Tag Archives: Transparency International

The Corruption-Security Nexus: Lessons from Afghanistan (Part 2)

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This spring has been a season of reckoning with regard to anticorruption efforts in Afghanistan, with two important reports on that topic released last February. The first report, a study on the relationship between corruption and stability in conflict and post-conflict zones from Transparency International (TI) Germany, was the subject of my last post. The second study, was  the U.S. military published a report prepared by the Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA) Division of the Joint Staff. The JCOA study is disheartening, with the report’s key findings amounted to an admission that U.S. forces initially contributed to corruption in Afghanistan. Indeed, the report finds that actions on the part of the International Security Assistance Force, the Afghan government, and the Afghan population fostered a “culture of impunity,” and that even where military taskforces made progress in fighting corruption, lack of unity and a lack of Afghan political will frustrated the taskforces’ headway.

The JCOA report offers recommendations for operationalizing what it refers to as Counter/Anti-Corruption (CAC) in the future term in Afghanistan and suggesting ways to optimize CAC from Day 1 in future missions. One of the major, and potentially fruitful tasks, will be to integrate fully CAC into counterinsurgency (COIN). I would supplement the JCOA Division’s recommendations with several additional suggestions: Continue reading →

The Corruption-Security Nexus: Lessons from Afghanistan (Part 1)

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This past February, Transparency International (TI) Germany released a study on the relationship between corruption and stability in conflict and post-conflict zones. Titled “Corruption as a Threat to Stability and Peace”, the report notes that corruption and conflict have a “symbiotic relationship,” in which corruption drives instability by encouraging rent-seeking behavior, undermining state institutions, and fueling social and political grievances, while institutional weakness in fragile or conflict-ridden states allows corruption to take root. (The U.S. military’s Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA) Division released a report on a similar theme, focusing specifically on Afghanistan, around the same time. That report will be the subject of my next post.)

The good news, as TI relates it, is that both intervening military forces and peace-builders are taking note of the effects of corruption on security and are starting to implement efforts to fight corruption. The bad news is that the results of those efforts are decidedly mixed, and their long-term success is threatened by countervailing interests, like securing short-term peace agreements. Those observations are not all that surprising. Buried in the report, however, are a few unexpected observations that are worth highlighting.

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The New Chinese-Backed Infrastructure Bank: Will it Tame the Corruption Dragon?

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Asian governments are welcoming China’s recent decision to establish a bank to finance infrastructure across Asia.  As Devex reported June 2, China plans to capitalize it with an initial $50 billion with the possibility of increasing it by an additional $100 billion.  For China, the bank is one more way to assert leadership in the Asian region.  For Asian states leery of relying on the Western-led World Bank and Asian Development Bank for financing public works, the bank is a chance to diversify.  For both the lender and borrowers alike, the bank offers the chance to profit from Asia’s economic dynamism.

The Chinese-led bank will have to overcome many challenges to realize these objectives, the most difficult of which may well be preventing corruption from infecting the projects it finances.  Infrastructure corruption produces half-built roads, dilapidated ports, and white elephants of all kinds.  It leaves borrowing governments indebted for under-performing, over-priced assets while stirring a backlash against the lender.  Will the new bank and its principal backer be able to keep the corruption dragon at bay?   There are at least three reasons to worry that it won’t.  Continue reading →

Encouraging More Corruption-Related Litigation?

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On June 28 the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict and the Open Society Foundations’ Justice Initiative will, with the help of this writer, host a one-day conference at the Said Business School entitled Legal Remedies for Corruption to discuss ways civil society can stimulate corruption-related litigation – either by pressuring prosecutors to file more criminal cases or by bringing their own civil actions for damages.

The question mark in the title is for American readers who might be forgiven for asking why such a conference is necessary.  Isn’t there enough litigation already? The U.S. Department of Justice and Securities & Exchange Commission continue to vigorously enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, while the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section continues to ferret out corrupt federal, state, and local officials.  In 2012, the last year for which data is available, the section charged more than 1,000 individuals with accepting bribes, criminal conflict of interest, and other corruption offenses. And private parties in the U.S. have also been willing to sue alleged bribe payers, with suits brought by a range of injured parties including competitors, suppliers, partners, shareholders, and employee-whistleblowers.  Even foreign governments have taken advantage of American law’s broad standing rules and generous theories of damages: One alleged bribe payer recently paid a company owned by the Government of Bahrain $85 million to settle a claim it had harmed the company by bribing one of its employees to secure a contract, while the government of Trinidad has brought an action under Florida’s version of the Racketeer and Corrupt Organizations Act against the companies that allegedly rigged bids on an airport construction project in Port of Spain.

