Anti-corruption by text message?

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Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is forty years old this year. This has subsequently prompted plenty of discussion in China as to whether the mainland can learn from the ICAC’s successes.  Being realistic, any suggestion that the ICAC model can be transferred to mainland China is almost certainly wide of the mark. If Chinese officials want to seriously tackle corruption, then they are going to have come up with more innovative ideas than that.

Hong Kong’s ICAC has a formidable reputation.  A recent scandal about the inflated expenses of Timothy Tong (see here) may have caused a degree of consternation at home, but when anti-corruption agencies are discussed outside of Hong Kong, it is never long before the ‘ICAC Model’ is mentioned. The ICAC is the Rolls Royce of ACAs.  It therefore shouldn’t be too much of a surprise when questions are asked about what China can learn from the ICAC’s experience.  Given the way contemporary China works, the answer to this question is straightforward; very little.

If an ICAC-like model were to have any traction in Beijing, then China’s entire system of governance would have to be re-shaped and re-moulded. It would have to be given an independence that would place it above and (far) beyond the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). It would need to have strong leadership and ample resources. And, most importantly, it would need to be free from political interference.  With the best will in the world, any Chinese ICAC is not going to be granted these things.

Practical moves to tackle corruption in China will therefore have to begin from rather different starting points.  One such method is to genuinely empower citizens to report on any incidences of corruption that they’ve experienced. All anti-corruption campaigns claim to want to empower citizens, but very few do so in anything more than a superficial way. One approach that might have mileage in China, however, can be found in Lahore, Pakistan.  Corruption in land transactions in particular reached such proportions in the capital of Pakistani Punjab that the Chief Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, introduced a system (the ‘Citizen Feedback Model’) that would enable citizens to report back on corrupt transactions. The Lahore authorities created a private organisation to send everyone who had dealings with local government offices a so-called ‘robo-call’ (you have to sign up, and be able to speak Urdu, but you can hear it here!) from the Chief Minister, and then a text asking them to report back on the quality of the service that they received, and, most pressingly, whether they were asked to pay a bribe.

Over 2.1m text messages have been dispatched since 2010 and over 8,000 cases of corruption have been reported.  From that the quango can create so-called heat maps, illustrating where bribes tend to be demanded and how much has generally been paid.  The statistics aren’t there solely to enable law enforcement to arrest those corrupters who have been regularly mentioned, rather the aims are more subtle. On the one hand, public servants who are suspected of feathering their own nests can be tested out by so-called ‘mystery customers’.  Corrupt officials can then be caught in the act.  On the other hand, the very knowledge that the text message service exists is hopefully enough to channel the minds of some potential bribers. The system therefore has both carrots and sticks in it, as well as a degree of subtlety.

The Lahore system clearly can’t simply be transposed on to the whole of China.  It does, however, have the advantage of empowering citizens to take action.  It subsequently also doesn’t go against the ethos of the current anti-corruption drive.

One of the things that successful anti-corruption work has to do is under-promise in the hope of over-performing. All too frequently anti-corruption in practice does precisely the opposite; over-promise but ultimately under-achieve.  The Lahore experiment with anti-corruption by text message might be one small way that China could begin to make progress.

Dan Hough

University of Sussex

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The funding of politics and the challenge of tackling corruption

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The SCSC’s Sam Power, an ESRC-funded PhD student, writing his thesis on the complex relationship between party funding and corruption, comments here on the challenge of getting the funding of politics right …  

On 3rd February the EU published its first Anti-Corruption report which promised to provide a ‘clear picture of the situation in each Member State’ (see the full report here). Looking over the ‘national highlights’ (because thankfully irony is still alive and kicking in Brussels), the UK actually does pretty well. TI-UK’s Robert Barrington is right that the report breaks little new ground, but it does serve to bring some corruption issues into sharper focus (see Robert Barrington’s analysis here). Amongst various recommendations, such as enhancing preventative measures to address risks of foreign bribery and further strengthening accountability in the governance of banks, is the notion (very much in keeping with the TI-UK line) of capping donations to political parties. This is unsurprising, one thing that is not in short supply in the UK are myriad party funding scandals and when they occur arguments about party funding reform inevitably come to the fore. The solution of capping donations, however, is one which may not be quite as cut and dry as both TI-UK and the EU might believe.

