Corruption

Definition of corruption

International Transparency

According to international Transparency, “ corruption is the Abuse of power received as a delegation at private ends ”.

This definition makes it possible to insulate three components of corruption:

the Abuse of power;
at private ends (thus not benefitting necessarily the person misusing from the capacity, but including as well the members of its close family or its friends);
a capacity which one received as a delegation (which can thus emanate from the private sector like public sector).

Tranparency uses also sometimes this definition: “Abuse of power to the profit of personal enrichment”.

European Authorities

The parliamentary assembly of the the Council of Europe defines corruption as “the use and the abuse of the public authority in ends private S”.

For the Commission of the European Communities, “corruption is related to all Abuse of power or any irregularity made in a Decision-making process in exchange of an incentive or an undue advantage”.

definition given by the multidisciplinary Group on the corruption of the the Council of Europe is slightly different : “corruption is an illicit remuneration or any other behavior with regard to the invested people of responsibility in the Public sector or the Private sector, which contravenes the Owe S that they have under the terms of their statute of government official, of employee of the Private sector, agent independent or another report/ratio of this nature and which aims at getting undue advantages of some nature which they are, for themselves or a third”.

The World Bank

The the World Bank retains the following definition for corruption: “To use its position of person in charge of a Public service with its personal benefit”.

Causes of corruption

General causes

Bad Governorship: tally fuzzy Législatif, system inadequate Judiciaire, lack of Transparence and of responsibilisation, Freedom of the press misses;
weak Institutions: Civil servant S with strong authority having few accounts to return, official persons in charge attracted by Remuneration S culprits and having weak wages, cultural factors having milked with the mode of control in the Administration or with the belief in the “right for the benefits” of the administrative persons in charge.

Equation of the Klitgaard economist

Klitgaard posed the following diagrammatic equation with regard to corruption:
Corruption = Monopoly + To be able - Transparence

Characteristics of corruption

Forms

The the World Bank retains the following forms of corruption:

“Backhander”: they are payments with official persons in charge so that they act more quickly, in a more flexible and more favorable way.
the “Fraud”: it is the falsification of data, invoices, collusion etc
“the Extorsion”: it is the money obtained by coercion or the force.
“favoritism” (“Nepotism”, “Collusion”): it is the fact of supporting close relations.
the “Diversion”: it is the flight of public resources by civils servant.

Types of corruption

The the World Bank retains the following types of corruption :

great corruption: it is a corruption with high level where the political decision makers creating and applying the laws use their official position to promote their wellbeing, their statute or their personal capacity;
small corruption: it is bureaucratic corruption in the public administration.

Cost

According to an estimate of the the World Bank, in 2001 - 2002 thousand billion dollars would have been diverted in bribes. This amount accounts for approximately 3% of the exchanges of planet for this same period.

ONG Transparency International published the March 25th 2004 a list of the ten most corrupted Heads of State. Mohamed Suharto for example would have diverted between 15 and 35 billion dollars, Ferdinand Marcos between 5 and 10 and Mobutu Sese Seko approximately 5 billion when it directed the Zaire. The country of the list having the highest GNP was the Peru with: 2051 dollars per capita in 2001. In Canada, Politicking S and tops Fonctionnaire S associated with the administration with the Liberal party with the Government with the Canada are implied in a scandal of several hundreds of million forged invoices of programs of governmental mixed liability companies. The money was used for the re-election of the candidates of the Liberal party.

Fight against corruption

In 1996, the journalist Denis Robert joined together seven large Magistrat S anti-corruption to launch the Appel of Geneva for a European legal Espace.

In February 2001, the book Révélation$ of Denis Robert reveals the operation of the Clearing house Cedel International, based with the Luxembourg, which will become Cedel-Clearstream then Clearstream.

In May 2001 the judges Eva Joly, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, Jean de Maillard and the prosecutors Bernard Bertossa and Benoît Dejemeppe sign a platform in Le Monde entitled the “block boxes” of financial universalization , affirming that it is time to take the measurement of the impact of the book Révélation$ . They highlight accounts not published, and dissimulations in the system Swift.

This is why, according to these judges , “Denis Robert and Ernest Backes show us quite simply where the block boxes are of the financial Mondialisation”, and “must allow the European citizens to include/understand the role of the Clearing houses and by-there very lighting the financial Mondialisation one day new. ”

They propose as “solution among others” “to place these institutions” (Clearstream, Euroclear and others Clearing houses and routing) “under the control of an international organization who could play the part of the Tiers of confidence. ”

OECD makes fight against corruption one of its main objectives.

