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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political corruption
Sport is a global phenomenon engaging billions of people and generating annual revenues of more than US$ 145 billion. Problems in the governance of sports organisations, fixing of matches and staging of major sporting events have spurred action on many fronts. Yet attempts to stop corruption in sport are still at an early stage. The Global Corruption Report (GCR) on sport is the most comprehensive analysis of sports corruption to date. It consists of more than 60 contributions from leading experts in the fields of corruption and sport, from sports organisations, governments, multilateral institutions, sponsors, athletes, supporters, academia and the wider anti-corruption movement. This GCR provides essential analysis for understanding the corruption risks in sport, focusing on sports governance, the business of sport, planning of major events, and match-fixing. It highlights the significant work that has already been done and presents new approaches to strengthening integrity in sport. In addition to measuring transparency and accountability, the GCR gives priority to participation, from sponsors to athletes to supporters an essential to restoring trust in sport.
After her beloved dad got addicted to right-wing talk radio and Fox News, Jen Senko feared he would never be the same again... Frank Senko had always known how to have a good time. Despite growing up in a poverty-stricken family during the Depression and having to fight his way to middle-class status as an adult, he tended to look on the bright side. But after a job change forced Frank to begin a long car commute every day, his daughter Jen noticed changes in his personality and beliefs. Long hours on the road listening to talk radio commentators like Rush Limbaugh sucked her father into a suspicion-laden worldview dominated by conspiracy theories, fake news, and rants about the "coastal elite" and "libtards" trying to destroy America. Over the course of a few years, Jen's dad went from a nonpolitical, open-minded Democrat to a radical, angry, and intolerant right-wing devotee who became a stranger to those closest to him. As politics began to take precedence over everything else in her father's life, Jen was mystified. What happened to her dad? Was there anything she could do to help? And, most importantly, would he ever be his lovable self again? Jen began the search for answers, and found them... as well stories from countless other families like her own. Based on the award-winning documentary, The Brainwashing of My Dad uncovers the alarming right-wing strategy to wield the media as a weapon against our very democracy. Jen's story shows us how Fox News and other ultra-conservative media outlets are reshaping the way millions of Americans view the world, and encourages us to fight back.
Corruption is a serious concern, one which can undermine state legitimacy, exacerbate inequality, and affect trust between social groups. Such effects are particularly problematic in societies that have gone through violent conflict, and are struggling to rebuild institutions, restore social trust, and recover economically. While anti-corruption measures are increasingly integrated into post-conflict programs, war-time structures and practices of corruption often prevail. This book explores corruption in post-war societies by focusing on the important issues of power, inequality and trust. To understand post-war power structures, and the extent to which they engrain, challenge, or transform corrupt practices, we need to study what kind of peace has emerged. The empirical cases in this book offer a variety of post-conflict situations, demonstrating how corruption is played out in, depending on the type and extent of international intervention, and in the case of a victor's peace, a contested peace, a partial peace etc. The chapters illustrate the experiences and perceptions of people on the ground in post-conflict societies, and by giving much space to local dynamics, the book shifts the focus from external intervention and actors to local contexts, striving for greater understanding of the interplay between corruption, power, inequality, and trust in post-war societies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.
Why did Albania enjoy some of the most successful anti-corruption programs and institutions along with what appeared to be growing levels of corruption during the period 1998-2005? Looking at corruption through a post-structuralist discourse analysis perspective this book argues that the dominant corruption discourse in Albania served primarily to institute the neoliberal order rather than eliminate corruption. It did so in four interrelated ways. First, blaming every Albanian failure on corruption avoided a critical engagement with the existing neoliberal developmental model. Second, the dominant articulation of corruption as abuse of public office for private gain consigned it to the public sector, transforming neoliberal policies of privatisation and expanding markets into anticorruption measures. Third, international anticorruption campaigns reproduced an asymmetric relationship of dependency between Albania and the international institutions that monitored it by articulating corruption as internal to the Albanian condition. Finally, against corruption international and local actors could articulate a neoliberal order that was free of internal contradictions and fully compatible with democratization. As a rare example of post-structuralist discourse analysis of corruption this book can be useful for future research on discourses of corruption in other countries of the region and beyond.
