Culture Of Corruption Research Articles

Institutions, Corruption and Microfinance Viability in Developing Countries: the Case of Ghana and Nigeria

This article focuses on the role corrupt institutions (microfinance institutions) play in microfinance not being accessible for business development in Africa. It specifically sheds light on the contexts of Nigeria and Ghana to tease out the challenges and opportunities for small businesses consequent upon a culture of corruption in these countries and associated challenges for small business owners and entrepreneurs as well as microbusiness development. As well-known, in many developing countries with a high level of corruption, there is potentially a high incidence of institutional void, which presents setback and challenges for businesses to thrive. Microbusiness development relies largely on effective institutions to develop, and in situations where institutions are corrupt, these challenges are rather redoubled thus posing a threat to entrepreneurship development. Therefore, these contexts enable us to understand and interrogate the challenges facing microbusiness development, where corrupt microfinance institutions exist, as well as business opportunities if these corrupt institutions were not present. Thus this paper argues that for businesses to thrive enabling and effective institutional mechanisms are crucial, which will facilitate opportunities for microbusiness development.

Lebanon’s Faulty Governance and Elitist Political Participation

Belatedly, just before the tenth anniversary of the Arab Spring and Lebanon’s centennial, the country witnessed its anxiously awaited Arab Spring uprising, or what came to be known as the ‘17 October 2019 WhatsApp Revolution’. This watershed event coincided with an unprecedented collapse in the economic, political and financial system. Since 17 October 2019, the Lebanese streets and public squares have been burning with revolutionary youth fervour. Disenchanted youth, unions, Islamists and civil society organisations have been demanding an overhaul of the entire political system, coupled with the ousting of the corrupt politicians – the previous civil war (1975–1990) warlords and ruling power elite – who have been in power since the early 1980s. Why did this call for dignity and freedom come about, and how is it evolving? Is it a phase in the unfolding of the ‘Arab Spring Revolutions’? What is the role of various Lebanese political, civil society, and Islamist organisations in this ongoing process? How could the strong state known as the ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’ degenerate into a weak state – a ‘deep state’ and a ‘Banana Republic’ governed by the omerta of ‘vetocracy’ (consensual democracy) and ‘mafiocracy’ (crony capitalism)? This meltdown led the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to appeal to the Lebanese to ‘help us to help you’, warning of the disappearance of the Lebanese Republic if swift and drastic measures were not taken to stamp out the rampant culture of corruption and clientelism (patron-client relationships). Seen through that lens, Lebanon’s 17 October WhatsApp Revolution and mass mobilisation was a reaction against faulty governance and elitist political participation.

Ayotzinapa 43: The Political Aesthetics of Drone Protest Graffiti

Mexico has a unique history of deploying man-hunting drones in its militarized arsenal of security patrols to control narco traffickers, bandas criminales and dissident populations. Considered to be the drone capital of Latin America with one of the first Drone Academies to teach the myriad aspects of drone piloting, Mexico is at the forefront of drone surveillance technology. It is also at the vanguard of Drone Art Performance. Angered by what is perceived as militarized surveillance warfare and a violent culture of corruption that operates with impunity, Mexican phygital graffiti artists and activists have responded in collective protest to these post-panopticon tactics with its own counter-hegemonic warfare—Droncita, Mexico’s first grafitera drone. Droncita is an emerging art form that combines the ethical and subversive aesthetics of graffiti street art to physical spaces high above the ground to offer new models of spectatorship, testimony, participation, and political agency. First deployed after the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa teacher training college, Droncita represents a discursive space to revision art and humanity. This qualitative research demonstrates how surveillance technologies have been refocused and redeployed as an aesthetic genre of political activism and performance to challenge dominant discourses on militarized power.

ACCOUNTING AS A TOOL FOR CORRUPTION CONTROL IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR IN KENYA

The culture of corruption has grown deep roots in the Kenyan society and become endemic. Institutions, which were designed for the regulation of the relationships between citizens and the State, are being used instead for the personal enrichment of public officials. Corruption persists in Kenya primarily because there are people in power who benefit from it and the existing governance institutions lack both the will and capacity to stop them from doing so. This paper looked at the role of accounting on how to control corruption in the Kenyan Public Sector and the rate of existing internal control and accounting standards are helping to reduce the level of corruption. The main objective of the study is to establish whether internal control and accounting standards have significant relationship with corruption control in the public sector in Kenya. The study got primary data using a structured questionnaire while secondary data were obtained from reports. To test for reliability of result from data used, the Cronbach alpha coefficient was applied. Questionnaires were administered to staff in Kenyan ministries. Respondents were selected using stratified random sampling method. Multiple regression analysis result showed that both internal control and accounting standards do not have significant relationship and effect on corruption control in the Kenyan Public Sector. The recommendations of the study showed that management personnel should at least have basic knowledge of accounting while staff in the accounts and finance department needs to proceed regularly on capacity building to upgrade emerging accounting trends. 