An excellent blog on the Channel Four news website outlines a report from the UK’s Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) which proposed a shake-up of the way in which political parties were funded (see the C4 blog here). Again the suggestion was a cap on donations, however the blog outlined a key point which is that a cap is tantamount to an increase in, or at least a move towards, state subsidisation. The argument here is not that state subsidisation of political parties is undesirable (although there is significant debate surrounding this), it is simply that it is an implicit effect of a cap on donations. Indeed, as the CSPL report states, ‘if the public want to take big money out of politics, the only way to do so is a cap on donations. It is unrealistic to expect to be able to do that at a level low enough to achieve the objective without at the same time increasing public support’. The question is whether the British public would support further funding an institution for which they have little trust in the first place. The TI Global Corruption Barometer 2013 showed that when asked which ‘institutions were corrupt/extremely corrupt’ it was found that 66% of respondents judged political parties to be corrupt/extremely corrupt, whereas 55% of respondents believed the same of parliament and the legislature.

Munich-based political scientist Michael Koβ, in a fascinating book on how party funding regimes change (see here), outlines a survey undertaken by the Electoral Commission in the UK in 2003 in which only 23% of respondents supported even partial state funding to political parties even though 70% of respondents believed that private donations could buy political influence. Indeed, one could argue that the UK is in an uncomfortable paradox; state subsidisation of political parties is not broadly supported in part because of the perception the public has of political parties. Which is in part because of the ‘damage’ that has been done to these institutions due in part to corruption scandals. This view of parties (and politics) as predominantly corrupt and self-serving means that an increase in state subsidy will most likely be seen as, put bluntly, an outrageous waste of public money.

So what is to be done? It is a common solution (the more unkind might say cop-out) to suggest an improved discourse between parties, the media and the public. The recommendation of the Channel Four news team is along these lines, and it has to be said it is one I have some sympathy with; ‘people cannot look in disgust at how parties are funded, but object to the solution: a measure of state funding that takes suspicion out of the equation’. However, there remains a problem with this line of argument. The analysis of Channel Four, the CSPL, the EU and TI seems to make an assumption that state funding creates a system which is necessarily less corrupt than private funding, there is very little proof, academic or otherwise, that this is the case. The move to a greater system of state subsidisation because of (perceived or actual) corrupt linkages is a move which promises no guarantee of an actual drop in levels of corruption. This ignorance is perversely linked with a relative consensus that, as Koβ argues, a key driver of a change to party funding regimes is the reliance on this very notion of corrupt linkage.

My argument is not that a cap on donations will have no effect on corruption in political finance, but rather that there is no proof that it will help. In fact it might just lead to a different type of corruption. I am further suggesting that were a change in the UK to occur, quite how this believed drop in corruption would manifest itself, both in actuality and in public perceptions, is anyone’s guess. Images of a ‘British public’ reenergized by a healthy respect for the political process as a mysterious fog of corruption lifts from Westminster the moment a bill capping donations gets passed probably falls into the realm of ‘unrealistic expectation’. In short, I am advocating for an increased research focus on different types of party funding regime and whether this leads to different types of corruption as well as an improved discourse between the media, parties and the public regarding corruption in the UK. It is a conclusion that even the kinder among us might still none the less call a cop-out.        

Sam Power 

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Corruption By Degree: China’s Crackdown Moves to the Academic Sector

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The financial crisis of 2008 brought China’s decades-long reliance on cheap manufacturing exports to induce extraordinary growth and savings rates to a spluttering end. The plan henceforth is to stimulate domestic-led growth through science and innovation. The result is that China’s universities and research community is now more important than ever within the broader Chinese national vision and economic reforms. And hence, the academic sector is now in view of China’s corruption investigators. This piece introduces the nature of the corruption, and some examples of the ongoing crackdown.

Corruption in the academic sector in China applies mainly to capital expenditure, admissions and staff promotion. The least complex and most common area of corruption is said to be within campus-related construction and the purchase of goods and materials. University budgets for campus modernization have recently expanded. Related contracts have been awarded in some cases without proper tenders. This produces opportunity for nepotism and embezzlement of funds, which is said to take place with collusion from local and provincial officials.

Student admission processes are similarly said to be imperfect. Universities have permission to select a minority of students via interview and other selection methods, rather than through the national entrance examination process. It is this intake quota that is the most open for exploitation. In response to accusations of unfair entry for some students, the Ministry of Education has called for universities to publish the credentials of their students, including recording of entrance interviews and publishing their entrance exam scores. Universities found to be abusing the propriety admission process may be excluded from being able to use it. Prestigious Renmin University in Beijing is an example of an elite university that has been caught up in a number of entrance scandals.

