Category: anti-corruption

Arab populism succeeds where civil society fails

     

In this year’s key parliamentary elections in Iraq and Lebanon, formerly controversial populist figures performed far better than expected and are playing central roles in the scramble to form governments,… Read more »

‘Profound reshaping of political map’ will challenge Mexico’s ‘bourgeois’ civil society

     

Angry and frustrated over corruption and violence, Mexico’s voters delivered a tidal wave presidential election victory to leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador [aka AMLO], giving him a broad mandate to… Read more »

Kleptocracy and kakistocracy feed on each other

     

In a kleptocracy, criminal behavior is not individual, opportunistic, or sporadic, but rather collective, systematic, strategic, and permanent. It is a system in which all the high-level government officials are complicit, where… Read more »

Anti-populist lessons from eastern Europe’s civil society

     

There are lessons to be learned on populism from new initiatives in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, argues Orysia Lutsevych, the manager of the Ukraine Forum with Chatham House, the London-based… Read more »

West’s anti-corruption efforts failing in Ukraine?

     

Russia is run by people who are stealing left, right, and center. Its a kleptocracy, says Mark Galeotti, author of The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia, out Tuesday from Yale University Press…. Read more »

How Britain lets Russian kleptocrats hide dirty money

     

British financial complicity with Russian kleptocrats is undermining the country’s national security and democratic institutions, says analyst Oliver Bullough. Over the past decade, £68bn has flowed from Russia into Britain’s… Read more »

Activist’s trial highlights Angola’s reputation for nepotism and corruption

     

Angola’s new government must tackle the country’s reputation for nepotism and corruption, both at home and abroad, analysts suggest. President João Lourenço has made a positive start in challenging the… Read more »

To ‘mature as a democracy’, Malaysia’s ‘sick-minded’ corruption must end

     

Malaysia’s new government on Monday established a special task force to probe possible criminal offences relating to country’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) sovereign wealth fund, the FT reports: The task… Read more »

Armenia needs ‘institutional backbone’ to sustain democratic breakthrough

     

Converting Armenia ’s ‘Velvet Revolution’ into a sustainable democratic transition requires establishing an  “’institutional backbone” to ensure there is no reversion to corrupt, autocratic governance, says Daron Acemoglu, a Turkish born… Read more »