'In explaining the rise to power of Kim Yo Jong, Lee displays his deep knowledge and understanding of North Korea's extreme, ruthless and self-obsessed dynastic autocracy, the creators and rulers of a de-facto nuclear weapon state. Not a reassuring story'- Sir John Scarlett, former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) The Sister is a fascinating, authoritative account of the spectacular rise of Kim Yo Jong, de-facto deputy to her brother, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, and the most powerful woman in North Korea. In 2022, in a particularly fiery speech, Kim Yo Jong threatened to nuke South Korea, reminding the world of the dangers posed by her state. But how did the youngest daughter of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, his ‘sweet princess’, become the ruthless chief propagandist, internal administrator and foreign policymaker for her brother’s totalitarian regime? The Sister, written by Sung-Yoon Lee, a scholar and specialist on North Korea, uncovers the truth about Kim Yo Jong, her close bond with Kim Jong Un and the lessons in manipulation they learned from their father. He also examines the iron grip the Kim dynasty has on their country, the grotesque deaths of family members deemed disloyal, and the signs that Kim Yo Jong has been positioned as her brother’s successor should he die while his own children are young. Readable and insightful, this book is an invaluable portrait of a woman who might yet hold the survival of her despotic dynasty in her hands. 'An incisive portrayal of North Korea's "princess", Kim Yo Jong, but also a chilling portrait of a family dynasty that has oppressed and exploited North Korea for generation after generation' - Max Boot, Washington Post columnist, author and senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

This is an interdisciplinary study of the actual mechanisms by which power corrupts. It pursues a cross-fertilization between political theory, organizational studies and cognitive science. In particular, it introduces advances in the field of cognitive psychology, which it uses to examine the effects of institutionalized power on how we think.

Analysing political corruption as a distinct but separate entity from bureaucratic corruption, this timely book separates these two very different social phenomena in a way that is often overlooked in contemporary studies. Chapters argue that political corruption includes two basic, critical and related processes: extractive and power-preserving corruption. Evaluating seven key case studies, the book illustrates the theoretical basis of corruption and provides a political-economy analysis of the topic, using examples from Sub-Saharan Africa. Outlining how and who is involved, these cases explore the present conditions that enable political corruption. The book highlights how political corruption undermines the political will to curb corruption, a key area that traditional anti-corruption efforts have failed in. A pertinent and forward-thinking contribution to the field, this will be of interest to those working in anti-corruption, including in aid agencies, national NGOs and government agencies. It will also be useful to development studies, development economics and political theory scholars. Contributors include: I. Amundsen, K.T. Asante, T. Budhram, M. D'Arcy, B. Dulani, M. Khisa, A. Nuvunga, E.O. Ojo, A. Orre, V. Prusa

A masterclass in cat-and-mouse espionage suspense - and the last lost novel - from the iconic Number One bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES 'Ian Rankin is a genius' Lee Child It always starts with a small lie. That's how you stop noticing the bigger ones. After his friend suspects something strange going on at the launch facility where they both work - and then goes missing - Martin Hepton doesn't believe the official line of "long-term sick leave"... Refusing to stop asking questions, he leaves his old life behind, aware that someone is shadowing his every move. The only hope he has is his ex-girlfriend Jill Watson - the only journalist who will believe his story. But neither of them can believe the puzzle they're piecing together - or just how shocking the secret is that everybody wants to stay hidden... A gripping, page-turning suspense masterclass - experience the brilliance of the iconic Ian Rankin.

In 21st century Britain, a 'perfect storm' seems to have engulfed many of its institutions. This book is the first wholesale consideration of the crisis of legitimacy that has taken root in Britain's key institutions and explores the crisis across them to determine if a set of shared underlying pathologies exist to create this collective crisis.

Winner of the McKitterick Prize 2018. "Never cover an assignment without collecting a brown envelope," Boniface had said. "It is a real life saver for all journalists in this country." Ifiok, a young journalist working for the government radio station in Lagos, Nigeria, always aspires to do the right thing, but the odds seem to be stacked against him. Government pressures cause the funding to his radio drama to get cut off, his girlfriend leaves him when she discovers he is having an affair with an intern, and kidnappings and militancy are on the rise in the country. When Ifiok travels to his hometown to do a documentary on some ex-militants' apparent redemption, a tragi-comic series of events will make him realise he is unable to swim against the tide of corruption. Building on the legacy of the great African satirist tradition of Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Ayi Kwei Armah, Radio Sunrise paints a sharp-tongued portrait of (post) post-colonial Nigeria.

Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this New York Times-bestseller exposes how a 'modern Gatsby' swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in 'the heist of the century'.

Now a #1 international bestseller, Billion Dollar Whale is 'an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale' (Publishers Weekly, starred review), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history.

