Centre for the Study of Corruption

UK and the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI); Good, but could do (much) better

Posted on 23 January 2020 by Web Team — No Comments ↓

Transparency International’s (TI) annual Corruption Perceptions Index was published on 23 January. The UK comes out pretty well. But, as the CSC’s Dan Hough notes, there’s no grounds for complacency.

Every year in January Transparency International (TI) gets the world talking about corruption. Not that corruption isn’t discussed at other times of the year, but TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), for all its sins, focuses plenty of minds on who appears to be doing well (and not so well) in tackling graft.

Traditionally, the UK has been one of the better performers in the CPI. Britain has never come out top of the pile, but it’s always been much nearer the right end of the league table than the bottom. Think Tottenham Hotspur rather than Liverpool.

In 2019 the UK came in equal 12^th (out of 180) with 77 points (out of 100). That puts it on a par with Canada, Austria and Australia, just ahead of Hong Kong and Belgium and just behind Iceland, Luxembourg and Germany. In the great scheme of things that’s a reasonable performance. That performance is also broadly in line with how the UK has done in previous years. A slip of four places on 2017 (8^th with 82 points) but an improvement on 2012 (17^th with 74 points). A statistician may well look at that sort of data and argue that it looks very much like a case of trendless fluctuation: in other words, pretty stable.

The CPI’s critics have always argued that we shouldn’t read too much into fluctuations anyway. The survey’s methodological flaws, so they argue, leave it wide open to criticism. Quite what the qualitative difference in anti-corruption progress is, for example, between a score of 77 and a score of 78 is far from clear. Furthermore, it is anything but obvious what a country scoring 100 would actually look like. How would a corruption-free state work? We don’t know, and it’s safe to say that we never will.

Throw in the fact that the CPI doesn’t actually measure corruption (it measures perceptions of corruption, and perceptions and reality can be very different things) and that those surveyed have traditionally come from the business community and the CPI’s critics have plenty of ammunition at their disposal.

Be that as it may, and as I have argued elsewhere, throwing the baby out with the bathwater also makes little sense. TI has carefully played with the CPI’s methodology over the years and the index is certainly more robust than it used to be. It is no longer quite so focussed on the attitudes of business to corrupt practice.

Plus, countering one of the more obvious criticisms directly, perceptions of reality can often be every bit as important as the reality itself; if you think you’re sitting next to an angry lion, for example, you’re going to up sticks and run as quickly as you can regardless of whether that angry lion really does exist. Plus, the point of the CPI is to show broader trends and patterns and to give onlookers a feel for where progress is being made; it’s not meant to be a scientific dissection of everything that is conceivably understood as corrupt.

And that’s why UK policy-makers should pause for thought. If the UK’s position is broadly constant, then what has the mass of anti-corruption initiatives that recent administrations have come up with actually achieved? Has the 2010 UK Bribery Act not had any significant impact on the bigger picture? Has the UK’s Anti-Corruption Strategy merely shifted a few deckchairs without changing anything too fundamental? Has the tough talk on beneficial ownership in the domestic context in practice shifted little? What of the impact of the various anti-corruption champions, or indeed the multitude of words that David Cameron in particular produced on the matter? If all of this leads to CPI scores that are bobbing around at more or less the same level then some re-thinking needs to be done.

To be fair to UK policy-makers, shifting the course of large ships of state is no easy task. It takes time and indeed no little luck to get the right policies in the right place at the right time. Furthermore, corruption is a systemic problem and the UK is part of a broader international system that can’t simply be reformed at the behest of the inhabitant of 10 Downing Street. But it does also appear that progress has been painfully slow. Given that, what might the UK realistically do to try and improve on where it is now? Four things come to mind.

Ways Forward

Firstly, there are certain high-profile areas where political life in the UK faces well-known and well-documented challenges. These include ongoing questions concerning how political parties should fund their activities and how to regulate the process of political actors spinning through the revolving door.

There is also the age-old issue of cronyism. Quite how, for example, Zac Goldsmith can be seen as an appropriate member of the House of Lords is not clear. Goldsmith, the son of a billionaire, was made editor of a magazine (owned by his uncle) at 23 before twice losing electoral contests for the Conservatives in a seat they could certainly have won. He also managed to lose a London mayoral race (following a campaign that was viewed by many as highly divisive). So what precisely did he do to deserve, at the ripe old age of 45, a nomination to the UK’s upper chamber? Whatever UK PM Boris Johnson’s motives in promoting his Old Etonian friend, the public think this kind of thing is corrupt – and perceptions count. This is subsequently not a case that covers the UK political establishment in glory.

Secondly, there are significant ongoing issues with London’s role in laundering proceeds of corruption from elsewhere. A small but significant number of lawyers, accountants and estate agents are able to act within the law when effectively laundering proceeds of corruption from abroad. Tackling this is hard. Eradicating it effectively impossible. But if the UK wants to maintain its position in the vanguard of anti-corruption thinking then progress does need to be made.

