Democracy Lab Democracy Lab Democracy Lab Democracy Lab Democracy Lab Democracy Lab

Lessons for America from the Global War on Sleaze

When it comes to fighting corruption, it turns out there’s a lot that the U.S. can learn from developing countries.

BY CHRISTIAN CARYL | MARCH 20, 2012

Contrast that, say, with the tiny Baltic republic of Latvia, which, as Heller notes, requires any campaign donation to be documented online within 15 days. Good luck finding a U.S. state legislature that mandates anything as strict as that.

All this should serve as a salutary reminder that the popular wisdom on corruption is false. The propensity for graft cannot be reduced to a particular culture or national mindset. According to global watchdog Transparency International, Botswana is far less corrupt than its next-door neighbor Zimbabwe, while Hong Kong is much cleaner than mainland China. What makes the difference here is institutions: a country that has an established rule of law and high standards of public accountability will be less vulnerable to sleaze than one that doesn't.

For up-and-coming countries this offers a source of hope: Those who summon up the political will can beat the disease. For countries like America, that conclusion should serve as a salutary warning: No one is inherently immune. If you don't get your act together, you'll get sick, too.

Frank Polich/Getty Images

 

Christian Caryl, a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute and a contributing editor of Foreign Policy, is the editor of Democracy Lab.

FRANCENE MULANEY

2:06 AM ET

April 19, 2012

What the US Can Learn from China

I think that, This remarkable book comes aptly at a time when Republican Presidential hopefuls in the USA are falling over each other describing how they are going to confront and contain China economically and militarily, while the incumbent President working for his re-election announces that he will hold China to account “to play by the rules” and further enlarges the US military encirclement of that countryAnd yet, at this moment, the once all-mighty Western nations are in deep economic and social crisis while China’s unprecedented advancement in the last two decades leaves them baffled and angry. But it was China’s growth and market demand for commodities that saved most of the world from the after effects of the ongoing “Made in USA” world economic crisis.