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How Can Nations Break the Cycle of Crime and Corruption?

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How Can Nations Break the Cycle of Crime and Corruption? ©Matt Nicholas UPF R•NT THE BIG HOQW CUAN NAETIOS NS TBREIAKOTHE CN YCLE OF CRIME AND CORRUPTION? At length Corruption, like a gen’ral flood (So long by watchful Ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and Avarice creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the Sun. —Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (ep. III, l. 135) If not quite as apocalyptic as Pope would have us believe, corruption and crime all too often drag nations into a cycle of deprivation and wanton greed—companies bribing bureaucrats in exchange for lucrative contracts, petty graft greasing the palms of low-level civil servants, and powerful politicians enriching themselves at the expense of their people and the advancement of society. How do nations, especially developing ones, escape this swamp? World Policy Journal asked a panel of experts to weigh in on the challenges. DANIEL KAUFMANN ON STATE CAPTURE lice is important for fighting petty corruption Crime and corruption do not always co-exist, as well as common crime. There are also differ - share the same determinants, or respond to the ences between the determinants of common same strategies and measures. A corrupt and crime and organized crime, since the latter authoritarian police state can control common does relate to corruption. crime, as in North Korea. Conversely, common Most research on corruption focuses on de - crime can be a challenge to countries with satis - veloping countries, which is unfortunate. When factory anti-corruption track records, like Chile. corruption indexes focus exclusively on cruder Crime rates tend to be higher where there is forms of corruption (what we think of as typical high unemployment, high socio-economic in - cases of bribery), they mask one of the most seri - equality, and lax gun laws. Corruption thrives ous governance challenges facing countries like where civil liberties, free press, transparency, the United States today—so-called legal corrup - and contestable politics are absent. A function - tion and state capture by powerful corporations. ing rule of law matters for controlling both (For evidence of this, one need only look to the crime and corruption, but again differences undue influence exerted by Wall Street and emerge: an independent judiciary is crucial for mortgage giants over regulations leading up to combating political corruption; an effective po - the financial crisis, or by giant carmakers over © 2010 World Policy Institute 3 automobile safety regulators.) Indeed, research no renewal of the government and the political suggests that legal corruption and state capture class, grand corruption inevitably becomes a in the United States are extremely high when problem. Frequent turnover of government offi - compared with most countries in the world, and cials make it more difficult for corrupt networks higher than any other industrialized OECD coun - to consolidate power. Democracy is the best try. Thus, contrary to popular notions, both anti-corruption measure. developing and rich countries face corruption The creation of anti-corruption commissions challenges, although their form may differ. is not a solution unless it is part of broader re - The strategies to combat different manifes - form. A commission can throw light on a few tations of crime and corruption will differ from cases, but no commission is going to be able to each other, and must be tailored to country con - dismantle the networks of corruption that devel - text. Yet crime and corruption do share one im - op in countries where the same people have been portant thing in common. To address them, and in power for long periods. to be prepared to take on powerful interests, Donor countries worried about corruption they require political will, leadership, and in - should focus on two tasks: putting in place good tegrity at the top. control mechanisms over the funds they provide; and promoting fundamental political, economic, Daniel Kaufmann i s a senior fellow in the Global Economy and administrative reform. and Development Program at the Brookings Institution. Marina Ottaway is director of the Middle East Program MARINA OTTAWAY ON TOTAL REFORM at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Corruption should not be approached as a moral problem, as too often happens, but as a symp - ANDRÉS CAÑIZÁLEZ ON LATIN GANGS tom of serious political and economic problems In Latin America, we need to undertake a that need correcting. broad institutional rebuilding if we are to Petty corruption, such as low-ranking civil break the power of criminal gangs over our servants demanding payment for services they societies, which so far have acted with the com - should provide for free, is a problem that re - plicit wink of corrupt forces. Such rebuilding quires restructuring the civil service, reducing should take into account the corruption within the number of public employees within a gov - police forces and justice administrations. Yet ernment, and providing those who remain with both are merely the tip of a huge iceberg that decent