Taming Systemic Corruption: The American Experience and its Implications for Contemporary Debates

Endemic corruption in developing countries often seems intractable. Yet most countries that currently have relatively high public integrity were, at an earlier point in their history, afflicted with similarly pervasive corruption. Studying the history of these countries may therefore make a valuable contribution to modern debates about anti-corruption reform. This paper considers the experience of the United States, focusing principally on the period between 1865 and 1941. We find that the U.S. experience calls into question a number of commonly-held views about the struggle against corruption in modern developing countries. First, although some argue that entrenched cultures of corruption are virtually impossible to dislodge, the U.S. experience demonstrates that it is possible to make a transition from a systemically corrupt political system to a system in which public corruption is aberrational. Second, although some have argued that tackling systemic corruption requires a “big bang” approach, the U.S. transition away from endemic corruption would be better characterized as incremental, uneven, and slow. Third, although some have argued that fighting corruption requires shrinking the state, in the U.S. reductions in systemic corruption coincided with a substantial expansion of government size and power. Fourth, some commentators have argued that “direct” anti-corruption measures that emphasize monitoring and punishment do not do much good in societies where corruption is pervasive. On this point, the lessons from U.S. history are more nuanced. Institutional reforms played a key role in the U.S. fight against corruption, but investigations and prosecutions of corrupt actors were also crucial, not only because of deterrence effects, but because these enforcement efforts signaled a broader shift in political norms. The U.S. anti-corruption experience involved a combination of “direct strategies,” such as aggressive law enforcement, and “indirect strategies,” such as civil service reform and other institutional changes.

Corporate Liability for Bribery – in Favour of Systematic Approach

This article argues in favour of a systematic approach to corporate liability for all bribery offences, including commercial bribery. Australia’s Banking Royal Commission and numerous international corruption scandals have demonstrated a “culture of corruption” in our corporations. Australia has taken steps to strengthen the laws that criminalise foreign bribery, but there has been less interest in addressing the legal approach to commercial bribery. This article uses a comparative methodology to demonstrate that many of the arguments in favour of strict liability for corporations in cases of public sector and foreign bribery can also be applied to commercial bribery. A comparison of anti-bribery laws across common law jurisdictions (Australia, UK, and USA) illustrates opportunities to streamline the legal approach. Streamlining the legal approach to corporate liability for all bribery offences including commercial bribery will simplify compliance and incentivise adoption of policies and practices aimed at reducing corrupt conduct in commercial transactions; promoting meaningful changes in corporate culture. Enhancing ethical corporate culture and reducing corruption and misconduct in commercial transactions is necessary to protect society, safeguard market efficiency and ensure economic stability in an increasingly interconnected world.

The Culture of Corruption across Generations: An Empirical Study of Bribery Attitudes and Behavior

Is culture a lasting driver of corruption? I study whether normative attitudes toward bribery persist through generational change. To disentangle cultural from institutional causes, I compare indiv...

“What Do They Want from Us?”

Stakeholders in the transnational aid sector are increasingly calling for more aid “localization”: relying more on local workers to implement aid projects in their respective home countries. This paper asks: What do aid organizations expect from their local employees, and how do these expectations shape local employees’ work routines? Drawing on data collected from over seven months of fieldwork in Jordan, a major global aid hub, I find that organizations hold cultural assumptions about local workers that shape their recruitment and their expectations of their local employees. Furthermore, these assumptions and expectations are much more ambivalent and conflictual than existing scholarship suggests. Employers want locals who are “Westernized professionals”: impartial, objective, transparent, and dispassionate workers. But they also expect local employees to act in “non-Western” ways, as “traditional locals” (reifying orientalist tropes related to corruption and Arab culture), to make aid projects work. Echoing Bhabha’s argument that colonial subject stereotypes are strategically ambivalent—“almost the same, but not white”—I show how locals engage in specific types of extra work for their employers—what I call hybridized labor—to try to meet these conflicting expectations.

