Populism and Corruption
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Comparing Presidential Corruption Scandals in Guatemala and Brazil: Part 1
Comparing Presidential Corruption Scandals in Guatemala and Brazil: Part 1 Comparing Presidential Corruption Scandals in Guatemala and Brazil: Part 1 Written by Mike LaSusa Thursday, 27 October 2016 Brazil Guatemala Elites and Organized Crime Over the past several years, both Brazil Twitter and Guatemala have been rocked by revelations of widespread corruption at the highest levels of government. Former presidents in both countries are now standing trial for their alleged roles in the respective scandals. InSight Crime Recent corruption scandals have reached the highest levels of government in Guatemala and explores some of the similarities and Brazil differences between these cases. In addition to reporting by InSight Crime and other outlets, this article also draws on a discussion InSight Crime moderated recently between Mike Allison, an expert on Central American politics who serves as an associate professor and chair of the political science department at the University of Scranton, and Matthew Taylor, an associate professor at American University's School of International Service who focuses on state capacity and corruption in Latin America and who has extensive experience in Brazil. An edited transcript of that conversation has been published here. Who was involved? Guatemala: Former Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina and former http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/comparing-presidential-corruption-scandals-in-guatemala-and-brazil[10/28/2016 11:10:25 AM] Comparing Presidential Corruption Scandals in Guatemala and Brazil: Part 1 Vice President Roxana Baldetti were accused in June 2016 by the United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala - CICIG) of leading a "criminal mafia structure that had co-opted power through the ballot box." The criminal network also allegedly included Baldetti's private secretary Juan Carlos Monzón as a key intermediary, as well as numerous other government officials and business elites. -
Combating Corruption in Latin America: Congressional Considerations
Combating Corruption in Latin America: Congressional Considerations May 21, 2019 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R45733 SUMMARY R45733 Combating Corruption in Latin America May 21, 2019 Corruption of public officials in Latin America continues to be a prominent political concern. In the past few years, 11 presidents and former presidents in Latin America have been forced from June S. Beittel, office, jailed, or are under investigation for corruption. As in previous years, Transparency Coordinator International’s Corruption Perceptions Index covering 2018 found that the majority of Analyst in Latin American respondents in several Latin American nations believed that corruption was increasing. Several Affairs analysts have suggested that heightened awareness of corruption in Latin America may be due to several possible factors: the growing use of social media to reveal violations and mobilize Peter J. Meyer citizens, greater media and investor scrutiny, or, in some cases, judicial and legislative Specialist in Latin investigations. Moreover, as expectations for good government tend to rise with greater American Affairs affluence, the expanding middle class in Latin America has sought more integrity from its politicians. U.S. congressional interest in addressing corruption comes at a time of this heightened rejection of corruption in public office across several Latin American and Caribbean Clare Ribando Seelke countries. Specialist in Latin American Affairs Whether or not the perception that corruption is increasing is accurate, it is nevertheless fueling civil society efforts to combat corrupt behavior and demand greater accountability. Voter Maureen Taft-Morales discontent and outright indignation has focused on bribery and the economic consequences of Specialist in Latin official corruption, diminished public services, and the link of public corruption to organized American Affairs crime and criminal impunity. -
Preventing Systemic Corruption in Brazil
Preventing Systemic Corruption in Brazil Sérgio Fernando Moro Abstract: This essay describes the Brazilian anticorruption operation known as Operação Lava Jato (“Operation Car Wash”), its findings, and its results based on cases tried up to March 2018. Told from the perspective of the federal judge of the Thirteenth Federal Criminal Court of Curitiba, in whose court most of the Lava Jato cases have been prosecuted, this massive criminal case offers lessons that may be useful to other anticorruption efforts. Preventing systemic corruption is a challenge, but it is a necessary step for the improvement of democracy. What began as an investigation of an isolated in- stance of corruption within a Brazilian oil compa- ny expanded into an immense anticorruption oper- ation known as Operação Lava Jato (“Operation Car Wash”). This investigative operation has penetrat- ed deep within Brazil’s government and corporate elite to root out systemic state-sanctioned corrup- tion. Its criminal cases also appear to be instating new legal norms for how corruption cases are han- dled in Brazil, giving citizens hope that Lava Jato’s impact will be felt far into the future. How Brazilian prosecutors and courts dealt with this immense anti- corruption effort may provide important lessons for the battle against systemic corruption both in Bra- zil and elsewhere. This essay provides a comprehen- sive account of Lava Jato and its significance for Bra- zil going forward. It is important to note from the beginning that Lava sÉrgio fernando moro is Jato is not a single criminal case but several, in which a Federal Judge of the Thirteenth federal prosecutors have decided to pursue separate Federal Criminal Court of Curi- charges against many defendants. -
