Tag Archives: protests

Corruption Should Be a Laughing Matter

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Corruption is a serious matter—it sucks away public finances, undermines good governance, ends livelihoods, and consumes lives. It’s therefore understandable that many anticorruption activists center much of their work on getting people to take corruption seriously. But despite the underlying gravity of the problem, sometimes a surprisingly effective way to fight against corruption is to make people laugh about it.

Consider Alexei Navalny, the Russian activist whose attempted assassination, arrest, and imprisonment underscore just how much Moscow has recognized his power. One of the striking things about the explosive videos that Navalny has released to expose the Putin regime’s corruption is that the videos aren’t just shocking—they’re funny. People enjoy watching them because of their biting humor—and while they’re laughing, they also learn about Putin’s siphoning of public funds for his own benefit.

There are plenty of other examples of anticorruption activists effectively using humor as part of their campaigns. To mention just a few:

  • Last summer, Lebanese activists staged a fake—and deliberately comical—“funeral” for the Lebanese currency (the lira), as a protest against the cronyism and mismanagement that “killed” the Lebanese lira and tanked the country’s economy. A video of the “funeral” gathered over 10,600 views on Twitter and brought renewed international attention to an anticorruption protest movement that at that point was approaching its seventh month without much success.
  • A Chinese artist known as Badiucao has used satirical art to bring attention to the ruling party’s political corruption, including a famous “promotional poster” for the TV series House of Cards, with Xi Jinping sitting on the throne instead of series villain Frank Underwood. His art helped spark renewed criticism of the regime and is credited with inspiring political cartoons throughout Hong Kong’s democratic uprising against China’s controversial 2019 extradition bill.
  • In Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky was elevated from comedian to President of Ukraine by campaigning on an anticorruption platform. Comedy was a key part of his 2018 campaign—instead of traditional rallies, he held performances by comedy troupes skewering the corruption of the incumbent regime.
  • Back in 2004, the then-mayor of Bogota Antanas Mockus pushed back against the city’s petty corruption through antics like inducting 150 “honest” taxi drivers into a fictional club called the “Knights of the Zebra.”

These and other examples illustrate an important lesson for anticorruption activists: Notwithstanding the seriousness of corruption and the harm that it causes, humor can be a powerful tool in spreading an anticorruption message. As a rhetorical device, humor has a few distinctive strengths:

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How Rampant Corruption Has Brought Peru to its Current Political Crisis

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Earlier this week, Francisco Sagasti was sworn as the new president of Peru. He is the 87th president in the country’s 200-year history, the fourth president in the current five-year presidential term, and the third president in a week.

The unusual chain of events that led to Sagasti’s presidency comprise one of Peru’s biggest political crises in recent history. On Monday, November 9th, Congress voted to remove President Martín Vizcarra for “moral incapacity” and appointed the president of Congress, Manuel Merino, to serve as interim president. This move incensed the Peruvian public; Vizcarra had enjoyed a public approval rating of nearly 60% even after Peru suffered one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in the world. Peruvians took to the streets, protesting Vizcarra’s removal and demanding the resignation of Merino, who was the driving force behind the impeachment proceedings. Police violence against protestors left two dead, more than forty missing, and at least ninety injured. Merino resigned five days into his tenure, and Congress named Sagasti – one of the minority of Congressmen who voted against Vizcarra’s impeachment – as interim president until the April 2021 elections.

This crisis represents the culmination of several growing tensions in Peruvian political life, including an increasingly antagonistic relationship between the executive and legislative branches, a widespread rejection of the political establishment and embrace of populism, and the enormous toll of COVID-19. But no issue is more central to this story than that of endemic corruption. Indeed, the intractable problem of corruption in Peru has been largely responsible for the current political crisis.

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Are There Common Features of Dysfunctional Organizational Cultures? Corruption and Police Brutality

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For the second time in the last several months, I’m finding it extremely difficult to blog about corruption due to a more urgent crisis. A few months ago, it was the Covid-19 pandemic, which is still very much with us. But now, in addition to the ongoing public health emergency, my home country (the United States) is in the midst of widespread social and political unrest triggered by the murder of an unarmed black citizen at the hands of police officers, as well as several other similar incidents. The underlying problems—systemic racism and misconduct by law enforcement agencies—are, sad to say, longstanding problems with deep roots. But the protests have given them new urgency and salience. And while there have been instances of rioting and looting—acts that the vast majority of peaceful protestors have roundly condemned—we have also seen what can only be described as a grossly disproportionate response by far too many law enforcement agencies and officers. In multiple cases, police have used unnecessary force not only against rioters and looters, but against peaceful protestors and members of the media who clearly identified themselves as such. And multiple senior elected officials, including President Trump and Senator Tom Cotton, have advocated the use of military force to suppress what they would characterize as civil unrest.