Replacing the culture of corruption with a culture of compliance: Europe takes responsibility for its own future

Replacing the culture of corruption with a culture of compliance: Europe takes responsibility for its own future

ІНДЕКС СПРИЙНЯТТЯ КОРУПЦІЇ В УКРАЇНІ: РОЛЬ ГРОМАДСЬКОСТІ

The article summarizes the work of domestic and foreign researchers on the concept, types, forms of corruption and tools to combat corruption. Based on the generalization of scientific developments, the author's approach to understanding the perception of corruption in Ukraine is proposed, which consists in comparing a cluster approach to the perception of corruption through the prism of: public administration relations; deviations from generally accepted in society moral principles and norms; various forms of abuse; cultural and psychological phenomenon of the individual; behavior of financialindustrial groups, political elite, etc. and types of corruption, which were classified by A. Heidenheimer (white, gray, black).The root causes of the extremely low perception of corruption in Ukraine, which lie in the fact that the country has formed a culture of corruption, which has been cultivated for decades both at the national level and in every family. It has been proven that corruption in Ukraine is supported by tolerance of the majority of the population, of the public has agreed to tolerate it and over the years corruption has become legitimate, as society itself has introduced people at all levels of state executive and local government who have low morale and psychological principles, not inherent in the majority of the population, but which were able to persuade voters to elect them to the representative bodies of power.The mechanisms of interaction between the authorities and the public are revealed. The main reasons that slow down cooperation are found out and a model of public interaction with the authorities is proposed.Mechanisms for reducing the scale of corruption in Ukraine and tools for their implementation are proposed, in particular: formation of anti-corruption behavior, which will be based on the values and principles of public consultations; formation of a larger stratum of the middle class, which is the bearer of the values of a democratic society and for which fair elections, transparent competition, fair trial are important and which are always ready to actively defend their rights and freedoms, dignity, all achieved by honest work.

Arkansas DHS mental health provider pleads guilty to obstruction

The owner and CEO of Little Rock‐based New Beginnings Behavioral Health Services has pleaded guilty to obstructing governmental operations, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office announced July 14, Talk, Business and Politics reported. Rutledge's office said Chirie Bazzelle, 46, of Benton, did not report contracts with lobbyist Rusty Cranford and Robin Raveendran, a former Department of Human Services (DHS) auditor. The office said those two and other full‐time employees of Preferred Family Healthcare, a community‐based health care organization, helped make New Beginnings one of the state's largest single‐site mental health providers. New Beginnings billed the state Medicaid program more than $5.3 million in 2018, but because of Bazelle's arrest and the investigation, it is no longer a Medicaid provider. The release said Bazzelle also concealed the employment of at least one person who had been convicted of Medicaid fraud. “This culture of corruption (is) rampant through our Medicaid system, and it must be stopped,” Rutledge said in a press release. “Bazzelle is another bad actor who should never be allowed to work in our healthcare system, and people like her must be removed from their positions.” New Beginnings has been in business since 2009. Its psychotherapists provide counseling and treatment to children and adults with problems related to trauma, anger management, and other issues.

Corporate liability for bribery—in favour of systematic approach

ABSTRACT This article argues in favour of a systematic approach to corporate liability for all bribery offences, including commercial bribery. Australia’s Banking Royal Commission and numerous international corruption scandals have demonstrated a ‘culture of corruption’ in our corporations. Australia has taken steps to strengthen the laws that criminalise foreign bribery, but there has been less interest in addressing the legal approach to commercial bribery. This article uses a comparative methodology to demonstrate that many of the arguments in favour of strict liability for corporations in cases of public sector and foreign bribery can also be applied to commercial bribery. A comparison of anti-bribery laws across common-law jurisdictions (Australia, United Kingdom and United States) illustrates opportunities to streamline the legal approach. Streamlining the legal approach to corporate liability for all bribery offences, including commercial bribery, will simplify compliance and incentivise adoption of policies and practices aimed at reducing corrupt conduct in commercial transactions. This, in turn, will result in meaningful changes in corporate culture.