Post-Communist Mafia State
REVIEWS 275 tion’s wealth for themselves: rather, as is the Magyar, Bálint: case in Hungary, it could be a country whose corrupt, kleptocratic leaders also go out of POST-COMMUNIST MAFIA STATE. their way to actively control illicit societal THE CASE OF HUNGARY. activities and organized crime. These leaders do not simply steal from the state: they rot Budapest: Central European University it and create a society of thieves dependent Press. 2016. 311 pages. upon the elites who sanction their crimes (pp. 81–82). It is a vicious cycle that makes DOI: 10.5817/PC2018-3-275 everyone complicit in the state’s corruption. Magyar’s latest text successfully tests his An unequivocal condemnation of the Fi expanded theory of the mafia state, con deszcontrolled Hungary, Bálint Magyar’s cretizing it and demonstrating how Hun Post-Communist Mafia State: The Case of gary’s authoritarian government can mas Hungary could not be timelier. This book querade as a ‘good’ state whilst eroding civil explores the deceitful mechanisms by which society and democratic institutions – even the hybrid regime installed by Prime Min without exerting any physical mass violence ister Viktor Orbán and his fellow Fidesz of (see Levitsky, Lucan 2010). It argues that ficials has systematically stripped Hungari Hungary is a corrupt, parasitic state (p. 13). ans of civil liberties (p. 255) with impunity, The book begins with the premise that upon ironically owing to its control over the rule its accession to the European Union in 2004, of law. While this text specifically investi Hungary was the model of liberal democrat gates democratic backsliding in Hungary, its ic consolidation for other former Commu framework will surely prove crucial for un nist states. -
Power and Plunder in Putin's Russia Miriam Lanskoy, Dylan Myles-Primakoff
Power and Plunder in Putin's Russia Miriam Lanskoy, Dylan Myles-Primakoff Journal of Democracy, Volume 29, Number 1, January 2018, pp. 76-85 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2018.0006 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/683637 Access provided by your local institution (13 Mar 2018 16:12 GMT) PRE created by BK on 11/20/17. The Rise of Kleptocracy POWER AND PLUNDER IN PUTIN’S RUSSIA Miriam Lanskoy and Dylan Myles-Primakoff Miriam Lanskoy is senior director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). She is the author, with Ilyas Akhmadov, of The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost (2010). Dylan Myles-Primakoff is senior program officer for Russia and Eurasia at the NED. Since Vladimir Putin rose to power in 1999, the quest to restore the might of the Russian state at home and abroad has been a hallmark of his rule. Yet another such hallmark has been rampant looting by the country’s leaders. Thus Russia has figured prominently in recent schol- arly discussions about kleptocracies—regimes distinguished by a will- ingness to prioritize defending their leaders’ mechanisms of personal enrichment over other goals of statecraft. In a kleptocracy, then, cor- ruption plays an outsized role in determining policy. But how have the state-building and great-power ambitions of the new Russian elite coex- isted with its scramble for self-enrichment? Putin’s Russia offers a vivid illustration of how kleptocratic plunder can become not only an end in itself, but also a tool for both consolidating domestic political control and projecting power abroad. -
Turning the Tide on Dirty Money Why the World’S Democracies Need a Global Kleptocracy Initiative
GETTY IMAGES Turning the Tide on Dirty Money Why the World’s Democracies Need a Global Kleptocracy Initiative By Trevor Sutton and Ben Judah February 2021 WWW.AMERICANPROGRESS.ORG Contents 1 Preface 3 Introduction and summary 6 How dirty money went global and why efforts to stop it have failed 10 Why illicit finance and kleptocracy are a threat to global democracy and should be a foreign policy priority 13 The case for optimism: Why democracies have a structural advantage against kleptocracy 18 How to harden democratic defenses against kleptocracy: Key principles and areas for improvement 21 Recommendations 28 Conclusion 29 Corruption and kleptocracy: Key definitions and concepts 31 About the authors and acknowledgments 32 Endnotes Preface Transparency and honest government are the lifeblood of democracy. Trust in democratic institutions depends on the integrity of public servants, who are expected to put the common good before their own interests and faithfully observe the law. When officials violate that duty, democracy is at risk. No country is immune to corruption. As representatives of three important democratic societies—the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom—we recognize that corruption is an affront to our shared values, one that threatens the resiliency and cohesion of democratic governments around the globe and undermines the relationship between the state and its citizens. For that reason, we welcome the central recommendation of this report that the world’s democracies should work together to increase transparency in the global economy and limit the pernicious influence of corruption, kleptocracy, and illicit finance on democratic institutions. -
