Despite the efforts of Southeast Asian governments and of ASEAN, transboundary haze continues to be a major environmental problem in Southeast Asia. This book demonstrates that the issue is complex, and explains why efforts to solve the problem in purely political terms are ineffective, and likely to continue to be ineffective. The book shows how state-led, state-incentivised agribusiness development lies at the heart of the problem, leading to a large rise in palm oil production, with extensive clearing of forests, leading to deliberate or accidental fires and the resulting haze. Moreover, although the forest clearing is occurring in Indonesia, many of the companies involved are Malaysian and Singaporean; and, further, many of these companies have close relationships with the politicians and officials responsible for addressing the problem and who thereby have a conflict of interest. The author concludes by discussing the huge difficulties involved in overturning this system of 'patronage politics'.

The corruption of public officials in the United States and its corrosive impact on public policy, political stability and democratic institutions, earns it a spot among the most critical public crises of the last decade. There have been scandals involving elected officials across the political spectrum from local elected officials up to the White House, involving conflicts of interest, campaign fundraising and political elections. At the heart of many scandals is the discretionary power of public officials to make decisions based on personal interest, often leading to corruption. Understanding the nature and etiology of corruption is important to drafting controls on discretion and rules for accountability. While strict regulation and oversight mechanisms have previously been designed to encourage ethical decision-making and punish violators, it is the media and citizens that have increasingly become modern mechanisms of accountability. Corruption of public governance not only undermines the effectiveness of the political system; it also results in corrupt public policymaking on the most pressing issues facing Americans today. This timely and insightful book provides the key elements needed to understand the nature and prevalence of corruption in public governance, as well as the devastating public policy consequences. The chapters explore the implications of public governance corruption on political stability, public trust, and policymaking, as well as recommendations for how to establish controls on discretion and strict regulation to increase accountability and corruption control in public governance.

This is the first book to examine the activities of UK and international 'role models' through the lens of state crime and social policy. Written by experts in the field of sociology and social policy, it defines the ideal state as a single, functioning whole that ensures uniformity in the name of legitimacy. It then details the ways that states do not constitute the ideal in terms of the dangers associated with the maintenance of legitimacy and state power. Anti-democratic measures, such as the invasions of other nation states, the idea that the media can both reinforce and influence the state and the problems of over-zealous policing of a state's own populace, are covered. Using the topical example of Rupert Murdoch and the activities of his media organisation to show how powerful individuals and corporations can and do exert political influence, the book provides a comprehensive discussion of state immorality and deviance generally and state crime in particular. It will appeal to range of academics and practitioners in broader disciplines such as criminology, sociology, politics and political science.

An unprecedented new international moral and legal rule forbids one state from hosting money stolen by the leaders of another state. The aim is to counter grand corruption or kleptocracy ("rule by thieves"), when leaders of poorer countries-such as Marcos in the Philippines, Mobutu in the Congo, and more recently those overthrown in revolutions in the Arab world and Ukraine-loot billions of dollars at the expense of their own citizens. This money tends to end up hosted in rich countries. These host states now have a duty to block, trace, freeze, and seize these illicit funds and hand them back to the countries from which they were stolen. In The Despot's Guide to Wealth Management, J. C. Sharman asks how this anti-kleptocracy regime came about, how well it is working, and how it could work better. Although there have been some real achievements, the international campaign against grand corruption has run into major obstacles. The vested interests of banks, lawyers, and even law enforcement often favor turning a blind eye to foreign corruption proceeds. Recovering and returning looted assets is a long, complicated, and expensive process. Sharman used a private investigator, participated in and observed anti-corruption policy, and conducted more than a hundred interviews with key players. He also draws on various journalistic exposes, whistle-blower accounts, and government investigations to inform his comparison of the anti-kleptocracy records of the United States, Britain, Switzerland, and Australia. Sharman calls for better policing, preventative measures, and use of gatekeepers like bankers, lawyers, and real estate agents. He also recommends giving nongovernmental organizations and for-profit firms more scope to independently investigate corruption and seize stolen assets.

This is the first book to examine the activities of UK and international 'role models' through the lens of state crime and social policy. Written by experts in the field of sociology and social policy, it defines the ideal state as a single, functioning whole that ensures uniformity in the name of legitimacy. It then details the ways that states do not constitute the ideal in terms of the dangers associated with the maintenance of legitimacy and state power. Anti-democratic measures, such as the invasions of other nation states, the idea that the media can both reinforce and influence the state and the problems of over-zealous policing of a state's own populace, are covered. Using the topical example of Rupert Murdoch and the activities of his media organisation to show how powerful individuals and corporations can and do exert political influence, the book provides a comprehensive discussion of state immorality and deviance generally and state crime in particular. It will appeal to range of academics and practitioners in broader disciplines such as criminology, sociology, politics and political science.

