About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

12 E. Eur. Const. Rev. 87 (2003)
Do Uncorrupt Governments in Corrupt Countries Have Incentives to Launch Anticorruption Campaigns

handle is hein.journals/eeurcr12 and id is 215 raw text is: Do Uncorrupt Governments in Corrupt Countries Have Incentives to Launch Anticorruption Campaigns? Ivan Krastev and Georgy Ganev hen somebody talks or writes about corruption, regardless of who is talking or writing, regardless of what is written or said, and for whatever purpose either is done, the talk is always harmful for the government, regardless of who is in the government and how corrupt the government actually is. The worst is when the govern- ment joins the corruption talk. Thus a seasoned politician in a moderately reformed country commented on our interest in writing a book about anticorruption campaigns. He did not even entertain the idea that a government has an incentive to talk about corruption. Could he be right? We treat corruption and anticorruption as polit- ical resources. It is up to politicians to decide on the particular value of these resources in a concrete polit- ical context. In democratic politics, corruption is not simply the use of public office for private gain. It is a way to raise campaign money and to control loyalties that can be critical for electoral success. But corruption may have a high political cost. Generally, voters do not like corrupt politicians. It is the voters' perception of corruption as a social evil that also makes anticorrup- tion a political resource. The stronger the moral rejection of corruption, the higher the risks of a corruption-centered politics and the stronger the incentives for an anticorruption politics, and, one would think, the greater the reward. An uncorrupt government is not synonymous with an incorruptible government, or even with a clean or honest government. An uncorrupt government is one that is convinced that it cannot be reelected through a corruption-based strategy and has decided not to rely on such a strategy. Such a government esti- mates that raising party funds and creating political loyalties through corruption would be more costly, politically, than not raising this money. In this sense, an uncorrupt government is a government that does not seek reelection through corruption. An anticorruption campaign, in the fullest sense, is not simply a mix of anticorruption policies. An anti- corruption campaign is a governmental strategy that defines corruption as the major problem faced by the country and formulates the reduction of corruption as the government's major policy objective. In the specific case we will be looking at, the campaign includes the implementation of a World Bank-designed set of anti- corruption policies and the use of anticorruption rhetoric to justify the government's policy decisions. In this sense, to implement an anticorruption policy package in the absence of anticorruption rhetoric would not qualify as a campaign. The assumption of current anticorruption litera- ture is that uncorrupt governments have incentives to be involved in anticorruption politics. Anticorruption campaigns are viewed as opportunities for mobilizing support for reforms at a time when the initial support for reforms is exhausted, and the public is alienated and disappointed. But is this the real story? In 1997-98, the World Bank and other interna- tional donors (also referred to as international financial institutions, or IFIs) identified corruption as the major cause for the failure of reform in places like Russia.The discovery of corruption served two related purposes. By blaming corruption for the failure of reforms designed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, the IFIs could claim innocence for the dismaying results of the policies they had advocated. But what is more important, anticorruption rhetoric was perceived as an opportunity to generate new enthusiasm for what SPRING/SUMMER 2003 87

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most