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191. Russia assumes and exploits the chairmanship of the G20

Author:
Pavel K. Baev
Publication Date:
02-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
Russia's plans for chairing the G20 in 2013 go further than staging a pompous summit in St Petersburg similar to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vladivostok in September 2012. Russian leadership feels an acute need to re-establish a solid international profile eroded by the evolving domestic crisis, which undermines the credibility of Putin's regime.
Topic:
Corruption, Democratization, Emerging Markets, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Russia, Norway, Asia, Moscow, and Syria

192. Coal Mining in China: The Social Costs

Author:
Tim Wright
Publication Date:
03-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
China's coal industry is central to the state's economic success. However, the industry has been the focus of major social problems-including corruption, work safety, and environmental damage-that need to be immediately addressed by the state.
Topic:
Corruption, Economics, and Environment

193. Sistem ve Yolsuzluk: Fransa ve Türkiye

Author:
Ali Murat Aydın
Publication Date:
02-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center
Abstract:
What is corruption? Is it a plague on the modern state that should be avoided? Or is it a necessary engine oil which turns the turbines of a stopped-up bureaucracy? In the most basic denotation, corruption is the abusing of a public power by a public actor for the interest of an individual or a group in return for private interest. Governments are always confronted with difficulties in fighting corruption. The reason is the diversity of perception against corruption in each society. This research aims to compare the models of corruption in Turkish and French bureaucracy. When we consider the direct relation in structuring between the traditional Turkish bureaucracy and French bureaucracy, we can more simply understand the collateral relation of these two countries in their models of corruption. The most important problem confronted about corruption in Turkey and in France is the unlimited financing of political parties without a legal circumscription. In fighting against corruption, the two countries each have to exponentially unite their anti-corruption institutions in a single superior administration. This will lead to an advancement in efficiency in the fight against corruption. It should be kept in mind that, the ethic is not a divine or a holy concept. It's a public term. If we look at the problem from an ideal perspective, we have to obstruct the erosion of ethical values in the democratic systems in the name of efficiency and the market.
Topic:
Corruption, Crime, Democratization, Development, Islam, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Middle East

194. Justice on trial in Guatemala: The Ríos Montt Case

Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Within ten days, Guatemalan courts made and unmade legal history. The trial and conviction of former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt on 10 May 2013 for genocide and other human rights violations was an extraordinary achievement for a justice system that must grapple simultaneously with the legacy of a vicious internal conflict and the contemporary scourges of gang violence, corruption and illegal drug trafficking. Victims had barely finished celebrating, however, when the Constitutional Court annulled the verdict in a confusing decision that raised questions of outside interference. Widespread impunity for past and present violence continues to have a corrosive effect on the country's democracy. Failure to renew the trial for mass atrocities against Ríos Montt and pursue justice for the victims of violent crime would undermine its halting progress toward rule of law, including a strong independent judiciary.
Topic:
Corruption, Crime, Genocide, Human Rights, Narcotics Trafficking, and Law
Political Geography:
Latin America and Guatemala

195. Can Results-Based Payments Reduce Corruption?

Author:
Charles Kenny and William Savedoff
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
A common objection to results-based programs is that they are somehow more vulnerable to corruption. This paper explains why results-based approaches to foreign aid may be less vulnerable to corruption than the traditional approaches which monitor and track the purchase and delivery of inputs and activities. The paper begins by classifying different corruption costs and specifically distinguishes the problem of diverted funds from the costs associated with failing to generate benefits. It then characterizes the key differences between traditional input-tracking programs and results-based approaches in terms of how they are supposed to work, the implicit risks that preoccupy designers, how they function in practice, and what this means both for the scale of corruption and the realization of benefits. It then considers the conditions under which one approach or another might be more appropriate. The paper concludes that input-tracking approaches are vulnerable to corruption because they have high failure costs and a weak track record for controlling diverted funds. By contrast, results-based approaches are less prone to failure costs and limit the capacity of dishonest agents to divert funds unless those agents first improve efficiency and outputs.
Topic:
Corruption, Development, Foreign Aid, and Governance

196. Macedonia - A country in crisis

Author:
Erwan Fouéré
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Macedonia is a country in deep trouble. Under a veneer of normality lies a climate of deep mistrust between all the political parties and between the main ethnic communities. Several incidents of inter-ethnic violence took place in the capital city earlier this year and are on the increase. Political dialogue, insofar as it exists between the parties, remains confrontational.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Corruption, Ethnic Conflict, Politics, and Governance
Political Geography:
Europe

