Community, the Council of Europe, the OECD) to put a ban on corruption: in 1996, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe,
for instance, adopted a comprehensive Programme of Action against
Corruption and, subsequently, issued a series of anti-corruption
standard-setting instruments:
- the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173);
- the Civil Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 174);
- the Additional Protocol to the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 191);
- the Twenty Guiding Principles for the Fight against Corruption (Resolution (97) 24);
- the Recommendation on Codes of Conduct for Public Officials (Recommendation No. R (2000) 10);
- the Recommendation on Common Rules against Corruption in the Funding of Political Parties and Electoral Campaigns (Rec(2003)4)
The purpose of these instruments was to address the various forms of
corruption (involving the public sector, the private sector, the
financing of political activities, etc.) whether they had a strictly
domestic or also a transnational dimension. To monitor the
implementation at national level of the requirements and principles
provided in those texts, a monitoring mechanism – the Group of States Against Corruption (also known as GRECO) (French: Groupe d'Etats contre la corruption) was created.
Further conventions were adopted at the regional level under the aegis of the Organization of American States (OAS or OEA), the African Union, and in 2003, at the universal level under that of the United Nations Convention against Corruption
where it is enabled with mutual legal assistance between the states
parties regarding investigations, processes and judicial actions related
to corruption crimes, as established in article 46.
Whistleblowers
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Protesters in support of American whistleblower Edward Snowden, Berlin, Germany, 30 August 2014
A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is
a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed
illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is
either private or public. The information of alleged wrongdoing can be
classified in many ways: violation of company policy/rules, law,
regulation, or threat to public interest/national security, as well as
fraud, and corruption. Those who become whistleblowers can choose to
bring information or allegations to the surface either internally or
externally. Internally, a whistleblower can bring his/her accusations to
the attention of other people within the accused organization such as
an immediate supervisor. Externally, a whistleblower can bring
allegations to light by contacting a third party outside of an accused
organization such as the media, government, law enforcement, or those
who are concerned. Whistleblowers, however, take the risk of facing
stiff reprisal and retaliation from those who are accused or alleged of
wrongdoing.
Because of this, a number of laws exist to protect
whistleblowers. Some third-party groups even offer protection to
whistleblowers, but that protection can only go so far. Whistleblowers
face legal action, criminal charges, social stigma, and termination from
any position, office, or job. Two other classifications of
whistleblowing are private and public. The classifications relate to the
type of organizations someone chooses to whistle-blow on private
sector, or public sector. Depending on many factors, both can have
varying results. However, whistleblowing in the public sector
organization is more likely to result in criminal charges and possible
custodial sentences. A whistleblower who chooses to accuse a private
sector organization or agency is more likely to face termination and
legal and civil charges.
Deeper questions and theories of whistleblowing and why people
choose to do so can be studied through an ethical approach.
Whistleblowing is a topic of ongoing ethical debate. Leading arguments
in the ideological camp that whistleblowing is ethical to maintain that
whistleblowing is a form of civil disobedience, and aims to protect the
public from government wrongdoing. In the opposite camp, some see
whistleblowing as unethical for breaching confidentiality, especially in
industries that handle sensitive client or patient information. Legal
protection can also be granted to protect whistleblowers, but that
protection is subject to many stipulations. Hundreds of laws grant
protection to whistleblowers, but stipulations can easily cloud that
protection and leave whistleblowers vulnerable to retaliation and legal
trouble. However, the decision and action have become far more
complicated with recent advancements in technology and communication.
Whistleblowers frequently face reprisal, sometimes at the hands of the
organization or group they have accused, sometimes from related
organizations, and sometimes under law. Questions about the legitimacy
of whistleblowing, the moral responsibility of whistleblowing, and the
appraisal of the institutions of whistleblowing are part of the field of
political ethics.
Measuring corruption
Measuring
corruption accurately is difficult if not impossible due to the illicit
nature of the transaction and imprecise definitions of corruption.
Few reliable measures of the magnitude of corruption exists and among
those, there is a high level of heterogeneity. One of the most common
ways to estimate corruption is through perception surveys. They have the
advantage of good coverage, however, they do not measure corruption
precisely. While "corruption" indices first appeared in 1995 with the Corruption Perceptions Index CPI, all of these metrics address different proxies for corruption, such as public perceptions of the extent of the problem.
However, over time the refinement of methods and validation checks
against objective indicators has meant that, while not perfect, many of
these indicators are getting better at consistently and validly
measuring the scale of corruption.
Transparency International, an anti-corruption NGO,
pioneered this field with the CPI, first released in 1995. This work is
often credited with breaking a taboo and forcing the issue of
corruption into high-level development policy discourse. Transparency
International currently publishes three measures, updated annually: a
CPI (based on aggregating third-party polling of public perceptions of
how corrupt different countries are); a Global Corruption Barometer
(based on a survey of general public attitudes toward and experience of
corruption); and a Bribe Payers Index,
looking at the willingness of foreign firms to pay bribes. The
Corruption Perceptions Index is the best known of these metrics, though
it has drawn much criticism and may be declining in influence. In 2013 Transparency International
published a report on the "Government Defence Anti-corruption Index".
This index evaluates the risk of corruption in countries' military
sector.
The World Bank collects a range of data on corruption, including survey responses from over 100,000 firms worldwide and a set of indicators of governance and institutional quality. Moreover, one of the six dimensions of governance measured by the Worldwide Governance Indicators
is Control of Corruption, which is defined as "the extent to which
power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand
forms of corruption, as well as 'capture' of the state by elites and private interests."
While the definition itself is fairly precise, the data aggregated into
the Worldwide Governance Indicators is based on any available polling:
questions range from "is corruption a serious problem?" to measures of
public access to information, and not consistent across countries.
Despite these weaknesses, the global coverage of these datasets has led
to their widespread adoption, most notably by the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
A number of parties have collected survey data, from the public
and from experts, to try to gauge the level of corruption and bribery,
as well as its impact on political and economic outcomes.
A second wave of corruption metrics has been created by Global Integrity, the International Budget Partnership, and many lesser known local groups. These metrics include the Global Integrity Index,
first published in 2004. These second wave projects aim to create
policy change by identifying resources more effectively and creating
checklists toward incremental reform. Global Integrity and the
International Budget Partnership
each dispense with public surveys and instead uses in-country experts
to evaluate "the opposite of corruption" – which Global Integrity
defines as the public policies that prevent, discourage, or expose
corruption.
These approaches complement the first wave, awareness-raising tools by
giving governments facing public outcry a checklist which measures
concrete steps toward improved governance.
Typical second wave corruption metrics do not offer the worldwide
coverage found in first wave projects and instead focus on localizing
information gathered to specific problems and creating deep,
"unpackable" content that matches quantitative and qualitative data.
Alternative approaches, such as the British aid agency's Drivers
of Change research, skips numbers and promotes understanding corruption
via political economy analysis of who controls power in a given society.
Institutions dealing with political corruption
- Global Witness, an international NGO established in 1993 that works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide
- Group of States Against Corruption, a body established under the Council of Europe to monitor the implementation of instruments adopted by member states to combat political corruption
- Independent Commission Against Corruption
- International Anti-Corruption Academy
- Transparency International, a non-governmental organization that monitors and publicizes corporate and political corruption in international development
- Corruption Perceptions Index, published yearly by Transparency International
- FreedomGuard, Ltd., a United States public benefit authority empowered to identify, investigate, and civilly prosecute federal & state government corruption
