Corrupt Leaders Research Articles

The World Needs an International Anti-Corruption Court

In War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy wrote that “the thoughts that have enormous consequences are always simple.” 1 This essay explains an ambitious idea with enormous consequences that is simple: an International Anti-Corruption Court is needed to diminish the devastating consequences of grand corruption, the abuse of public office for private gain by a nation's leaders. Grand corruption depends on a culture of impunity in countries whose leaders will not permit the enforcement of existing criminal laws against their close colleagues and themselves. An International Anti-Corruption Court would provide a forum to enforce those laws, punish corrupt leaders, and deter and thus diminish grand corruption. The successful prosecution and imprisonment of corrupt leaders would create opportunities for the democratic process to produce successors dedicated to serving their people rather than to enriching themselves.

The Relevance of Relative Distribution: Favoritism, Information, and Vote Choice in Africa

Relative distribution—whether one is favored or disfavored by government—seems to matter to voters in many African countries. But why? I demonstrate theoretically that voters who do not have information about government revenues, and who cannot determine whether their allocation represents an absolutely high share, can compare their goods with others’ to generate a rough prediction of whether they would be better off under a challenger. In this model, relative distribution is a heuristic, whose relevance is conditioned by available information. I test the model among a sample of Ugandan lab participants, who, when not told how much a “leader” had to distribute, were significantly more likely to reelect the leader when their payout was greater than another player’s. Those given information about the size of the pot, however, no longer responded to relative distribution. I show external validity by demonstrating that the incumbent’s ethnicity, which strongly predicts whom he favors, is less important to respondents on the cross-national Afrobarometer when they report easy access to information on government revenues; other types of information do not show a similar effect. Unfortunately, though rational under low information, voting on relative distribution is not optimal under all conditions: Those who are favored by a highly corrupt leader are most likely to reelect him when they are relying on relative distribution to make their choice.

The Anatomy of Privatization Programme in Nigeria: Matters Arising

The paper traced the origin and reasons for privatization programmes in Nigeria to the alleged inefficiency and low productivity services in the system. The paper went on to state that 28 years had passed since the programme was inaugurated, yet Nigerians are still to fully realize the benefits of privatization programmes done in the country. Corruption and inefficiency are still the order of the day. The paper was of the opinion that it is the same corrupt leaders who mismanaged those public enterprises that are clamouring for their sales, and are the same people who purchased them at very low prices. The paper concluded that the programme only afforded some corrupt leaders and their foreign collaborators the opportunities to acquire those properties at the detriment of the average Nigerian, meanwhile, the purposes and objectives of the programmes are still hanging on the air. In recommendation, the paper drew attention of the Government to the number of people who have lost their jobs as a result of this privatization. Finally, the programme can be good or bad depending on the type of people who operate it. There are certain establishments that should not be privatized, since they constitute the base of the nation’s respect and integrity. Key Words : Privatization, economic depression, corruption, inefficiency and underdevelopment

After the Arab Spring: Democratic Aspirations and State Failure

The popular protests that erupted in 2010 and quickly remade the political map of the Arab world surprised almost everybody. We all knew the terrible state of Arab governance, marked as it was by rents, repression and regression, still no-one predicted that the people would ever rise. For decades, the Arabs had looked like an exception to global trends towards greater participation and accountability in public life, towards more sensible economic policies and more permissive social mores. Arab societies appeared exceptional hostile to the ideals of democracy, and modernity more generally. There was a curious absence of politics, because their states were invariably authoritarian and offered no legitimate, peaceful channels for the formulation of competing interests. Repressive, inefficient and often deranged leaders ruled over unproductive, unimaginative but strongly growing societies. The so-called Arab Spring appeared to end these decades of exceptionalism and bring the Arab world back into the mainstream of global developments. The rebellions promised the return of politics and the reassertion of popular sovereignty against their corrupt and geriatric leaders. Much hope and flowery language greeted the young men and women who deposed their leaders and tried to build new, better societies. Today, the Arab world is in deep crisis. Of the 22 member states of the Arab League, at least five have essentially collapsed: Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Syria exist only in name today, as their territories have fallen to competing, murderous armed groups. In the remaining countries, the old autocracies have reasserted themselves. The repression at home is now worsened by regional conflict on an unprecedented scale, and the resulting frustration has led to the biggest refugee flows in recent memory. What went wrong? This short course offers an overview of the structural shortcomings of Arab states and societies, which help us understand why the democratic awakening did not happen but instead “has given way to civil wars, ethnic, sectarian and regional divisions and the reassertion of absolutism.” This raises the obvious and renewed question whether there is something inherent in the Arab, and by analogy Muslim, condition that makes them special. Does this condition makes this part of the world impervious to generally observable trends towards greater accountability, popular participation in political decision-making, greater generation and fairer division of economic wealth?

LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATION OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITY AND IDEOLOGY IN SELECTED POSTCOLONIAL NIGERIAN LITERATURE

One of the greatest threats to national development and the rights of individuals and groups in Nigeria and some parts of Africa is the growing increase in religious fundamentalism by major religions in the continent. The worsening economic fortunes of many African countries, poor and corrupt leadership, the increase in ethnic nationalism, oppression of the minority by dominant powers and ideologies, external influences from extremist groups (Islamic and Christian), among others, have been suggested as likely causes of religious fundamentalism in Africa. The postcolonial Nigerian nation has suffered calamitous losses from religious conflicts. Consequently, some of Nigeria’s 21st century writers have tried in their works to present a situation in which groups use language to construct individual and collective identities and ideologies, legitimise their actions and justify acts of violence against others. The grammatical resource of mood and transitivity employed by the writers in the text under consideration enables them to represent individual and group experiences as well as intergroup relations in social interactions. Therefore, working within the tenets of critical stylistics (CS) and critical discourse analysis (CDA), this study aims to expose the ideological motivations that underlie the expression of religious discourses in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Chidubem Iweka’s The Ancient Curse and Uwem Akpan’s Luxurious Hearses and their implications for national stability and development. The data reveal that the sociopolitical climate in postcolonial Nigeria breeds a culture of hatred, intolerance, violence, exclusion and curtailment of individual and group rights in the name of religion and these acts are expressed in diverse discourse-grammatical patterns.

The anatomy of privatization programme in Nigeria, matters arising

The paper traced the origin and reasons for privatization programme in Nigeria to the alleged sorry state and the depressing picture of inefficiency and low productivity services. The paper went on to state that 28 years have passed since the programme was inaugurated, Nigerians are yet to fully realize the benefits of privatization programme. The management corruption and inefficiency are still the order of the day. The paper was of the opinion that it is the same corrupt leaders who mismanaged those public enterprises that are clamouring for the sale of them, they are the same people who purchased them at very low prices. The paper concludes by saying that the programme only afforded some corrupt leaders and their foreign collaborators in advanced countries of the world the Opportunities to acquire those properties at the detriment of the average Nigerian, meanwhile the purpose and objectives of the programme are still hanging on the air. In recommendation, the paper draws attention of the Government to the number of people who have lost their jobs as a result of privatization. Finally, the programme can be good or bad depending on the type of people who operate it. There are certain establishments that should not be privatized, since most of them are the base of the Nations respect and integrity.Keywords: Privatization, economic depression, corruption, inefficiency and underdevelopment

Acculturation as a frustration-negotiation cycle: North Korean women defectors in South Korea

Ever since the corrupt leadership of North Korea stopped distributing wages and food, men’s role as breadwinners was upended and the family structure has altered. Wives tended to take on both roles, as breadwinners and homemakers because their husbands became unable to provide financial security for their families. North Korea has had a male-dominated family structure, where a man’s authority over his wife far exceeds what is seen in South Korea, where women are quite independent; marriage begins with a romantic relationship, and divorce is not such a disgrace. It was seen that female defectors have tended to exceed male defectors with respect to financial independence. For the latter, one of the main obstacles in cultural adaption is change in political ideology, which did not bother the former to the same extent. While the men struggled with ideological changes, the women approached their circumstances realistically and were more down to earth. In this study, three female defectors, aged 31, 42, and 53 years, participated and shared their stories. Throughout the interviews, they frequently compared their lives in both North and South Korea. The substantial differences between the two locations resulted in major frustration for them. While the participants experienced frustration with regard to their negotiations—or what is referred to as frustration-negotiation in this study—they developed their own sense of judgment and perspectives and began to modify their identities.

Shakespeare: A Poet for all Seasons

Shakespeare: A Poet for all Seasons

Citizen Surveillance

During the late 1930s Los Angeles' public sphere was radically transformed through the actions of a little known citizens' organization which created and deployed a sophisticated surveillance apparatus to pursue reform of the city government. That group—CIVIC—labored to convince the voting public that municipal officials had provided police protection to organized gambling and prostitution operations in exchange for campaign contributions. In their efforts to dismantle an economic and political status quo, CIVIC operated both surreptitiously and in plain sight, all the while seeking the participation of the people of Los Angeles in what was publicized as a citizens' crusade to purge the city of its corrupt political and criminal leadership.

