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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political corruption
In recent years hundreds of high-profile 'free speech' incidents have rocked US college campuses. Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter and other right-wing speakers have faced considerable protest, with many being disinvited from speaking. These incidents are widely circulated as examples of the academy's intolerance towards conservative views. But this response is not the spontaneous outrage of the liberal colleges. There is a darker element manufacturing the crisis, funded by political operatives, and designed to achieve specific political outcomes. If you follow the money, at the heart of the issue lies the infamous and ultra-libertarian Koch donor network. Grooming extremist celebrities, funding media platforms that promote these controversies, developing legal organizations to sue universities and corrupting legislators, the influence of the Koch network runs deep. We need to abandon the 'campus free speech' narrative and instead follow the money if we ever want to root out this dangerous network from our universities.
In The Struggles of Post-Independence Nigeria, Ucheoma Nwagbara argues that despite Nigeria's oil wealth and arable agricultural land, Nigerians are not any better today than they were before independence. Nwagbara examines Nigeria's struggles with corruption, poverty, inequality, crime, and insurgency to show how poor leadership has failed to use the country's enormous natural and human resources to improve citizens' lives, eradicate poverty, and deliver broadly shared prosperity. Through his analysis, Nwagbara demonstrates that the nationalist ideals of dedicated and accountable leadership behind the struggle for independence in Nigeria have been betrayed as the emergent post-colonial leadership cared more for personal survival and gain. Despite these failures, Nwagbara reveals that Nigeria may still have a chance to improve and recover if Nigerians unite and demand real change through political and social activism.
This book examines corruption in public procurement in three Member States of the EU, reviewing their different approaches to combating corruption, and the extent to which the transparency principle is applied in their procurement systems. The focus of the work is on the contrast between the unsuccessful procurement legislation of a relatively young Member State (Bulgaria) and its attempt to curb corruption by expanding the scope of application of the transparency principle, and two examples of procurement systems where corruption is limited adequately, without an excess of information procedural requirements (Germany and Austria). The book scrutinizes the transparency rules, procurement participants, and responsible institutions in the award of procurements in these countries. It discusses in detail the types of infringements involving corruption as well as their link to infringements of the transparency principle. It compares and examines the systems of control and appeal against a contracting authority's actions within the various legislative schemes, and highlights the legislative weaknesses which fail to reduce corruption. The comparative analysis between the Bulgarian public procurement system and the German and Austrian systems is carried out through detailed research not only with regard to adherence to the transparency principle, but also to the use of other mechanisms to limit corruption, insofar as these solutions are appropriate and could be adapted in other countries currently lacking sufficient anti-corruption measures.
Corruption is an almost universal and persistent feature of the modern state. Commentators primarily view corruption as a major obstacle to development, whereas dissenting voices claim that corruption has the power to facilitate trade that would otherwise not have taken place. This comprehensive collection presents the most significant works contributing to our understanding of this debate, focusing on the key conceptual and theoretical issues and discussing anti-corruption policies. Alongside an original introduction by the editors, this collection is a highly valuable asset to scholars and academics alike.
Nigeria's democratisation efforts since attaining political independence from Britain have been tumultuous and have spanned over three successive republics. A persistent bug decimating Nigeria's democracy and repeatedly leading to military coups has been brazen electoral violence perpetrated by the nation's political elite. Nigeria's 2019 Democratic Experience analyses and explains what went wrong in Nigeria's experiment with democracy. Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and the world's seventh most populous nation, also contributes 70% of West Africa's population. She is sub-Saharan Africa's largest oil producer and has remained Africa's largest economy by GDP since 2014. The country has hundreds of diverse ethnic nationalities and languages grouped into 36 states (or federating units) and an independent federal capital territory. Though recognized as Africa's largest democracy, her democratisation process since the 1960s has remained tumultuous with massive electoral violence and political intolerance. This repeatedly compelled the military to intervene in the nation's political history in the years 1966, 1983 and 1985. It is these developments that provided the motivation for this volume to capture for posterity the conduct of the 2019 General Elections in Nigeria.
