Author Archives: Richard Messick

Just How Relevant for Developing Nations is Singapore’s Experience Combating Corruption?

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Policymakers in developing countries hunting for relevant examples of successful efforts to combat corruption are often urged to look to Singapore. (Click here, here, and here for representative publications.) Not only does it regularly score at or near the top of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (in seventh place in the just released 2014 index) but its history is similar to that of developing nations.  For much of the modern era it was under colonial rule, becoming fully independent only in 1965, and independence followed a turbulent decade marked by insurgency and social upheaval.  Again like many of today’s developing nations, at independence it had a backward economy and poorly educated citizenry.  Its success in lifting its citizens out of poverty and creating a modern economy, often attributed at least in part to how well it has done in curbing corruption, makes it an all the more attractive model for developing states.

But Singapore differs in so many critical ways from these nations that its relevance for their development is questionable at best. Continue reading →

A First Draft of a Training Course for Anticorruption Investigators: Comments Please!

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Last week I complained about the poor quality of the training provided to investigators in developing country anticorruption agencies.   Here I offer a (very) rough draft of the topics I think a quality course should cover.  Comments, additional sources, and (gentle) critiques requested. Continue reading →

Better Training for Anticorruption Investigators: Another Dull, Boring, Humdrum, Modest, Unimaginative Proposal to Combat Corruption?

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U.S. Federal Judge Mark Wolf’s proposal to create an international court for corruption crimes was recently the subject of a briefing organized by a commission of the U.S. House of Representatives.  The briefing was the latest example of the attention Judge Wolf’s recommendation for fighting corruption has garnered, attention that has included an appearance on public television where he extolled the merits of his proposal and an interview in a serious policy journal where he expanded on his idea for the court.

Given Matthew’s devastating critique of the court proposal, the attention the judge’s idea continues to attract is surprising to say the least.  What it no doubt reflects is the publicity value of an idea that, at least on its face, appears to be an innovative, imaginative, and “outside the box” way to fight corruption.  Given this media bias, it would do no good to point to further flaws in the judge’s idea (indeed one might write that it would be blogging a dead horse to do so).  What I intend here instead is to protest the media bias for headline grabbing ideas to combat corruption by advancing one that is dull, boring, humdrum, modest, and unimaginative.  The proposal is thus diametrically different in PR value from the judge’s.  It also differs in two substantive ways: it is 1) realistic and 2) will help reduce corruption if followed.

Continue reading →

A Dull, Boring, Humdrum, Unimaginative, Prosaic Proposal to Combat Corruption

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David took Alexander Lebedev and Vladislav Inozemtsev to task in a recent post for a scheme they proposed in an on-line issue of Foreign Affairs to combat corruption.  Ignoring the several international anticorruption conventions now in place and the slow but steady improvements these agreements have produced, the authors called for a brand new convention that would grant extraordinary powers to a supranational team of investigators, prosecutors, and judges to arrest, prosecute, and try those suspected of corruption no matter where they are.  The harebrained idea is so full of holes and so unrealistic that David labeled it “absurd,” a conclusion with which any serious analyst would surely agree.

In closing David urged the anticorruption community to stop advancing unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky proposals that waste readers’ time and scarce space in learned journals in favor of more realistic, if less catchy, ones.  In that spirit I offer the following dull, boring, humdrum, unimaginative, prosaic proposal — one not likely to capture the uninformed reader’s imagination or gain space in Foreign Affairs or another prestigious policy journal. On the other hand, my proposal will help crackdown on corruption, particularly corruption by powerful officials in developing states.  It is simple.  Developed nations should copy a program the British government began in 2006. Continue reading →

Reflections on the Anticorruption Movement

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The World Bank’s Integrity Vice-Presidency is celebrating its 15th anniversary.  It recently asked a number of individuals for their thoughts on the anticorruption movement over the past 15 years.  INT’s questions and my replies below.  Continue reading →

Why Firms Contracting With Developing Nations Should be Required to Disclose Evidence of Corruption

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An earlier post urged developing states to require firms doing business with them to have procedures in place to prevent their employees and agents from bribing government officers, making false claims, or committing other corrupt or fraudulent acts during the execution of a government contract.  Mandating that government contractors institute anticorruption compliance programs is an American innovation that works reasonably well there and is spreading to other nations.  Here I advocate a second American effort to curb corruption in government contracting that has not worked well in the United States but can in developing states.