Problematika Kebijakan Dana Hibah dan Bantuan Sosial Sumber APBD: Relasi Korupsi Terhadap Kekuasaan Kepemimpinan, dan Perilaku Elit

Studi ini mencoba untuk memberikan informasi kepada pembaca bahwa problematika program dana hibah dan bantuan sosial memiliki kerentanan tinggi terhadap kepentingan korupsi dan politik. Studi ini merupakan penelitian normatif dengan pendekatan konseptual, karena penelitian ini merupakan studi yang menggabungkan pembahasan ilmu politik dan administrasi publik untuk menjelaskan suatu fenomena. Pada artikel ini penulis akan menjelaskan tiga pembahasan. Pertama Relasi Kekuasaan dan Korupsi. Kedua adalah moral dan kepemimpinan politik pada praktik korupsi. Ketiga adalah Problem perilaku elit, birokrasi dan budaya korupsi di daerah. Tujuan artikel ini adalah memberikan tuntutan kepada Negara untuk mengawasi dan mengawal implementasi kebijakan dana hibah dan bantuan sosial. Kontrol publik juga diperlukan bukan saja untuk memastikan bahwa dana hibah maupun bantuan sosial dapat terealisasi dengan baik dan tepat sasaran, namun juga menghindarkan pelaksanaanya dari problematika korupsi dan kepentingan politik elit tertentu.
 
 Kata kunci: dana hibah, bantuan social, kebijakan, elit, birokrasi, korupsi

Public debt games with corruption and tax evasion

This study explores the interactions between corruption, tax evasion, and public debt. Public debt accumulation results in disutility, therefore the key issue is whether the time path of the public debt is sustainable or not. Infinite time differential game modeling is used as an appropriate tool for the economic analysis of the sustainability of the time path. The dynamic game is a simple one, and incorporates the well known assumption that the starting point of the public debt model is the accounting identity interrelating public debt, the interest rate and the real government surplus exclusive of interest payments on public debt. In this setting, we consider as stock the public debt and the stress of the regulator as the driver in raising the nation’s primary surplus. Any surplus increase is not only dependent on government measures but is also dependent on the known “culture of corruption” and on tax evasion. Consequently, the process of surpluses’ augmentation should be a function of these two factors. Nash and Stackelberg differential game are used to explore strategic interactions. In the Nash equilibrium, establishment of cyclical strategies during the game between the group of people involved in illegal activities of corruption and tax evasion on the one hand and the government in the other, requires that the discount rate of the group of people involved in illegal actions must be greater than the government’s discount rate. That is, the group of corrupt officials and tax evaders must be more impatient than the government. In the case of hierarchical setting analytical expressions of the strategies and the steady-state value of public debt are provided. Furthermore, a number of propositions are stated.

SOME ASPECTS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE COMPETENCE OF THE AUTHORIZED DIVISION (AUTHORIZED PERSONS) ON PREVENTION AND DETECTION OF CORRUPTION

The purpose of the article is that on the basis of the analysis of positions of scientists-administrators and norms of the current legislation it is necessary: first, to find out the meaning of the term competence in activity of public administration bodies issues of prevention and detection of corruption, secondly, to clarify the basic rights and responsibilities exercised by the authorized units (authorized persons) on the prevention and detection of corruption as part of the administrative and legal status of the latter. The relevance of the article is that one of the main problems associated with the high level of corruption in the activities of public authorities is the lack of effective departmental anti-corruption programs. The annual plans to prevent corruption in public authorities are mostly formal and reproduce the provisions of the relevant higher-level acts. The detection of corruption is virtually nullified, as there are no systems for detecting and analyzing the risks of corrupt procedures, and there is a neglect of the implementation of mechanisms for reporting suspicions of corruption and protecting those who report them. The article provides a scientific review. The article provides a scientific review of the positions of scientists on understanding the competence of public authorities. The competence of the authorized unit (s) to prevent and detect corruption is considered from the standpoint of the legally established possibility of implementing the set of rights assigned to the authorized units (authorized person), which contribute to the implementation of anti-corruption legislation in terms of prevention and detection. It is proved that the competence of the authorized unit (s) to prevent and detect corruption is a component of the administrative and legal status of the authorized unit (s) and ensures the implementation of the entire functional spectrum of prevention and detection of corruption at the local level. In order to clearly regulate the competence of the authorized unit (s) to prevent and detect corruption, the article draws attention to the need to make appropriate changes to both legislative and local regulations, which will contribute to the formation of a culture of unacceptable corruption.