Thirdly, although tackling a number of the UK’s corruption challenges is difficult, the government needs to embrace a more concerted and strategic approach. Recent actions such as the introduction of Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs) attempt to address London’s role as a facilitator of corruption, but recent UK administrations have nonetheless been painfully slow to address the role that UK Overseas Territories play in shifting illicit funds around the globe. The National Anti-Corruption Strategy, for example, pretty much ignores many of the most prominent corruption risks noted here. If the UK government wants to be seen as really moving on corruption, then it can’t cherry pick the anti-corruption actions it prefers and ignore the problems that are more difficult.

Finally, and much more broadly, more thought needs to be put in to how to tone down some of the more adversarial exchanges that have become a staple of British public life. British politics has always been adversarial, but the legacy of deeply divisive debates on Brexit has further extenuated that. British politicians need to find ways of changing the tone of debate.

The divisive discourse that has swamped UK politics can and does undermine trust in politics. We know from elsewhere that this can open the door for genuinely corrupt people to enter political life as voters become ever more anaesthetised to corruption. This makes politics look and feel more corrupt as politicians accuse each other of being cheats and liars thereby changing both internal and external perceptions of the UK. Is this really where the UK should be going? No, and not just because it’ll do little to help tackle corruption. It’s not a great way to ‘do politics’ either.

Dan Hough

University of Sussex

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Trump, Corruption and Impeachment

Posted on 19 December 2019 by Web Team — 1 Comment ↓

With an impeachment process against US President Donald Trump underway, Dan Hough, Professor of Politics at the University of Sussex, examines whether the actions of President Trump fall under standard definitions of corruption. He concludes that if you are interested in the facts and not partisanship, whichever way you choose to examine them, this is a President who has acted corruptly.

On 18 December 2019 Donald Trump became the third American President to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The House voted 230-197 in favour of the proposition that Trump had abused his office and 229-198 in favour of the notion that he had obstructed attempts by Congress to get to the bottom of what was going on when he infamously spoke to Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on 25 July 2019. In effect, the House found Trump guilty of corruption.

In due course, the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress, will likely have its say on the matter. The outcome there is likely to be very different. It will be a major surprise if any of the Republican lawmakers vote against Trump and the staunchness of his support there will ensure that he survives in office. Indeed, the experiences of both Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, the two previously impeached American presidents, would indicate that the president has a fair chance of moving on and winning re-election in 2020.

Partisanship on Steroids
Why and how are the two chambers likely to come to such different judgements? It is certainly clear that American politics is suffering from partisanship on steroids. The debates in the House on Wednesday gave the impression that Democrats and Republicans were living in completely different worlds. “Our founders’ vision of a republic” claimed House Speaker (and Democrat) Nancy Pelosi “is under threat from actions from the White House”. She then added that if she had not acted to facilitate impeachment that would be nothing short of a “dereliction of duty”.

Other Democrats queued up to agree with her. Jerrold Naylor, a Democrat from New York, argued that Trump’s actions were an affront to American values and that he “abused the powers of his office” when pressuring Ukraine to help his re-election campaign. Others on the Democratic side of the aisle made much the same case.

Republican Congressmen, meanwhile, saw things totally differently. For many this was nothing short of an attempt to overturn the 2016 presidential election result. Kevin McCarthy spoke for many when he claimed that the ‘Democrats have wanted to impeach President Trump since the day he was elected” before adding that “nothing was going to get in their way, certainly not the truth”.

Clay Higgins didn’t shy away from using particularly colourful language, claiming that “he’d descended into the belly of the beast” and that he was witnessing “the terror within”, inferring that insidious forces were trying to take over America. Barry Loudermilk nonetheless topped off the defence of the president by claiming that even Pontius Pilate “was afforded more rights than the Democrats have afforded this president in this process”. Quite the claim.

Process versus states of affairs
So what of the evidence? Did President Trump behave in a way that could be understood as worthy of impeachment? The literature on corruption offers us plenty of insight. It is nonetheless worth noting that much of the analysis of corruption has traditionally got stuck in a definitional quagmire. This is world that has often been full of shades of grey.

Be that as it may, two distinct approaches exist to making sense of what corruption is. On the one hand corruption is seen as a process. On the other hand some observers tend to look at it more as a state of affairs. Both of these approaches have merit but they also lead analysts to instinctively look for different things.

Process-led definitions of corruption generally centre around four key traits. All of them need to be present for an act to be understood as corrupt. The act in question has to be performed deliberately. Corruption is neither accidental nor a result of incompetence. Actors have to wilfully seek a particular outcome (regardless of whether that outcome actually comes to pass).

Secondly, there has to be a form of abuse involved. Public servants have job specs. There are rules and regulations that stipulate what is and what is not appropriate behaviour. If they go beyond these guidelines then abuse can be said to have occurred.

Thirdly, at least one of the actors involved in corrupt transactions has to enjoy entrusted power. This is nothing more than a statement of the obvious. If none of the actors involved have any power to wield, then they won’t be in a position to engage in a corrupt transaction.

Finally, there has to be some sort of private gain involved. That gain may often be financial, but it could nonetheless come in a range of other forms; bolstering a reputation, saving face, gaining access to other non-financial services. The scope of potential private gains is consequently quite large.