Federal Democracy in the Laboratory: Power Decentralization and Democratic Incentives Against Corruption

In this paper I borrow Roger Myerson’s game-theoretic model on incentives for the success of democracy, adapt the model to an experimental setting, derive testable predictions from it, and test those predictions in the laboratory. Results show that (i) corrupt leaders are replaced more often in federal democracies than in centralized ones; (ii) in the centralized case subjects converged to an equilibrium in which leaders act responsively and are reelected; (iii) honest presidents are reelected at the same rate in both institutional designs, and (iv) the president acted less responsively in the decentralized case. I also run robustness checks and test for the effect of the language used in the experiment. The data show that the results are robust with regards to experimental choices.

Terrorism, Agenda 2063 and the challenges of development in Africa

The nobility of the objectives and aspiration of the African Union's Agenda 2063 towards the developmental needs of the African people are laudable, as are the attempts being made to ensure collective action, despite the ‘shield of sovereignty behind which too many corrupt leaders have hidden’. However, these noble objectives and aspirations may be undermined and threatened by the upsurge in militant Islamism and the spread of terrorism within and outside Africa, a fact not being addressed by Agenda 2063. Yet while Agenda 2063 does not seek to address the challenges posed by terrorist networks within the continent, which are threatening human security as well as the sovereignty, territoriality, legitimacy and stability of political regimes, these issues are at the core of the agenda. This article argues for Agenda 2063 to step up its efforts to combat both the roots of terrorism and the threat to development that terrorism itself poses.

Good Governance and Leadership: Pathway to Sustainable National Development in Nigeria

The concept of governance and leadership are intertwined. Good governance and leadership is critical for the achievement of results. It is often said that no country can develop beyond the level of its leadership. The predicament of Nigeria in terms of underdevelopment and corruption can be adduced to the problem of leadership and governance. Nigeria needs committed leaders who will govern with integrity and doggedly influence its human and natural resources toward the actualization of sustainable national development. This paper is descriptive; it looks at the place of leadership and good governance in the actualization of overall national development in Nigeria. Transformational leadership theoryand contingency theory of leadership viewpoints are examined vis a vis diverse impediments to national development in Nigeria, as vital to feasible and substantial national development; The paper recommends that; The leaders who govern should be made accountable by publicly declaring what they have been able to achieve in terms of performance as well as how much was expended in every sector on a yearly basis; Auditors with integrity should be made to verify their claims in order to ascertain the genuineness of the claims; Corrupt leaders should be brought to book and made to face necessary and lawful penalties without fear or favour; and elections made free and fair and not rigged. When citizens are allowed to choose their leaders, leaders would in turn have a sense of responsibility that they owe the people good governance.

Corruption in The African Novels: A Study of Helon Habila’s <i>Waiting for An Angel</i> and Ayi Kwei Armah’s <i>The Beautyful One’s Are Not Yet Born</i>

The study is on Corruption in the African Novels: A study of Helon Habila’s Waiting for An Angel and Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful One’s Are Not Yet Born. The study deals with the problem of corrupt leaders in West Africa, who embezzle public funds, oppress the masses, neglect duties and stop press freedom. Sociological criticism is the theory that informs this work. It is a theory in which the writer encourages the masses to rise up and defend themselves. The motive of the writer is to correct the social vices in the society. It was discovered from literary and non-literary sources that West Africa has the problem of corrupt leadership. The aim of the study is to x-ray the problem of corrupt leadership so that the next generation of leaders will not emulate bad leadership style from older leaders. The study will be of benefit to students, politicians and other people. The study will sensitize students to know that such evil existed in the past and should not be emulated.

German Lutheran Centennial Dramas

This essay uses German Lutheran drama in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as a vehicle to assess Lutheran memory and identity in the Holy Roman Empire. In particular, Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon are considered as mirrors of confessional anxiety in plays written before the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War (1618), an era of confessional conflict that coincided roughly with the one-hundred-year anniversary of the posting of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses on October 31, 1517. Lutheran clergymen Martin Rinckhart, Heinrich Kielmann, and Balthasar Voigt took the leading in publishing plays during the centennial, using materials from popular Luther biographies and invoking numerous anti-Catholic tropes to support the Protestant cause. To explore the roots of the polemic and catechesis, this essay also analyzes Zacharias Rivander’s Luther Reborn (Lutherus redivivus, 1593), a five-act comedy that attempts to resolve the Lord’s Supper Controversy (Abendmahlsstreit) dividing Lutherans and Crypto- Calvinists in Electoral Saxony. In all the plays, Luther is presented as a hero and a teacher to the German people. Luther’s opponents—competing theologians like Karlstadt, Zwingli, and Calvin—are presented as corrupt and misguided leaders who by their teachings demonstrate how far a religious person can fall into evil.