Mafia States
Mafia States http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/134838 May/June 2012 ESSAY Mafia States Organized Crime Takes Office Moisés Naím MOISÉS NAÍM is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy. 1 of 7 6/1/2012 8:48 AM Mafia States http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/134838 The global economic crisis has been a boon for transnational criminals. Thanks to the weak economy, cash-rich criminal organizations can acquire financially distressed but potentially valuable companies at bargain prices. Fiscal austerity is forcing governments everywhere to cut the budgets of law enforcement agencies and court systems. Millions of people have been laid off and are thus more easily tempted to break the law. Large numbers of unemployed experts in finance, accounting, information technology, law, and logistics have boosted the supply of world-class talent available to criminal cartels. Meanwhile, philanthropists all over the world have curtailed their giving, creating funding shortfalls in the arts, education, health care, and other areas, which criminals are all too happy to fill in exchange for political access, social legitimacy, and popular support. International criminals could hardly ask for a more favorable business environment. Their activities are typically high margin and cash-based, which means they often enjoy a high degree of liquidity -- not a bad position to be in during a global credit crunch. But emboldened adversaries and dwindling resources are not the only problems confronting police departments, prosecutors, and judges. In recent years, a new threat has emerged: the mafia state. -
Handling Systemic Corruption in Brazil
BRAZIL INSTITUTE A Conversation with Judge Sérgio Fernando Moro Handling Systemic Corruption in Brazil THE WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS, established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a liv- ing national memorial to President Wilson. The Center’s mission is to commem- orate the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson by providing a link between the worlds of ideas and policy, while fostering research, study, discussion, and collaboration among a broad spectrum of individuals concerned with policy and scholarship in national and international affairs. Supported by public and private funds, the Center is a nonpartisan institution engaged in the study of national and world affairs. It establishes and maintains a neutral forum for free, open, and informed dialogue. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publica- tions and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that provide financial support to the Center. Jane Harman, Director, President and CEO BOARD OF TRUSTEES Thomas R. Nides, Chairman Public members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; John F. Kerry, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; G. Wayne Clough, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Arne Duncan, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States; Fred P. Hochberg, Chairman and President, Export-Import Bank; Carole Watson, Acting Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities; Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Private Citizen Members: Timothy Broas, John T. Casteen III, Charles Cobb, Jr., Thelma Duggin, Carlos M. -
Brazil's Clean Company Act: How U.S., U.K., and Global Models May Influence Enforcement
Brazil’s Clean Company Act: How U.S., U.K., and Global Models May Influence Enforcement July 14, 2014 1) Introduction Brazil’s new anti-bribery law (Law no. 12.846/2013), often referred to as the “Clean Company Act,” officially took effect on January 29, 2014. This article compares key elements of the Clean Company Act with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and the U.K. Bribery Act 2010 (“Bribery Act”) and considers the outlook for enforcement of the bribery offenses in the new law in the context of U.S., U.K., and global trends. In particular, the article highlights the following themes: • The impact of extraterritorial jurisdiction on anti-corruption enforcement; • The various matter resolution tools available to authorities in enforcing the Clean Company Act, as compared to options available to U.S. and U.K. authorities; • The likely influence of U.S., U.K., and global anti-bribery trends on the Brazilian approach to enforcement under the new law. Multinational companies accustomed to the demands of the anti-corruption enforcement regimes of the U.S., the U.K., and relevant international bodies (e.g., the World Bank) will not be surprised by the scope and reach of the Clean Company Act. Nevertheless, they should be attuned to its unique features when appropriately tailoring their anti-corruption compliance programs. Indeed, representatives of relevant Brazilian enforcement agencies have publicly pronounced that enforcement of the new law will be a top priority for the Brazilian government. 2) Overview of the Clean Company Act A. Subjected Entities The Clean Company Act applies to: a) Business organizations in Brazil (whether incorporated or not); b) Any Brazilian foundations or associations; and c) Foreign companies with any presence in Brazil (even if temporary). -