The national college and graduate college entrance exams also face persistent threats of corruption. In the national graduate entrance exam held in the first week of January 2014 for example, 223 students in the north-western province of Heilongjiang alone were found to have violated exam regulations. 196 of these cheated using communication devices.

A well-covered case of such cheating involved the Harbin Polytechnic University’s MBA entrance examination. Since such devices are only allowed through with permission from exam officials, it is thought that university officials colluded with training centre officials responsible for hosting the entrance exam. Chinese media reported that some students were led to one room, and others to another, with one room allowing the use of such devices. Two admissions offers are currently suspended, and the entire MBA program on hold.

Within the university sector, it is also reported by Chinese media that promotions, tenure and titles are all available to be bought and sold for the right amount of cash.  Plagiarism between Chinese researchers and from non-Chinese sources is also rife. The Ministry of Education has called for “zero tolerance” to plagiarism. The Ministry of Science and Technology stripped a professor of a national prize in 2011 because of plagiarism.

Illustrating the government’s determination of crackdown on tacit permission given to such activities within the university system, are recent high-level investigations.  In December the Vice-President of Zhejiang University was arrested and suspended on suspicion of occupational crime. The vice president of Sichuan University was placed under investigation for suspected serious discipline violations in December.

China’s higher education reforms follow the 2010 “National Outline for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020)”. This calls for the acceleration of the development of world-class Chinese universities. The success of the plan is necessary for realising China’s broader innovation goals that in their own right are now crucial for China being able to continue raise the standard of living across the country. The degree of success of the crackdown will impact not only the value of a Chinese degree going forth, but also the success of China’s intended economic transformation – and none less thus than the future of the world economy.

Lauren Johnston received her PhD in economics from Peking University, and is an expert on the Chinese university landscape. Indeed, it is unlikely that there are many native English speakers who know more about Chinese universities than she does. Lauren edits an online newsletter Sinograduate that offers in depth analysis of Chinese higher education issues. It is a genuine ‘must-read’ for anyone interested in this rapidly expanding sector. Lauren can be contacted at info@sinograduate.com

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Doughnuts, paper clips and door mats; MPs expenses claims are back in the news

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Knowing what works in terms of tackling corruption is not easy.  In some places, it is straightforward enough to pinpoint what the problem is – a politician using an expenses regime for personal gain in order to, say, clean his moat or to renovate a duck house, for example – but finding a new set of processes to put that right can be surprisingly tricky.  Even now, five years after the MPs’ expenses episode originally hit the headlines in the UK, the story continues to run.  The Daily Mail (see here) ran a story on Saturday 25th January 2014 bemoaning not just the pettiness of claiming  30p for a jam doughnut (Rosie Cooper, Labour – for the record, I’d very much like to know where these 30p doughnuts are available, as that is an excellent price) , 4p for travel (Tristam Hunt, Labour), 7p for a paper clip (David Cameron, Conservative), 49p for a door mat (John Barrett, Lib Dem – are MPs now shopping at Poundland? That’s a super deal) and 19p for Blu-Tac (Pat McFadden, Labour).  The pettiness of some of these claims to one side, the Mail was also enraged as they (the MPs) simply “don’t seem to get it”.  What precisely they don’t “seem to get” remained tantalisingly unclear, as no effort whatsoever was put in to outlining what the perfect expenses regime would look like.  That, it seems, is not the Daily Mail’s job.  It’s much more straightforward to point out some of the quirks within the system, some of the grey areas and some of the more bizarre claims.  Ideas on how to put this right?  No suggestions forthcoming.

It is easy to see both why voters will be annoyed at seeing MPs claim money back on the most trivial of things and why the Mail (amongst others) refuses to outline how we might move this debate forward.  The ‘new’ post-2009 expenses regime, headed by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, is undoubtedly tighter and better regulated than the system that came before it, but making value judgements on what is and what is not an acceptable expense is actually very difficult.  MPs have long grumbled that IPSA is a bureaucratic nightmare, although few have dared say that in public.  IPSA’s challenge is to create a system that can be consistent, fair and flexible.  MPs have different needs (i.e. if your constituency is Newcastle upon Tyne Central then you should surely be entitled to claim more in travel costs than if you represent, for example, London-based Twickenham) and they face different challenges in their daily work patterns; the expenses system needs to reflect this and needs to be quick enough on its feet to recognise the difference between legitimate and illegitimate claims.   If anyone reading this blog thinks they have the answer, then IPSA will no doubt be very keen to hear from you.