NILAI-NILAI PENDIDIKAN KARAKTER DALAM NOVEL SANG PENCURI WARNA KARYA YERSITA (PENDEKATAN PRAGMATIK RESEPTIF)

The purpose of this study is to describe (1) the values of social education, (2) the values of religious education, and (3) the values of cultural education in the novelThe Thief of Color Because Allah Loves Yersita's works. The design of this study used a qualitative descriptive method with the Receptive Pragmatic approach. Qualitative methods pay attention to natural data, data in relation to the context of its existence. The results of the study show that the values of social education include character education: teachers as inspirators, understanding children's character, values of national character, education are very important. The values of religious education include prayer, prayer, forgiveness, do not blame each other, friendship, giving names and ihlash. Cultural education values include applying culture, corruption culture, threatening culture, and demonstration culture. Some of the cultures performed by the characters in the novel are a reflection of everyday life.

Pay the bribe or take the high road: dilemma of a young female Tanzanian entrepreneur

Theoretical basis The purpose of this paper is to raise the question of whether having ethical values dictate actions at defining moments and builds upon theoretical frameworks in ethics, entrepreneurship and national culture. Three ethical approaches recommended for this case are: ends-based, virtue-based and rules-based. Research methodology The methods of data collection were both primary and secondary. Primary data were collected through face to face and phone interviews with the primary subject. Secondary data were obtained through research journals and articles. Case overview/synopsis This case study illustrates the experiences of a young female entrepreneur in Tanzania, Africa. It investigates the role of cultural practices, unemployment, corruption and ethics in shaping business decisions. The Tanzanian culture and business climate typically view women in traditional roles, while men dominate in corporate roles. These factors limit the ability of women to succeed. Elisa King is determined to pursue her dream to create a business beneficial to her community. To realize her dream, King finds herself in an ethical dilemma brought on by an overall corrupt culture. Complexity academic level This case is appropriate for undergraduate- and graduate-level courses with an ethics component.

An Anatomy of Grand Fraud: The Goldenberg Scandal and the IMF/World Bank

This article considers the largest documented ‘gold’ fraud on the African continent to this day [1] . The scheme involved, Goldenberg International Limited that would ‘export gold and diamonds fictitiously’ in exchange for substantial subsidies from the government for ‘earning’ foreign exchange. This constitutes an important case study of the interaction between the creation of a partially liberalized trade and exchange rate policy environment in Kenya and the deeply embedded culture of corruption in the country that was the cause in effect of the GIL scandal. Keywords: Goldenberg, Gold, Fraud, Africa DOI : 10.7176/PPAR/10-2-02 Publication date: February 29 th 2020 [1] This paper is dedicated to the memory of the late David Sadera Munyakei who, while working as a clerk for the Central Bank of Kenya, provided information to opposition members of the Kenyan parliament in 1993 on the ‘exports’ of gold by Goldenberg. For his trouble Mr Munyakei was, fired from the Central Bank of Kenya, imprisoned and spent the rest of his life in relative poverty in Mombasa. This is a reminder, if more were ever needed, of the high price that honest men and women pay for telling the truth. He died in 2006.

Терминологические аспекты взаимодействия основных категорий формирования антикоррупционной культуры бакалавра юриспруденции

In the article the author reveals the substantive link between the main categories of forming the future anti-corruption culture of the Bachelor of Laws: “culture”, “corruption culture”, “anti-corruption training”, “anticorruption education”, “anti-corruption competence”, “educational space of a law school”. It is noted that in modern Russian society there are trends of degradation of the traditional culture; anti-values are being actively formed and spread, moral ideals are being lost, practically the whole space of human life is being dehumanized. The analysis of the research space of professional training at a law school allows the author to insist on the need to create a discursive field of a new branch of pedagogical knowledge – anticorruption pedagogy.

Corruption and Culture: Revisiting the Claim of its Relationship

The researcher has long discussed ideas on how culture related to corruption. The buzzword “corrupt culture” was introduced to describe a group of people who act corrupt behavior. Some researcher proclaimed that particular culture permits corrupt behaviors, such as gift-giving. However, to claim that gift-giving is a corrupt behavior, prudent consideration should be taken place. What is being meant as gift-giving in a certain area could be understood as simple bribes in other areas. This paper highlight the importance of understanding cultural relativism before judging the claim of a vile relationship between corruption and culture. Further, strategy to combat corruption is also advised.