197. La Policía Communitaria: Self-Defense Groups in Mexico: The Aftermath of a Poorly Designed Policy

Author:
Mauricio Mering and Jaime Hernandez Colorado
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
On 4 January 2013, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, armed men calling themselves the “Ayutla de Los Libres Community Police Force” took self-defense into their own hands, sensing the inability of their government security forces to crack down on the violence of organized crime. In a total of nine states, the press has since documented additional community self-defense groups that have risen in response to the insecurity in Mexico, subsequently posing a challenge to the new government. This article examines the formation of community self-defense groups in light of the failures of the security policy implemented during the Felipe Calderón administration. This security policy resulted in the fragmentation of organized crime cartels and an increase in violence triggered by the diversification of criminal activities, leaving a trail of death, corruption, and human rights violations. The rise of these self-defense groups lends credit to the idea that vigilantes themselves can serve as an antidote to insecurity, particularly in rural communities. Across Mexico, groups seeking justice by their own hands have experienced widespread legitimacy, as exemplified by Javier Sicilia, who led the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity and demanded justice for the victims of Calderón's security policy; and Isabel Miranda, who became a Mexico City government PAN candidate in the 2012 elections after singlehandedly seeking and delivering her son's kidnappers to the authorities. These are just two cases of civilians who were victimized by organized crime and who therefore had to use every means necessary to mobilize society, highlighting the ineffective Mexican police force and the nation's judicial system. The leitmotif of urban social movements seeking for justice is not the same as that of the community police – but both are seeking justice and security because official security agencies have failed. Community self-defense groups are security corps composed by citizens working in their specific regions according to traditional rules and often recovering indigenous customs. These groups base their efforts upon civil society participation, solidarity, and other values that survive in rural Mexico, such as family relations, friendship, and social trust among the inhabitants of a town or region. It is important to state that these values as the basis of self-defense groups remain because members of these groups are members of the community too. The expansion of community groups is both old and new – these groups integrate romantic notions of justice with the more modern conception that society must participate in the fight against organized crime. These two opposing dimensions are harmonized in the wake of an ineffective security policy, forcing society to reach beyond public protest so as to organize community police groups…
Topic:
Corruption and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Mexico

198. Give Corruption a Chance

Author:
Vivek S. Sharma
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The National Interest
Institution:
Center for the National Interest
Abstract:
CORRUPTION, MORE often than not, seems to resemble a plague. Afghanistan, where the CIA and British intelligence (in competition with the Iranians) have quite literally been handing over duffel bags stuffed full with taxpayer money to Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and his associates, is perhaps the most prominent example of its invasiveness and hardiness. Nothing seems to be able to eradicate it. Immunization efforts fail. Mutations occur. The only course seems to be to attempt to adapt to it. For despite the efforts expended by several American presidents on behalf of Karzai's administration, the United States has no surer way of ensuring influence and access to Karzai and his advisers than through direct cash payments into a slush fund designed to purchase the loyalty of important and powerful personages within the Afghan government. The bankruptcy of the Western strategy in Afghanistan could hardly be expressed in more vivid terms. Such failures in Afghanistan, not to mention Iraq, have occurred while the broader (and noncoercive) dimensions of "state building" or more generally "development" have also paid less-than-stellar returns. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the project of implanting "good" institutions in non-Western societies, whether through conquest (as in Iraq and Afghanistan) or through consensual, noncoercive means (as in Cambodia), has turned out to be a thankless task.
Topic:
Corruption and Development
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Denmark

199. Building Police Institutions in Fragile States

Author:
Richard Downie
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The police are one of the most critical institutions of the state. This is particularly true in nations emerging from conflict, which are characterized by insecurity and high levels of crime. Without security, governments cannot begin rebuilding their economies and improving the lives of their citizens. As a result, they will continue to struggle for legitimacy, and a return to conflict will remain an ever-present risk. A nation's military has an important role to play in dealing with external threats and establishing basic security in the immediate aftermath of conflict, but the police are the institution best suited for dealing with internal security and addressing the safety needs of the public. For citizens, a police officer is the symbolic representation of state authority. Their view of the state and their acceptance of its authority are partially shaped by their interactions with the police.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Civil Society, Corruption, and Crime
Political Geography:
Africa

200. Does Beijing Have a Strategy? China's Alternative Futures

Author:
Banning Garrett and Robert A. Manning
Publication Date:
03-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
As China's National Party Congress gathered in early March to anoint Xi Jinping and the next generation of Chinese leaders, Beijing's behavior at home and abroad strongly suggested that, while they have strategic goals, they have no strategy for how to achieve them. Beijing seems unable to change course from following a development model it has outgrown and pursuing assertive, zero-sum foreign policies that are counter to its long-term interests.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Corruption, Governance, and Reform
Political Geography:
China and Asia