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.[1]
Some forms of corruption – now called "institutional corruption"[2] – are distinguished from bribery and other kinds of obvious personal gain. For example, certain state institutions may consistently act against the interests of the public, such as by misusing public funds for their own interest, or by engaging in illegal or immoral behavior with impunity. Bribery and overt criminal acts by individuals may not necessarily be evident, but the institution nonetheless acts immorally as a whole. The mafia state phenomenon is an example of institutional corruption.
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.[3] A state of unrestrained political corruption is known as a kleptocracy, literally meaning "rule by thieves".
Trying to influence voters by promising freebies, facilities or favours to a particular section (race, religion, economic level etc) of society is also a kind of political corruption. Perhaps the highest level of corruption occurs when bribe is paid by business houses to make state policy skewed towards them.
Corruption is a difficult concept to define. A proper definition of corruption requires a multi-dimensional approach. Machiavelli popularized the oldest dimension of corruption as the decline of virtue among political officials and the citizenry. The psychologist Horst-Eberhard Richter's modernized version defines corruption as the undermining of political values. Corruption as the decline of virtue has been criticized as too broad and far too subjective to be universalized. The second dimension of corruption is corruption as deviant behavior. Sociologist Christian Höffling and Economist J.J. Sentuira both characterized corruption as social illness; the latter defined corruption as the misuse of public power for one's profit.
The third dimension is the quid pro quo. Corruption always is an exchange between two or more persons/parties where the persons/parties possess economic goods, and the other person/parties possess a transferred power to be used, according to fixed rules and norms, toward a common good. Fourth, there are also different levels of societal perception of corruption. Heidenheimer divides corruption into three categories. The first category is called white corruption; this level of corruption is mostly viewed with tolerance and may even be lawful and legitimate; typically based on family ties and patron-client systems. The type of corruption often occurring in constitutional states or state transitioning to a more democratic society is called grey corruption is considered reprehensible according to a society's moral norms, but the persons involved are still mostly lacking any sense of doing something wrong. The third category, black corruption is so severe that it violates a society's norms and laws. The final dimension is called "shadow politics;" this is part of the informal political process that goes beyond legitimate informal political agreements to behavior that is purposefully concealed.[4]
Consequences
Consequences on politics, administration, and institutions
Countries with politicians, public officials or close associates implicated in the Panama Papers leak on April 15, 2016
Political 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.[5] 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 democratic values such as political trust. 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.[5] Evidence from fragile states also shows that corruption and bribery can adversely impact trust in institutions.[6][7] 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.[8]
Consequences on economy
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.[9]
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.[8] 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.[10]
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.[11] 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.[12]
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.[13] (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.
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.[14]
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.[14]
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.[15]
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.[15] 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.[16]
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.[17] 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.[17]
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.[17] Thus while humanitarian aid agencies are usually most concerned about aid being diverted by including too many, recipients themselves are most concerned about exclusion.[17] Access to aid may be limited to those with connections, to those who pay bribes or are forced to give sexual favors.[17] Equally, those able to do so may manipulate statistics to inflate the number of beneficiaries and siphon off additional assistance.[17]
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.[18]
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.[19]
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.
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.[20] 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.[21] 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.[22]
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,[23] 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.[24]
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.
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).[citation needed] In some developing nations, up to half of the population has paid bribes during the past 12 months.[25]
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)[26] 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)).[26]
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.[citation needed] 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):[27] 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.
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 to 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)[26] of the Council of Europe.
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).[28]
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 refers to an individual who is dishonest and corrupt for the purpose of personal gain, often monetary, while parochialism, which is also known as parish pump politics, relates to placing local or vanity projects ahead of the national interest.[29][30][31][32] 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 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.
Malaysia's former Prime Minister Najib Razak was found guilty in the corruption trial over the multi-billion-dollar 1MDB scandal. He is currently serving his sentence in Kajang Prison.
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. Ponzi schemes are an example of embezzlement. Some embezzlers "skim off the top" so that they continually acquire a small amount over a particular time interval. This method reduces the likelihood of being caught. On the other hand, some embezzlers steal a very large amount of goods or funds in a single instance and then disappear. Sometimes company managers underreport income to their supervisors and keep the difference. 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.[37]
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.
