Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Government corruption
Corruption in Former Soviet Countries
Administrative corruption and state capture generally occur as the result of inadequate institutional structures and policies that do not support competition and free trade. Predictably, these inefficiencies have been especially prevalent in the transition process from a socialist to a market economy. Consequently, combating corruption has become a major factor in the debate over optimal reform strategies. Numerous theorists have suggested shock therapy as the optimal method to minimize corruption, but empirical evidence shows mixed results throughout transition economies. Overall, state capture and administrative corruption have had extremely negative economic, social, and political consequences that far outweigh any benefits, and have occurred largely as the result of initial conditions and political inefficiency rather than the speed of reform.
Before explaining the negative consequences of corruption in transition economies, it is first important to understand the most common types of corruption. The World Bank divides corruption into two main categories, state capture and administrative corruption. State capture encompasses actions by individuals or firms to manipulate the formulation of government laws and regulations to their benefit. This type of corruption usually transpires where there is little social voice and official political influence, benefiting those at the center of a concentrated, economic network. Administrative corruption includes actions that distort the ‘prescribed implementation’ of such laws and regulations, often bribes to public officials that result in selective exemptions to individuals or firms.
The Business Environment and Enterprise Performance ...
... middle of paper ...
...vatization is likely to lead to massive self-dealing by managers and controlling shareholders unless a country has a good infrastructure” (1731). Without such infrastructure, Russia could not successfully implement rapid privatization, and even in Czecholslovakia, where initial results were promising, increasing ‘tunneling’ in the late 90s has led to a recession. Moreover, partial reform has not always featured the excessive corruption that was predicted by many economists. Hungary and Poland have had relatively low levels of both state capture and administrative corruption, despite their gradualist reform programs. Yet this is not to say that all gradualist reform programs feature less corruption, but rather that the results from each country vary according to their individual situation and particular inefficiencies, and often also depend on initial conditions.
By the mid 20th century, the scale and prominence of corruption had increased dramatically, due to the widespread transition to vast urban cities and industrialized systems. The greed and desperation that resulted from the shift towards industrialism accelerated the growth of corruption in politics. Although the shift to industry was a necessary stepping stone in the development of the modern society existing today, it was accompanied by various consequences to American society and facilitated the corruption of government officials. The exploitation of fellow
Serpico (1973) is a movie that reveals the true story of Frank Serpico who was the only honest cop in the New York police sector at his time. The film shows the realistic view of the corruption that was evidenced in the New York police and highlights the character of Frank as being honest and courageous. Although he started as an inexperienced cop, he later worked as an undercover officer and was determined to bust all the criminal activities especially the drug dealers and pushers. Unlike the other cops, Serpico refused to take any bribes from the wrongdoers. More so, he felt that the other officers were doing wrong by accepting bribes and wanted to expose the situation. The other officers were so corrupt that they collected more money through bribes than the salary they earned, a situation that did not please Serpico. His strong stand concerning corruption made his friends turn against him, placing his life in danger. The anti-corruption efforts of Serpico jeopardized his life at the hands of his colleagues. He was later transferred to the Narcotics Squad where he was shot by a drug dealer after his partners betrayed him by failing to support him. The cop was then rushed to hospital. The shooting made Frank deaf since it affected the brain, rendering
Title: Corruption of the Soviet System in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Corruption is an individual and institutional process where there is a gain by a public official from a briber and in return receives a service. Between the gain and the service, there is an improper connection, (Thompson p.28). The two major categories of bribery is individual and institutional corruption. Receiving personal goods for the pursuit of one’s own benefit is personal fraud. An example of individual distortion is the financial scandal involving David Durenberger. Organizational corruption involves “receiving goods that are useable primarily in the political process and are necessary for doing a job or are essential by-products of doing it,” (Thompson p.30). An instance of institutional fraud is the Keating Five case. There are also times where there is a mixture of both individual and organizational corruption in a scandal. An example of this diverse combination is James C. Wright Jr. actions while he was the Speaker of the House.
Prenzler, T, Ransley, J 2002, Corruption and Reform: Global Trends and Theoretical Perspectives, Hawkins Press, Annandale.
Corruption consists in the illegitimate agreement between a corruptor and a corrupted, in which they abuse of their public power in order to obtain personal benefit. Bribery and corruption is something that has been going on for years. According to Allen, “officials perceive themselves as immune to any penalties for demanding and receiving bribes” which she states that it is one of the main reasons for bribery and corruption in underdeveloped countries. According to Transparency International, an organization committed exclusively to end corruption, three of the most corrupt countries in the world are Somalia, North Korea and Afghanistan. This does not mean that corruption is only seen in underdeveloped countries. In international business, corporate employees often find themselves dealing with corruptors in foreign countries and, in most cases, they will give in.