In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude -- one that would come to symbolise the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund -- right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street.

By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the US Department of Justice continued its investigation.

Billion Dollar Whale has joined the ranks of Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Bad Blood as a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world.

This book provides a multidisciplinary interrogation of the global anti-corruption campaigns of the last ten years, arguing that while some positive change is observable, the period is also replete with perverse consequences and unintended outcomes. Contributors to the volume unravel the normative assumptions, power relationships and problems of intervention within anti-corruption campaigns in development theory and practice; evaluate and deconstruct donor policy in the area of anti-corruption; and look at new institutional initiatives to build transparency and accountability in government.

To a large extent, elite politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen hold the fortunes of their societies in their hands. This edited volume describes how formal and informal institutions affect elite behaviour, which in turn affects corruption and the quality of government.

At the end of the twentieth century France found itself in the midst of another scandalous fin de siecle, awash with rumors and revelations of wrongdoing in high places. As the millennium expired, the Republic's servants, some sitting, others retired, received much condemnation, whether welcomed or resented. When taken together, surely les affaires now approximate in political significance (if not in noise or invective) those of the Dreyfus or Panama scandals a century ago? Yet the author argues this is not so. Today, treason has vanished and is slowly giving way to a transgression different in kind, but equivalent in gravamen: the crime against humanity. Corruption is far from disappearing, yet now it inspires resignation rather than indignation - and as such, it has lost its power to scandalize. Jankowski claims that such transformations tell a tale. The state that once aspired to pre-eminence as the sole magnet of loyalty, touchstone of probity, and guarantor of right, has yielded significant ground to the individual who is now more likely to elevate his own dignity and cry scandal on his own behalf. [In these times,] Individualism is de-politicizing the group and [ultimately] diluting the mystique of France, the nation-state par excellence.

The acclaimed author of The Power Worshippers exposes the inner workings of the “engine of unreason” roiling American culture and politics.

Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down. She introduces us to reactionary Catholic activists, atheist billionaires, pseudo-Platonist intellectuals, self-appointed apostles of Jesus, disciples of Ayn Rand, women-hating opponents of “the gynocracy,” pronatalists preoccupied with the dearth of white babies, Covid truthers, militia members masquerading as “concerned moms” and battalions of spirit warriors who appear to be inventing a new style of religion even as they set about attacking democracy at its foundations.

Along the way, she provides a compelling analysis of the authoritarian reaction in the United States. She demonstrates that the movement relies on several distinct constituencies, with very different and often conflicting agendas. Stewart's reporting and comprehensive political analysis helps reframe the conversation about the moral collapse of conservatism in America and points the way forward toward a democratic future.

Corruption is a serious problem in many countries around the world, according to Transparency International's 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the World Bank's 2011 Control of Corruption governance indicator. However, some countries like New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Singapore and Hong Kong, have consistently performed better on these two indicators than other countries. While some research has been done in the form of case studies on combating corruption there has been no comparative study on how these five countries have succeeded in curbing corruption and the lessons to be learnt by other countries from their experiences. This book seeks to explain why these five countries have succeeded in combating corruption; and identify the lessons which other countries can learn from these successful experiences. Of interest to policy-makers, anti-corruption practitioners and civil society activists, the edited book will also be a useful resource for undergraduate and graduate courses on corruption and governance in universities as well as for training courses on anti-corruption strategies conducted by anti-corruption agencies and international organizations in various countries.

The state in colonial Burma was not an easy entity to negotiate at the turn of the twentieth century. Policemen framed innocents for crimes they themselves had committed. Magistrates solicited bribes in exchange for acquittals in court. Forestry officials produced false documents. Clerks embezzled government funds. These were mundane and everyday acts.
Using previously unexplored archival sources, the daily reality of living under the Raj in this neglected corner of British India is reconstructed. Through the fascinating cases of misconduct uncovered in these documents this book argues that corruption was intrinsic to the making of the colonial legal order. Subordinate officials' daily abuses of power, and British tolerance of these abuses, served to reinforce racial divisions and enact the state as a masculine entity.

Author of more than six acclaimed graphic novels and well-known for his economical drawing and clear, explanatory narrative, Cunningham shows how the West and its leaders have been culpable in aiding Putin's rise - Obama being a particular example. Areas covered include Brexit and Trump; the crackdown on human rights, especially on homosexuality in Russia; and the poisonings-among them, journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Russia, Alexander Litvinenko in London, Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. By putting all these events into a timeline, Cunningham aims to show that Putin is opportunistic rather than the master manipulator people make him out to be: 'He's essentially a gangster and not a particularly smart one. We need to demythologise Putin if we are to beat him.'

