Anticorruption Protests in Central and Eastern Europe: What They Do and How They Can Do More

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The beginning of 2024 was a period of unrest for several Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. In Slovakia, a series of protests erupted over Prime Minister Robert Fico’s plan to weaken the country’s anticorruption infrastructure. Meanwhile, in Albania, demonstrators took to the streets alleging corruption in the cabinet, demanding investigations, seeking the end of retaliatory investigations against opposition figures, and pushing for the ouster of corrupt officials. And journalists in Croatia turned out in masses to protest a whistleblowing law that would make the investigation of misconduct more difficult.

These aren’t the first anticorruption protests in CEE, and they won’t be the last. Over the past decade, citizens in CEE countries have become much more attuned to the problem of corruption and to their governments’ failure to do much about it. The result has been numerous episodes of citizen-based anticorruption movements. But while such movements have great potential for spurring meaningful change, many have proved ineffective. Why is this? Examining past episodes—for example, in Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Balkans—may help us better understand the conditions under which anticorruption demonstrations succeed. These past episodes offer a few key lessons:

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The Quotidian Corruption of the NYPD

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In April 2024, the New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) released a scathing report on how the New York City Police Department (NYPD) enforces parking laws in New York City. The report found, in relevant part, that the NYPD frequently opts to turn a blind eye to illegally parked vehicles displaying inapplicable or expired parking permits, letting NYPD and other City Government employees park illegally with no consequences. The DOI also found that the NYPD “has no written policies or procedures” for enforcing parking laws in the areas around police precincts and other government buildings in NYC, and Traffic Enforcement Agents told DOI investigators that were subject to internal discipline if they issued parking tickets in sufficiently close proximity to NYPD precinct buildings. This parking permit enforcement problem comes on top of the longstanding problem of “ticket fixing,” in which officers make parking and traffic tickets “disappear” as favors for friends. A favorite technique for helping friends or family (or those willing to pay) get out of tickets (or worse) is the practice of police officers giving out (or even selling) “PBA cards” (named for the Police Benevolent Association, the largest municipal police union in the world); with a quick flash of a PBA card, drivers can avoid a speeding ticket or even arrest. PBA cards have long been identified as a notorious example of petty corruption within the NYPD (see here, here, and here, and here). In fact, an NYPD officer sued the department last year, alleging he was demoted for ticketing a cardholder who was a friend of his supervisor (see here and here).

These are examples of what we might call “quotidian corruption”: officers deciding that low-level civil laws apply to some members of the public but not others, and engaging in this selective non-enforcement to help out friends, family, or those with the right connections. While there are certainly far more important forms of police misconduct, such as racial bias and improper use of deadly force, it would be a mistake not to take quotidian police corruption seriously. As one former NYPD police officer turned prosecutor and law professor commented, in connection with a high-profile ticket fixing scandal, even though the alleged behavior might not be “seriously corrupt,” ticket fixing must stop “for the sake of the public trust[] and the NYPD’s own reputation.” 

The NYPD is unlikely to address these problems itself. Even if the NYPD leadership decided to support more evenhanded enforcement for these low-level offenses, police unions would likely prevent any such reforms from taking place. This leaves the possibility of reform largely in the hands of New York City Government. Here are three potential reforms that City Government could undertake to help combat the quotidian corruption permeating the NYPD, listed in order from least to most challenging:

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New Podcast Episode, Featuring John Penrose

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In this episode, Robert Barrington interviews John Penrose, a UK Member of Parliament who served as the government’s Anti-Corruption Champion from 2017-2022. Mr. Penrose explains the role and function of the Anti-Corruption Champion position and what he learned from his time serving in that position. He discusses the major developments and drivers behind UK anticorruption policy during this period, as well as his decision to resign from the position during Boris Johnson’s administration. The interview concludes with some discussion of what the UK’s anticorruption infrastructure could and should look like in the years to come. You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations: KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