How to restore ethics, the rule of law, and democracy as the centerpieces of U.S. government U.S. government has been repeatedly renewed-sometimes simply repaired and other times reinvented-during its over 230 years. Major aspects of the federal system were broken again during the four years of the Trump administration, so it's time for even more fixes. This book sets out the damage that was done and important ideas on how the repairs should be made, focusing on ethics, the rule of law, and democracy. Distinguished scholars and practitioners have come together not only to address what went awry over the past four years, but also the deeper weaknesses that have become more evident, and how those weaknesses can be repaired. The problem areas range from ethics and conflicts of interest to the Hatch Act and big money in politics, and from independence at the Department of Justice and government transparency to reestablishing Congressional oversight, and the government's role in the broader areas of how Americans vote and of international ethics and rule of law. Overcoming Trumpery provides a framework to understand the significant developments that are already happening in Washington with respect to ethics, the rule of law, and democracy. These include the "For the People Act," the "Protecting Our Democracy Act," and President Biden's Executive Order on Ethics. The ideas outlined in this book for fixing flaws in federal governance come from the more than century of collective experience of its expert authors. The book represents a burst of sunshine after a very dark period in the nation's history.
This book presents an analysis of five anticorruption agencies (ACAs) from Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia, exploring the impact of organisational factors and leadership on their enforcement patterns during the first decade of the transitional reforms (2001-2012). Contrary to the conventional theory of agency insulation, the analysis reveals that the ACAs' de facto autonomy was not crucially shaped by their statutory independence, but rather by the reputational management of their leaders. The book draws on a mixture of qualitative and quantitative analysis to document these reputational strategies and how they shaped the ACAs' de facto autonomy. The findings also suggest that that the ACAs' organisational model - defined by the delegated mandate and powers (preventative vs suppressive) - represented a key variable that mediated under which conditions high de facto autonomy can be achieved. The book offers contributions to the study of anticorruption policy and ethics regulation, as well as the wider inquiry into drivers of agency independence, particularly in transitional contexts.
A new and updated edition of Malcolm Beith's thrilling inside-account of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman's notorious Sinaloa drug cartel. Until 2016, the dense hills of Sinaloa, Mexico, were home to the most powerful drug lord since Pablo Escobar: Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. Guzman was among the word's ten most wanted men and appeared on Forbes magazine's billionaire list. With his massive wealth, his army of professional killers, and a network of informants that reached into the highest levels of government, catching Guzman was considered impossible - until it wasn't. Newsweek correspondent Malcolm Beith has spent years reporting on the drug wars and followed the chase with full access to senior officials and exclusive interviews with soldiers and drug traffickers in the region, including members of Guzman's cartel. Newly updated with Beith's gripping account of the trial that put Guzman away for life, The Last Narco is essential reading about one of the most dramatic news stories of our day - a true-crime thriller happening in real-time.
“How did we move from the inspiring moments of Nelson Mandela’s release after 27 years of incarceration, and the euphoria of our first democratic elections in 1994, to State Capture and the disaster of Jacob Zuma’s reign – a controversial President with over 800 charges of corruption pending? More importantly, what can we as a nation do about it? These are big issues – but Neil Wright does not pull any punches in bringing them out in the open and is not shy to give his opinions and possible solutions. His core message is that for true transformation to happen, it has to happen from the inside out, not imposed from the top down. By embracing the concept of “One Race, the Human Race, Now!” South Africans have the chance to emerge from present challenges and finally shake off the shadow of our divided past.”
Angola is poised between a past marked by civil war and corruption, and a future of potential economic development. This book examines the post-Civil War period which began in 2002 and saw the rise of a corrupt ruling elite, as well as recent developments in the country. These include the efforts of the current President, Joao Lourenco, to reform the regime through political openness, economic growth and a crackdown on corruption. Rui Santos Verde analyses the country's recent history of corruption and the current attempts at reform in order to determine whether economic and political development is on the horizon for Angola, or whether these reforms are simply a move towards consolidating President Lourenco's personal power.