A STUDY OF THE OPINIONS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN DELTA STATE ON CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA

This is a survey research to obtain the opinions of staff and students of secondary schools in Delta State of Nigeria on the corruption in the country. It is a replica study of an earlier one carried out among primary school teachers. Secondary school teachers are part of the societal agents charged with the character development of citizens.
 Analysis of available data indicated that both staff and students agree that there is corruption in Nigeria and that Nigerians are corrupt. They both disagree on the assertions that: all Nigerians are corrupt; only men are corrupt ; and, men are more corrupt than women in Nigeria.
 The most noticeable causes of corruption identified by respondents are poor income, unemployment,, corrupt leadership, greed, selfishness, prevalence of bribery and desire to openly spend money in public gatherings.
 A strong emphasis on moral and religious education for character building and civic/citizenship education is advocated as a long-term antidote to the evils of corruption in Nigeria.

Ethnicity and Ethnic Politics: An Impediment to Political Development in Nigeria

Nigeria with over 300 ethnic groups, over 1000 dialects, who practiced several religions, with different cultures and histories came under the British imperialist in the 19th century. With the 1st January, 1914 amalgamation of Southern and Northern Protectorate the foundation of a nation now called Nigeria was laid. Nigeria is now populated by over 166 million people, adopted federal system of government with 36 States and a Federal Capital Territory. Despite these component States, Nigeria could still be seen peripherally as a nation with tripodal ethnic structure with the trio of Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani and Igbo constituting a pole each in the unceasing struggle for political and economic resources of the nation. The existing cleavages and hegemonic nature of the Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani and Igbo (major ethnic groups) metamorphosed into a ‘monster-seed’ germinated into hydra headed monster tormenting and straining the nation’s political developments. Apart from inter-ethnic conflicts, there are also intra-ethnic conflicts among these major ethnic groups and other allied minority ethnic groups resulting from unending political manipulation, manoeuvrings, calculations and permutation. The study revealed that, the alliances and coalitions between/among political parties to have overall majority needed to win election(s) are based on ethnic sentiments and ethnic gang-up. The study further revealed the attendant effects of ethnic politics to include- emergence of incompetent political leaders who are not committed to the development of the nation; inability to choose leaders with national outlook or national acceptability; disconnected leaders (self-centred/self-seeking leaders); mediocre in governance; and corrupt leaders being supported by ethnic groups. The sentiment attached to the issues of corruption among political leaders has snowballed to a situation whereby corruption has permeated all levels of government in Nigeria, keeping down about 90 million Nigerians in perpetual poverty. It has equally cost Nigerians whooping sum of over £20 Billion Pounds (about $500 Billion) stolen since independence by past leaders of the country and still counting. Money which could have been used to develop Nigeria has vanished to the pocket of the so called ethnic political leaders with their various towns and villages remaining undeveloped. The study recommended that, Nigerian should imbibe the spirit of oneness and stamp out ethnicity in the conduct of affairs of the nation, in order to experience national unity and peace which are essential ingredients for nation’s development, progress, stability and national integration.

English

In Senegal, as in other emerging African democracies, political corruption remains rampant. While all experts on Africa acknowledge the profound impact of widespread corruption on politics, there is disagreement on the role corruption plays on average citizens' behavior. Does corruption affect participation in Africa, and if so, does it do so because powerful patrons compel or bribe Africans to vote? Or, are Africans motivated to vote because they dislike corruption and want to punish or remove corrupt leaders? Using a field based experiment set in Senegal, we study the effect of perceptions of national-level corruption on political participation. We find that as perceived corruption increases, subjects are more likely to vote. We replicate these findings with Round 3 of the Afrobarometer survey. Key words: Corruption, voting, turnout, ethnicity, participation.

Charismatic and Pentecostal Social Orientations in Nigeria

This article identifies two responses to social challenge by charismatic Pentecostal churches in Nigeria. I argue that churches taking a centripetal position are either socially passive or they collude with corrupt leaders and groups who undermine efforts toward political, social and human improvement; yet, in their engagement with society they offer spiritual solutions to myriad social and political problems. Conversely, churches taking a centrifugal approach try to confront political and social problems, but these churches are relatively few and located primarily in Lagos, although they are growing in influence. I conclude that charismatic Pentecostalism in Nigeria currently is shifting from strictly spiritual solutions to sociopolitical problems to an emphasis on meeting social needs in practical ways.