For the first time, the full, explosive record of the unthinkable: how a US president compromised American foreign policy in exchange for the promise of future business and covert election assistance. Looking back at this moment in history, historians will ask if Americans knew they were living through the first case of criminal conspiracy between an American presidential candidate turned commander in chief and a geopolitical enemy. The answer might be: it was hard to see the whole picture. The stories coming in from around the globe have often seemed fantastical: clandestine meetings in foreign capitals, secret recordings in a Moscow hotel, Kremlin agents infiltrating the Trump inner circle... Seth Abramson has tracked every one of these far-flung reports and now, in Proof of Collusion, he finally gives us a record of the unthinkable - a president compromising American foreign policy in exchange for the promise of future business and covert election assistance. The attorney, professor and former criminal investigator has used his exacting legal mind and forensic acumen to compile, organise and analyse every piece of the Trump-Russia story. His conclusion is clear: the case for collusion is staring us in the face. Drawing from American and European news outlets, he takes readers through the Trump-Russia scandal chronologically, putting the developments in context and showing how they connect. His extraordinary march through all the public evidence includes: * How Trump worked for thirty years to expand his real estate empire into Russia even as he was rescued from bankruptcy by Putin's oligarchs and Kremlin agents. * How Russian intelligence gathered compromising material on him over multiple trips. * How Trump recruited Russian allies and business partners while running for president. * How he surrounded himself with advisers who engaged in clandestine negotiations with Russia. * How Trump aides and family members held secret meetings with foreign agents and lied about them. By pulling every last thread of this complicated story together, Abramson argues that - even in the absence of a Congressional investigation or a report from Special Counsel Mueller - the public record already indicates a quid pro quo between Trump and the Kremlin. The most extraordinary part of the case for collusion is that so much of it unfolded in plain sight.
In this explosive memoir, a political consultant and technology whistleblower reveals the disturbing truth about the multi-billion-dollar data industry, revealing to the public how companies are getting richer using our personal information and exposing how Cambridge Analytica exploited weaknesses in privacy laws to help elect Donald Trump. When Brittany Kaiser joined Cambridge Analytica - the UK-based political consulting firm funded by conservative billionaire and Donald Trump patron Robert Mercer - she was an idealistic young professional working on her fourth degree in human rights law and international relations. A veteran of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, Kaiser's goal was to utilize data for humanitarian purposes, most notably to prevent genocide and human rights abuses. But her experience inside Cambridge Analytica opened her eyes to the tremendous risks that this unregulated industry poses to privacy and democracy. Targeted is Kaiser's eyewitness chronicle of the dramatic and disturbing story of the rise and fall of Cambridge Analytica. She reveals to the public how Facebook's lax policies and lack of sufficient national laws allowed voters to be manipulated in both Britain and the United States, where personal data was weaponised to spread fake news and racist messaging during the Brexit vote and the 2016 election. But the damage isn't done Kaiser warns; the 2020 election can be compromised as well if we continue to do nothing. In the aftermath of the U.S. election, as she became aware of the horrifying reality of what Cambridge Analytica had done in support of Donald Trump, Kaiser made the difficult choice to expose the truth. Risking her career, relationships, and personal safety, she told authorities about the data industry's unethical business practices, eventually testifying before Parliament. Packed with never-before-publicly-told stories, Targeted goes inside the secretive meetings with Trump campaign personnel and details the promises Cambridge Analytica made to win. Throughout, Kaiser makes the case for regulation, arguing that legal oversight of the data industry is not only justifiable but essential to ensuring the long-term safety of our democracy.
***** 'Reads like a John le Carré novel but is, in fact, very real.' - The Big Issue 'Very Bad People would be a hugely enjoyable thriller if it wasn't all true.' - Isabella Tree, author of Wilding 'Global Witness are fearless.' - Gordon Roddick, Campaigner and Co-Founder of the Body Shop 'Part true crime tale, part investigative procedural, this is the account of the brilliant and necessary superheroes of Global Witness, whose superpower is the truth.' - Edward Zwick, Director of Blood Diamond 'Very Bad People reads like a non-stop high-speed chase as our fighters against corruption hunt down a litany of criminals and con-men.' - David Farr, Screenwriter, The Night Manager 'The story told in this book of three youthful idealists is simply riveting. Don't miss it.' - Misha Glenny, author of McMafia 'Alley has produced a clear-eyed account of a world poisoned by dark money, and a welcome reminder that resistance is possible. As it turns out, his book is even more timely than he could have hoped.' - Irish Times 'This book is inspirational. It shows how young people with sufficient passion and intelligence have the capacity to go after some of the most powerful governments and corporations and shame, humiliate and just push governments to support important reforms that can make this a more decent world.' - Frank Vogl, Co-Founder of Transparency International Arms trafficking, offshore accounts and luxury property deals. Super-yachts, private jets and super-car collections. Blood diamonds, suspect oil deals, deforestation and murder. This is the world of Global Witness, the award-winning organisation dedicated to rooting out worldwide corruption. And this is co-founder Patrick Alley's revealing inside track on a breath-taking catalogue of modern super-crimes - and the 'shadow network' that enables them. VERY BAD PEOPLE is about following the money, going undercover in the world's most dangerous places, and bringing down the people behind the crimes. Case by case we see maverick investigators pitched against warlords, grifters and super-villains who bear every resemblance to The Night Manager's Richard Roper. One dictator's son spent $700 million in just four years on his luxury lifestyle. As they unravel crooked deals of labyrinthine complexity, the team encounter well-known corporations whose operations are no less criminal than the Mafia. This network of lawyers, bankers and real estate agents help park dirty money in London, New York, or in offshore accounts, safe from prying eyes. Patrick Alley's book is a brilliant, authoritative and fearless investigation into the darkest workings of our world - and an inspiration to all of us who want to fight back.