Suffice it to say that, given all this, it’s hard for me to think of something interesting or worthwhile to say about global corruption. But as I’ve been doing more to educate myself about the root causes of police misconduct (a mild term for a category that includes, among other things, brutality and racially discriminatory enforcement), I’ve noticed some intriguing similarities to some of the prevailing theories regarding the roots of organizational corruption (in both government agencies, including but not limited to police departments, and in private firms). Perhaps this shouldn’t be so surprising, because in both cases the ultimate issue concerns the reasons for widespread rule-breaking within an organization. To be clear, I don’t want to overstate the similarities, either with respect to the severity of the misconduct (I condemn bribery as strongly as anyone, but I wouldn’t dream of equating it with systemic racism or police brutality) or with respect to all of the causes and characteristics. I should also emphasize that I’m by no means an expert in police misconduct, and I suspect that many of my observations here will have already been made, or possibly already refuted, in the existing research literature with which I am not yet familiar. With those caveats, let me highlight some potentially intriguing similarities between the characteristics of police departments prone to racism and violence, on the one hand, and firms or divisions that engage in bribery, embezzlement, and other forms of financial malfeasance. These similarities may suggest some common features of ethically dysfunctional organizations. Continue reading →

Reasons for Optimism About Latin America’s Wave of Anticorruption Prosecutions: A Response to Professor Balan

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What are we to make of the ongoing wave of corruption prosecutions sweeping Latin America in the wake of the Odebrecht scandal? Many are optimistic that these prosecutions, several of which have implicated very senior political figures, including current and former presidents, signal a turning point for the region. But in a guest post last September, Professor Manuel Balan suggested that this optimism may be misplaced, for three reasons. First, he argued that the enforcement patterns suggest that anticorruption prosecutions are becoming a weaponized—that these prosecutions are being used as a political tool used to bring down opponents, and consequently they lack credibility with much of the public. Second, Professor Balan questioned whether these prosecutions would ultimately be successful in holding powerful, popular wrongdoers accountable, and he argued that these prosecutions will just take down leaders whose positions have weakened for other reasons (such as Dilma Rousseff in Brazil). Third, Professor Balan worried that these prosecutions show that judicial power is increasing at the expense of citizens’ power—that they represent an erosion of “vertical accountability.”

I remain one of the optimists. Indeed, I think that Professor Balan is far too pessimistic about the role that the current anticorruption prosecutions in Latin American can play—and to some extent have already played—in addressing the region’s longstanding corruption and impunity problems. Yet his three objections are worth taking seriously and deserve a direct response. Here’s why I don’t find any of them sufficiently persuasive to share his pessimism:

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Giuliani’s Inappropriate Letter to Romania’s President Will Harm Anticorruption Efforts

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Romania has long been considered one of the most corrupt countries in the European Union, but in recent years it has been making a concerted effort to bolster its fight against graft. Since 2013, Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), with the support of the ruling political parties, has been convicting roughly 1,000 people on corruption-related charges each year. However, once these anticorruption efforts began ensnaring high-level politicians—including Liviu Dragnea, the head of the biggest party in the Romanian Parliament—the government began to criticize the DNA’s work as biased, overzealous, and unfair. This conflict has been escalating, most dramatically in late 2017, when hundreds of thousands of Romanians took to the streets to protest an overnight decree that pardoned those serving sentences of five years or less for corruption-related crimes, and also decriminalized government officials’ corruption offenses involving less than $47,000 (raised to $240,000 in a later draft bill). The protests led to violent clashes with the police, who used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowds.

Adding to the turmoil, Rudolph Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City and current personal attorney of U.S. President Trump, recently wrote a letter to Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, condemning the overreach of the DNA and supporting the government’s efforts to curtail the DNA’s enforcement of anticorruption laws. Giuliani was paid to write the letter by the Freeh Group, a private American firm whose overseas clients include a Romanian businessman convicted for fraud last year, and another Romanian businessman currently under investigation by the DNA for bribery. Giuliani’s letter raises two distinct corruption-related problems. Continue reading →

Guest Post: What To Make of Latin America’s Wave of Anticorruption Prosecutions?

