Entrusted Power Research Articles

Anti-Corruption and Compliance Control: Identifying and Evaluating Corruption Risks and preventing them in State Governance

In the interconnected world, corruption is the pervasive threat that has been resulting in dire consequences in terms of boosting the economy, development, public infrastructure, and transparency, just to name a few. This article provides first-hand information about many states that have been suffering from the catastrophic effects of corruption-based practices that are being committed by people who hold special entrusted power in a particular position. This means that more violations came about due to the people who abuse entrusted power in state governance across the globe. Furthermore, the given article gives insights into the hands-on practice and pragmatic approaches of developed countries where there is a low corruption-based crime rate. Additionally, this article emphasizes the importance of raising legal literacy among individuals and offers the practical approaches of the aforementioned countries to prevent, identify, and evaluate corruption risks in state governance.

The Whiteman and gifts: Underlying concepts influencing Ghanaian officials’ explanation of corruption

Corruption – the (mis)use of entrusted power or public office for private gain – is a widely researched and discussed subject matter with various descriptions. Understanding the meaning and nature of corruption from the perspectives of criminal justice and anti-corruption officials is essential for developing effective anti-corruption measures and strategies. However, justice and anti-corruption officials’ perspectives of what corruption means are under-explored. Addressing this gap, the current study explores Ghanaian justice and anti-corruption officials’ understanding of corruption and factors that might influence their perceptions. The study uses a qualitative design of interviews with judges, prosecution lawyers, police officers, defence lawyers and anti-corruption officials. The results show that colonialism, Western domination and historical and cultural practices are key factors underpinning officials’ understanding and explanation of corruption. The discussion depicts clashes between Western values and cultural practices of developing countries like Ghana. Finally, the article concludes by discussing the implications of the results for policy and practice.

Sex instead of money: Conceptualizing sexual corruption

AbstractResearch on the dynamics of corruption has rarely considered sex as a currency in corrupt transactions. This article puts forward the argument that the abuse of entrusted power in exchange for personal gain is relevant also when sex, rather than money, is the currency. It then contributes with a careful conceptualization of such transactions as sexual corruption. Anchoring our conceptualization in the abuse of entrusted power, the article defines sexual corruption, its elements, categories and delimitations, and proposes a conceptual framework that can be used to develop research on sexual corruption. We also address the implications of recognizing sex as a currency in corrupt transactions, providing insights as to why abuse of power is often overlooked when sex is the currency of the transaction. Our approach offers analytic precision and contributes to setting an agenda for the study of sexual corruption as an obstacle to good governance, at a time when efforts to collect data on sexual corruption are increasing.

The political economy of political corruption in 21st century Africa: Perspectives from Cameroon and South Africa

AAFrom ancient to modern times, corruption has plagued human civilisation. Its existence confirms that it has been integrated into the social fabric of global society and become a vice of governance. Corruption has dual implications: the direct financial benefit for the perpetrators due to the misuse of entrusted power, which raises the issue of accountability; and the deprivation to society of the allocation of resources. Political corruption results in large amounts of public funds being systematically siphoned off at the expense of society, and against the dictates of the constitutional values of transparency and accountability. For South Africa and Cameroon, political corruption continues to impede growth and development, despite the prevalence of anti-corruption mechanisms in these countries. From a comparative perspective, we investigate the scale and consequence of political corruption in South Africa and Cameroon to analyse the existing anti-corruption mechanisms, strategies and regimes in the two countries in combatting political corruption. We further analyse how and to what extent courts, particularly the Special Crime Court in Cameroon, have been able to address the issue. Furthermore, we demonstrate the similarities between high-level abuse of power in South Africa and Cameroon, notwithstanding existing anticorruption mechanisms. We conclude that a proactive system of checks and balances is urgently required to quench the growing cancerous phenomenon of political corruption in Africa, specifically in Cameroon and South Africa.

