Publication: Collective Strategies in Fighting Corruption : Some Intuitions and Counter Intuitions
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Date
2009
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0167-4544
Published
2009
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This article explores the plausibility of some intuitions and counter intuitions about the anti-corruption efforts of MDBs and international organizations leveraging the power of the private sector. Regulation of a sizable percentage of global private sector actors now falls into a new area of international governance with innovative institutions, standards, and programs. We wrestle with the role and value of private sector partnerships and available informal and formal social controls. Crafting proportional informal controls (e.g., monitoring, evaluations, and sanctions) and proper incentives to cooperative games across networks are the lynchpins of successful collective action programs. Ambivalence with informal social controls or effective incentives, we argue, risks far too much deference to private sector interests.
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- Cited 13 times in Scopus (view citations)
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Publication Can Private Sector Action Tackle Corruption?(2007-01)Corruption is an impediment to growth and poverty reduction. As the authors in this issue of Development Outreach well document, corruption limits opportunities, creates inefficiencies and forms additional barriers to the smooth delivery of services. Crucially, from the perspective of the World Bank Group, corruption cumulatively undermines progress towards achieving development objectives, not least as its impact is most adversely felt by the world's poor. The World Bank has taken a clear public stance-based on exhaustive research-to seek ways to combat corruption. To this end we do and must work together with other international organizations, governments, civil society groups, and the private sector. As noted by World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, the private sector worldwide is one of the most important partners in this process and, without the active engagement of business, progress will be limited. This newsletter includes some of the following headings: introduction; why should business care; corruption affects everyone and exists all over the world; capacity of government to regulate is key; so, what is being done; action by individual firms; collective action and the role of associations; industry-wide efforts also hold promise; global standards can be effective at producing peer pressure to reform; the World Bank's contribution; increased attention to its own loan portfolio; the power of data and benchmarking; embedding governance and anti-corruption at the heart of country strategy; powerful diagnosis and analytical tools help guide actions at the country level; affecting both the demand and supply side of good governance; multi-stakeholder partnerships are a complex and nuanced undertaking.Publication On the Take : Criminalizing Illicit Enrichment to Fight Corruption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012)Developing countries lose an estimated US$20–40 billion each year through bribery, misappropriation of funds, and other corrupt practices. Often, the most visible manifestation of corruption is the enrichment of a corrupt public official. Despite such visibility, prosecuting corruption can be very problematic, particularly when it requires proving the offer or acceptance of a bribe. Even when the corruption is established in a court of law, linking the proceeds of the crime to the offense in order to recover assets is a complex endeavor. In response, some countries looking to strengthen their overall arsenal against corruption have criminalized illicit enrichment. In its Article 20, the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) recommends, but does not mandate, States Parties to adopt illicit enrichment as a criminal offense, defining the same as an intentional and “significant increase in the assets of a public official that he or she cannot reasonably explain in relation to his or her lawful income.” The illicit enrichment offense has spurred significant debates involving due processes of law. Others question how jurisdictions are actually using the offense. Finally, many jurisdictions that serve as financial centers do not recognize illicit enrichment as an offense, so tracing and recovering assets through mutual legal assistance is further complicated in illicit enrichment prosecutions. Against this background, this study provides policy makers, prosecutors, and other practitioners with a better understanding of the features of illicit enrichment. It draws on the preparatory work of international conventions, reviews of existing domestic provisions, and the jurisprudence on illicit enrichment. It is the StAR Initiative’s hope that the study will inform the work of decision makers considering adopting an illicit enrichment offense, and assist those implementing illicit enrichment to do so in a way that contributes to effective prosecution, confiscation, and asset recovery.Publication The Fight against Corruption(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-01)Corruption robs the public of precious resources, distorts the incentives to engage in productive activities, destroys confidence in public institutions, and spurs political instability. It disproportionately harms the poor and vulnerable. In turn, corruption is the result of perverse incentives, concentration of power, and lack of accountability. Countries are not condemned to suffer from corruption. They can break the vicious cycle with a comprehensive approach that tackles country-specific governance gaps. This approach should include streamlining rules and regulations; building a meritocratic and well-paid civil service; promoting transparency in public employment, procurement, and services; enabling citizen voice and government accountability; and enforcing anti-corruption laws and penalties.Publication How Business Community Institutions Can Help Fight Corruption(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06)This paper considers the possibility of collective action by the business community to counter corruption in the award of government licenses and contracts. The analogy is with contract enforcement institutions studied by economic historians and contract law scholars. The institution in this context comprises a no-bribery norm, a community system to detect violations, and a multilateral ostracism penalty upon conviction in a community tribunal. The requirements such an institution must meet if it is to be effective are analyzed. It is shown that an institution of sufficient quality -- combining probability of correct detection and severity of punishment -- can eliminate bribery. If the private institution is not sufficiently good, then in conjunction with the state's formal apparatus it reduces the level of bribes demanded, but increases the probability of winning the license or contract through bribery. An improvement in the government's formal anti-corruption mechanism, holding the private institution constant, reduces both the level of bribes and the probability of success through bribery. The two institutions together are shown to achieve substantially better outcomes than either can on its own.Publication Changing Norms is Key to Fighting Everyday Corruption(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-10)One of the biggest impediments to anticorruption efforts is the fact that corrupt practices have become so institutionalized in everyday society that citizens view them as fixed and incontestable. To break down such an entrenched mind-set, the public s ignorance of their rights, cynicism, fear of reprisal, and mentality of submission to the status quo must first be defeated. Perhaps most important, the efficacy challenge needs to be addressed. Citizens generally must believe that they can actually do something about corruption in order to summon the courage to act upon that belief. Based on CommGAP s interactions with the global anticorruption community as well as earlier research, we were able to collate 18 representative instances (case studies) from around the world, with real-life examples of citizens coming together to speak up against corruption and social norms vis-à-vis corruption or to change public services affected by corrupt practices. This report is a one-step-up analysis of the collated case studies, which is intended to shed light on practical approaches, tools, and techniques that have been successful in bringing citizens together to stand against the daunting phenomenon of corruption.
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