States of Affairs
This transactional definition has come to dominate much of the real-world thinking on corruption. There is, however, a small but powerful literature that looks at what is often known as institutional corruption. This approach to understanding corruption harks back to the thinking of some of the great philosophers. They put morals and ethics at the core of their understanding of corrupt activity.

In this reading corruption happens when those involved move away from a virtuous state of affairs. Corruption is what becomes the norm when leaders are attracted by the twin vices of greed and avarice. It is not about particular sets of actions or indeed one particular person (although given individuals can play prominent roles), it is much more about a move from selfless leadership to immoral behaviour. One powerful analysis within this tradition is Ramsey MacMullen’s 1990 story of how corruption ultimately led to the fall of the Rome. It is well worth a read.

Trump, Ukraine, Congress and Corruption
Given these two distinct approaches to understanding corrupt activity, where does Trump and his phone calls and impeachment bombast fit in? First, the transactional approach;

1. Deliberateness. When Trump made his call to President Zelenskiy it appears abundantly clear that he knew what he was doing. Indeed, Gordon Sondland, Trump’s former ambassador to the European Union, testified on the record that Trump was striking a quid pro quo that involved releasing aid and investigating a potential rival for the presidency in 2020. Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian President may well deny this, but, as the saying goes, he would, wouldn’t he.

That having been said, we can’t get inside Trump’s head to know for sure what he was thinking during that conversation. Zelenskiy’s denial also complicates matters. But these caveats are still not enough to seriously give credence to the idea that this was all one big accident. If that were the case then – unless the person admitted to corruption in public – we’d never be able to illustrate corruption in any case ever.

2. Abuse. The president of the United States has a job spec. It is not a traditional contract of employment (the US Constitution says very little about presidential powers), but the nature of the presidential brief is outlined in a number of places. These ranging from the US constitution to the oath that he/she takes on Capitol Hill when formally taking office. A fundamental part of that job spec involves using his/her judgement to assess appropriate ways forward. The president makes calls, and he/she makes them in line with what he/she judges to be best for the American people in line with what the constitution permits.

Given this, Democrats – and indeed many of those who testified in the meetings that led up to the House’s impeachment hearing – argued that seeking to persuade a foreign country to investigate a political opponent whilst potentially withholding aid clearly overstepped the mark. Nowhere, so they argued, is the president allowed to take decisions solely on the basis of advancing of what appears to be his/her own personal agenda.

As of now, the president’s supporters (and indeed the president himself) have simply refused to engage with this. Trump called the conversation the “perfect phone call” and no one defending him has explained why exactly Trump took the approach that he did. In what way was Trump’s behaviour in the national (rather than the personal) interest? We don’t know. Indeed, Trump’s tubthumpers generally just reject claims of abuse of office out of hand.

It is that out and out rejection that makes those very claims of abuse more persuasive. Putting it another way, I can claim that Shrewsbury Town Football Club are the current Premier League champions. If a critic then points out, say, that Manchester City actually won that crown last season and indeed Shrewsbury Town aren’t even in the same division then a Trumpian response would simply be not to engage, to reject the criticisms out of hand and to double down on what is an outlandish claim. In the cold light of day, this does little to help refute the allegations made.

3. Entrusted Power. All American presidents are entrusted with significant powers. That there are checks on these powers and that other institutions have a say in significant areas of policy is also a given. The president is not (by any means) all powerful, but even if there is disagreement on where presidential powers begin and end it is beyond debate that the president has some power to wield.

Given that, and much as was discussed above, the issue is whether in this case Trump abused the authority that he possesses. The arguments there remain much the same; the president appears to have had discussions with the leader of a foreign state with a view to forwarding his own domestic agenda. Given that the interests of the US state and the domestic interests of Donald Trump are not synonymous, Trump looks like he is on stony ground.

4. Private Gain. Traditionally, private gain has centred around financial interests. Given that Trump is the epitome of a transactional president, money has often been at the centre of allegations of improper conduct that have been made against him. In this case, the claims are different. This is about power. It is about trying to ensure that he gains an advantage over a political rival.

Does Trump or indeed do any of his supporters actually say this? No. But then again they are never going to. To do such a thing would be an open admission of corrupt behaviour. But is there enough evidence to substantiate accusations that Trump is acting for private gain? Certainly.

Denial and dismissal doesn’t equal genuine acquittal
A transactional approach to understanding corrupt activity therefore leaves us with little option but to understand Trump’s behaviour as at best problematic and at worst corrupt. His supporters may well be right that the Democrats have been looking to remove him since day one. They may also be correct that the partisanship that is paralysing American politics is driving much of the behaviour within and around the House (and indeed the Senate).

That, however, cannot render the facts themselves meaningless. Even if one were to prefer to take a non-transactional approach and to invoke the ideas of older philosophical thinking, Trump’s case hardly looks stronger. In that reading, corruption occurs when those involved are governing in their private interest and no longer in the public interest. The particular sets of actions that render something corrupt need not be directly stated, it is much more about a move from selfless leadership to immoral self-serving behaviour. That is hard to illustrate empirically, but that there is a case to be made is certainly true.