When the possibility of wiretapping first became known to Americans they were outraged. Now, in our post 9/11 world, it's accepted that corporations are vested with human rights, and government agencies and corporations use computers to monitor our private lives. David H. Price pulls back the curtain to reveal how the FBI and other government agencies have always functioned as the secret police of American capitalism up to today, where they luxuriate in a near-limitless NSA surveillance of all. Price looks through a roster of campaigns by law enforcement, intelligence agencies and corporations to understand how we got here. Starting with J. Edgar Hoover and the early FBI's alignment with business, his access to 15,000 pages of never-before-seen FBI files shines a light on the surveillance of Edward Said, Andre Gunder Frank and Alexander Cockburn, Native American communists and progressive factory owners. Price uncovers patterns of FBI monitoring and harassing of activists and public figures, providing the vital means for us to understanding how these new frightening surveillance operations are weaponised by powerful governmental agencies that remain largely shrouded in secrecy.
What happens when the President of the United States engages in criminal activity? He runs for re-election. Donald Trump's campaign chairman went to jail. So did his personal lawyer. His long-time political consigliere was convicted of serious federal crimes, and his National Security Advisor pleaded guilty to several more. Multiple Russian spies were indicted in absentia. Career intelligence agents and military officers were alarmed enough by his actions as President that they alerted senior government officials and ignited the impeachment process. Yet despite all this, a years-long inquiry led by Robert Mueller, and the third Presidential impeachment trial in American history, Donald Trump survived to run for presidency again. Why? Jeffrey Toobin's highly entertaining, definitive account of the Mueller investigation and the impeachment of the President takes readers behind the scenes of the epic legal and political struggle to call Trump to account for his misdeeds. Toobin recounts the mind-boggling twists and turns in the case - Trump's son met with a Russian operative promising Kremlin support; Trump paid a porn star $130,000 to hush up an affair; Rudy Giuliani and a pair of shady Ukrainian-American businessmen got the Justice Department to look at Russian-created conspiracy theories. Toobin shows how Trump's canny lawyers used Mueller's famous integrity against him, and how Trump's bullying and bluster cowed Republican legislators into ignoring the clear evidence of the impeachment hearings. Based on dozens of interviews with prosecutors in Mueller's office, Trump's legal team, Congressional investigators, White House staffers, and several of the key players, including some who are now in prison, True Crimes and Misdemeanours is a revelatory narrative that makes sense of the seemingly endless chaos of the Trump years. Filled with never-before-reported details of the high-stakes legal battles and political machinations, the book weaves a tale of a rogue President guilty of historic misconduct, and how he got away with it.
Gabriel Ferreyra presents a comprehensive analysis of drug trafficking in Mexico and the United States by examining the roots, development, consolidation, and cultural ramifications of this phenomenon in the past century as well as its negative consequences in contemporary Mexico. Ferreyra discusses the most devastating effects correlated to drug trafficking such as high murder rates, gruesome violence, disappearances, and mass graves to emphasize how Mexican society bears the brunt of this phenomenon while the United States insists on the futility of drug prohibition. Unlike other publications, this book provides an interdisciplinary social science approach where drug trafficking is conceptualized as a multifaceted social, political, economic, and cultural problem, rather than just a criminal justice issue. Drug Trafficking in Mexico and the United States also revisits the war on drugs and provides an argument how drug control is the primary force behind drug trafficking. In that respect, there is an analysis on how the DEA has reinforced the war on drugs model and why it became a reactionary agency that opposes any comprehensive alternative to the American drug problem besides drug control. The author concludes with recommendations to implement forward-thinking measures such as decriminalization, reclassification, and legalization of drugs to effectively address the illicit drug trade.
