The Despot's Guide to Wealth Management

The Despot's Guide to Wealth Management
Author: J. C. Sharman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2017-03-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501708430

An unprecedented new international moral and legal rule forbids one state from hosting money stolen by the leaders of another state. The aim is to counter grand corruption or kleptocracy ("rule by thieves"), when leaders of poorer countries—such as Marcos in the Philippines, Mobutu in the Congo, and more recently those overthrown in revolutions in the Arab world and Ukraine—loot billions of dollars at the expense of their own citizens. This money tends to end up hosted in rich countries. These host states now have a duty to block, trace, freeze, and seize these illicit funds and hand them back to the countries from which they were stolen. In The Despot's Guide to Wealth Management, J. C. Sharman asks how this anti-kleptocracy regime came about, how well it is working, and how it could work better. Although there have been some real achievements, the international campaign against grand corruption has run into major obstacles. The vested interests of banks, lawyers, and even law enforcement often favor turning a blind eye to foreign corruption proceeds. Recovering and returning looted assets is a long, complicated, and expensive process. Sharman used a private investigator, participated in and observed anti-corruption policy, and conducted more than a hundred interviews with key players. He also draws on various journalistic exposés, whistle-blower accounts, and government investigations to inform his comparison of the anti-kleptocracy records of the United States, Britain, Switzerland, and Australia. Sharman calls for better policing, preventative measures, and use of gatekeepers like bankers, lawyers, and real estate agents. He also recommends giving nongovernmental organizations and for-profit firms more scope to independently investigate corruption and seize stolen assets.

Grand Corruption

Grand Corruption
Author: Robert I. Rotberg
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2024-08-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1040117511

This book examines the nature, causes, and consequences of grand corruption, showing how it can be assessed, measured, and attacked from within and without. The volume brings together in a single, definitive text some of the best analyses on how to measure the costs of grand corruption and dissects the legal approaches and institutions to counter grand corruption and kleptocracy. Through a series of compelling country case studies, the book explores how corrupt political elites and public officials have stolen from the public purse for personal gain at the expense of their own people and their country’s social and economic development. It also highlights the role of financial and legal intermediaries in the West in laundering these ill-gotten gains. The volume then explores the impact of existing legal constraints on controlling corruption, some of which are still in the evolutionary stage of development. It draws lessons from different national attempts to control corruption as well as regional and international initiatives. The final section of the volume discusses a variety of new anti-corruption initiatives, including efforts to establish an International Anti-Corruption Court. This book will be of much interest to students of grand corruption, global governance, foreign policy, international law, and international relations.

Corruption and Government

Corruption and Government
Author: Susan Rose-Ackerman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 643
Release: 2016-03-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107081203

This new edition of a 1999 classic shows how institutionalized corruption can be fought through sophisticated political-economic reform.

A Social Theory of Corruption

A Social Theory of Corruption
Author: Sudhir Chella Rajan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674241274

A social theory of grand corruption from antiquity to the twenty-first century. In contemporary policy discourse, the notion of corruption is highly constricted, understood just as the pursuit of private gain while fulfilling a public duty. Its paradigmatic manifestations are bribery and extortion, placing the onus on individuals, typically bureaucrats. Sudhir Chella Rajan argues that this understanding ignores the true depths of corruption, which is properly seen as a foundation of social structures. Not just bribes but also caste, gender relations, and the reproduction of class are forms of corruption. Using South Asia as a case study, Rajan argues that syndromes of corruption can be identified by paying attention to social orders and the elites they support. From the breakup of the Harappan civilization in the second millennium BCE to the anticolonial movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, elites and their descendants made off with substantial material and symbolic gains for hundreds of years before their schemes unraveled. Rajan makes clear that this grander form of corruption is not limited to India or the annals of global history. Societal corruption is endemic, as tax cheats and complicit bankers squirrel away public money in offshore accounts, corporate titans buy political influence, and the rich ensure that their children live lavishly no matter how little they contribute. These elites use their privileged access to power to fix the rules of the game—legal structures and social norms—benefiting themselves, even while most ordinary people remain faithful to the rubrics of everyday life.

Grand Theft Pentagon

Grand Theft Pentagon
Author: Jeffrey St. Clair
Publisher:
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

From the F-22 fighter jet and B-2 bomber to the Stryker tank, St. Clair, "the Seymour Hersh of environmental journalism" (Josh Frank), chronicles how the Pentagon shells out billions to politically wired arms contractors for weapons that don't work for use against an enemy that no longer exists.