The Invisible Front: Russia’s Corruption-Themed Propaganda War Against Ukraine

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The concept of “strategic corruption”—defined by the U.S. government as “when a government weaponizes corrupt practices as a tenet of its foreign policy”—has recently gained prominence as an important way to understand Russian foreign policy in the former Soviet republics, and elsewhere. The country that has faced the most sustained and systematic Russian state-sponsored strategic corruption campaign is almost certainly Ukraine. For the two decades preceding Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia employed a wide variety of corrupt measures to influence Ukrainian politics, including the sale of vast quantities of discounted fossil fuels to bribe pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs and create a political class aligned with Kremlin interests (as exemplified by the “outrageously corrupt” tenure of President Viktor Yanukovych after his election in 2010); the cultivation of sympathetic media empires in the country; and money-driven attempts to discredit American officials perceived as obstacles to Russian influence. 

Much has been written on Russia’s use of this sort of strategic corruption. But there’s another aspect of Russia’s strategy that has become especially prominent since the 2022 invasion: using propaganda and disinformation to spread and amplify the narrative that Ukraine is pervasively corrupt. Here lies a paradox: for two decades, Russia deliberately fostered corruption in Ukraine to keep its neighbor firmly under its influence, and now Russia is seeking to leverage Ukraine’s reputation for corrupt practices to undermine Ukraine’s ability to resist Russia’s invasion.

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The U.S. Supreme Court’s Erosion of U.S. Anticorruption Law Continues

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The U.S. Supreme Court has been chipping away at the federal public corruption prosecutor’s toolkit over the past decade, in cases like McDonnell v. United States, Kelly v. United States, and Percoco v. United States. This past month, the Court heard oral arguments in a case called Snyder v. United States, which may further undermine federal prosecutors’ ability to go after state and local corruption. If the Court finds in favor of the defendant in Snyder, it could create a roadmap for American state and local government officials to profit from private interests at the expense of the public they are supposed to serve.

The specific statute at issue in the Snyder case is codified at 18 U.S.C. § 666. That statute, which happens to be the most prosecuted public corruption statute in the U.S., makes it a federal crime for a state or local official to “corruptly solicit[,] demand[,] …or accept[] … anything of value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any” federally funded program. The question at issue in the Snyder case is whether this statute criminalizes so-called gratuities—payments made in recognition of actions that a covered official has taken or has committed to take, but without any quid pro quo agreement to take those actions in exchange for the payment. The facts of the Snyder case illustrate this sort of payment: James Snyder, while mayor of Portage, Indiana, accepted $13,000, allegedly for “consulting services,” from a truck company shortly after that company was awarded a contract to sell garbage trucks to the city government. There is no evidence that the company offered or promised Snyder the payments in exchange for the contract. Nevertheless, the federal prosecutors successfully argued at trial that proving such an offer was unnecessary, because as long as the prosecution could show that the alleged “consulting fee” was actually a gratuity—a payment made by the company to thank, or reward, Snyder for the contract—then Snyder’s acceptance of this payment was enough to violate § 666.

It’s true, as Snyder’s lawyers argued to the Supreme Court, that the language of the statute does not explicitly include “gratuities.” But reading § 666 as covering gratuities is the only sensible way to read the statute if we are truly concerned with preventing public officials from being bought.

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Personnel is Policy: Why Argentina’s Latest Supreme Court Nominee Threatens Anticorruption Efforts