In today’s light, the Progressive Era is seen as a time period where people’s lives changed for the better, but none of that change would have been possible without muckrakers exposing the numerous problems that lied hidden from the American public. With the corruption of government officials, dangerous and unhealthy working conditions for young children, and poverty-ridden slums in cities, this article aims to expose three of the most prominent problems of the Progressive Era.
He also stressed the need to address bribery and corruption in the government and the public sector as a whole which were rampant and interfering with the reform process. Although the government is committed itself to be a more transparent and accountable government, it is not very successful and there is a long road ahead with many challenges. This paper analyses the policy options that have been implemented by the government to reduce corruption and build integrity. At the same time, this paper also discusses the extend of success of the government in creating a clean government and good
According to the OECD, corruption presents four key aspects of concern for developing countries. Corruption (1) increases the cost of doing business (2) it is an inefficient use of public resources (3) it excludes poor people from public services and perpetuates poverty and (4) it corrodes public trust, undermines the rule of law and ultimately delegitimises the state (OECD: 2015). This indicates that bribery, embezzlement, and state capture undermine development. The Bank recognises that corruption secretive and difficult to measure, yet the way that corruption is presented and perceived is problematic. I will investigate this by looking at how corruption can affect the development of effective state institutions. However, in order to provide these aspects of development, a state need the material basis. This is a fundamental paradox of the Bank’s anti-corruption strategy. The Bank also acknowledges that the limitations for reform are based on the inability of the state to perform such analytical
... what works and what does not, and, over time as it identifies effective reforms for its unique system, they can replicate them in other cities, regions, and on up to the national level. This “bottom-up” approach (as opposed to the traditional “top-down”) is an exciting new development for the institutional reform approach to anti-corruption work.
Generally speaking, a transparent, fair and clean environment is one of the important guarantee of a rapid economic development. Corruption usually plays a negative role in social and economic development field (World Bank, 2000). Mauro (1996, 1998), Monte and Papagni (2007), Tanzi (1998) believe that corruption will hurt development. However, there are also some counter examples. After the second World War, for instance, some authoritarian countries began a quick development , but in this process, corruption could always be found, which even synchronously grew. This paper will focus on what is the relationship between corruption and development and how corruption could impact on development and development management. First, it will define what corruption means, as well as its categories. Second, the relationship between corruption and development will be discussed through a series different arguments. Third, it will focus on the case of China, where corruption and development currently coexist.
The UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) (UN General Assembly 2003) is the first international attempt to establish a standard of anti-corruption policy in order to reduce problems related to corruption (Hechler et al. 2011) like an adverse impact on economic growth (Mauro 2004). In spite the fact that the approach of UNCAC is based on large empirical evidence about the causes of corruption (Judge, McNatt, and Xu 2011) corruption remains in some countries a persistent problem (Hechler et al. 2011). A ex ante analysis by Hechler et al. (2011) identified the lack implementation as one of the major pitfalls of the UNCAC and this essay seeks to find a theoretical explanation by drawing on the literature of policy diffusion, which applies for UNCAC as the policy choices of signing countries affect the policy choices of other countries (Meseguer 2006). This constitutes an interesting case for testing the assumptions of the two main mechanism identified by Gilardi (2003), who distinguishes between mechanisms of diffusion focused on rational problem-solving or symbolic purposes (Meseguer 2006). However, this essay narrows the field of possible answers by arguing that the concept of rational learning (Meseguer 2006) does not apply and therefore advocates a critical assessment of the underlying premise of mimetic isomorphism that countries imitate each other but are more concerned about legitimacy rather than functional efficiency (Hall and Taylor 1996). Testing mimetic isomorphism against the implementation process of UNCAC will highlight under which conditions the theoretical framework is more likely to explain the outcome of anti-corruption policy. This may yield key insights on the antecedents of failure in decreasing...
Kearney, A.T. (2001). Corruption and the Globalization Index. Last access on 27 March 2005 at URL: http://www.globalcorruptionreport.org/download/gcr2001/data_and_research.pdf NAIM, Mois´s (1995). Corruption Eruption. Last accessed on 2 April 2005 at URL: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=648 MORAN, Robert T. and RIESENBERGER, John R. (1994)
The existence of bribery and unethical behavior is rampant in the world market and may not change overnight. The question of bribery has been distilled in business literature as a question of ethics. In this situation at the airport with the customs officer, it is important to distinguish between business ethics and personal ethics. In a business ethics situation, the Foreign Corruption Practices Act would prohibit offering any bribe to the custom office – for example to free a shipment of goods that was lost in red tape (Pitman & Sanford, 2006). Most companies also have policies against bribery as well. In this situation, however the main issue at hand is that of personal ethics. When in a situation where your company is unknown and there is no business being conducted, normal business ethics and laws (including FCPA) do not apply only personal ethical standards.
Montesh, M. (n.d.). Conceptualizing Corruption: Forms, Causes, Types and Consequences. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from