Donald Trump and his supporters have summarily failed to engage with the details of the cases to hand. Their approach has been one of outright rejection. That may ultimately prove to be a politically astute way of dealing with the fallout from Trump’s call to Kiev. But it is not a good way of unpacking what looks like a persuasive case illustrating that the American president has behaved in a corrupt manner.

Posted in Politics, Regions

Are UK aid-funded enforcement efforts to end the UK’s role in corruption working?

Posted on 4 December 2019 by Jolyon Cooper-Millar — 3 Comments ↓

The UK is unique in using overseas aid money to fund its own enforcement authorities to help fight corruption in which the UK plays a role. Sue Hawley, Director of Spotlight on Corruption, an NGO that holds the UK to account on enforcing its anti-corruption laws, discusses a new evaluation which shows that this is working, albeit slowly

Since 2006, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) has given £48.5 million to UK law enforcement agencies to fight UK corruption that impacts on developing countries. Its stated goal in doing so is to reduce incentives:
• For corrupt individuals from developing countries to launder their money in the UK; and
• For UK companies and individuals to pay bribes in developing countries.

The funding is an important recognition of the “outsized role” the UK plays, as a major financial centre, in facilitating global corruption. Back in 2006 when the funding started, there were few UK law enforcement agencies that would touch a foreign bribery or corruption investigation. The UK was facing international opprobrium for dropping the BAE/Al Yamamah investigation, and its role in laundering the funds of former Nigerian Dictator, Sani Abacha’s, through London banks.

There is no doubt that by providing funding for UK enforcement, DFID helped kick-start more enforcement in this area in the UK. But as a major independent evaluation of the funding from 2006 to the present day is published, the question is: does funding enforcement actually reduce incentives for corruption?

Successful “to some extent” – key findings from the evaluation

DFID has always seen investment in enforcement as bringing good returns and the project has consistently met or exceeded its milestones. In 2019, law enforcement reported that £783.3 million in corrupt assets have been restrained as a result of the program. It is also great value for money: the amount restrained has always far exceeded the amount of money invested by DFID.

But the crucial question is whether this is actually deterring corrupt individuals from investing in the UK or UK companies from engaging in bribery. That is more difficult to gauge.

Deciding what has worked because of law enforcement specifically funded by DFID, as opposed to other significant institutional and policy developments in the UK, such as the introduction of the Bribery Act and Unexplained Wealth Orders, or increased enforcement by other non-DFID funded agencies such as the Serious Fraud Office, isn’t easy.

However, the evaluation’s key findings are broadly positive. It finds that:

1. The DFID funded law enforcement has “to some extent made the UK less attractive for Nigerian PEPs (Politically Exposed Persons)” wanting to launder corrupt wealth but not deterred them completely.

The evaluation focused heavily on Nigeria since the UK has historically been one of the most attractive destinations for Nigerian PEPs seeking to launder the proceeds of corruption. The high-profile UK convictions of various Nigerian governors for corruption, including James Ibori, particularly in the early stages of the DFID funding, and the introduction of Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs) were seen as key successes making the UK less attractive for laundering money. And the UK’s introduction of UWOs in January 2018 caused the hotline for Nigeria’s Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme to crash.

However, the review found that the supply of corrupt funds to the UK from Nigeria to the UK “continues to remain very high” and that Nigerian PEPs are resorting to “indirect means and new “tricks”” to launder money into the UK, “including the use of shell companies and routing funds via third countries.” The report also suggests that Nigerian PEPs are using alternative ‘easier’ locations for laundering money including Dubai, the British Virgin Islands, Ghana and the Caribbean islands, as well as keeping cash in Nigeria.

This increased use of new ‘tricks’ has made UK professional enablers “a more important actor” in laundering Nigerian money into the UK, the report finds. And the evaluation is critical of how few prosecutions there have been of UK-based enablers of laundering.

2. British companies are less likely to pay bribes since the DFID funded program came into existence. But that’s not all down to the program.

The review found that the DFID-funded law enforcement has helped create a “sanctions environment” which has reduced incentives for UK companies to pay bribes. Outreach programs and education by enforcement bodies to UK companies have also been very useful, it says.

However, the DFID-funded law enforcement has only resulted directly in bribery convictions for seven individuals and one corporate. A bigger impact on driving corporate behaviour change has been the introduction of the Bribery Act and enforcement by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) – which has notched up nine successful criminal actions against companies in the same time frame.

While the SFO is meant to focus on the large players, the DFID-funded NCA’s International Corruption Unit has yet to conclude a successful bribery prosecution against a medium-sized or small company. The report concludes that just one successful case against a medium-sized UK company paying bribes in a developing country “would be highly impactful.”

Lessons for the future

The UK government has announced that it will continue, and increase, aid funding to law enforcement bodies from 2020 to 2025. So, what are the key lessons from the evaluation going forward?

The report makes no bones about its central conclusion in relation to both PEPs and companies, which is that while the threat of enforcement action may have some impact, “the evidence indicates that actual prosecutions are a more powerful catalyst for behaviour change.” Tellingly, the evaluation cites some evidence that companies waited until the first prosecution under the Bribery Act (in 2016) before committing to properly implementing their Anti-Bribery policies. The 2012 conviction of Nigerian governor, James Ibori, also sent major ripples through the Nigerian PEP community.