wages. Attempts to curb petty corrup - includes vast political incompetence, the ab - tion are unlikely to have an impact when ex - sence of public power, and the reluctance of tracting payments from the public is the only citizens to stand up to the de facto powers of way a government employee can feed his family. organized crime. Grand corruption, such as large payments to Isolated police or judicial reforms are not high-ranking officials to secure lucrative public enough. We need concerted actions involving contracts, requires political solutions. If there is traditional political, economic, and social THE LRIOGNUE$EG-ALULERPY To the president go the spoils. The twentieth century’s most corrupt heads of state, and their estimated wealth embezzled while in office: 4 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • SPRING 2010 players; a new institutional framework that undermined by foreign powers that tolerate or can facilitate the breakup of criminal networks even facilitate the corruption of leaders whose and the corruption they breed. Today, the fight cooperation is needed in the name of military against criminal powers, especially those linked expediency. And countries that are strategically to drug trafficking, requires transnational and located along the transit routes for drugs, arms, interdisciplinary efforts. A nation cannot be and people may find that transnational crime successful by itself. We face a challenge that groups intensify the problem of curbing crime demands wide-ranging and coordinated and corruption. actions. Louise Shelley is director of the Terrorism, Transnational Andrés Cañizález is a researcher at the Centre of Commu - Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University. nication Research at Universidad Católica Andres Bello. DENISA KOSTOVICOVA & VESNA LOUISE SHELLEY ON ROTTING FISH BOJICIC-DZELILOVIC ON WEAK STATES While individual countries can address the cycle There is a tendency to impose a uniform set of of crime and corruption, in a globalized world remedies for the problems of crime and corrup - much also depends on the international commu - tion that plague post-conflict regions like the nity. Trade partners, multinational organiza - Balkans. It assumes that states are willing part - tions, corporations, and transnational crime syn - ners in ending and punishing illegitimate prac - dicates all can affect a single country’s ability to tices. Often, they are not. When crime and cor - combat corruption. ruption pervade a society, it’s not that the state The expression that a “fish rots from the is unable to check the predatory rule of its head” explains the difficulty of breaking the cy - elites. On the contrary, it reflects the ability of cle of crime and corruption where leadership is power holders to sustain a system of arbitrary rotten to the core. Conversely, countries that rule and institutional instability. This keeps the have leaders determined to address these prob - state weak but not failing and the government lems have made progress—witness Italy in the becomes involved in violating the very rules it 1990s, Georgia after the Rose Revolution, and sets and is supposed to enforce. Hong Kong today. Still, the commitment can - Breaking the self-reinforcing cycle of crime, not be short-term, lest these scourges reassert corruption, and persistent state weakness re - themselves vigorously. quires dismantling structures that have little in - Unfortunately, efforts to combat crime and terest in building a new system. Locally-defined corruption can be undermined by external legitimate rule must be based on the commit - forces. Countries with rich natural resources ment and capacity to mobilize resources for the may have difficulty controlling corruption in benefit of the general public. In today’s inter - the face of multinational businesses that are pre - connected world, this is the task that no state, pared to pay large bribes for lucrative contracts. least of all a post-conflict one, can do on its own A vigorous and law-abiding civil society may be or by following universally prescribed rules. The Big Question 5 Denisa Kostovicova is a lecturer in global politics and people—writers, poets, lawyers, activists. Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic is a senior research fellow at the We need to take responsibility for our own na - London School of Economics and Political Science. tions and people, and make sacrifices to fulfill the obligations we hold to humankind. ALEXIS SINDUHIJE ON HUMAN RIGHTS Crime and corruption are deeply rooted in many Alexis Sinduhije is a candidate for president in Burundi’s countries, including Burundi, my small home - 2010 elections. In 2008, he was named one of the 100 land in central Africa. In such countries, corrup - most influential people in the world by Time Magazine . tion sustains crime, while criminal acts protect the corrupt. In Burundi, the state commits ZHU LIJIA ON NAMING AND SHAMING crimes against humanity, despite the fact that Institutional anti-corruption reform is critical to we are now supposedly a democracy at peace. any country that wants to extricate itself from Each day, at least 20 people are assassinated for the scourge of corruption.
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