This edited collection examines corruption in the public sector, assessing case studies from across the globe in order to provide an international perspective on this worldwide issue. Case studies include an examination of how corruption has been minimized in Singapore and Hong Kong; an assessment of corruption in India under Modi, who was elected on a promise to reduce corruption; a study of corruption in Bangladesh, and an evaluation of attempts to curb corruption in South Africa. This collection also includes a comparative study of corruption in Brazil and Chile, and a global perspective on the development of ethical privacy policies in e-government. The original case studies included in this book are brought together in an effort to identify common themes that impinge upon the fight against corruption, despite the particular nuances of individual nations. The contributions included in this edited collection also cover themes that are not often studied, including corruption in government procurement, the nascent issue of the 'right to privacy' stemming from e-governance, and the proclivity of governments to hide behind Official Secrets Acts to withhold information - ostensibly guaranteed under the 'right to information' which is vital in the fight against corruption. Providing a broad overview on public sector corruption, including local and national perspectives, this edited collection is essential reading for scholars of both public policy and corruption worldwide.
This book provokes fresh ways of thinking about small developing States within the transnational legal order for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism and proliferation (TAMLO). From the global wars on drugs and terror to journalistic exposes such as the 'Paradise', 'Panama' and 'Pandora' Papers, the Commonwealth Caribbean has been discursively stigmatised as a mythical island paradise of 'rogue' States. Not infrequently, their exercise of regulatory self-determination has been presented as the selling of their economic sovereignty to facilitate shady business deals and illicit finance from high-net-worth individuals, kleptocrats, tax-dodgers, organised crime networks and terrorist financiers. This book challenges conventional wisdom that Commonwealth Caribbean States are among the 'weakest links' within the global ecosystem to counter illicit finance. It achieves this by unmasking latent interests, and problematising coercive extraterritorial regulatory and surveillance practices, along the onshore/offshore and Global North/South axes. Interdisciplinary in its outlook, the book will appeal to policymakers, regulatory and supervisory authorities, academics and students concerned with better understanding legal and development policy issues related to risk-based regulatory governance of illicit finance. The book also provides an interesting exposition of substantive legal and policy issues arising from money laundering related to corruption and politically exposed persons, offshore finance, and offshore Internet gambling services.
A masterful and eye-opening examination of Trump and the coercive control tactics he uses to build a fanatical devotion in his supporters written by "an authority on breaking away from cults...an argument that...bears consideration as the next election cycle heats up" (Kirkus Reviews). Since the 2016 election, Donald Trump's behavior has become both more disturbing and yet increasingly familiar. He relies on phrases like, "fake news," "build the wall," and continues to spread the divisive mentality of us-vs.-them. He lies constantly, has no conscience, never admits when he is wrong, and projects all of his shortcomings on to others. He has become more authoritarian, more outrageous, and yet many of his followers remain blindly devoted. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert and a major Trump supporter, calls him one of the most persuasive people living. His need to squash alternate information and his insistence of constant ego stroking are all characteristics of other famous leaders-cult leaders. In The Cult of Trump, mind control and licensed mental health expert Steven Hassan draws parallels between our current president and people like Jim Jones, David Koresh, Ron Hubbard, and Sun Myung Moon, arguing that this presidency is in many ways like a destructive cult. He specifically details the ways in which people are influenced through an array of social psychology methods and how they become fiercely loyal and obedient. Hassan was a former "Moonie" himself, and he presents a "thoughtful and well-researched analysis of some of the most puzzling aspects of the current presidency, including the remarkable passivity of fellow Republicans [and] the gross pandering of many members of the press" (Thomas G. Gutheil, MD and professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School). The Cult of Trump is an accessible and in-depth analysis of the president, showing that under the right circumstances, even sane, rational, well-adjusted people can be persuaded to believe the most outrageous ideas. "This book is a must for anyone who wants to understand the current political climate" (Judith Stevens-Long, PhD and author of Living Well, Dying Well).
The author tests the hypothesis that hubris and the Bathsheba syndrome tend to affect all top leaders, by zooming in on the best known and very highest executives of our own day and age, and examines the psychological forces tugging at the top level of political leadership.