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 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 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[38] and quoted again in his autobiography,[39] where he connects trusts and monopolies (sugar interests, Standard Oil, etc.) to Woodrow Wilson, Howard Taft, and consequently both major political parties.
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.[citation needed]
Some research indicates that political corruption is contagious: the revelation of corruption in a sector leads others in the sector to engage in corruption.[42]
It is argued[by whom?] 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."[43]
Lack of investigative reporting in the local media.[44]
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.[45][citation needed]
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.[46]
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.[47](See Resource curse)
War and other forms of conflict correlate with a breakdown of public security.
Tribal solidarity, giving benefits to certain ethnic groups. In the Indian political system, for example, it has become common that the leadership of national and regional parties are passed from generation to generation,[48][49] 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."[50] 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.[51]
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."[52] 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.[53]
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.[54]
Media responses to whistleblower incidents or reports, and to matters which generate skepticism in established law and government but may not technically be whistleblower incidents, are limited by the prevalence of political correctness and speech codes in many Western nations. In China and many other East Asian countries the state-enforced speech codes limit or, in their view, channel the efforts of the media and civil society to reduce public corruption.
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.[55] 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.[5]
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.[56]
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.
Conditions unfavorable for corruption
Wealth and power can have a compounding effect on political corruption, however, the immunity from the law that money and influence bring will not come into effect when a powerful individual injures or harms another powerful individual. An example of this immunity being broken is Bernie Madoff, who while being rich and powerful himself, stole from other rich and powerful individuals. This resulted in his eventual arrest despite his status.[57] Level of political competitiveness can affect the degree of political corruption.[58] Increasing salaries can decrease political corruption in lower income countries,[59] while another study found an increase of political corruption with larger salaries of politicians relative to the average wage.[60] Lower political corruption was found for incumbent politicians seeking re-election.[60]
Governmental corruption
Ferdinand Marcos (pictured with his daughter Imee) was a Philippine dictator and kleptocrat. His regime was infamous for its corruption.Russia handing over the symbolic relay baton for the hosting rights of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar in June 2018
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 neologismkleptocracy. 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.[62][63]
US Military Police officer restraining and sedating prisoner, while a soldier holds him down
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.[65] 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 billion–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.[66] More than $400 billion was stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.[67]
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.[68]Judicial corruption can be difficult to completely eradicate, even in developed countries.[69]
Opposition to corruption
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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,[71] 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);[26]
the Civil Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 174);[27]
the Additional Protocol to the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 191);[72]
the Twenty Guiding Principles for the Fight against Corruption (Resolution (97) 24);[73]
the Recommendation on Codes of Conduct for Public Officials (Recommendation No. R (2000) 10);[74]
the Recommendation on Common Rules against Corruption in the Funding of Political Parties and Electoral Campaigns (Rec(2003)4)[75]
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.
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.
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.[76] 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.[8] 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.[77] 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.[78]
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[77][79][80] and may be declining in influence.[81] 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.[82]
The World Bank collects a range of data on corruption,[83] including survey responses from over 100,000 firms worldwide[84] and a set of indicators of governance and institutional quality.[85] 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."[86] 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.[76]
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.[6][7] A second wave of corruption metrics has been created by Global Integrity, the International Budget Partnership,[87] and many lesser known local groups. These metrics include the Global Integrity Index,[88] 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[89] 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.[90] These approaches complement the first wave, awareness-raising tools by giving governments facing public outcry a checklist which measures concrete steps toward improved governance.[76]
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"[clarification needed] 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.[76] Another approach, suggested for when conventional measures of corruption are unavailable, is to look at the bodyfat of officials, after finding that obesity of cabinet ministers in post-Soviet states was highly correlated with more accurate measures.[91][92]
FreedomGuard, Ltd., a United States public benefit authority empowered to identify, investigate, and civilly prosecute federal & state government 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
FPJ's Ang Probinsyano - 2015–2022's longest running action-suspense drama about a policeman turned revolutionary vigilante played by Coco Martin.It is a television adaptation based on the 1997 film itself.
Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty and to incline the individual to act contrary to their duty and the known rules of honesty and integrity. With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Corrupt solicitation, acceptance, or transfer of value in exchange for official action."
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities like bribery, influence peddling, and embezzlement, as well as practices that are legal in many countries, such as lobbying. Political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain.
Corruption in India is an issue which affects economy of central, state, and local government agencies. Corruption is blamed for stunting the economy of India. A study conducted by Transparency International in 2005 recorded that more than 62% of Indians had at some point or another paid a bribe to a public official to get a job done. In 2008, another report showed that about 50% of Indians had first hand experience of paying bribes or using contacts to get services performed by public offices. In Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 to 100, India scored 39. When ranked by score, India ranked 93rd among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90, the worst score was 11, and the average score was 43. For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among the countries of the Asia Pacific region was 85, the lowest score was 17, and the average score was 45. Various factors contribute to corruption, including officials siphoning money from government social welfare schemes. Examples include the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the National Rural Health Mission. Other areas of corruption include India's trucking industry, which is forced to pay billions of rupees in bribes annually to numerous regulatory and police stops on interstate highways.
The institutional corruption in Angola refers to the pervasive and long-standing issue of corruption within the country's government and public institutions. The aftermath of the 30-year civil war and the influence of the Soviet command economy have resulted in significant institutional damage and the emergence of a centralized government with authoritarian tendencies. This has allowed the president and his associates to exert control over the nation's resources, enabling them to exploit the economy for personal gain through legal and extra-legal means.
Economics of corruption deals with the misuse of public power for private benefit and its economic impact on society. This discipline aims to study the causes and consequences of corruption and how it affects the economic functioning of the state.
Corruption in China post-1949 refers to the abuse of political power for private ends typically by members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who hold the majority of power in the country. Corruption is a very significant problem in China, impacting all aspects of administration, law enforcement, healthcare and education. Since the Chinese economic reforms began, corruption has been attributed to "organizational involution" caused by the market liberalization reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping. Like other socialist economies that have undertaken economic reforms, such as post-Soviet Eastern Europe and Central Asia, reform-era China has experienced increasing levels of corruption.
While hard data on corruption is difficult to collect, corruption in Indonesia is clearly seen through public opinion, collated through surveys as well as observation of how each system runs.
Corruption in Afghanistan is a widespread and growing problem in Afghan society. Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the country in 162nd place out of 180 countries. The 180 countries of the Index are scored on a scale from 0 to 100 according to the perceived corruption in the public sector, and then ranked by their score. Afghanistan's 2023 ranking is based on a score of 20. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90, the average score was 43, and the worst score was 11. For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among the countries of the Asia Pacific region was 85, the average score was 45 and the lowest score was 17. In this region, only North Korea had a lower score than Afghanistan. The Taliban significantly tackled corruption upon taking power in 2021; Afghanistan was ranked in 150th place in the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, following a ranking of 174th in 2021.
Corruption in Italy is a major problem. In Transparency International's annual surveys, Italy has consistently been regarded as one of the most corrupt countries in the Eurozone. Political corruption remains a major problem, particularly in Lombardy, Campania and Sicily where corruption perception is at a high level. Political parties are ranked the most corrupt institution in Italy, closely followed by public officials and Parliament, according to Transparency International. But in the 2013 Global Corruption Barometer report, Italy is in 17th position in front of the United Kingdom (18th), Switzerland (21st) and the United States (22nd).
Corruption in Sweden has been defined as "the abuse of power" by Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå). By receiving bribes, bribe takers abuse their position of power, which is consistent with how the National Anti-Corruption Unit of the Swedish Prosecution Authority specifies the term. Although bribes and improper rewards are central in the definition of corruption in Sweden, corruption in the sense of "abuse of power" can also manifest itself in other crimes such as misuse of office, embezzlement, fraud and breach of trust against a principal.
Corruption in Switzerland describes the prevention and occurrence of corruption in Switzerland.
Corruption in Latvia is examined on this page.