Routledge Handbook of Political Corruption

Routledge Handbook of Political Corruption
Author: Paul M. Heywood
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2014-12-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317575938

Since the early 1990s, a series of major scandals in both the financial and most especially the political world has resulted in close attention being paid to the issue of corruption and its links to political legitimacy and stability. Indeed, in many countries – in both the developed as well as the developing world – corruption seems to have become almost an obsession. Concern about corruption has become a powerful policy narrative: the explanation of last resort for a whole range of failures and disappointments in the fields of politics, economics and culture. In the more established democracies, worries about corruption have become enmeshed in a wider debate about trust in the political class. Corruption remains as widespread today, possibly even more so, as it was when concerted international attention started being devoted to the issue following the end of the Cold War. This Handbook provides a showcase of the most innovative and exciting research being conducted in Europe and North America in the field of political corruption, as well as providing a new point of reference for all who are interested in the topic. The Handbook is structured around four core themes in the study of corruption in the contemporary world: understanding and defining the nature of corruption; identifying its causes; measuring its extent; and analysing its consequences. Each of these themes is addressed from various perspectives in the first four sections of the Handbook, whilst the fifth section explores new directions that are emerging in corruption research. The contributors are experts in their field, working across a range of different social-science perspectives.

Modern Bribery Law

Modern Bribery Law
Author: Jeremy Horder
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2013-04-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 110735496X

The Bribery Act 2010 is the most significant reform of UK bribery law in a century. This critical analysis offers an explanation of the Act, makes comparisons with similar legislation in other jurisdictions and provides a critical commentary, from both a UK and a US perspective, on the collapse of the distinction between public and private sector bribery. Drawing on their academic and practical experience, the contributors also analyse the prospects for enforcement and the difficulties facing lawyers seeking asset recovery following the laundering of the proceeds of bribery. International perspectives are provided via comparisons with the law in Spain, Hong Kong, the USA and Italy, together with broader analysis of the application of the law in relation to EU anti-corruption initiatives, international development and the arms trade.

China's Gilded Age

China's Gilded Age
Author: Yuen Yuen Ang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2020-05-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108802389

Why has China grown so fast for so long despite vast corruption? In China's Gilded Age, Yuen Yuen Ang maintains that all corruption is harmful, but not all types of corruption hurt growth. Ang unbundles corruption into four varieties: petty theft, grand theft, speed money, and access money. While the first three types impede growth, access money - elite exchanges of power and profit - cuts both ways: it stimulates investment and growth but produces serious risks for the economy and political system. Since market opening, corruption in China has evolved toward access money. Using a range of data sources, the author explains the evolution of Chinese corruption, how it differs from the West and other developing countries, and how Xi's anti-corruption campaign could affect growth and governance. In this formidable yet accessible book, Ang challenges one-dimensional measures of corruption. By unbundling the problem and adopting a comparative-historical lens, she reveals that the rise of capitalism was not accompanied by the eradication of corruption, but rather by its evolution from thuggery and theft to access money. In doing so, she changes the way we think about corruption and capitalism, not only in China but around the world.

Secret Empires

Secret Empires
Author: Peter Schweizer
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2019-03-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0062943340

#1 New York Times Bestseller! Peter Schweizer has been fighting corruption—and winning—for years. In Throw Them All Out, he exposed insider trading by members of Congress, leading to the passage of the STOCK Act. In Extortion, he uncovered how politicians use mafia-like tactics to enrich themselves. And in Clinton Cash, he revealed the Clintons’ massive money machine and sparked an FBI investigation. Now he explains how a new corruption has taken hold, involving larger sums of money than ever before. Stuffing tens of thousands of dollars into a freezer has morphed into multibillion-dollar equity deals done in the dark corners of the world. An American bank opening in China would be prohibited by US law from hiring a slew of family members of top Chinese politicians. However, a Chinese bank opening in America can hire anyone it wants. It can even invite the friends and families of American politicians to invest in can’t-lose deals. President Donald Trump’s children have made front pages across the world for their dicey transactions. However, the media has barely looked into questionable deals made by those close to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Mitch McConnell, and lesser-known politicians who have been in the game longer. In many parts of the world, the children of powerful political figures go into business and profit handsomely, not necessarily because they are good at it, but because people want to curry favor with their influential parents. This is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. But for relatives of some prominent political families, we may already be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. Deeply researched and packed with shocking revelations, Secret Empires identifies public servants who cannot be trusted and provides a path toward a more accountable government.

Corrupt Cities

Corrupt Cities
Author:
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2000
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780821346006

Much of the devastation caused by the recent earthquake in Turkey was the result of widespread corruption between the construction industry and government officials. Corruption is part of everyday public life and we tend to take it for granted. However, preventing corruption helps to raise city revenues, improve service delivery, stimulate public confidence and participation, and win elections. This book is designed to help citizens and public officials diagnose, investigate and prevent various kinds of corrupt and illicit behaviour. It focuses on systematic corruption rather than the free-lance activity of a few law-breakers, and emphasises practical preventive measures rather than purely punitive or moralistic campaigns.