Overall, the evaluation recommends increased enforcement at all levels: more intense use of UWOs, more prosecutions of medium-sized companies for bribery and increased enforcement action against UK enablers of corruption.

The message is: keep going. Aid-funded law enforcement is working – at least to some extent. But more convictions are crucial to long-term success.

Addition 12 Dec 2019: In order to ensure a fair comparison between the SFO’s overseas corruption efforts and those funded by DFID, the correct figures are that the SFO has brought 9 corporate convictions and 19 individual convictions compared to one corporate conviction and 7 individuals for DFID funded enforcement.

Posted in Uncategorized

South Africa’s New Party Financing Laws Have a Major Flaw

Posted on 20 November 2019 by Jolyon Cooper-Millar — No Comments ↓

New party financing laws in South Africa are welcome, in the wake of blatant state capture under President Zuma. But University of Sussex PhD researcher Albertus Schoeman argues that they fail to address two issues that are key to understanding South African politics: intra-party contests and patronage.

In January 2019, South Africa finally passed its Political Party Funding Act (2018) after waiting almost a year for President Ramaphosa’s signature. Conveniently, this ensured that the law would not come into effect before the May election. Meanwhile, a second bill that will supplement the law and compel parties to regularly publish records of party donations is under review. The hope is that the necessary capacity and systems will at least be in place for the 2021 local election.

Together the laws will require political parties to maintain and publish records of party donations exceeding R100,000 (£5,200) and will limit single donations to R15 million (£782,000) in a given year. They also prevent parties from accepting donations from foreign governments or agencies other than for training and policy research purposes and from accepting “a donation that it [the party] knows or ought reasonably to have known, or suspected, originates from the proceeds of crime”.

The laws are a welcome development for a country that has long struggled with corruption and is currently investigating “state capture” under the blatantly corrupt leadership of former President Zuma. He and several members of his administration stand accused of selling their influence and handing out government contracts in exchange for kickbacks. The laws are long overdue, but while this is a step in the right direction, they still have several limitations.

For instance, donors can circumvent the law and avoid reporting donations by giving multiple amounts under the R100,000 mark by donating through “straw donors” such as family members, employees or shell companies to obscure the source. Equally, there are concerns over whether the Election Commission of South Africa (IEC) will have sufficient capacity to effectively monitor compliance with the law and punish infractions, since this represents a major expansion of their current function.

While these limitations are concerning, a far more serious flaw lies in the laws’ failure to regulate internal party elections.

In a system where the African National Congress (ANC) has dominated every election since 1994, internal party dynamics are just as important as contests between parties and internal party contests also involve high levels of spending. While it is difficult to estimate how much parties spent in the 2019 election owing to the lack of transparency, some have estimated it to be as high as R2 billion (£103 million) with the ANC spending an estimated R1 billion (£52 million).

By comparison, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign allegedly spent over an estimated R400 million (£21 million) to secure his position as president of the party, and consequently president of South Africa. Reports indicate that his main opponent spent just as much and possibly more.

More concerning still, is that this figure is known only because of leaked emails between Ramaphosa and his campaign manager which came out after the Public Protector (state ombudsman) investigated a claim that Ramaphosa misled parliament by denying knowledge of a donation by the former CEO of Bosasa – one of companies at the centre of investigations into state capture. While there’s no evidence of wrongdoing or illegality in the campaign, some of the revelations have raised important questions around the influence of money in South African politics and called into question the integrity of a president who campaigned on an anti-corruption platform.

Other than the campaign’s links to the corruption-accused Bosasa, one leaked email includes the name of a shipping tycoon linked to the notoriously corrupt arms deal for which former President Zuma is standing trial. Further, there have been suggestions that some party activists who supported his campaign were rewarded with cabinet positions while some donors were allegedly rewarded with positions in state-owned enterprises.

Questions also swirl around the issue of vote-buying, with one of the campaign’s biggest expenditure items logged as back payments of membership dues – necessary for ANC members to vote at the party conference. Perhaps the strangest story to emerge is that about campaign payments made to two parliamentarians who are members of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters; these have yet to be adequately explained.

Although none of this is necessarily illegal, the lack of transparency around campaign donations and spending means that there is no way of limiting the influence of money in politics and ensuring that no illegality takes place. These types of intraparty contests take place on all levels of government and often, winning a party leadership position comes with a government position. The new laws are unlikely to stop corruption or to break the link between campaign support and the allocation of key government jobs, which come with power to influence the distribution of tenders. Regulating donations to political parties is somewhat irrelevant when senior positions in the ruling party and government are decided by intraparty contests outside the scrutiny of these laws.

Until internal party elections are regulated in the same way as contests between parties, political financing will continue to lack transparency and represent a major corruption risk. As it stands, the contest for the highest office in the country remains largely unregulated.

Posted in Politics, Regions

How corrupt are politicians?