Moral Education and Corruption in Nigeria: A Reflection on Plato's Counsel on Education

Many nations of the world today especially in Africa are battling with the issues of corruption and Nigeria is not an exception. Sixty years after independence, the country is yet to come out of its socio-economic and political woes despite her abundant natural and human resources. There is so much abuse of entrusted power for private gain by most public operators through diversion and embezzlement of public funds meant for development purposes. With this scenario, certain questions call for attention: (a) what could be the cause of high rate of corruption in Nigeria and by extension Africa? (b) What are the dangers posed by corruption to the development of the area? (c) How can it be reduced or completely eradicated from our society?. Adopting the expository, analytical and critical methods of philosophical enquiry, this paper attributes the problem to moral ignorance occasioned by lack of proper moral upbringing at the formative years of the Nigerian child educational foundation resulting in the weakness of the ‘will’ to adhere to moral principles. The paper agrees with the Platonic position that he who knows what is good cannot do what is bad and calls for effective crusade against moral ignorance through the training of both the intellect and the will. therefore suggests Plato’s counsel on education where much emphasis is laid on moral education; that is the inculcation of moral habituation through the training of both the intellect and the will. It is believed that if this platonic counsel is strictly imbibed, with the passage of time people will not only know the good but also have the moral will to translate same into practice. By so doing, the issue of corruption will be reduced if not completely eradicated so as to usher in a responsible society characterized by sustainable development.

Political Corruption and Democratic Representatives - Emanuela Ceva and Maria Paola Ferretti: Political Corruption: The Internal Enemy of Public Institutions. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 232.)

Ceva and Ferretti's book offers an innovative account of political corruption as “a form of unaccountable use of entrusted power” (14). Accordingly, an officeholder's conduct counts as corrupt when in her institutional capacity she pursues an agenda whose rationale cannot be vindicated as coherent with the power mandate specified by her institutional role. Among the numerous advantages of this persuasive view, one is that it offers a nonmoralized definition of corruption with explanatory and discriminatory potential (21). Another point of strength is that the authors outline an original path to anticorruption centred on developing a public ethics of office accountability. To ensure public institutions’ good functioning, officeholders must exercise their power mandate in accordance with institutions’ raison d’être and engage in practices of mutual answerability, as they are all accountable to each other in virtue of the interrelatedness of their institutional roles (25).

Corruption in Ghana: A Historical Perspective Under the 4th Republic (1992-2020).

Irrefutably, corruption is a long-standing phenomenon that derives its name from the Latin verb 'corrumpere,' which signifies 'to damage or spoil.' This implies that wherever there is corruption, devastation occurs. It is virtually usually provided under the guise of figurative languages and euphemisms because of its nature. For example, in Swahil contexts, corruption means "something modest" in Iran, "money for koko or water" in Ghana, or "advise yourself" and "something for the guys" in Swahil contexts.People who engage in corruption are implicitly aware of the unlawful consequences, but they utilise these euphemisms to hide, minimise, and make corrupt conduct socially acceptable (Ree, 2015). The misuse or abuse of entrusted power for private gain has been defined as corruption. In addition, systemic, individualised, grand, and minor corruptions are all distinguished.Corruption's harmful effects on Ghana, West Africa, the African continent, and the rest of the world cannot be overstated. Furthermore, Ghana's several subsequent democratically elected governments have all had their fair share of corruption. As a result, this paper examines corruption in Ghana from a historical perspective, with a focus on the period after Ghana's independence as the 4th Republic (1992-2020).Thus, thematic areas such as the analysis of each political era for the period between 1992 - 2000, the late former president Jerry John Rawlings, former President John Agyekum Kuffour for the period between 2001-2008, the late President John Evans Attah Mills for the period between 2009 - July 2011, and John Dramani Mahama for the period between July 2011 and 2016 as well as the first term of the current government which is between 2017-2020. Nonetheless, the ardent debate of this paper centered on the corruption in Ghana consideringthe historical perspective under the 4 th Republic (1992-2020). Keywords : Corruption, Ghana DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/13-12-02 Publication date: June 30 th 2022

Corruption in the health care sector: A persistent threat to European health systems

Corruption is commonly defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It is estimated that over 500 USD billion are lost every year due to corruption and that a 1-point change in the control of corruption indicator measured by the World Bank increases life expectancy by 0.44 years and reduces under-five mortality by 4.6 per 1,000 infants. Despite its global prevalence and critical impact on public and private services, corruption in the healthcare sector remains understudied. The present report aims to expand the knowledge on the paramount need to tackle corruption in healthcare by identifying the actors in the health system at risk to involving in corrupt practices, followed by defining health corruption from the governmental, non-governmental organisations, and societal perspectives, together with describing relevant corruption indicators from countries from the WHO European region. To conclude, this report presents a set of proposals and recommendations to address corruption in the healthcare sector.