American Exception seeks to explain the breakdown of US democracy. In particular, how we can understand the uncanny continuity of American foreign policy, the breakdown of the rule of law, and the extreme concentration of wealth and power into an overworld of the corporate rich. To trace the evolution of the American state, the author takes a deep politics approach, shedding light on those political practices that are typically repressed in "mainstream" discourse. In its long history before World War II, the US had a deep political system--a system of governance in which decision-making and enforcement were carried out within--and outside of--public institutions. It was a system that always included some degree of secretive collusion and law-breaking. After World War II, US elites decided to pursue global dominance over the international capitalist system. Setting aside the liberal rhetoric, this project was pursued in a manner that was by and large imperialistic rather than progressive. To administer this covert empire, US elites created a massive national security state characterized by unprecedented levels of secrecy and lawlessness. The "Global Communist Conspiracy" provided a pretext for exceptionism--an endless "exception" to the rule of law. What gradually emerged after World War II was a tripartite state system of governance. The open democratic state and the authoritarian security state were both increasingly dominated by an American deep state. The term deep state was badly misappropriated during the Trump era. In the simplest sense, it herein refers to all those institutions that collectively exercise undemocratic power over state and society. To trace how we arrived at this point, American Exception explores various deep state institutions and history-making interventions. Key institutions involve the relationships between the overworld of the corporate rich, the underworld of organized crime, and the national security actors that mediate between them. History-making interventions include the toppling of foreign governments, the launching of aggressive wars, and the political assassinations of the 1960s. The book concludes by assessing the prospects for a revival of US democracy.

When it comes to politics, there are five goals that voters generally agree upon. We all want a say in how we're governed, to be treated equally, a safety net when times are hard, protection from harm and to be richer in the future. So, why does politics not deliver that?

The problem is each of these five goals results in a political trap. For example, we all want a say in how we're governed, but it's impossible to have any true 'will of the people'. And we want to be richer tomorrow, but what makes us richer in the short run makes us poorer over the long haul.

In Why Politics Fails, award-winning Oxford professor Ben Ansell draws on examples from Ancient Greece through Brexit to vividly illustrate how we can escape these traps, overcome self-interest and deliver on our collective goals. Politics seems to be broken, but this book shows how it can work for everyone.

Indonesia has transformed from one of South East Asia 's most repressive and centralised political systems to its most decentralised and democratic. Despite this, obstacles still remain that hinder Indonesia achieving the rule of law, and in particular, the country is consistently ranked as having one of the highest levels of corruption in the world. This book assesses Indonesia 's anti-corruption reforms over the past decade, focusing on the Anti-corruption Commission (KPK) and the Anti-corruption Court (ACC).

The book discusses how both institutions have been largely successful since they began operating on 2004. Before 2008, the KPK and ACC largely focused on mid-senior level targets and faced resistance primarily in the form of constitutional challenges to their jurisdictions and powers. From 2008, however, the KPK began targeting politically-powerful figures, drawing resistance that now threatens the future efficacy of both institutions. It is largely in Indonesia 's courtrooms and lawmaking institutions that key battles between reformists and those preferring the status quo have played out. This book describes and analyses these judicial processes and legal changes. It shows that despite persistent claims that Indonesia 's legal system is dysfunctional, law is far from irrelevant in modern day Indonesia. The book is a useful contribution to South East Asian politics and Asian law.

A chilling exposé of corporate corruption and government cover-ups, this account of a nationwide child-trafficking and pedophilia ring in the United States tells a sordid tale of corruption in high places. The scandal originally surfaced during an investigation into Omaha, Nebraska's failed Franklin Federal Credit Union that went beyond the Midwest, ultimately to Washington, DC. Implicating businessmen, senators, major media corporations, the CIA, and even the venerable Boys Town organization, this extensively researched report includes firsthand interviews with key witnesses and explores a controversy that has received scant media attention.

THE NO. 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'A blockbuster . . . Essential reading' GUARDIAN 'Packed with hair-raising revelations' OBSERVER The definitive behind-the-scenes story of Trump's final year in office, by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporters and authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller, A Very Stable Genius The true story of what took place in Donald Trump's White House during a disastrous 2020 has never before been told in full. Focused on Trump and the key players around him, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig provide a forensic account of the most devastating year in a presidency like no other. With unparalleled access, they reveal exactly who enabled and who foiled Trump as he sought desperately to cling to power.

As a follow up to the bestselling Killing Kebble: An Underworld Exposed (2010), the new book from Mandy Wiener examines how organised crime, gangsters and powerful political figures have been able to capture the law enforcement authorities and agencies.

These various organisations have been eviscerated, hollowed out and left ineffective. They have been infiltrated and compromised and, as a result, prominent underworld figures have been able to flourish in South Africa, setting up elaborate networks of crime with the assistance of many cops.

The criminal justice system has been left exposed and it is crucial that the South African public knows about the capture that has occurred on different levels.