Corruption in Georgia had been an issue in the post-Soviet decades. Before the 2003 Rose Revolution, according to Foreign Policy, Georgia was among the most corrupt nations in Eurasia. The level of corruption abated dramatically, however, after the revolution. In 2010, Transparency International (TI) said that Georgia was "the best corruption-buster in the world." While low-level corruption had earlier been largely eliminated, Transparency International Georgia since 2020 has also documented dozens of cases of high-level corruption that remain to be prosecuted.
Since independence, corruption has been more than prevalent in Cameroon. In fact, corruption has become pervasive and has affected all sectors of the government and civil society including the executive, judiciary, police, and even the private sector. The main causes being a deep lack of political will to fight corruption and neopatrimonialism. Other causes include; personal interests and absence of duty conscience, weak judiciary and almost nonexistent opposition in the legislative, nepotism and favouritism, ineffective system of accountability, among others.
Corruption in Sudan is substantial, as it is considered one of the most corrupt nations in the world. On the 2010 World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators, on one hundred point scale, it scored in the single digits in every category, including 0.9 for political stability, 6.2 for rule of law, 7.2 for regulatory quality, 6.7 for government effectiveness, and 4.3 for control of corruption. In 2011 Freedom House named Sudan as one of the worst nations for human rights.
The appearance of corruption is a principle of law mentioned in, or relevant to, several U.S. Supreme Court decisions related to campaign finance in the United States, while the basis of the principle "corruption" refers to dishonest or illegal behavior for personal gain. Corruption has existed since ancient times, and there are a series of factors that cause the appearance of it. On the other hand, corruption adversely affects these factors. In the process of fighting against the appearance of corruption, both the government and different organizations take steps to prevent it.
Corruption in Bolivia is a major problem that has been called an accepted part of life in the country. It can be found at all levels of Bolivian society. Citizens of the country perceive the judiciary, police and public administration generally as the country's most corrupt. Corruption is also widespread among officials who are supposed to control the illegal drug trade and among those working in and with extractive industries.
Corruption in Tajikistan is a widespread phenomenon that is found in all spheres of Tajik society. The situation is essentially similar to that in the other former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Reliable specifics about corruption can be difficult to come by, however, as can hard information about the effectiveness of supposed anti-corruption initiatives.
Anti-corruption comprises activities that oppose or inhibit corruption. Just as corruption takes many forms, anti-corruption efforts vary in scope and in strategy. A general distinction between preventive and reactive measures is sometimes drawn. In such framework, investigative authorities and their attempts to unveil corrupt practices would be considered reactive, while education on the negative impact of corruption, or firm-internal compliance programs are classified as the former.
Corruption in Niger has a long history in pre-colonial and colonial era, as well as in the current state and has been a pervasive issue in the country's political, economic, and social landscape. The colonial administration mismanaged public funds, leading to inefficiencies and waste. Corrupt officials often went unpunished, perpetuating a culture of corruption.
↑ Alemann, Ulrich Von. 2004. "The Unknown Depths of Political Theory: the case for a multidimensional concept of corruption." Crime, Law & Social Change 42(1): 25-34. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CRIS.0000041035.21045.1d
1 2 Hamilton, A. and Hudson, J. (2014) The Tribes that Bind: Attitudes to the Tribe and Tribal Leader in the Sudan. Bath Economic Research Papers 31/14. Archived 2015-02-06 at the Wayback Machine
1 2 Hamilton, A. and Hudson, J. (2014) Bribery and Identity: Evidence from Sudan. Bath Economic Research Papers 30/14.Archived 2015-02-06 at the Wayback Machine
↑ "How common is bribe-paying?". Archived from the original on April 5, 2012. ...a relatively high proportion of families in a group of Central Eastern European, African, and Latin American countries paid a bribe in the previous twelve months.
↑ Shanklin, E. (1994). "Life Underneath the Market". In Chang, C.; Koster, H. A. (eds.). Pastoralists at the Periphery: Herders in a Capitalist World. University of Arizona. ISBN9780816514304.
↑ Starr, Paul (2012). "An Unexpected Crisis: The News Media in Post-industrial Democracies"(PDF). International Journal of Press/Politics. 17 (2): 234–242. doi:10.1177/1940161211434422. S2CID146729965. Retrieved 2014-08-31. Since 2000, the newspaper industry alone has lost an estimated "$1.6 billion in annual reporting and editing capacity... or roughly 30 per cent," but the new non-profit money coming into journalism has made up less than one-tenth that amount.