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Last November, Javier Milei, a former economics professor and political outsider, won the presidency of Argentina, riding a wave of popular outrage against the political elite. The roots of that outrage are not hard to understand: Argentina is in the midst of a historic economic crisis, with out-of-control inflation and skyrocketing poverty. And many believe, with some justification, that Argentina’s deep-rooted political corruption is partly to blame. Argentina has been rocked by a series of corruption scandals, several of which have been documented on this blog (see here, here, and here). In campaigning on a platform of radical economic reform, Milei promised to take on the “parasites” and “thieves” who comprise the corrupt elite. After Milei’s victory, he immediately faced a problem in advancing his policy agenda: his newly-created party won just 44 out of 329 seats in Congress. That left Milei with two options: He could either take the traditional route of trying to form alliances with other parties to get some form of compromise reform package through Congress, or he could push the constitutional envelope by trying to enact aggressive reforms through executive fiat. Milei has chosen the latter path. This is not surprising: He was always going to face an uphill battle getting Congress onboard with his aggressive reforms, as there are simply too many entrenched interests, and Milei himself is an exceptionally polarizing figure. But pushing through radical reforms without congressional consent will require approval of the Supreme Court, an institution deeply embedded in the political caste.

In seeking to secure Supreme Court approval of his attempt to radically restructure the economy by executive fiat, Milei appears poised to make Argentina’s corruption problem even worse. Many observers believe that one of Argentina’s current Justices—a savvy political power player named Ricardo Lorenzetti—offered Milei a deal: If Milei would appoint Lorenzetti’s allies to fill the two vacant seats on the Court—which would give Lorenzetti’s faction a majority—Lorenzetti would use his influence to ensure favorable judicial treatment of Milei’s aggressive reforms in the justice system. One of the two nominees that Milei has put forward, a Lorenzetti ally named Ariel Lijo, is one of the Argentine judiciary’s most notoriously corrupt figures. One can see why Milei was tempted to stack the Court with Justices who would reliably side with him, but this is a Faustian bargain that poses a grave and long-term danger to anticorruption efforts in Argentina.

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New Podcast Episode, Featuring Tom Burgis

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett speaks to Tom Burgis, a journalist and author who has written extensively on corruption and kleptocracy around the world. The interview covers a range of topics, including is forthcoming book, Cuckooland, which grapples with some of the challenges for journalists in scrutinizing public figures in a “post-truth” society. You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations: KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

Guest Post: Watching Watch Wearers: More on Thailand’s Watchgate Case

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GAB welcome back Craig R. Arndt, an American lawyer now living in Bangkok. Craig has advised a variety of clients on corruption-related matters and represented corruption victims in damage actions. Below he offers a coda to Government Leaders Should Watch Who Watches Them Wearing Their Pricey Watches

In 2018 the Thai public was mesmerized by a photo showing retired General and then Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan wearing a luxury watch. Activists soon found other photos of him sporting a variety of watches together worth $1.5 million. General Prawit was widely mocked for his explanation that they had been loaned to him by a wealthy now deceased friend and that he was not required to report them on his asset declaration form (here and here).

Thailand’s National Anticorruption Commission (NACC) did investigate the non-disclosure claim, it found nothing wrong. Prawit continued his political career, unfazed and unaffected by what had been short-lived damage to his reputation (here). He was the candidate for Prime Minister for the current ruling party in the recent election. Although that party split, his party still gained 40 seats in the face of a resounding defeat of the generals and their allies (here).

Although the NACC concluded that Prawit failure to report the watch collection did violated the asset disclosure law lot violated the law requriwas willing The agency, however, offered no justification for letting Prawit off the hook (here). Thailand’s increasingly assertive civil society was not ready to let the matter drop.

Political Activist Veera Somkwamkid asked the Administrative Court to order NACC to disclose its findings in the Prawit case. The first level administrative court agreed, and April 2023 the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) upheld the decision and ordered full disclosure of the NACC Prawit files (here).

The SAC’s decision in the Prawit case does not set a precedent under Thai law. The NACC can thus refuse to disclose its reasoning in future cases, meaning those seeking their disclosure will have to tread the path Veera took in Prawit’s. It may a be a slow and treacherous one, but the NACC and Thai officials are on notice it’s a path determined civil society activists are willing to take.

