#governmental corruption

The United States is suffocating in a smog made up of equal parts racism, hatred, and hopelessness. It is no wonder that so many people choose to lash out in violence or escape through the anesthesia of drugs. Our elected officials, far from finding solutions, add their own brand of divisiveness to the deadly atmosphere.

And the bad news just keeps coming: school shootings, police shootings, corrupt legislators, prosecutors, and judges. Every year $80 billion of our tax dollars goes to support mass incarceration. Women and young girls are fair game for abusers and rapists. Devastating climate change, ignored by those in power, is rabidly making our world unlivable.

DUTCH politics 

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By Amanda Taub, NY Times, Dec. 9, 2016

For over a year, a global mystery has been growing: Why are so many governments around the world collapsing amid corruption scandals?

Attention is now focused on South Korea, where the Parliament voted Friday to impeach President Park Geun-hye. The allegations against Ms. Park are unique in their colorful details--a mysterious adviser, Choi Soon-sil, is suspected of having secretly influenced Ms. Park’s public speeches and decision-making while also extorting millions from major corporations.

But beneath the salacious specifics, the story is familiar: a corruption scandal rocks a nation, reaching the highest levels of government and provoking a political crisis.

It has been a common tale in recent years. In Brazil, for instance, the so-called carwash scandal implicated much of the country’s governing class and led to the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff in August. South Africa seems to be heading in the same direction after it was revealed that President Jacob Zuma misused public funds, prompting calls for his ouster. In 2015, Guatemala’s government collapsed after investigators for the United Nations said that President Otto Pérez Molina and Roxana Baldetti, his vice president, had been involved in a bribery scheme. And in Argentina, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and four officials from her party were indicted in August on corruption charges.

The cavalcade of scandals can make it seem like the world’s politicians have suddenly become greedier en masse.

But focusing on individual wrongdoing is misleading, says Raymond Fisman, a professor of behavioral economics at Boston University who studies systemic corruption, which occurs when the corruption is so widespread and severe that it becomes an integral part of a country’s economic and political life. Once systemic corruption takes hold, he explained, it can quickly infect an entire system, encouraging or even forcing bad behavior--even by those who would, in another context, remain honest.

Seen through that lens, experts say, the recent scandals may in fact be cautiously good news. They show that prosecutors and other institutions have managed to break free of those systems and hold their leaders to account--with overwhelming public support for that accountability when they do.

Professor Fisman argues that the most accurate way to think of corruption is as an “equilibrium”--the result of people acting rationally within a flawed system, not just individual moral lapses.

The cost-benefit analysis of whether to pay a bribe, he explained, “depends on how many people around me I think are also engaged in corruption.”

If most people are honest, he said, paying a bribe is a risky endeavor. There are relatively few people interested in accepting one, and many willing to report bribery to the authorities. In that scenario, the equilibrium favors honest dealing.

But “if everyone around you is paying bribes, the cost-benefit tradeoff flips,” he continued. “As more and more people engage in corruption, you’re better able to find willing partners in crime. And the benefits of staying honest decline, because everybody is cutting in front of you in line to see the doctor, or winning the contracts that you might have had a decent chance of getting.”

A new equilibrium will take hold--one that favors dishonest dealings.

Once a corrupt equilibrium is in place, experts say, it cannot be stopped until public trust in the government’s institutions and leaders is restored. That is why the investigations that have led to scandals in South Korea, Brazil, and elsewhere are so significant.

“When Ray and I say that corruption is an equilibrium, what it really means is that institutions are only strong when you believe in them,” said Miriam Golden, a political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who wrote a new book on corruption with Professor Fisman. “I don’t want to say that our institutions only exist in our minds, but really that’s true. What is the rule of law except that we ultimately believe that we ought to follow certain rules?”

But in corrupt systems that belief is often missing, because the institutions that are supposed to provide accountability are often weakened through bribery, threats, and other illicit means.

“The normal institutions of justice--the courts, the prosecutors, the auditors, the ombudsmen, you name it--are themselves so thoroughly corrupted that you can steal with impunity,” said Matthew C. Stephenson, a professor at Harvard Law School who studies corruption. That batters public trust, and strengthens the perception that corruption is universal and unavoidable.

But when prosecutors or other officials gain enough independence to investigate corrupt officials, that can begin to disrupt the corrupt equilibrium.

In a country where the young are endangered, the future is jeopardized. In a country where the young are the single most vulnerable group the future is being directly attacked.

In Honduras last year nearly 1000 children were murdered. 947 is the exact number. This is one of the worst things I've heard in a while related to Honduras. Not only are doctors not paid, teachers threatened by gangs, police paid less than some teenage prostitutes, but children, minors, are the victims of a breathtaking amount of violence. As if it isn't enough that many children don't get to go to school, the children themselves are becoming an increasing percentage of the victims of crimes resulting in deaths.

The fact is that they are taken out of school, not given opportunities to advance themselves through experience in careers suitable for children and teenagers, and forced to be face to face with pressure, with isolation, with criminals who in many cases are not much older than they are. The time has come for the policies to address the threats that children must contend with.

It is time for all politician parties to stare violence against children in the face. And correct it.

Sources:

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Almost-1000-Children-Murdered-in-Honduras-in-2014-20150121-0027.html

http://www.thereflector.com/news/article_a1931388-95ea-11e4-8448-23b72d1a1f09.html

By David Jolly, NY Times, November 30, 2011 PARIS--New Zealand tops the list of the world's cleanest governments, followed by Finland and Denmark, while Somalia and North Korea tied for the dubious distinction of most corrupt, according to a report Wednesday from Transparency International.

The nonprofit organization, based in Berlin, said it was seeking to highlight the role corruption plays in social discontent, noting that the wave of global protests shows that citizens believe governments and public institutions lack accountability.

Rounding out the 10 cleanest governments were Sweden, Singapore, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia and Switzerland (tied for eighth place) and Canada.

The United States ranked 24th, behind Qatar and Chile, which tied for 22nd place, and one ahead of France at No. 25. Britain tied at No. 16 with Barbados and Austria. Germany and Japan ranked 14th and China came in at No. 75.

Greece, the country where the European financial crisis got started after the government was found to have cooked its books, came in 80th, tying Colombia, El Salvador, Peru, Morocco and Thailand.

At the bottom of the list, Myanmar and Afghanistan tied for 180th place, just above Somalia and North Korea. Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were in a three-way tie for 177th place. Iraq and Haiti tied for 175th place.