Author Archives: Derrick Wang

The Anticorruption Legacy of American Civil Service Reform

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In the waning months of President Donald Trump’s first term, he issued an executive order that could have drastically reshaped the U.S. federal bureaucracy. The order created a new federal government job classification with far fewer civil service protections, called “Schedule F.” While most career civil servants in the U.S. federal government are protected from politically motivated firings and cannot be fired without cause, under Schedule F, employees “of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character” could be fired without following standard civil service procedures. With Trump now set to reassume power, Schedule F is back on the table, threatening to take away employment protections from potentially hundreds of thousands of federal employees and making it easier to fire civil servants for purely political reasons.

Commentators have pointed out the potential negative effects of Schedule F on administrative capacity, government performance, and accountability. But another key reason to be skeptical of Schedule F is that it represents a step backwards in the history of American civil service reform, which has its roots in 19th century anticorruption movements. Civil service independence and merit-based hiring came about in response to endemic corruption in the federal bureaucracy. The anticorruption history of the American civil service holds important lessons for modern civil service reformers, both in the United States and elsewhere.

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How State Prosecutors Can Fill the Gap in U.S. Anticorruption Enforcement

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It’s getting harder to prosecute federal corruption crimes in the United States. In a recent case called Snyder v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the scope of a key anti-bribery law. And this decision is only the latest in a series of cases over the past decade that have limited the reach of federal prosecutors in going after state and local public corruption. While Congress could always enact legislation to expand the scope of federal anticorruption laws, significant legislative action seems unlikely anytime soon.

Given the increasing difficulty of corruption prosecution at the federal level, could state prosecutors step in to pursue cases now beyond the reach of federal law enforcement? After all, federal and state prosecutors share partly overlapping responsibilities for anticorruption enforcement in the United States. Although the Supreme Court has increasingly rejected broad theories of federal criminal liability especially in the context of state and local corruption, the Supreme Court’s narrow readings of federal anticorruption laws pose no barrier to cases brought by state prosecutors enforcing state law (see, for example, here and here). To be sure, federal prosecutors have traditionally played a substantial role in rooting out state and local government corruption, and many remain skeptical that state prosecutors can take up the anticorruption role that federal prosecutors have long played. Yet while state prosecutions might not be a perfect substitute for robust federal anticorruption enforcement, there are compelling reasons to think that state prosecutors could meaningfully fill the gap that the Supreme Court has opened up in the U.S. anticorruption system.

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Twelve Years Later, Did China’s Sweeping Anticorruption Campaign Deliver?

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When Xi Jinping rose to power as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, he kicked off a sweeping campaign to eliminate corruption across government. Xi vowed to discipline both “tigers” and “flies” — high-ranking party leaders and low-level bureaucrats — and warned officials of the risk that corruption posed to the government’s legitimacy. Official efforts to address corruption were hardly new in China, but Xi’s anticorruption drive was notable for its aggressive enforcement and willingness to pursue even the most powerful. Xi empowered and expanded the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the highest supervisory organ of the party, while also reorganizing the government to create a new National Supervisory Commission (NSC) that would unify the state’s anticorruption enforcement. Xi’s enforcers employed harsh rhetoric, seeking to deter corruption by strict enforcement. Twelve years later, millions of officials have been disciplined or purged, including top party figures such as former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai and former security minister Zhou Yongkang. Under China’s draconian criminal justice system, such defendants stand little chance. And private individuals have not been spared, with prominent industry and business leaders caught up in bribery and corruption investigations. On top of this sweeping crackdown, Xi has taken steps to permanently institutionalize anticorruption across the party and government.

In many respects, Xi has done much of what anticorruption practitioners advocate for: He has prioritized anticorruption at the highest level of government, increased enforcement dramatically, and reformed both government and political institutions. There are signs that his anticorruption efforts have paid off. Public perception of government has improved, with officials wary of ostentatious consumption of luxury goods and other openly corrupt behavior. Xi himself declared overwhelming victory in the fight against corruption in early 2024.

Yet despite the impressive numbers, Xi’s campaign has failed to address the underlying dynamics driving corruption in China. Indeed, the fact that anticorruption authorities continue to catch record-breaking numbers of corrupt officials at all levels of government may be a warning sign, not a marker of success. While Xi’s campaign is viewed in some quarters as a model for top-down, government-led anticorruption campaigns, China’s experience over the last dozen years also highlights the inherent limitations of that approach.

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