Across the world, most people are well aware of ordinary criminal harms to person and property. Often committed by the powerless and poor, these individualized crimes are catalogued in the statistics collected annually by the FBI and by similar agencies in other developed nations. In contrast, the more harmful and systemic forms of injury to person and property committed by powerful and wealthy individuals, groups, and national states are neither calculated by governmental agencies nor annually reported by the mass media. As a result, most citizens of the world are unaware of the routinized "crimes of the powerful", even though they are more likely to experience harms and injuries from these types of organized offenses than they are from the atomized offenses of the powerless. Research on the crimes of the powerful brings together several areas of criminological focus, involving organizational and institutional networks of powerful people that commit crimes against workers, marketplaces, taxpayers and political systems, as well as acts of torture, terrorism, and genocide. This international handbook offers a comprehensive, authoritative and structural synthesis of these interrelated topics of criminological concern. It also explains why the crimes of the powerful are so difficult to control. Edited by internationally acclaimed criminologist Gregg Barak, this book reflects the state of the art of scholarly research, covering all the key areas including corporate, global, environmental, and state crimes. The handbook is a perfect resource for students and researchers engaged with explaining and controlling the crimes of the powerful, domestically and internationally.
A generation after the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia shows every sign of having overcome its history- the streets of Phnom Penh are paved skyscrapers dot the skyline. But under this façade lies a country still haunted by its years of terror. Joel Brinkley won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Cambodia on the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime that killed one quarter of the nation's population during its years in power. In 1992, the world came together to help pull the small nation out of the mire. Cambodia became a United Nations protectorate- the first and only time the UN tried something so ambitious. What did the new, democratically-elected government do with this unprecedented gift? In 2008 and 2009, Brinkley returned to Cambodia to find out. He discovered a population in the grip of a venal government. He learned that one-third to one-half of Cambodians who lived through the Khmer Rouge era have P.T.S.D.- and its afflictions are being passed to the next generation. His extensive close-up reporting in Cambodia's Curse illuminates the country, its people, and the deep historical roots of its modern-day behaviour.
"Maybe the question isn't what happened to Alan Dershowitz. Maybe it's what happened to everyone else."--Politico In Defending the Constitution, Alan Dershowitz--New York Times bestselling author and one of America's most respected legal scholars--makes an impassioned constitutional argument against the impeachment of President Donald Trump, just as he delivered it to the United States Senate. Alan Dershowitz has been called "one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America" by Politico and "the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights" by Newsweek. Yet he has come under intense criticism fire for applying those same principles, and his famed "shoe-on-the-other-foot test," to Donald Trump, especially after arguing on the president's behalf before the U.S. Senate as it deliberated impeachment. Defending the Constitution seeks to refocus the debate over impeachment to the same standard that Dershowitz has upheld for decades: the law of the United States of America, as established by the Constitution. Citing legal examples from a long lineage of distinguished judges and attorneys, and examining the impeachment language in the Constitution itself, Dershowitz proves--first to the U.S. Senate, and now to readers everywhere--that President Trump should not have been impeached, and certainly should not be removed, for causes that do not meet the standards laid out by the founding fathers. This book is Alan Dershowitz's argument for a return to nonpartisan judgment based on the Constitution, for a preservation of the separation of powers and the checks and balances that make American government great. It is essential reading for anyone interested in or concerned about the impeachment of President Trump, and for everyone who cares about the future of U.S. government and society.