Brazil's Clean Company
August 2013 JONES DAY COMMENTARY In collaboration with Mattos Muriel Kestener Advogados Brazil’s Clean Company law: new risks for Companies Doing Business in Brazil In early July, as millions of Brazilians flooded the in bribery of Brazilian and foreign public officials. The streets to protest against government corruption and ability of Brazilian prosecutors to target companies waste, Brazil took the final steps to enact a landmark under the Law may mean heightened exposure under anticorruption law. On August 1, Brazilian President existing law for officers, directors, and employees Dilma Rousseff signed Law No. 12.846, also known of those companies. The Law also provides for an as the Clean Company Law (the “Law”), which estab - enforcement regime that promises to be expensive lishes a corporate anticorruption regime that shares for companies that might become its targets. characteristics with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Prac - tices Act (“FCPA”) and the U.K. Bribery Act. The Law The adoption of the Law caps a three-year process imposes strict civil and administrative liability on Bra- that mostly predates the recent public outcry against zilian companies for domestic and foreign bribery. corruption. Its longer aim was to improve Brazil’s International companies with a presence in Brazil are compliance with the OECD Convention on Com - also covered if they engage in bribery within Brazil. bating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials, to which Brazil (although not an OECD member) is a signa - The Law will go into effect on January 29, 2014, 180 tory. Approval of the Law was widely regarded as an days from the date of its publication in Brazil’s Offi - important move to align Brazil with other nations with cial Gazette, and will have important and immediate corporate anticorruption laws on their books, and it implications for companies that operate in Brazil. -
The Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption Review
The Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption Review Second Edition Editor Mark F Mendelsohn Law Business Research Chapter 3 BRAZIL Adriana Dantas and Luiz Eduardo Alcantara 1 I INTRODUCTION 2013 will be remembered as the year in which Brazil joined the group of countries that have enacted a law that has the potential to severely punish legal entities involved in acts of corruption. !e bill had remained under discussion in the Brazilian Congress for over three years and became Law No. 12846/2013 (the Anti-Corruption Law) 2 on 2 August 2013. !e Law will come into force 180 days following its publication and, during this period, government authorities, companies and the legal community have been actively preparing for a new legal reality that will govern the relationship between private parties and the public administration. Corruption is not a new topic in Brazil. Like most democratic nations, Brazil has adopted administrative, civil and criminal anti-corruption rules that have formed part of the Brazilian legal system for many years. In fact, corruption has been criminalised under the Brazilian Criminal Code since 1830.3 Despite the legal framework, Brazil has always been a country where corruption, if not endemic, is very much present within its large bureaucratic government, at the federal, state and municipal levels. !is reality is caused by a lack of enforcement of the law, which was unable to change a widespread culture of bene"t and corruption throughout all levels of the public administration. It is not by coincidence that Brazil 1 Adriana Dantas is a partner and Luiz Eduardo Alcantara is an associate at BM&A – Barbosa, Müssnich & Aragão. -
An Amicus Curiae Brief
Case 8:17-cv-01596-PJM Document 66 Filed 11/28/17 Page 1 of 29 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND THE STATE OF MARYLAND, Plaintiffs, -against- Civil Action No. 8:17-cv-01596-PJM DONALD J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States of America, Defendant. BRIEF OF AMICA CURIAE SARAH P. CHAYES IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP 600 Fifth Avenue, 10th Floor New York, New York 10020 (212) 763-5000 Case 8:17-cv-01596-PJM Document 66 Filed 11/28/17 Page 2 of 29 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE(S) INTEREST OF AMICA CURIAE AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT .................................... 1 ARGUMENT .................................................................................................................................. 2 I. UNCHECKED EMOLUMENTS VIOLATIONS THREATEN THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. ................................................................................... 2 II. THE KLEPTOCRATIC NATURE, NETWORKED STRUCTURE, AND OPERATING PRINCIPLES OF NUMEROUS FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS REQUIRE VIGILANCE IN EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE ENFORCEMENT. ............ 5 III. DEFENDANT’S FOREIGN BUSINESS ACTIVITIES INDEBT HIM TO NUMEROUS KLEPTOCRATIC NETWORKS, HARMING THE UNITED STATES. ..................................................................................................................... 10 A. TRUMP TOWER MANILA, PHILIPPINES ................................................. 10 B. LUXURY RESORTS IN BALI AND WEST JAVA, INDONESIA ............. 12 C. TRUMP