Posted on 13 November 2019 by Jolyon Cooper-Millar — 1 Comment ↓

The word ‘corruption’ is being frequently used in US political exchanges at present, and in the UK Jeremy Corbyn has taken this as a theme of his general election campaign. Is that because politics is more corrupt, or is the term simply being used more by politicians? Robert Barrington, Professor of Anti-Corruption Practice at the Centre for the Study of Corruption, argues that over-use of the word risks de-basing the currency and opening the door to greater corruption – which reinforces the urgent need to improve defences against political corruption.

“Let me tell you, I’m only interested in corruption,” Trump said. “I don’t care about politics. I don’t care about Biden’s politics…. I don’t care about politics. But I do care about corruption, and this whole thing is about corruption… This is about corruption, and this is not about politics.”

President Trump has taken to describing his enemies as ‘corrupt’ – notably presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his son, but more recently ‘corrupt politician Shifty Adam Schiff.’ Meanwhile, Mr Biden says ‘Donald Trump has presided over the most corrupt administration in modern history’ .

Former candidate Hilary Clinton now describes Trump as a “corrupt human tornado”; and not long ago, he was saying she “may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.” During Mr Trump’s time in office, a variety of others have been called corrupt, and fire back with the same accusation. We should also remember that he campaigned on a promise to “drain the swamp” with all the unspoken implications that carries about years of unethical behaviour in Washington, which clearly resonated with the electorate.

This is not new. For years, politicians across the world have been accusing each other of being corrupt, often with good cause. But in the US, it seems there are two things happening in tandem: the more frequent use of the term ‘corrupt’ as an allegation, and a genuine debate about whether there is more ‘corruption’ in politics, or people are acting more ‘corruptly’ – not just the existing ‘swamp’ that Mr Trump had previously identified, but an additional layer of corruption introduced through the addition of his own Presidency.

In the UK, by contrast to what is happening in the US, corruption has – to date – seldom been an accusation from one mainstream national politician to another.

But although not yet mainstream, the notion of corruption is also seeping into the British political discourse. Twitter is awash with voices calling Boris Johnson and members of his cabinet like Priti Patel corrupt, and many others besides. Most significantly, Jeremy Corbyn has taken the notion of a ‘corrupt system’ – in which he includes the ‘establishment elite’ – as a centrepiece of his general election campaign.

Towards the political fringes in the UK, it has been common for both the distant left and the distant right to describe the establishment as corrupt; and there is plenty of comment on social media criticising, for example, Mr Farage’s approach to parliamentary expenses, personal financial gain from Brexit and running election campaigns as corrupt. But to have senior mainstream politicians describing each other as personally corrupt is a line that has yet to be crossed.

The Prime Minister is, however, now regularly accused by critics of lying, something that itself would have been almost unthinkable only a few years ago – a line that was effectively crossed in the Brexit campaign. They claim Mr Johnson is not just being misleading or economical with the truth, but an out and out liar. In fact, a ‘reckless liar’ according to the Shadow Foreign Secretary, more kindly described by his predecessor David Cameron as ‘leaving the truth at home.’ Lying is not the same as corruption. But they have things in common: not least, that when senior politicians push out the boundaries of a system that pre-supposes politicians will not lie or act corruptly, we see that the institutional defences against such behaviour are much weaker than we might have hoped.

Does it matter? In one sense, using the word corruption might be just like any other political insult, and may just be written off as part of the rough and tumble of political life, a new insult that can be co-opted while it still has the power to shock. In another sense, it may have some deeper ramifications. Here are three observations:

1. Still a big insult. Calling someone or something corrupt seems to be about the worst thing you can say – it has echoes of a very basic meaning, the idea of a rotting carcass. Definitely a step further than ‘crooked’, another favoured Trump epithet. It is not simply accusing someone of breaking the law (or lying) – as corruption research often tells us, a lot of corruption, particularly in politics, is surprisingly legal. There is something about using the word corruption which seems to give the message ‘it is self-evidently wrong such that I don’t need to elaborate further.’ In a wider sense, that has echoes of the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC); although widely denounced as having been ineffective in practice, UNCAC has 140 State signatories all signing up to the principle that corruption is a bad thing. There is global consensus on this. So when one politician calls another ‘corrupt’ they are in effect accusing them of violating a global norm, as well as being a rotting carcass and possibly acting illegally. That’s quite a satisfying amount of accusation packed into a single word.

2. Debasing the currency. Precisely because ‘corrupt’ is still a big insult, it is tempting to use it. Inevitably, the more and the more loosely the word is used, the less powerful it becomes. This risks debasing the currency in a way that opens to door for more people to behave more corruptly in reality. Here’s how that would work: if the electorate comes to believe that all those standing for election are loosely corrupt, because they all accuse each other of being so, voters might as well disregard the corruption factor and vote for a candidate on other grounds such as economic competence. That seems to have happened already in some countries, such as Brazil and (potentially) the US. The consequence of de-basing the power of the word ‘corrupt’ may therefore be that it leads people to disregard corrupt behaviour in making electoral choices. Assuming a fear of being labelled corrupt has a deterrent effect, this normalisation of the concept that all politicians are more or less corrupt thus removes a key deterrent within a system that relies to large degree on established norms and personal integrity.