It turns out that while there is a great deal of litigation — public and private — over bribery allegations in the United States, this is much less true in most of the rest of the world. Continue reading →

The TTIP Is an Ideal Opportunity to Strengthen Anticorruption Measures

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This week, Europe and the US will be negotiating the fifth round of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Transparency International (TI) has urged the parties to include a transparency and anticorruption chapter in the TTIP. TI is right about this–the US and European negotiators should include something like TI’s suggested chapter in the revised TTIP. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Good Governance as a Standalone Development Goal

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Daniel Dudis, Senior Policy Director for Government Accountability at Transparency International USA contributes the following guest post:

The United Nations is currently working towards developing a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) that will provide the framework for whatever new global commitments are agreed upon as a replacement to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which expire in 2015.  Many development priorities have been identified for potential inclusion among the SDGs–indeed, the most recent document from the U.N. SDG working group lists no fewer than 19 “focus areas” for potential inclusion. As is now widely recognized, the achievement of many of the traditional development goals (poverty eradication, nutrition, education, etc.) requires honest and effective governments. But it is important to go beyond that recognition and make good government–government that is both effective and free of corruption–a development goal in and of itself. In considering which development priorities to enshrine for inclusion among the future SDGs, UN member states should insist on the inclusion of “good governance” as a specific, standalone governance goal.

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Perceptions of Reality: Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index

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Matthew wrote last month about the February competition the U4 Anticorruption Resource Center and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Affairs sponsored to spur creation of new measures of corruption.  What he did not say is that one subtext for the contest was the growing frustration with the use of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) to measure the actual level of corruption in a country.

This is not the fault of TI.   The organization is careful to say on its web site that its index does not measure the actual extent of corruption and goes to great lengths to explain how the index is constructed, stressing that it is a ranking of how corrupt countries are perceived to be using the opinions of business people and country experts.  Indeed the title selected, “Corruption Perceptions Index,” couldn’t be any clearer about what is being measured.  But journalists and academics frequently treat the index as if it measured actual corruption, rather than perceived corruption, or assume that perceptions match reality fairly closely.  And that’s where problems may arise. Continue reading →

Transparency International’s Muddled Use of “Corruption,” and Why It Matters

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What corruption means informs what and how anticorruption reformers reform.

Unfortunately, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) dodges this important issue by averaging together the responses from polls employing competing definitions of “corruption.”  This is a problem because different types of corruption have different causes, have different effects, and require different types of remedies. Transparency International should disaggregate its index of perceived “corruption” into two distinct indices: one for perceptions of illegal corruption, and one for primarily legal (but distrust-generating) conduct, which could fairly be characterized as institutional corruption.  This change would make the CPI more precise, better educating the press, public, and policymakers who rely on it. Continue reading →

What Does “Zero Tolerance” of Corruption Mean? A Comment on Labelle

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Rick’s last couple of posts (here and here) critiqued Bill Gates’ claim that, because corruption in development aid projects as relatively small-scale (allegedly around 2%), it’s therefore a manageable “tax” on aid. Rick asserted (correctly, in my view) that the corruption problem is much bigger, and that the 2% figure is essentially a made-up number. Over at the Huffington Post, Huguette Labelle, the Chair of Transparency International, also responds to Gates. Most of what she says is pretty standard (which doesn’t mean it’s not right). But near the end of her post, she takes a striking position that’s worth thinking about a bit more critically: She argues forcefully against “[a]ccepting low levels of corruption as a pragmatic fact of life,” and instead advocates “[z]ero-tolerance for corruption.” This is quite different from Rick’s argument; Rick pointed out that corruption in development aid projects is not in fact low-level. But Ms. Labelle’s “zero tolerance” stance implies that even if Bill Gates were right about the facts, he would still be wrong in his conclusions. “Zero tolerance” of corruption certainly sounds good. But what exactly does it mean? Continue reading →