On an altogether different note, the first week of the new term is always an exciting time for students on Sussex’s MA in Corruption and Governance.  Why?  The internship and project part of the course commences.  And, 2014 sees no less than 14 students involved in such things.  Hazel Stephens and Kim Castle began working this week with police officers in the UK’s International Proceeds of Corruption Unit at New Scotland Yard (see here for an example of how the IPCU works), whilst Sam Weatherill has joined up with the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Anti-Corruption in Westminster.  Michael Badham-Jones, Francisco Ortiz and Felicitas Nuehaus will be working alongside the Overseas Anti-Corruption Unit (OACU) in the Square Mile, and no less than two different groups of students will be doing projects in conjunction with Transparency International in Berlin.  Exciting times ahead!

Dan Hough

Director, Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption (SCSC)

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For students of voting behaviour, corruption is what they’d call a ‘valence issue’

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No one, in other words, sets out to make a case for more corruption.  Indeed, everyone (claims to) want to see less corruption.  The question is subsequently of how to go about achieving that, and not whether the aim itself is one worth achieving.

The ‘valence’ nature of corruption as an issue has not stopped the Aam Aadmi Party (literally, the ‘Party of the Common Man’) from causing quite a stir over the past few weeks in India.  Led by the articulate and approachable Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP caused a storm in a regional election in Delhi in December, gaining 28 seats and a plurality of the vote.  The party’s platform?  To tackle corruption.  Nothing more, nothing less.  After initially refusing to enter government (on account of needing another party to ensure a parliamentary majority), the AAP quickly had a change of heart and took on the challenge.  Delhi, and India, subsequently entered an interesting new chapter in its party political development.

It didn’t take long, however, before the AAP’s opponents were hurling abuse at the new upstart – Salman Khursid from the AAP’s main rival, the Congress Party, called Kejriwal an “anarchist with Jurassic ideas” whilst AAP party members were some of the “worst, stinking third grade people” in all of India.  Even AAP members have begun to join in with the criticisms, senior party figure Vinod Binny claiming that parts of the party manifesto “conned the people of Delhi”.  With friends like these …

The AAP’s recent success in the Indian capital certainly makes for interesting viewing.  Many of the AAP’s policies have a decidedly populist feel to them; giving each and every citizen of Delhi 700 litres of free water, for example, and promising to cut electricity bills by up to 50 per cent.  Much will depend on whether Kejriwal and his colleagues can quickly learn how to govern, and where and with whom they can and can’t make compromises.  History would tell us that the AAP will ultimately succumb to the long-standing dynasties in Congress and the BJP, but Kejriwal has already done much better than many single issue anti-corruption activists before him.  With a general election planned for the middle of 2014, Indian politics will certainly be worth keeping a close eye on.

Professor Dan Hough. Director of the Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption.

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‘It is a bizarre world where we need to teach people not to steal’

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was the theme of Elena Panfilova’s talk at the ‘Transparency International: A Russian Perspective’ event yesterday in London.

Elena Panfilova is the founder and director of the TI Russian branch. She stole away from Moscow for 1 day to speak to a 200-strong audience at Clifford Chance in Canary Wharf last night.

Elena’s words were very rational, and her conclusions realistic and thought-provoking.
Her first point went right to the core of the problem – corruption happens not because there is a lack of laws, policies and regulations. A country can pass a myriad of such legislation. At the moment, the Russian legislation on corruption represents a beautiful and growing bouquet of norms and initiatives, but corruption continues to blossom at a corresponding rate.

It has even become unpopular and uncool to say that you are against anti-corruption. So everyone signs the initiatives and shakes hands. But they have their fingers crossed and carry on with business as usual.

This is because there are no regulations on personal integrity.
Corruption happens when three things come together:
1. Human Greed
2. Concessions for behaviour
3. and Lack of Control (internally, through regulations; and externally, through civil society).

However, there is a growing dissatisfaction with corruption within the general public. The Russian Transparency International (TI) branch is receiving an ever increasing number of calls from the public asking to volunteer in the fight against corruption.