This book examines the phenomenon of 'grand corruption' in Kuwait and the pattern in the wider region. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the work places corruption in its sociological, political and economic context to explore the relationship between the characteristics of Kuwait as a state with an endemic corruption problem. It then focuses on laws and regulations as key problem-solving mechanisms. In doing so, it identifies, explores, and assesses the existing counter-corruption laws and regulations in Kuwait in a broad socio-political-economic context. The work goes beyond doctrinal legal research, employing empirical methodology based on semi-structured interviews with elite politicians and professional experts from criminal justice and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These valuable and original insights are reflected upon throughout the study. The grand corruption that permeates the tier of high-profile officials in Kuwait is replicated in many developing countries where accountability mechanisms regularly suffer from lack of enforcement. The appeal of this book is its application to numerous jurisdictions, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Middle East in particular. It will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and policymakers working in the areas of financial crime and corruption.
In this unprecedented and chilling monologue, a repentant Mexican hitman tells the unvarnished truth about the war on drugs on the American. El Sicario is the hidden face of America's war on drugs. He is a contract killer who functioned as a commandante in the Chihuahuan State police, who was trained in the US by the FBI, and who for twenty years kidnapped, tortured and murdered people for the drug industry at the behest of Mexican drug cartels. He is a hit man who came off the killing fields alive. He left the business and turned to Christ. And then he decided to tell the story of his life and work. Charles Bowden first encountered El Sicario while reporting for the book "Murder City." As trust between the two men developed, Bowden bore witness to the Sicario's unfolding confession, and decided to tell his story. The well-spoken man that emerges from the pages of "El Sicario" is one who has been groomed by poverty and driven by a refusal to be one more statistic in the failure of Mexico. He is not boastful, he claims no major standing in organized crime. But he can explain in detail not only torture and murder, but how power is distributed and used in the arrangement between the public Mexican state and law enforcement on the ground - where terror and slaughter are simply tools in implementing policy for both the police and the cartels. And he is not an outlaw or a rebel. He is the state. When he headed the state police anti-kidnapping squad in Juarez, he was also running a kidnapping ring in Juarez. When he was killing people for money in Juarez, he was sharpening his marksmanship at the Federal Police range. Now he lives in the United States as a fugitive. One cartel has a quarter million dollar contract on his head. Another cartel is trying to recruit him. He speaks as a free man and of his own free will - there are no charges against him. He is a lonely voice - no one with his background has ever come forward and talked. He is the future - there are thousands of men like him in Mexico and there will be more in other places. He is the truth no one wants to hear.
'This elegantly written, erudite book is essential reading for all of us, whatever our identifications' - Lynne Segal Antisemitism is one of the most controversial topics of our time. The public, academics, journalists, activists and Jewish people themselves are divided over its meaning. Antony Lerman shows that this is a result of a 30-year process of redefinition of the phenomenon, casting Israel, problematically defined as the 'persecuted collective Jew', as one of its main targets. This political project has taken the notion of the 'new antisemitism' and codified it in the flawed International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's 'working definition' of antisemitism. This text is the glue holding together an international network comprising the Israeli government, pro-Israel advocacy groups, Zionist organisations, Jewish communal defence bodies and sympathetic governments fighting a war against those who would criticise Israel. The consequences of this redefinition have been alarming, supressing free speech on Palestine/Israel, legitimising Islamophobic right-wing forces, and politicising principled opposition to antisemitism.
Regardless of which political party Americans identify with, the sentiment that those who work in Washington are corrupt transcends partisanship. Since the breaking of the Watergate scandal, trust in the government has decreased significantly. While Congress did not engage in the Watergate break-in, the institution has still suffered the consequences, seeing citizens' distrust of politicians grow. However, Congress is not blameless, as it has had its share of scandal and corruption over the years. Scandal and Corruption in Congress guides readers through the history of corruption in Congress. Specifically, readers explore policies outlawing corruption, how Congress has attempted to hide unethical behaviour, getting caught, the repercussions of getting caught, and how corruption in the U.S. compares to corruption in other nations. Finally, to enlighten readers about the recent actions by Congress, several chapters address the impact of Citizens United and the #MeToo movement. |
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