3. Perhaps politics has actually become more corrupt. Alongside the greater frequency of allegations is the possibility that there is also more corrupt behaviour. There is a genuine question over whether President Trump’s is ‘the most corrupt administration in modern history.’ For those who are interested, the Global Anti-Corruption Blog from Harvard University has been tracking this; and closer to home, Prof Dan Hough of the Centre for the Study of Corruption (CSC) has an analysis of ‘The Winter White House’. The accusations about Mr Trump are not just that he is corrupt himself – but that he has also corrupted the system around him by introducing other figures who are themselves either corrupt or happy to defend and facilitate his own approach – an approach generically described by Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig as ‘institutional corruption.’ In the UK, this territory is so far more contested: while Mr Corbyn describes the UK as having a ‘corrupt system’, his predecessor Tony Blair responds ‘I can take you to countries whose systems are corrupt. Ours isn’t.’ In the UK, we might be seeing the forerunners of corruption seeping into our political system, and not just into the discourse. This is perhaps not as blatantly as in the Trump administration, but certainly a number of political conventions, or norms, are being broken left, right and centre, and behaviour that even recently would have been cause for censure or resignation is now being overlooked or rigorously defended by those who are prepared to support it in the cause of a greater (usually Brexit-related) goal.

There are therefore two things going on here at the same time:
1. Political discourse uses the term corruption a lot more. This has implications, regardless of whether it is reflective of more actual corruption.

2. Politics may also in reality be becoming more corrupt; politicians are certainly flouting established norms and unwritten rules a great deal, and this trend seems to be happening around the world.

What should be done? In the US, we can see that the system of checks and balances to abuse of power is under severe strain. By one interpretation, Mr Trump is operating within the rules and not doing anything that others have not done. Another interpretation is that he is exploiting every loophole to the limit, stretching an already vulnerable system to breaking point, and skirting the edges of the law all along the way: mostly for personal benefit and not to serve the public interest.

Looking at the US makes it all the more concerning that the UK’s own national Anti-Corruption Strategy makes hardly any mention of political corruption. Perhaps what seemed less obvious when the Strategy was written a couple of years ago has now become rather more pressing. For example, a recent blog from CSC’s Director Prof Liz David-Barrett highlights the urgent need for the UK to revise its approach to conflicts of interest.

The conclusion is simple. Many trends in the US come to the UK, and it looks like this one will too. At minimum, this means getting used to seeing lots more allegations of corruption amongst senior politicians, and being prepared to work out the difference between allegation and reality. At worst, it means that lots more individuals who are elected to public office will feel able to act more corruptly. Democracy may take this course: yet we can prevent the abuse becoming too damaging by making sure there are some robust defences. At present, as in the US, the UK’s defences are too weak. If they are not strengthened soon, we may have missed the boat.

Posted in Politics

Strengthening electoral accountability is crucial in tackling corruption in the Western Balkans

Posted on 8 November 2019 by Jolyon Cooper-Millar — No Comments ↓

In another take on flawed electoral accountability, Albana Shehaj (Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University) argues that corrupt politicians are too easily able to use state resources to buy off voters. We should focus our efforts on constraining their ability to strategically allocate the spoils of corrupt office.

Tirana, Albania’s capital. Credits: Vladimir Tkalčić (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Corruption has been a tenacious staple in the post-communist transition of the Balkan states and remains a grave threat to the region’s democratic consolidation. Corruption is substantial, frequent, and pervasive across the Western Balkan states of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia, with Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2018 (CPI) scores ranging from 36 in Albania and North Macedonia (out of 100, where 0 is most corrupt and 100 least) to Serbia’s 39. That is considerably lower than Western Europe’s average CPI score of 66 and below the world’s average score of 43.

Whether presenting itself in the form of bribery, clientelism, embezzlement, or organized crime, corruption has consistently maintained its presence in the Western Balkans and increasingly permeated the very institutions established to control it, including law enforcement, the judiciary, legislature, and the presidency (Transparency International). In the case of Albania, the involvement of former Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri in a drug-trafficking network operating on both sides of the Albanian-Italian border points to the extent to which corruption permeates the country’s highest political and administrative structures. Albania’s current President, Ilir Meta also shares a political past marked by several allegations of official misconduct.

The chronic vulnerability of the Western Balkans makes the region a key target for human trafficking

Posted on 7 November 2019 by Jolyon Cooper-Millar — No Comments ↓

Human trafficking by local and international criminal syndicates came to the Balkans during the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo during the 1990s. Tanya Domi (Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University) argues that an integrated approach is necessary to curb criminal activity and mitigate harm to migrants as they find their way to a new life.

One of the most notorious human trafficking cases in the Balkans involved a sex trafficking ring in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) that was covered up by the leadership of the UN Mission. In 2001, an American police monitor serving in the UN Mission blew the whistle on a group of Americans serving in the International Practices Task Force (IPTF) Mission: she was summarily terminated for reporting the crime.

I broke this story and approached Bosnian newspaper Oslobođenje, the longest operating daily newspaper in BiH, which agreed to publish it. The horrible irony of these crimes was underlined by the fact that they occurred in Bosnia, where women bore the brunt of a brutal war that known for the mass rape of Bosniak women as a tool of ‘ethnic cleansing.’