↑ Alfano, Maria Rosaria; Baraldi, Anna Laura; Cantabene, Claudia (2013). "The role of political competition in the link between electoral systems and corruption: The Italian case". The Journal of Socio-Economics. 47: 1–10. doi:10.1016/j.socec.2013.07.005.
↑ Van Rijckeghem, Caroline; Weder, Beatrice (2001). "Bureaucratic corruption and the rate of temptation: do wages in the civil service affect corruption, and by how much?". Journal of Development Economics. 65 (2): 307–331. doi:10.1016/S0304-3878(01)00139-0.
1 2 Galtung, Fredrik (2006). "Measuring the Immeasurable: Boundaries and Functions of (Macro) Corruption Indices," in Measuring Corruption, Charles Sampford, Arthur Shacklock, Carmel Connors, and Fredrik Galtung, Eds. (Ashgate): 101–130.
↑ Sik, Endre (2002). "The Bad, the Worse and the Worst: Guesstimating the Level of Corruption". In Kotkin, Stephen; Sajo, Andras (eds.). Political Corruption in Transition: A Skeptic's Handbook. Budapest: Central European University Press. pp.91–113. ISBN978-963-9241-46-6.
↑ Arndt, Christiane and Charles Oman (2006). Uses and Abuses of Governance Indicators (Paris: OECD Development Centre).
↑ Blavatskyy, Pavlo (18 Jul 2020). "Obesity of politicians and corruption in post-Soviet countries". Economics of Transition and Institutional Change. 2020 (2): 343–356. doi:10.1111/ecot.12259. S2CID225574749.
↑ Meacham, Jon (September 11, 2018). "Henry Adams's 1880 Novel, 'Democracy,' Resonates Now More Than Ever". The New York Times. Retrieved March 3, 2019. It is a reflection on corruption within the political class, but, read carefully, it also reinforces an ancient view that those who are disgusted with republican government need to remember that the fault, as Cassius in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" remarked, lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.
↑ Frum, David. "The Financier". FrumForum. Retrieved March 3, 2019. Cowperwood had to build his fortune in a world in which interest rates of 10% and 15% were very commonplace things, and not just because people were poor and money was scarce. Capital was expensive because business was so non-transparent. Companies disclosed only what they wished to disclose, and investors demanded compensation for the huge risk that nasty surprises might be concealed in company books. Cowperwood's solution? He discovers and puts to his own use the corrupt practices of the city government of Philadelphia, described by Lincoln Steffens as perhaps the worst governed big city in late 19th century America. Cowperwood strikes a deal with the city treasurer: the treasurer will lend him money from the city treasury at nominal rates – and with this money, Cowperwood will build fortunes for them both.
1 2 3 Lingeman, Richard. "The Titan". American Heritage (Feb. / March 1993). Retrieved March 3, 2019. But he did write more, including his monumental trilogy The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic, in which he traced the rise of finance capitalism and its corruption of municipal government through the career of the predatory transit magnate Frank Cowperwood (based on the streetcar king Charles Tyson Yerkes).
↑ Frum, David. "The Titan". FrumForum. Retrieved March 3, 2019. So Cowperwood invents a brilliant plan. He will not seek a renewal for himself. Instead, he has secret political associates launch an anti-Cowperwood campaign! They will demand that streetcar monopolists like Cowperwood be regulated by a new Public Utility Commission. The Commission will set rates, approve routes, and generally protect the public from the likes of Frank Cowperwood. Of course, the advocates of the commission acknowledge that the regulated companies will need some compensation for this new public vigilance. So they propose a compromise: in exchange for accepting the commission, all city franchises will be extended by 50 years. The commission proposal is advanced in the Illinois legislature, a body even more corrupt if possible than the Chicago city council. Dreiser minutely describes the protocol of corruption – how a bribe is asked, how it is offered, how it is paid, how much a vote goes for.