Links between corruption and quality of life in European Union

Studies looking at the links between corruption and quality of life have begun to take place recently, as until now the quality of life has not traditionally been associated with political decisions. Corruption may be defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, which in one way or another affects the quality of life and satisfaction of others. The aim is to bridge the gap between the nexus of corruption and the quality of life in the EU. EU countries were divided into groups of countries according to the year of accession and cover the years 2004-2017 period. The EU has been selected as a geographical region with the aim of uneven economic development of the countries and the lack of research in the region. The aim of the article is to determine the interdependencies between corruption and quality of life indicators in EU countries. Multivariate regression models revealed that the prevalence of corruption among individual groups of six countries had the highest impact on mortality rates, unambiguously showing how well countries are managing their health care systems, population density, birth rate and population aging, GDP per capita, economic situation, life expectancy, serving as an indicator of quality of life and the number of people with primary education. The results of empirical research allow to form insights that in order to reduce corruption it is necessary to focus on the following spheres reflecting the quality of life: education, health care system and general economic situation of the country. The article used the following methods: comparative and systematic literature analysis, multiple regression analysis.

The abuse of entrusted power for private gain: meaning, nature and theoretical evolution

Although the study of corruption has received increasing attention over the past decades, the theoretical progress of its earlier years has been increasingly relegated to a passive comment, resulting in an underdeveloped field as a whole. To address this issue, this paper explicitly adopts a prevalent definition of corruption—i.e. the abuse of entrusted power for private gain—and explores its meaning, nature, and theoretical evolution from the earliest human bands to the present era. The result is an examination of corruption’s constitutive elements and the way they open the door for a historical account based on the social evolution of political agency and the development of increasingly specialized ethical duties. The arguments presented here aim to provide a road map for future comparative historical research on the subject, and the potential identification of social patterns which sustain corruption tolerance today.

Corruption: Donald E. Klingner

Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. Collectively, its consequences imperil both democracy and development. This editorial will discuss the incidence and causes of corruptio...

The Position and Authority of the State Audit Board in the Indonesian Constitutional Structure

This study aims to analyze the position and authority of the Supreme Audit Agency's audit in the Indonesian state administration structure. The research method used is the juridical-normative concept. This research uses statutory law materials and legal journals that have the subject of State Finance Law. This research was also conducted by analyzing the primary legal material, namely by examining theories, concepts, legal principles and legislation related to State Finance Law. Based on the study and analysis of legal sources, it can be concluded that the position of the Supreme Audit Agency of the Republic of Indonesia in the state administration system is a state institution whose authority is granted by the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia (constitutionally entrusted power) so that it can be called the main state organ or the primary state agency. The State Audit Board has the authority to carry out audits of state and regional financial management as mandated in Article 23E of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia and Law Number 15 of 2006 concerning the State Audit Board.

