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31. Contextualizing Conceptions of Corruption: Challenges for the International Anti-corruption Campaign

Author:
Malte Gephart
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
While in an initial legal and academic anti-corruption wave corruption itself was at the center of analysis, research is now increasingly focused on anti-corruption discourse and praxis. The latter analyses have generated numerous criticisms of anti-corruption activities and anti-corruption research, and these are presented in this literature review. These criticisms range from the anti-corruption norm's legitimacy deficit, to the difficulty of defining and measuring corruption, to the discourse's depoliticization through its technicalization. The anti-corruption movement faces particular difficulties with respect to the tension between the universality of the anti-corruption norm and its simultaneous contextualization for specific and local application. This tension is especially important because it touches upon the central issues of the respective political communities, such as the division of the private from the public, which differ from one cultural context to another. The contextualization of anti-corruption concepts has to be enabled in various areas: first, with respect to the culturally shaped conception of the division between the public and the private; second, with respect to local understandings of corruption, that is, what is actually meant when talking about “corruption”; and third, with respect to the low socioeconomic development levels in some countries, which do not permit the absence of corruption (evading a zero-tolerance rhetoric).
Topic:
International Relations, Corruption, International Cooperation, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and United Nations

32. Combating illicit financial flows from poor countries. Estimating the possible gains

Author:
Jakob Vestergaard and Martin Højland
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
If the UN Millennium Development Goals are to be reached by 2015, development aid needs to be tripled – which is most unlikely. Instead, countries should unite in a concerted multilateral effort to combat illicit financial flows: for every dollar poor countries receive in development assistance, more than eight dollars are illegally transferred back to rich countries, most of it in order avoid local taxation. Effectively combating these illicit financial flows would generate more financial resources for development than foreign aid is likely to ever do – and help build a sustainable tax base in developing countries for the benefit of future development efforts.
Topic:
Corruption, Crime, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Europe, London, Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland, and Luxembourg

33. U.S.-Cambodia Defense Relations: Defining New Possibilities

Author:
Lewis M. Stern
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
In his speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in late May 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates laid out a vision of U.S. policy toward the region. The vision relies on longstanding treaty allies in Southeast Asia—the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia—as “cornerstones of U.S. foreign policy.” However, that vision does not stop there: it is designed to build a “new comprehensive partnership” with Indonesia and Singapore, to increase coop¬eration with Malaysia and Vietnam, and “to forge new partnerships in places long disre¬garded. This includes our emerging dialogue with Cambodia, as well as developments with Laos.” The dialogue with Cambodia thus holds out the prospect of a new partnership with a “long disregarded” country.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Corruption, War on Drugs, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
United States, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, and Southeast Asia

34. Conduct and Discipline in Un Peacekeeping Operations: Culture, Political Economy and Gender

Author:
Catherine Lutz, Matthew C. Gutmann, and Keith Brown
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Systematic patterns of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) have emerged around UN peacekeeping missions over the course of many years.1 Reports of abuse by peacekeepers in Cambodia and the Balkans in the 1990s were followed by news of similar problems in West African missions in 2001 and 2002. The Secretary General subsequently issued a 2003 Bulletin outlining a zero-tolerance policy, but the abuse continued. In 2004, peacekeeper misconduct became widely known through mainstream media reports that UN personnel in MONUC, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, had been engaging in sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) of local women and children. The SEA included, most egregiously, peacekeepers' exchange of UN food supplies or money for sex with young girls and sometimes boys. SEA has been a particular problem in mission areas where extreme poverty and conflict or post-conflict trauma and social dislocation drive local people to sell their bodies, but it has occurred in more developed contexts as well, such as Cyprus and Kosovo. The UN response to these problems has been to establish, in 2005, a Conduct and Discipline Unit with offices in New York and mission areas, charged with addressing the problem in a variety of ways. SEA continues to occur since then, with serious incidents revealed in Sudan, Liberia, Haiti, Cote d'Ivoire, and again in the Congo.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Corruption, Crime, Gender Issues, Sex Trafficking, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
United States, New York, Sudan, Kosovo, Cambodia, Haiti, Liberia, West Africa, and Cyprus

35. Alternative to Silence: Whistleblower Protection in 10 European Countries

Author:
Craig Fagan and Anja Osterhaus
Publication Date:
11-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Transparency International
Abstract:
Whistleblowers play a vital role in exposing corruption, fraud and mismanagement and in preventing disasters that arise from negligence or wrongdoing. Prominent whistleblowers revealed the cover-up of SARS and other dangerous diseases that threatened millions of people in China; they disclosed corruption and nepotism in the European Commission and helped to avoid environmental hazards in the US.
Topic:
Corruption, Governance, and Law
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Europe

36. Corruption Threatens China's Future

Author:
Minxin Pei
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Corruption poses one of the most lethal threats to China's future economic development and political stability. Illicit activities such as bribery, kickbacks, theft, and misspending of public funds cost at least 3 percent of GDP. Corruption also undermines the legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, fuels social unrest, contributes directly to the rise in socioeconomic inequality, and undermines China's environmental security. The prevalence of corruption in China is rooted in the country's partially reformed economy and absence of genuine political reform. Corruption in China has spillover effects beyond its borders. To protect its own interests and encourage China in its transition toward a more market-based economy and open society, the United States should rely on mutual legal cooperation to assist China in its struggle against corruption.
Topic:
Corruption and Government
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

37. How Multinational Investors Evade Developed Country Laws

Author:
Theodore H. Moran
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
How effective are G-8 and OECD efforts to combat bribery and corrupt payments when multinational companies bid on concessions in the developing world? Have the rich countries – and the United States, in particular – done what is necessary to restrain multinational investors from paying off daughters of Presidents and cronies of Ministers to secure favors for their activities?
Topic:
International Relations, Corruption, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States

38. Funding Alternatives to Hamas

Author:
Ben Fishman
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On April 7, the State Department announced its plan for restructuring aid to the Palestinians in response to the formation of a government led by Hamas, which has refused Quartet demands to recognize Israel, cease violence and terror, and accept past diplomatic agreements. In order to target assistance toward the Palestinian people rather than the Hamas leadership, the United States will now provide the vast majority of its aid (some $203 million) for humanitarian needs, including food, health, and education programs primarily administered by United Nations agencies such as the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the UN World Food Program. An additional $42 million is allocated for "securing and expanding democracy," in an effort that "protects and promotes moderation and democratic alternatives to Hamas." Assisting the development of such a peaceful and democratic alternative -- as distinct from an immediate overthrow of Hamas -- will require the United States to support programs driven internally by Palestinians that can foster a broad-based political movement. Bolstering a centralized Fatah-like organization run by elites will only lead to further corruption and the continued alienation of the Palestinian public.
Topic:
International Relations, Corruption, Government, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and Palestine