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Today’s guest post is from Professor Manuel Balan of the McGill University Political Science Department:

There seems to be a surge in corruption prosecutions of current or former presidents throughout in Latin America (see, for example, here, here, and here). In the last year we have seen sitting or former presidents prosecuted for corruption in Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama. In Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski resigned from the presidency amid corruption probes, and the last three former presidents are either facing trial or serving time for corruption. Argentina may soon join this list as a result of the so-called “Notebook Scandal,” which has triggered a fast-moving investigation that has already snared 11 businessmen and one public official, and is getting closer to former President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. (Argentina’s former vice-president Amado Boudou was also sentenced to almost six years in prison for corruption in a separate case.) Indeed, it now seems that Latin American presidents are almost certain to be prosecuted for corruption at some point after leaving office, if not before. My colleagues and I have documented the growing trend of prosecution of former chief executives in the region since democratization in the 1980s: Out of all presidents who started their terms in the 1980s, 30% were prosecuted for corruption. Of those that entered office in the 1990s, 52% were or are being currently prosecuted for corruption. In the group of presidents that began their terms in the 2000s, 61% underwent prosecution for corruption. And, remarkably, 10 out of the 11 presidents elected since 2010 who have finished their mandates either have been or are currently being prosecuted for corruption.

The explanation for this trend is not entirely clear. It’s probably not that Latin American presidents have become more corrupt. Some have suggested that the uptick in corruption prosecutions is a reaction, by the more conservative legal establishment, against Latin America’s “Left Turn.” But the trend towards increased prosecution is hardly limited to the region’s self-identified leftist leaders; in fact, left and non-left leaders are nearly equally likely to be prosecuted for corruption. Part of the explanation might have something to do with changes in prosecutorial and judicial institutions, media, or public expectations—the reasons are still unclear, and likely vary from country to country. Whatever the explanation, is this trend something to celebrate? Some observers say yes, arguing that the anticorruption wave sweeping Latin America is the result of Latin American citizens, fed up with corruption and taking to the streets in protest, putting pressure on institutions to investigate and punish corrupt politicians.

While I wish I could share this optimism, I think it’s likely misplaced. Continue reading →

Ukraine’s Cynical Efforts to Mandate Public Asset Disclosures for Anticorruption Advocates Must Be Stopped

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In 2016, under pressure from anticorruption organizations, Ukraine’s parliament passed the “On Prevention of Corruption” law, which required high-level government officials and other civil servants to disclose their income and assets in a public online database. A year later, however, the parliament—in what seems to have been an act of retaliation—adopted an amendment to that law, and required all individuals who “carry out activities related to the prevention and counteraction of corruption” to also declare their assets by April 1, 2018, or face potential penalties (including fines or imprisonment of up to two years). The amendment, in other words, imposes on anticorruption advocates the same financial disclosure requirements that many of these advocates had insisted on imposing on Ukrainian public officials.

Imposing this disclosure requirement on anticorruption advocates was rationalized as promoting transparency, since foreign money often supports anti-graft work in Ukraine. Some have claimed that anticorruption activists are themselves corrupt and work with anticorruption organizations to enrich themselves. More generally, the amendment seems to be motivated by an impulse toward retaliation (or a version of fairness): The message seems to be, “If you people think these requirements are appropriate for us, then you should be willing to put up with them too.”

But anticorruption workers do not hold public office and are not supported by taxpayer money, and there is no good reason to subject them to the same demanding disclosure standards that are entirely appropriate for public servants. This obvious distinction is further reason to believe that this amendment is yet another measure in line with previous government efforts to discredit anticorruption activists. Imposing the disclosure requirement has been roundly criticized both domestically and internationally, with activist organizations also arguing that the amendment violates Ukraine’s Constitution (particularly rights to freedom of speech, association, and employment). Even Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called the bill a “mistake,” and in July 2017 he submitted to parliament two draft laws that eliminate the asset disclosure obligation for individual anticorruption activists—but place even more stringent reporting requirements on anticorruption organizations. These draft laws drew further criticism, and as the April 1, 2018 asset disclosure deadline approached and passed, Ukraine’s parliament has refused to consider any changes to the law.

Leaving in place the requirement that those who help fight corruption must make the same kind of public asset disclosures as government officials will sabotage and chill anticorruption work. It is vital that domestic activists and the international community keep up the pressure on Ukraine to eliminate this requirement altogether, and to do so soon in order to remove the cloud of uncertainty that has fallen over all anticorruption advocacy since the April 1 deadline passed. The disclosure requirement as it stands threatens to undermine the fight against corruption in Ukraine in at least three ways: Continue reading →

Guest Post: When It Comes To Attitudes Toward Corruption, Russians Are More Like Americans Than You Think

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Today’s guest post is from Marina Zaloznaya, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Iowa and author of, The Politics of Bureaucratic Corruption in Post-Transitional Eastern Europe:

Russia and corruption have been dominating the news recently – with the reporting from Washington and Moscow converging in an unusual way. Ongoing accusations against Trump Administration officials resonate even more strongly when linked to Russia, a country most Americans view as rife with corruption. Indeed, many Americans think that Russian citizens are perfectly comfortable with the systematic corruption of political and business elites.