This book is a unique guide to making the world a better place. Experts apply a critical eye to the United Nations' Sustainable Development agenda, also known as the Global Goals, which will affect the flow of $2.5 trillion of development aid up until 2030. Renowned economists, led by Bjorn Lomborg, determine what pursuing different targets will cost and achieve in social, environmental and economic benefits. There are 169 targets, covering every area of international development - from health to education, sanitation to conflict. Together, these analyses make the case for prioritizing the most effective development investments. A panel of Nobel Laureate economists identify a set of 19 phenomenal development targets, and argue that this would achieve as much as quadrupling the global aid budget.
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.
Originally the Venda Building Society, VBS Mutual Bank was a small, little-known lender in Limpopo before it rocketed from obscurity in 2016 by giving President Jacob Zuma a controversial home loan to repay the state for improvements to his Nkandla homestead. The bank was growing rapidly and sold itself as a fearless champion of black advancement. Its owner, Vele Investments, was on a meteoritic trajectory towards becoming a financial conglomerate worthy of national attention. When the bank abruptly went into curatorship in March 2018, no one had any reason to doubt that it was just another unfortunate corporate failure. Then the astonishing truth emerged: the collapse of VBS was due to an epic R2-billion fraud that had created Vele’s empire out of thin air and left the bank a hollow shell. VBS: A Dream Defrauded unravels the fraud, exploring how mastermind Tshifhiwe Matodzi and his associates first took control of VBS, fed off ANC patronage networks and operated under a nationalist mantle endorsed by Venda royalty. The book explains how the bank and its shareholder Vele were seemingly built into a multibillion-rand business; exposes the political machinations that guaranteed VBS up to R3.5 billion in unlawful funding from municipalities and other state institutions; and describes the free-for-all that ensued after the bank’s collapse when all involved tried to cover their tracks. Written by one of the journalists who first broke the story, this is a compelling account of a bank heist whose shockwaves continue to haunt the politicians, businessmen and traditional leaders who enabled it
In Corruption in Latin America the reader is presented with an alternative starting point for understanding corruption in this key region. The author asserts that corruption is a stable and rational social and organizational mechanism. Seen through this lens, we can begin to understand why it persists, and how to implement strategies to control corruption effectively. Beginning with an in-depth, nuanced examination of the concept of corruption, the author establishes the theoretical basis for viewing corruption as a social construct. An analysis of the experiences of four countries in the region - Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala and Mexico - provides the reader with concrete data from which they can understand how and why these behaviors are reproduced, validated, and tolerated in everyday settings between governments and citizens, governments and firms, and firms and clients. Once we see corruption as the socially sanctioned norm for getting business done, we can begin to produce and propose effective solutions to reduce corruption in Latin America by designing and implementing instruments that transform this dynamic. This rigorous and original approach will challenge the reader's assumptions about corruption, and will appeal to students of corporate governance, international business, public management, and business ethics.
In Corruption in Latin America the reader is presented with an alternative starting point for understanding corruption in this key region. The author asserts that corruption is a stable and rational social and organizational mechanism. Seen through this lens, we can begin to understand why it persists, and how to implement strategies to control corruption effectively. Beginning with an in-depth, nuanced examination of the concept of corruption, the author establishes the theoretical basis for viewing corruption as a social construct. An analysis of the experiences of four countries in the region - Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala and Mexico - provides the reader with concrete data from which they can understand how and why these behaviors are reproduced, validated, and tolerated in everyday settings between governments and citizens, governments and firms, and firms and clients. Once we see corruption as the socially sanctioned norm for getting business done, we can begin to produce and propose effective solutions to reduce corruption in Latin America by designing and implementing instruments that transform this dynamic. This rigorous and original approach will challenge the reader's assumptions about corruption, and will appeal to students of corporate governance, international business, public management, and business ethics.
Previously collected in the interactive book History Decoded, these stories are now collected in a reading book for any history buff.
A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR. 'A compelling, authoritative insight into possibly the most controversial death in Britain this century' Observer. 'Masterful ... This book made me proud of my trade as a journalist' Daily Mail. 'This searing excavation of the mysterious death of Dr David Kelly is investigative journalism at its best. It is brave, relentless, dazzlingly revealing' Peter Oborne. In March 2003 British forces invaded Iraq after Tony Blair said the country could deploy weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes' notice. A few months later, government scientist Dr David Kelly was unmasked by Blair's officials as the assumed source of a BBC news report challenging this claim. Within days, Dr Kelly was found dead in a wood near his home. Blair immediately convened the controversial Hutton Inquiry, which concluded Dr Kelly committed suicide. Yet key questions remain: could Dr Kelly really have taken his life in the manner declared? And why did Blair's government derail the coroner's inquest into Dr Kelly's death? In this meticulous account, award-winning journalist Miles Goslett shows why we should be sceptical of the official story of what happened in that desperate summer of 2003.