↑ Arnold, Jeremy. "Washington Merry-Go-Round". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved March 3, 2019. The title was certainly fresh enough in the public discourse to tell audiences that the film would probably address political corruption. Columbia Pictures bought the rights to the title and commissioned a fictional story of Congressman Button Gwinnett Brown, who draws the ire of his crooked colleagues to the extent that they trump up a recount to try and unseat him.
↑ "washingtonpost.com: 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'". www.washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2019-02-01. But this film caused quite a stir in this town in 1939. The Washington Press Club sponsored a premiere at Constitution Hall that was attended by congressmen, Senators and Supreme Court justices. About halfway through the film, people started walking out. At another dinner, Capra was criticized for showing graft in the Senate. The Washington press corps, who didn't like the way reporters were portrayed, joined in the attacks against Capra.
↑ Garton Ash, Timothy (October 30, 2001). "Why Orwell Matters". Hoover Digest. 2001 (4). Retrieved March 3, 2019. Animal Farm is a timeless satire on the central tragi-comedy of all politics – that is, the tragi-comedy of corruption by power.
↑ "Ayn Rand". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved March 3, 2019. Atlas Shrugged offers a complex and compelling depiction of the economic, political, and moral corruption spawned by "cronyism" between government and business.
↑ Malcolm, Derek (7 January 1999). "Orson Welles: A Touch of Evil". The Guardian. Retrieved March 26, 2019. ...it was generally underrated by the American critics of the time, who saw in it merely an eccentric thriller rather than a calculatedly dramatic study of the corruption of power and the difference between morality and justice.
↑ Staples, Louis (7 November 2018). "The House of Cards ending summed up everything abhorrent about 2018". New Statesman. Retrieved March 3, 2019. House of Cards displayed the corruption of America's institutions and the elites who manipulate them as they become intoxicated by the pursuit of power, money and status. But amongst the backstabbing and political games, the cleverest thing about the show was the fact that its main characters – Francis and Claire Underwood – were merciless and evil, but also likeable.
Michael W. Collier. (2009) Political Corruption in the Caribbean Basin: Constructing a Theory to Combat Corruptionexcerpt and text search
Charles Copeman and Amy McGrath (eds.)(1997), Corrupt Elections. Ballot Rigging in Australia, Towerhouse Publications, Kensington, NSW
Donatella della Porta, and Alberto Vannucci, (1999). Corrupt Exchanges: Actors, Resources, and Mechanisms of Political Corruption. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Robert M. Entman (2012) Scandal and Silence: Media Responses to Presidential Misconduct (Polity Press) 269 pages; case studies from USA 1998 to 2008 indicate the news media neglects many more incidents of corruption than it covers.
Edward L. Glaeser and Claudia Goldin, (eds.) (2006), Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History U. of Chicago Press, 386 pp.ISBN0-226-29957-0.
Mark Grossman. Political Corruption in America: An Encyclopedia of Scandals, Power, and Greed (2 vol. 2008)
Arnold J. Heidenheimer, Michael Johnston and Victor T. LeVine (eds.) (1989), Political Corruption: A Handbook 1017 pages.
Richard Jensen. (2001) "Democracy, Republicanism and Efficiency: The Values of American Politics, 1885–1930," in Byron Shafer and Anthony Badger, eds, Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775–2000 pp 149–180; online edition
Michael Johnston, Victor T. LeVine, and Arnold Heidenheimer, eds. (1970) Political Corruption: Readings in Comparative Analysis
Amy McGrath, (1994), The Forging of Votes, Tower House Publications, Kensington, NSW
Amy McGrath, (2003), Frauding of Elections, Tower House Publications and H.S. Chapman Society, Brighton-le Sands, NSW
Amy McGrath, (1994), The Frauding of Votes, Tower House Publications, Kensington, NSW
Amy McGrath, (2005), The Stolen Election, Australia 1987 According to Frank Hardy, Author of Power Without Glory, Towerhouse Publications and H.S. Chapman Society, Brighton-le Sands, NSW
John Mukum Mbaku. (1999) Bureaucratic and Political Corruption in Africa: The Public Choice Perspective
Kim Hyoung-Kook (2012): The Pre-conditions for entrenching transparency in local governance, a policy report of master's course in Public Administration from the University of York
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