This is a myth. Yes, it is true beyond doubt that corruption is common in Russia – much more so than in the United States – affecting hundreds of thousands of people. But this is not because Russians are systematically more tolerant of corruption than are Americans. Continue reading →

Corruption in Kurdistan: Implications for U.S. Security Interests

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Since the rise of ISIS, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has been a vital U.S. ally in the fight against ISIS. The KRG is in many ways a unique sub-state, created through U.S. intervention following Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaign against the Kurds, and preserved in the new Iraqi constitution through Article 137, which grants the KRG a degree of autonomy.  Yet Kurdistan is plagued by corruption common to governments that, like the KRG, are heavily reliant on oil and gas revenue. Of the hundreds of millions dollars produced by the oil and gas industry in Kurdistan each month, only a portion reaches the actual Kurdish economy. Kurdish officials have tried to combat this problem to some degree, but oil revenues continue to “leak” from official channels to foreign advisors and government ministers. The problems are exacerbated by the fact that the KRG government, while nominally a democracy, is dominated by two tribal-familial groups, the Barzani and the Talabani, and the government actually resembles a hereditary dictatorship more than a parliamentary democracy, with the Barzani family in particular controlling the presidency, prime minister, and head of the region’s security forces through direct familial ties. In fact, current president Massoud Barzani has been serving without a democratic mandate since 2013.

KRG corruption is not just a concern for the Kurdish people, but a real security threat for the United States, for two main reasons: Continue reading →

The Petrobras Investigations and the Future of Brazil’s Democracy: Thailand and Italy as Cautionary Tales

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In March of 2014, when Alberto Youssef, the initial whistleblower for the now infamous Petrobras scandal disclosed his knowledge of the scheme to his lawyers, he prefaced his revelations with a grim prediction: “Guys, if I speak, the republic is going to fall.” While that prediction may have seemed melodramatic at the time, the recent turmoil in Brazil surrounding the Petrobras scandal and the impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff have led some to begin to question whether Mr. Youssef’s prediction might in fact ring true.

The Petrobras scandal may be the single biggest corruption scheme in any democracy, ever. By some estimates, up to US$5.3 Billion changed hands through inflated construction contracts and kickbacks to Petrobras executives and politicians. Even for a country accustomed to political corruption scandals, this case is unique in its breadth and scope. Dozens of Brazil’s economic and political elite have been implicated, including the CEO of the country’s largest construction firm (sentenced to 19 years in jail), and the former treasurer of Rousseff’s Workers’ Party (sentenced to 15 years in jail), plummeting Brazil into a true political and economic crisis. The investigations transcend party lines: Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of the House leading the charge for President Rousseff’s impeachment (for using accounting tricks to mask the nation’s deficit), has himself been charged in connection with the Petrobras Scandal. Indeed, this scandal appears to be a political reckoning, an indictment of the entire elite class in Brazil.

By most accounts, Brazil is a thriving democracy—elections are free and fair, and there is a multi-party system marked by vigorous competition between rival parties. Civil liberties are generally well respected. Protests against the government have been massive, but by most accounts peaceful and undisturbed by state authorities. But some have gone so far as to speculate that the unprecedented scale of this scandal may lead to a collapse of Brazil’s democratic system. At least one historical example suggests that this might not be so far-fetched: In Thailand, the political deadlock in 2014 following the ouster of President Yingluck Shinawatra on allegations of corruption and abuse of power ended with a military coup, and democracy has yet to return. Yet perhaps another, somewhat less dramatic but nonetheless troubling precedent is even more apt: In Italy in the 1990s, the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) campaign revealed endemic corruption and led to the collapse of the four governing political parties. In this case, while democratic elections continued, the political void left in the wake of Clean Hands was filled by new, corrupt actors like Silvio Berlusconi, and political graft remains rampant. Though Brazil seems unlikely to suffer a fate similar to Thailand, it is highly plausible that the aftermath of the Petrobras scandal might resemble the Italian experience.

Let’s consider some of the possible parallels between Brazil and Thailand, on the one hand, and Brazil and Italy, on the other.

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