Continue reading →

U.S. Department of Justice/Civil Society — 1; Kleptocrats — 0

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October 10, 2014, deserves mention in any future history of the anticorruption movement, for it was on this date that a ruling kleptocratic family (colloquially known as thugs in power) conceded the obvious: that the money to fund a kleptocratic lifestyle — in this case a mansion in Malibu, a Ferrari 599 GTO, and Michael Jackson memorabilia – did not come from the family’s hard work on behalf of the citizens they rule.  Rather, it came the easy way: from the wholesale theft of the nation’s patrimony.

This startling, if obvious, concession came in the settlement of a civil suit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, with the support and encouragement of civil society, against an unlikely group of defendants.  In the order listed in the complaint, they are: 1) One White Crystal Covered Bad Tour Glove and Other Michael Jackson Memorabilia, 2) One Gulfstream G-V Jet Airplane Displaying Tail Number VPCES, 3) Real Property Located on Sweetwater Mesa Road In Malibu California, 4) One 2007 Bentley Azure, 5) One 2008 Bugatti Veyron, 6) One 2008 Lamborghini Murcielago, 7) One 2008 Rolls Royce Drophead Coupe, 8) One 2009 Rolls Royce Drophead Coupe, 9) 2009 Rolls Royce Phantom Coupe, and 10) the Ferrari 599 GTO.

Although defendants stood mute before the court, their owner, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, Second Vice President of Equatorial Guinea and (surprise?) son of the country’s president, was anything but.  Through the mouths of expensive American legal talent he complained loudly and bitterly that the ten named defendants were innocent.  But in settling the case, he agreed in effect that three – the mansion, the Ferrari, and some of the Michael Jackson memorabilia, were indeed guilty.  Guilty? Of what? Continue reading →

Developing States Should Demand that Firms Doing Business with Them Have an Anticorruption Compliance Program

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In December 2008 the U.S. federal government instituted its Contractor Code of Business Ethics and Conduct program.  Since then, any firm awarded a contract of $5 million or more requiring at least 120 days to perform must establish within 90 days of the award an anticorruption compliance program that i) contains a written code of business ethics and conduct, ii) trains employees on ethics and compliance periodically, and iii) has an internal control system able to discover improper conduct.  The rules also require that the program be overseen by someone of “sufficiently high level [with] adequate resources to ensure [its] effectiveness.”  When a review found government agencies were not systematically checking their contractors for compliance, the regulations were amended to require the government employee responsible for contract execution to verify that the contractor had an anticorruption compliance program in place.

No developing state now imposes any similar requirement on those with which it contracts — at least according to interviews with development agency procurement staff and internet searches.  But there is no good reason why developing countries should not mandate such a program and good reasons why they should. Continue reading →

Civil Society Combats Corruption: A Review of Shaazka Beyerle’s Curtailing Corruption: People Power for Accountability & Justice

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The now worldwide anticorruption movement remains a creature of its origins:  civil society.  It was Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization, that first gave voice to citizen demands for honest government,  and it is thousands of national and local groups that have put their own “boots on the ground” to demand public officials do something.  Now comes Shaazka Beyerle, Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Transatlantic Relations, to recount in fascinating and colorful detail some of the recent victories these warriors for an accountable and just government have achieved. Continue reading →

Is Corruption Destroying American Democracy? Zephyr Teachout’s Corruption in America – The Discussion Continues

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Last week I critiqued Fordham University Law Professor Zephyr Teachout’s new book, Corruption in American: From Benjamin Franklin to Citizens United.  Professor Teachout claims that campaign contributions and lobbying by private interests threatens American democracy and drastic reform is urgently needed.  I complained that she was ignoring the current scholarship on the effect of money on American democracy and that it tells a much different story than the one she recounts. Two commentators, Harvard Law Professor John Coates and Dutch Professor Maurits Breul, replied to my critique.  I thank both for prompting me to think harder about Professor Teachout’s book and its arguments.

Having done so, I am even more convinced that the book’s most glaring weakness is its failure to acknowledge, let alone engage with, the current learning on the effects of campaign spending and lobbying and that this omission is fatal to her call for reform. Continue reading →