Book review: Save Our Unions: Dispatches From A Movement in Distress, by Steve Early

Steve Early Save Our Unions: Dispatches From A Movement in Distress, Monthly Review Press: New York, NY, 2013; 343 pp: 9781583674277, $79 (hbk) Those looking for an analysis of recent trends and events in the USA's beleaguered trade-union movement will do no better than Save Our Unions, by the long-time union organiser, socialist, and labour journalist Steve Early. Save Our Unions is not another dreary look at declining union membership and concessionary agreements. Nor it is a rerun of the by now superannuated debate between the 'serving model' and the 'organising model' as the universal salvation of organised labour in neoliberal America. Rather, Early turns an experienced and critical eye on what is actually happening beneath the conventional industrial relations radar. In this highly readable volume, we find not only fading confidence in labour-management co-operation schemes, but the new forces implementing different approaches meant to fit situations that unions have not always found familiar. Early in the book, we meet the 'unorganised' fast food workers who struck at McDonalds and other major chains in cities across the USA in 2012 and 2013. Though supported by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), they were not union members, and nor were they seeking traditional union recognition or formal agreements from their employers. Rather, they have merged into a movement known as 'Fight for Fifteen', demanding a US$15 minimum wage. No doubt the long-range goal is union organisation, but the methods are more those of social movements than those of traditional trade unions. Similar tactics have been used by workers in the huge concentrations of warehouses at the centre of the USA's reshaped just-in-time logistics system, found near Chicago, Los Angeles, and in New Jersey. Again with some backing from unions, these workers have formed their own workplace organisations, and have taken various levels of action to win small gains and grow. In seeking possible ways out of organised labour's decline, Early also looks inside the more conventional unions; offering a history of the rank-and-file rebellions that have often appeared in US labour history. Starting with the Miners For Democracy in the 1970s, which threw out the corrupt leaders of the United Mine Workers, the author takes us through the 1990s, when the Teamsters for a Democratic Union-backed reformer Ron Carey beat an equally corrupt clique in one of America's biggest unions. Both rebellions eventually saw grassroots mobilisations beat back attacks by powerful employers for a time. Early also looks at more recent rank-and-file upsurges in large local unions of the Teamsters, Communications Workers, and Machinists, among others. All these rebellions reveal a strong desire for change from below, and an ongoing, possibly accelerating trend. Most notable of these was the 2010 victory of the grassroots Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) in the Chicago Teachers Union, the second-largest local teachers union in the country. This electoral overthrow was followed by one of the best organised strikes in recent years, when in 2012, more than 27,000 teachers beat back most of the tidal wave of neoliberal 'reforms' proposed by the mayor and backed by the Obama administration. What all of these rank-and-file movements have in common is a commitment to union democracy, a rejection of the labour-management co-operation ethos of the last three decades, a greater willingness to employ militant direct action tactics, and the construction of dense workplace organisation--in other words, a turning away from the norms of US 'business unionism'. …

Crimes against humanity: the role of international courts.

We study the role of international tribunals, like the International Criminal Court (ICC), as an effective way of reducing the number and/or gravity of crimes against humanity. The action of the ICC is directed against leaders that promote or tolerate these kinds of crimes, that is, political authorities, army commanders, civil leaders, etc. In order to simulate the action of the ICC we build a hierarchical society where the most important leaders have the highest connectivity and can spread their points of view, or their orders, through a chain of less but still highly connected deputy chiefs or opinion chieftains. In this way, if they practice misconduct, corruption, or any kind of discriminatory or criminal actions against individuals or groups, it would very difficult and improbable that they will be prosecuted by the courts of their own country. It is to alleviate this situation that the ICC was created. Its mission is to process and condemn crimes against humanity though a supranational organism that can act on criminal leaders in any country. In this study, the action of the ICC is simulated by removing the corrupt leader and replacing it by a “decent” one. However, as the action of the corrupt leader could have spread among the population by the time the ICC acts, we try to determine if a unique action of the ICC is sufficient or if further actions are required, depending on the degree of deterioration of the human rights in the hypothetical country. The results evidence the positive effect of the ICC action with a relatively low number of interventions. The effect of the ICC is also compared with the action of the local national judiciary system.