Since the early 1990s, a series of major scandals in both the financial and most especially the political world has resulted in close attention being paid to the issue of corruption and its links to political legitimacy and stability. Indeed, in many countries - in both the developed as well as the developing world - corruption seems to have become almost an obsession. Concern about corruption has become a powerful policy narrative: the explanation of last resort for a whole range of failures and disappointments in the fields of politics, economics and culture. In the more established democracies, worries about corruption have become enmeshed in a wider debate about trust in the political class. Corruption remains as widespread today, possibly even more so, as it was when concerted international attention started being devoted to the issue following the end of the Cold War. This Handbook provides a showcase of the most innovative and exciting research being conducted in Europe and North America in the field of political corruption, as well as providing a new point of reference for all who are interested in the topic. The Handbook is structured around four core themes in the study of corruption in the contemporary world: understanding and defining the nature of corruption; identifying its causes; measuring its extent; and analysing its consequences. Each of these themes is addressed from various perspectives in the first four sections of the Handbook, whilst the fifth section explores new directions that are emerging in corruption research. The contributors are experts in their field, working across a range of different social-science perspectives.
In Prison Torture in America, Paul Singh MD, DO, PhD, shared the experiences of 15 inmates and their battle for medical care. Prison Papers, a companion book, provides medical and administrative records, inmate correspondence and legal documents as proof of those testimonies and shocking tales. As an experienced physician, Singh was stunned by the cruelty that inmates with physical and mental conditions endured. Denials for treatment, gross incompetence, deadly neglect, reckless infliction of pain and falsified medical records -- despite intervention from the courts -- produced life-threatening conditions, emotional deterioration, loss of limbs, and even death. His expose reveals the shocking truth about the violations of fundamental constitutional rights in the U.S. prison system, so egregious one might think the prisons were in countries with barbaric dictators where basic human rights do not exist. Prison Torture in America and Prison Papers are essential reading for anyone who wants to know the truth about capital punishment and what goes on in our prison system. Paul Singh is an American research-scientist, a biochemist, a surgeon-physician, and professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He is the author of many critically acclaimed investigational works in the areas of science, philosophy, politics and medicine. Among his books are, Discovering Our World, The Great Illusion, The Seduction of Religion, Guilty at Gunpoint, The Death of the Rule of Law, and Prison Torture in America.
An unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation's capital. On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published a bombshell essay and took the rare step of granting its writer anonymity. Described only as "a senior official in the Trump administration," the author provided eyewitness insight into White House chaos, administration instability, and the people working to keep Donald Trump's reckless impulses in check. With the 2020 election on the horizon, Anonymous is speaking out once again. In this book, the original author pulls back the curtain even further, offering a first-of-its-kind look at the president and his record -- a must-read before Election Day. It will surprise and challenge both Democrats and Republicans, motivate them to consider how we judge our nation's leaders, and illuminate the consequences of re-electing a commander in chief unfit for the role. This book is a sobering assessment of the man in the Oval Office and a warning about something even more important -- who we are as a people.
A deconstruction of the neoliberal placations about global capitalism, exposing the inequalities of global poverty "We're making headway on global poverty," trills Bill Gates. "Decline of Global Extreme Poverty Continues," reports the World Bank. "How did the global poverty rate halve in 20 years?" inquires The Economist. Seth Donnelly answers: "It didn't!" In fact, according to Donnelly, virtually nothing about these glad tidings proclaiming plummeting global poverty rates is true. It's just that trend-setting neoliberal experts and institutions need us to believe that global capitalism, now unfettered in the wake of the Cold War and bolstered by Information Technology, has ushered in a new phase of international human prosperity. This short book deconstructs the assumption that global poverty has fallen dramatically, and lays bare the spurious methods of poverty measurement and data on which the dominant prosperity narrative depends. Here is carefully researched documentation that global poverty--and the inequalities and misery that flourish within it--remains massive, afflicting the majority of the world's population. Donnelly goes further to analyze just how global poverty, rather than being reduced, is actually reproduced by the imperatives of capital accumulation on a global scale. Just as the global, environmental catastrophe cannot be resolved within capitalism, rooted as it is in contemporary mechanisms of exploitation and plunder, neither can human poverty be effectively eliminated by neoliberal "advances." |
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