TI has very realistic discussions with such volunteers. It is established that TI does not aim to put a stop to corruption. That would be an impossible task. Instead, the main current goal is to reduce corruption to socially acceptable levels and to stop it killing people.

Yes, corruption kills. Corrupt officials are a problem for national security; a medical practitioner who bought his license is a danger to his patients; a drunk driver who bribes the police into letting him go is a danger to everyone on the road; and the two terrorists who bribed the Domodedovo Airport to not go through security checks for £20 caused the deaths of 90+ people.

But where does the money made through corruption go? It goes abroad! Corrupt officials and businessmen invest millions into property worldwide. Surely someone monitors such acquisitions but no one asks any questions.
Very recently, an initiative has been signed by World Leaders in St Petersburg to stop domestic institutions from accepting bribes from foreign organizations and individuals. But where are the results? Does anyone even monitor the international compliance with such initiatives?

It is easy to close your eyes but laundered money is LAUNDERED money. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ‘CLEAN’ DIRTY MONEY. And where laundered money goes, crime follows.

So how do we stop such impunity? Political and legal structures are dormant in Russia, to use the language softly. But social pressure can make life for offenders that little bit less comfortable, and therefore it is a start. Transparency International was able to force the Russian Police Force to start wearing badgers that identify each policeman. Now, the police is no longer an anonymous, all power institution; those who abuse their power can be reported individually for misconduct.

In Russian culture, ‘corruption’ is seen as some mythological creature at the root of all problems. We must understand that ‘corruption’ is real; that it has a first name, a last name and a position. And therefore, it can be fought and stopped.

The recent increase in laws that limit the activities of the civil society are a testimony to the fact that social pressure is working. If it wasn’t, there would be no need to limit it. Neither will the government succeed in putting an end to the civil society. It is not a formal institution that can be closed. It is people’s beliefs and their notions of trust and truth; and are susceptible to the Phoenix syndrome. They resurrect and carry on.

Right now TI Russia is under a lot of pressure from the government. The “foreign agent” laws and false allegations aimed at closing down the institution has become a part of a normal daily routine. But so have the visits from the general public. The people want to be a part of the TI and a part of its fight to restore dignity and integrity to the Russian state and country.
Global Corruption 2013: A Russian Perspective

Elena Gorianova

Politics Research Student, University of Sussex

Posted in NGO's

There are rarely weeks when issues of corruption and anti-corruption are not in the news..

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but, even by normal standards, there was plenty going on in the first week of December. Things kicked off with a depressing story from China, where the head of admissions at one of China’s most well-regarded universities was caught fleeing the country after having accepted millions of pounds worth of bribes to admit students who might not otherwise have been academically up to it (see here).  That was followed by more evidence (as if any were really needed) that politicians have to be 100 per cent on message all the time as the UK’s attorney general, Dominic Grieve, came a cropper when commenting on perceived relationships between levels of corruption and certain ethic communities (see here). Cue plenty of political backtracking (see here).

The main event last week was nonetheless the publication by Transparency International (TI), the leading anti-corruption NGO in the corruption field, of its annual ‘Corruption Perceptions Index‘ (CPI).  TI celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2013 and it has produced the CPI annually since the late 1990s.  TI in general and the CPI in particular therefore have real staying power, and that in spite of the (not inconsiderable) number of methodological problems that are inherent in the index (see here and here for less and more details on these).  For the record, the Danes and the Kiwis came out on top, whilst the Afghans, North Koreans and Somalis came in joint 175th (and therefore bottom).  The UK rose marginally to 14th, whilst the Spaniards and Syrians performed – for their own specific reasons – much worse than they had done in previous years.  Whilst many critics write the CPI off as fit only for parlour games and pub quizzes, the CPI does at least get people talking about corruption (just google it if you don’t believe me, newspapers all around the world have been all over it) – and, all caveats to one side, that is almost certainly a good thing.

Only marginally less high profile than the launch of the CPI was the annual Christmas dinner of the MA in Corruption and Governance students at the University of Sussex.  Of the 20 students on the course, 15 assembled at a salubrious Hove Indian restaurant to salute the on rushing Christmas period. It’s been a busy old term for the current cohort, and with, amongst other things, internships beckoning for 14 of the group in the spring their hectic schedule won’t be changing any time soon. Better to be busy than bored, as they say!

Dan Hough

University of Sussex

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