Jurisprudence of Law and Governance: A Reference of Nepal

Good governance, transparency and fair procurement are the basic features of effective governance system. The word “governance” came from the Latin word ‘Gubernare’, and Greek word ‘Kubernaein’, which means to steer. In fact, it is the operation of various organ of the state effectively and efficiently. It also refers to corporate governance system. Governance is the structures and processes that are designed to ensure organizational goals effectively and efficiently. There various types of governance i.e. public governance vs. private governance, global governance vs. local governance, good governance vs. bad governance, central governance vs. state governance vs. local governance, Plato’s Governance (Aristocratic governance, timocractic governance, plutocratic governance, democratic governance and despot governance), Aristotle’s Governance (aristocratic governance, monarchial governance, polity governance, oligarchy governance, tyranny governance and democratic governance), democratic republic governance vs. People’s Republic governance, centralized governance vs. decentralized governance, participatory governance vs. non participatory governance, and devolved governance vs. federal governance etc. All the jurisprudence from Plato to Postmodern movement focuses on good governance. However, the issues of good governance have been changing over the period of time. As transparency is also the basic part of good government system, it is associated with right to information. In fact, transparency, legitimate procurement, rule of law, separation of power; corruption free society, predictability, and natural justice etc are the basic indicators of good governance system. Government procurement should be free and fair. Impartiality and fair dealing in procurement is also highly expected. Government procurement is made through direct procurement, sealed quotation and tender whereas selling of public goods is made through public auction systems, which are accepted for transparency and good governance. Government has extractive capabilities, regulative capabilities, distributive capabilities, corrective capabilities, special protection capabilities, international capabilities which needs good governance. These capabilities of government shouldn’t be misused. Jurisprudence never thinks that there can be corruption. However, it is the common but prohibited phenomena across the globe. If there are high levels of discretionary power to authority, there can be the chances of higher degree of corruption. So, the discretion to authority is necessary to reduce. For Transparency International, corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. There are different types of corruption i.e. grand corruption, political corruption, corporate corruption, administrative corruption, petty corruption, and systemic corruption etc. Constitution of Nepal, 2072 BS (2015 AD), Good Governance Act, 2064 BS (2008 AD), Local Government Operation Act, 2074 BS (2017) etc. are applicable laws for good governance in Nepal. Article 27 of the Constitution of Nepal, 2072 BS (2015 AD), Right to Information Act, 2064 BS (2007 AD), and Right to Information Rules, 2065 BS (2009 AD) are statutory measures of Nepal for transparency and right to information. Public Procurement Act, 2063 BS (2007 AD) and Public Procurement Rules, 2064 (2008 AD) are the legal measures to regulate and control government procurement process in Nepal. Public Procurement Monitoring Office prepares the standard of procurement and looks at the process of procurement of other public agencies. Nepal Restructuring Authority is working in crucial construction of Nepal which follows procurement law of Nepal. The Prevention of Corruption Act, 2059 (2002 A.D) and Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority Act, 2048 (1991) are the principal legislation in Nepal to curb corruption. Nepal is also the members of UN Convention against Corruption, 2003. Corruptions of public officials are investigated by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA). There is also the National Vigilance Center to look after the incidence of corruption by public authority, which is under Office of the Prime Minister of Nepal. In fact all the legislation and delegated legislation are issued for the purpose of good governance. Specialization in knowledge of human resource is made for good governance. Bad governance and misuse of power are the greatest sins, which are the crimes against general people.

Recharacterizing Corruption to Encompass Illicit Financial Flows

Anticorruption treaties generally define corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. As such, global anticorruption efforts primarily target transactions involving the bribery of governmental officials. The definition excludes transactions in which multinational corporations deprive developing states of revenue by failing to pay taxes and other monies due. Yet such transactions are equally injurious to the development agenda of poor states. This essay argues that corruption should be redefined to encompass illicit financial flows, a term used by a growing network of tax and economic justice groups to refer to money that is “illegally earned, transferred or used.” Transactions such as trade misinvoicing, base-erosion, and abusive transfer pricing to illegally earn additional income undermine the ability of poor states to raise revenue for development. Expanding the definition of corruption would create a more realistic picture of the role of corporate actors and their involvement in corrupt and illicit dealings. It would also bring equivalency to the treatment of corporate actors and public officials. By focusing on illicit dealings involving corporate actors, this essay challenges the partial definition of corruption adopted in the heyday of the Washington Consensus, when skepticism about the role of the state, rather than of private actors, prevailed.

Abductions and Disappearances in Bangladeshi Policing

Abstract This article is about policing practice in Bangladesh, with special focus on the involvement of the Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies in abductions and disappearances. Recently, Bangladeshi policing has been criticized for abductions and forced disappearances. The empirical analysis of this article focuses on the key factors and dynamics of abductions and disappearances in Bangladeshi policing. This article also investigates how and why the law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh are engaged in abductions and disappearances based on interviews of different stakeholders. The empirical parts of the article employ qualitative techniques of data analysis in order to process the body of evidence collected during the fieldwork. The key argument of this article is that the acute politicization of the law enforcement agencies and misuse of entrusted power implementing the political agenda of the ruling elite contribute to human rights violations in policing practice in Bangladesh.

