Corruption of Foreign Governments

Corruption can be defined as "the misuse of entrusted power for personal

benefit". It can also be described as letting personal or family relationships influence

economic decision making, be it by private economic agents or by government officials.

Corruption is always kept secret and therefore individual behavior of corrupt agents is

almost impossible to observe systematically in real life. The objectives of government are

vital to the understanding of the diverse negative effects of corruption on the public

service. Corruption renders governments unable or unwilling to maximize the welfare of

the public. It distorts agents' decisions and limits the contractual space available to agents

and the government. Corruption can be broken down into two sections, internal and

external corruption. Internal corruption is the illegal acts and agreements within a police

department by more than one of the officers. External corruption is the illegal acts and

agreements with the public by one or more officers in a department. For a corrupt act to

occur, three distinct elements of police corruption must be present simultaneously: 1)

misuse of authority, 2) misuse of official capacity, and 3) misuse of personal attainment.

It can be said that power inevitably tends to corrupt, and it is yet to be recognized that,

while there is no reason to suppose that policemen as individuals are any less fallible than

other members of society, people are often shocked and outraged when policemen are

exposed violating the law. The reason is simple. There deviance elicits a special feeling

of betrayal. Most studies support the view that corruption is endemic, if not universal, in

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...wn culture and way of living and their cultures influence their

actions. For example, they are allowed to beat their children when they misbehave. As a

result, those abused children grow up to be police officers, or other officials with power,

who end up abusing the weak. America can influence those corrupt countries through our

foreign policies. In a period of time, it will change their cultures, and their cultures will

change their future actions.

Works Cited

Burns, John F. "In Pakistan, Coup Trials Mostly Yield Skepticism." New

York Times 2 April 1996: A5.

Rashid, Ahmed. "Pakistan: Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind." Current

History v 95 (April 1996): 158-164.

Tang, Rose. "China turns corruption into tourist attraction."CNN.COM. 27 Aug. 2001.

< http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/08/27/china.tourism/>.