North Macedonia’s experience in trying to dismantle state capture: policy must be backed by research

Posted on 7 November 2019 by Jolyon Cooper-Millar — No Comments ↓

Writing about North Macedonia’s experience in addressing pervasive grand corruption as exposed by leaked tapes in 2015, Misha Popovikj (Institute for Democracy Societas Civilis, Skopje) argues that efforts to dismantle state capture should be preceded by a thorough diagnosis of the problems.

Protesters in Skopje, April 2016. The demonstrations over widespread corruption eventually led to the fall of VMRO-DPMNE’s decade-long rule. Credits: Vanco Dzambaski (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Back in 2015, European Commission adviser Reinhard Priebe and his team of rule of law experts arrived in North Macedonia amidst a political crisis. That same year, the Macedonian political opposition had revealed audio recordings carried out illegally by the secret police, and uncovered mass corruption and abuse of office. Priebe’s task was to provide the European Union with a quick assessment and recommendations on urgent reform priorities in relevant areas – corruption in the judiciary, politicised administration, media clientelism, and the uneven playing field in electoral competition.

In June 2015, he delivered a document that set future benchmarks for assessing the readiness of the country to start the EU accession process. Shortly afterwards, a group of NGOs begun transforming these recommendations into specific reforms. The idea was to set a ‘Blueprint‘ – a guide of sequenced changes achievable within 12 months. The Social Democrats, then in opposition, vowed to include these recommendations in their reforms should they win a majority in the 2016 elections.

Widespread aspirations to join the EU provided leverage to these proposals. Priebe’s recommendations were, in essence, new conditions set by the European Commission for accession. The Blueprint reforms were backed by foreign embassies in the country.

In Kosovo, journalists and civil society beat organised crime by getting more organised

Posted on 7 November 2019 by Jolyon Cooper-Millar — 1 Comment ↓

Recent elections in Kosovo saw the opposition defeat long-standing incumbents, electing a new generation with fresh talent and integrity. Jeta Xharra (Balkan Investigative Reporting Network) explains the role that civil society played in making it happen.

Vetëvendosje (LV), winners of the biggest share of votes at Kosovo’s October 2019 election (balkaneu.com).

It is a rare moment in the recent history of Kosovo that I can report that the narrative of civil society, investigative journalists and anti-corruption activists has won, against the narrative of those who we exposed.

Usually we tell our story, we probe, reveal, prove, document, publish, broadcast, file complaints, and we get read, seen, talked about, commented on. But there it ends. It is rare that our anti-corruption narrative becomes mainstream and brings about change.

This is because the opposing narrative, that of the state, has a bigger budget, more power, more police, more prosecutors, more judges, more spin-doctors on their side and more paid ‘journalists’ who toe their line. And the state usually plays the nationalist card to further capture the public imagination.

Can the European Union tackle corruption and state capture?

Posted on 6 November 2019 by Jolyon Cooper-Millar — No Comments ↓

While the EU is far from a silver bullet, Dimitar Bechev argues that it is still a badly-needed ally in strengthening the rule of law in the Balkans. But for enlargement to make good on its original promise, the EU should take a robust stance and call out egregious cases of corruption.

European Union Balloons, by Jonatan Svensson Glad (CC BY-SA 2.0)

When it set to enlarge in the 1990s, the EU brought forward three promises to Eastern Europe. First, delivering prosperity which would narrow the gap with the advanced countries in the West. Second, cementing peace and stability in a historically volatile part of the Old Continent at a time when Yugoslavia went down in flames. Third, Europe was all about good governance and the rule of law. Post-communist societies needed external help and encouragement to consolidate independent judiciaries, establish robust anti-corruption agencies, depoliticize and upgrade the civil service, foster a vibrant NGO scene and media capable of holding the powers to be to account.

When the EU enlarged in 2004, the prevailing sentiment was that this third goal had been fulfilled. Central Europe (Slovenia included) and the Baltics met all the benchmarks. Romania and Bulgaria, on the other hand, were an entirely different kettle of fish. While they did make it into the Union in 2007, the accession treaties empowered the European Commission to monitor judicial reforms and issue regular reports, as during the pre-accession period. The so-called Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) meant to give the EU leverage to take care of “unfinished business”.

In parallel, lessons learned from the Romanian and Bulgarian case fed into the design of accession negotiations with the Western Balkans: Croatia and, later on, Montenegro and Serbia. The much-discussed Chapters 23 and 24 (addressing the judiciary and the rule of law) offered a means to maximize pressure on governments to meet EU-set benchmarks in rooting out corruption in high places, not a trivial goal given the difficult legacy bearing on former Yugoslav republics as well as on Albania.

What has happened in the 15-odd years since? The record is at best chequered. The former star pupils have turned into the EU’s worst headache. Back in the day, one could simply write off Bulgaria or Romania as the outliers. But when Hungary and Poland have become textbook examples of state capture through dismantling the very checks and balances that make democracy worthy of its name and ensure transparency and accountability of decision making, it is painfully clear that the vision of Europeanization is in dire straits.