Towards a critical geography of corruption and power in late capitalism

Corruption politics have received little attention in human geography. We offer a critical geography of corruption as an alternative to economistic framings that take corruption as an objective set of deviant practices mostly besetting states in the Global South. Instead, we theorize corruption as a historically shifting, subjective discourse about the abuse of entrusted power. Geographic and cognate disciplinary approaches reveal how corruption narratives become politicized and yoked to symbolic, material, and territorial regimes of power. We suggest that recent theories of urban informality provide a revealing lens into the ethico-politics and territorial struggles of contemporary capitalism across the North and South.

POLITICAL CORRUPTION AS A RELATIONAL INJUSTICE

Abstract:The corruption of public officials and institutions is generally regarded as wrong. But in what exactly does this form of corruption consist and what kind of wrong does it imply? Recent proponents of the “institutionalist approach” to political corruption have concentrated on those occasions when incentive structures distract institutions from their essential purpose and weaken public trust. The corruption of individual public officials has been less relevant to their work, except for when it leads to the erosion of the functioning of institutions. From this perspective, a clear emphasis has been put on the consequences of corruption. In contrast, I argue that political corruption, whether individual or institutional, can be more fundamentally understood as a form of political injustice in which someone has violated the logic of mutual accountability that undergirds all relations of justice in rights-based systems. In this sense, political corruption occurs when public officials use their entrusted power of office for the pursuit of an agenda whose rationale may not be vindicated as coherent with the terms of their mandate. By focusing on the inherent qualities of corrupt political relations, I lay out a novel relational and deontological understanding of the inherent wrongness of political corruption as a form of unaccountable action.

The Consequences of Corruption on Inflation in Developing Countries: Evidence from Panel Cointegration and Causality Tests

Up until the 1980s, studies on corruption were dominated by disciplines of public administration and sociology. In the following years, however, economists have also provided a good amount of research on this issue. According to Transparency International Agency, corruption, which has a negative impact on most macroeconomic indicators, is “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Even though the disruption of corruption causing weak growth and investment rates has long been examined, there is little evidence regarding its impact on inflation. In this study, the nexus between corruption and inflation was investigated for 20 countries over the period 1995–2015. Estimation results indicated that high corruption increased inflation rates, and that there was a unidirectional causal relationship from corruption to inflation for ten countries in the sample.

English

Right after the overthrow of dictatorial military regime since 1991, Ethiopia underwent a remarkable change of political system. It has restructured the society based on federal state arrangement which creates nine self-administered regional government taking linguistic, settlement pattern, and consent of the governed into consideration. Addis Ababa and although not mentioned in the constitution, Dire Dawa become autonomous city administration outside regional sphere of competence but administered and responsible to the federal government. The federal arrangement further creates Bi-cameral federal institutions, House of People Representatives and House of Federation for the site of regional people representatives and minorities that are found within the regional government, respectively. Under the house of people representative, out of 548 seats, 20 are lefts and reserved for minority groups. Under house of federation, this is commonly understood as the house of minorities in which every nation, nationality and people of Ethiopia have representative that reflect the interests of their minority groups. Every nation, nationality and people has a minimum of one representative and possibly to have additional representative based on their population number. The house with its entrusted power to interpret constitution, enables safeguarding the constitutionally granted minority rights. Such recognition of cultural diversity and the institutionalization of minority rights is a critical factor that acts as the viability of ethnic based federalism in Ethiopia. Key words: Ethiopian federalism, house of federation, minority rights, minority rights protection.

Corruption and First Nations in Canada

ABSTRACTCorruption, defined as the “abuse of entrusted power for private gain,” is recurrent in Canadian First Nations communities. Typical phenomena include embezzlement, nepotistic hiring practices, conflict of interest in business dealings and overpayment of office-holders. The causes are structural: small size of communities, leading to lack of expertise in public administration; intermingling of governmental and business functions; dominance of First Nations governments over civil society; and absence of taxation with attendant lack of concern for economy in band governance. Because these structural factors are virtually impossible to change except in the very long run, the best prospect for reform is greater transparency in First Nations financial administration. The previous Conservative government passed legislation designed to achieve this, but it seems likely that the current Liberal government will weaken or even repeal this legislation. If so, it would be highly desirable to find other mechanisms for transparency, such as a First Nations Auditor General.