Prawit may still find it easy to find the time of day given his glitzy watch collection, but in Thailand time may be running short on politicians of his ilk

No Strings Attached: Learning from the EU’s Approach to Government Advertising in Private Media

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Recently, the European Union moved forward with comprehensive new media freedom law, the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). The EMFA includes a number of important reforms meant to protect journalistic independence, including prohibitions on interference in editorial decisionmaking and protections for sources. But one of the proposed reforms is especially important for those who care about preserving the media’s role as an anticorruption watchdog: the EMFA’s rules on government advertising in private media. The EMFA requires that governments (1) adopt fair, transparent, and objective standards for the distribution of state advertising revenue to journalists, and (2) make efforts to disclose how those funds are distributed. Because governments often use advertising spending as implicit or explicit leverage to suppress and deter anticorruption reporting, these changes will likely have a significant effect. As countries outside of the EU struggle with similar issues, they should follow the EMFA model.

The EMFA model may be especially valuable in Central and Eastern Europe. After the post-socialist transitions, media organizations in these countries found themselves free of state control—at least in part. But despite privatization, many of those media companies, struggling to stay afloat, have turned to their governments for advertising revenue. This has proven to be a devil’s bargain. The fact that state advertising has become a major source of revenue for media outlets has given governments a tool that they can leverage to influence coverage, stifling anticorruption reporting. When new parties come to power, they often redirect advertising funds to media organizations that bury corruption news, financially sinking the organizations that are willing to call out misconduct. Journalists that do break corruption stories see their funding quickly disappear. Even without direct pressure, media organizations have been afraid to call out the actors that effectively fund them, and they understand that the government will reward friendly media companies with extra money. The result is that media outlets do not invest time and energy into investigating potential government misconduct, and they fail to run, or underemphasize, stories highlighting corruption allegations. (This problem is hardly limited to Europe: States across the world use advertising to influence the media, often to great success. And studies in Argentina, Ghana, and Turkey, for instance, have found that government advertising in media outlets reduces coverage of government corruption.)

The most direct solution to this problem—eliminating or significantly reducing government ad spending—is unrealistic. Given how unreliable private advertising has become, many journalists are dependent on state dollars, and taking that funding away could tank them economically. Although some organizations are starting to develop alternative business models, it is too risky to rely on those models before they have proven successful. Neither are grants or other support from NGOs plentiful enough as of now. But as the EU recognized, there are ways to mitigate the risk that media dependence on state advertising revenue will lead to the suppression of corruption-related news.

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Government Leaders Should Watch Who Watches Them Wearing Their Pricey Watches

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Peruvian President Dina Boluarte is the latest government leader to be ensnarled in a corruption flap thanks to a penchant for high-end time pieces. Before her it was the then-Prime Minister of Croatia Ivo Sanader (here) and after him the then-Thai Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan (here).

Like them, she apparently believed wearing a different expensive watch on different occasions was part of the job of running a country. And like them, her luxurious taste was caught on camera. Photographs show her at one or another function modeling watches that in toto cost more than $500,000.

From the collection of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte. Source: Presidential Flickr account

Just as with the Sanader and Wongsuwan flaps, photos of Boluarte’s watch collection prompted uncomfortable questions: Why didn’t she report the collection on her income and asset declaration form as required by law? And how could she, like them a longtime government employee, afford such a pricey collection?

Despite Sanader and Wongsuwan’s lame explanations –“I didn’t know I had to report them.” “Oh wait, they aren’t mine, I just borrowed them.” – the exposure of their unexplainable wealth cost them nothing more than civil society reproaches. Whether Peruvian authorities will accept Boluarte’s similarly flimsy explanations remains at this writing to be seen.

Beyond the reminder that some government leaders are incurably venal, these serial watchgates offer lessons. For leaders enamored of fancy timepieces, report them on your income and asset disclosure form or keep them up your sleeve when a photographer is nearby. For anticorruption agencies, there is a less flippant, more important lesson.

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