A report/ratio on the fight against corruption in the developing countries was approved by the European Parliament in April 2006. It is in particular written there that corruption represents a brake with the development in these countries and that of this fact the European Union must make fight against corruption a priority axis of its development policy. The authors recommend the creation of a black list of the states and corrupted governmental representatives, the suspension of the loans in order to prevent the misuses of public money, the allowance of part of the development assistance at the organizations of monitoring, more transparency of the supplementary programmes of the European Union (which represent nearly 55% of the international government aid).

In France, the Central service of Prevention against Corruption (SCPC), created in 1993 with intiative of Pierre Bérégovoy, publishes each year a report on corruption in France and formula of the proposals to fight it.

Association Anticor, created in 2002 pennies the aegis of Severine Tessier and sponsored in particular by Eric Halphen, regoupe of the elected officials of all political tendencies which decided to be linked against corruption. Lawyers and committed personalities support this association through its committee of sponsorship. Anticor decrees each year a price of the pan to elected officials condemned for facts of corruption and a price of Ethics to a person having shown courage to denounce corruption or having shown a remarkable integrity.

Journalists of investigation, lawyers and philosophers were also given for task to fight against the various forms of corruption through their works. In addition to Denis Robert already quoted, Alain Etchegoyen ( the corrupter and the corrupted ), Philippe Madelin ( the gold of the dictatorships , gangster France , money of the gaullists ), Eric Alt ( the fight against corruption ), Roger Lenglet ( the water of the multinationals , Profession corrupter ), Jacques Derogy ( Investigation into the ripoux of the Coast ), Sophie Coignard ( Report/ratio Omerta , the good frequentations ), etc

Lastly, the fight anti-corruption also developed around the activities of influence which can resort to doubtful means and which are suceptibles to have serious effects on the general interest, like the democracy or the public health for example. The Lobbying thus became, after many medical and financial scandals having revealed the pernicious action lobbyists near the political decision makers, the object of an increasingly significant will of legislative framing and debates intense. In 2006, the draft Resolution of a proposal for a Regulation on the circulation of the lobbyists within the National Assembly in offer an illustration. Just as the recent regulation of the Europénne Union on this subject.

Sociology of corruption

The influence of corruption

Corruption appears each time the border enters the administrative logic of general interest and the economic logic of private interest grows blurred; it is thus supported by the contemporary obliteration of the public sphere, by about exclusive assimilation of the success and enrichment. One sees thus more and more senior officials “pantoufler” in the companies, forms “white” (legal) of corruption. Even without suspecting them of having been of the “submarines” of the company within the State, they put the information acquired in the administration at the service of private interests. Jean-Christmas Jeanneney notes that, between 1974 and 1989, a hundred and two tax inspectors joined deprived, which corresponds to the rate/rhythm of recruitment in this body. He also sees a bond between the multiplication of the roundabouts and the profit-sharing expressed as a percentage of certain civils servant of the equipment. The great parties, not being able to be financed via the contributions of members, would have institutionalized corruption : attribution of the government contracts to highest offerer, subsidies with pseudo-associations. This situation led to the reform of the ways of financing of the parties and the electoral campaigns as to an increased independence of the judicial power.

Managed accept corruption because it facilitates the things, allow them to benefit from preferential treatments. The companies will justify on their side the payment of important sums to the political elites of the third world by the need for supporting the trade balance. It is to forget that the corruption which existed in these countries became such extensive that because the Western companies wanted to thus secure the access to their natural wealths.

Corruption does not concern only the political elites, administrative and economic. Today still, as at the 19th century, the majority of the civils servant discovered are of modest row, points out Yves Mény. It is the prison warder which facilitates the contacts of the prisoners with the outside, the civil servant of the police headquarter which grants a residence permit wrongly, the police superintendent “ripoux”. They are then weak sums, a few thousands of euros, without common measurement with those which the diversions of attribution of government contracts bring into play. The corrupted civil servant considers his function as an inheritance of which it uses with its own way, the public rules like instruments of blackmail. There is more difficult to prove corruption since it are no direct monetary exchanges, what is the case in the corruption affairs of high vol.

Democracy and corruption

Corruption, notes Yves Mény. However, max Weber rather narrowly connected the corruption and the political life of the democracies, which supposes the appearance of professionals of the policy, who live of the policy and not for the policy. To read it, only a class of politicians enjoying a personal fortune could return to the policy its purity. One can however note, like does it Jean-Christmas Jeanneney

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