A harrowing and unforgettable look at reporting in Mexico, one of the world's most dangerous countries to be a journalist In 2017, Mexico edged out Iraq and Syria as the deadliest country in the world in which to be a reporter, with at least fourteen journalists killed over the course of the year. The following year another ten journalists were murdered, joining the almost 150 reporters who have been killed since the mid-2000s in a wave of violence that has accompanied Mexico's war on drugs. In Killing the Story, award-winning journalist and filmmaker Temoris Grecko reveals how journalists are risking their lives to expose crime and corruption. From the streets of Veracruz to the national television studios of Mexico City, Grecko writes about the heroic work of reporters at all levels-from the local self-trained journalist, Moises Sanchez, whose body was found dismembered by the side of a road after he reported on corruption by the state's governor, to high-profile journalists such as Javier Valdez Cardenas, gunned down in the streets of Sinaloa, and Carmen Aristegui, battling the forces attempting to censor her. In the vein of Charles Bowden's Murder City and Anna Politskaya's A Russian Diary, Killing the Story is a powerful memorial to the work of Grecko's lost colleagues, which shows a country riven by brutality, hypocrisy, and corruption, and sheds a light on how those in power are bent on silencing those determined to reveal the truth and bring an end to corruption.

Governance and ethics are intertwined. A government functions within certain broad moral and ethical parameters, integrally linked with the sociological foundation of the polity in which it is articulated. The importance of ethics in governance has acquired a significant place in contemporary theoretical discussion. This book situates ethics in governance in India in the national frame and incorporates the context of globalization, allowing for the increasing importance of non-state global actors in national decision making. The author argues that a lack of ethics quickly turns into corruption and leads to governmental efforts to deal with it. He proposes that ethics are a set of standards that a society places on itself to articulate its responses to societal needs, and discusses the efforts of the Indian government at eradicating corruption and its failure. A theoretical approach to the issues of ethics in governance and corruption, this book is of interest to academics in the fields of Asian Politics, in particular Indian politics, and political philosophy.

Fighting Corporate Abuse demonstrates, through compelling and revelatory analysis, the legislation and regulation needed to deal with the abuses in the corporate sector that have been revealed in recent years. It highlights the more general contribution of company law and practice to the current crisis in capitalism. The first section develops a controversial argument, using detailed illustrations and vivid examples which show how the various abuses of predatory capitalism have been carried out through the manipulation of the corporate form and the creation of highly complex corporate groups. The group of authors, all experts in their fields, tackle head-on the issues of tax evasion, extraction of value and asset stripping, environmental destruction and managerial self-interest. In doing so, they paint a picture of a system that is abusive, and degenerated, but also a system which can be reformed. In the run up to the UK general election, the authors develop of a set of practical proposals for an incoming government, outlining how each of these abuses could be curtailed and how a more acceptable and accountable form of corporate capitalism can be developed through national and international action. Drawing on the group's activism, as well as their academic experience in law, politics, economics and human rights, this will be an authoritative as well as a highly practical book.

Negotiating Corruption demands that we think again about corruption in Africa. It problematises the framing of African corruption as a phenomenon that emerges from a clash between two sets of norms. Moreover, it highlights the colonial legacies of this frame, which situates African corruption within continually recurring debates about the political inclusion or banishment of 'others'. NGOs are characterised as intermediaries between the local and the international, and between the state and the population. In both of these roles they are understood to reform governance by bringing about changes in culture and instituting bureaucratic norms. They have, therefore, been seen as part of the apparatus of a global liberal governmentality. This book complicates this portrayal and highlights the ambiguous role of liberal governmentality through an exploration of the 'grey practices' of the NGOs studied. These practices are 'grey' as they do not fit the pattern of virtuous NGOs holding the state to account described in development policy, yet at the same time they ensure that the state produces the outcomes that a fully-functioning state ought to. This enacting of oppositional and antagonistic elements is further unpacked in conversation with Homi Bhabha's concepts of negotiation and hybridity. Negotiating Corruption draws attention to both the limitations of current explanations of corruption in Africa and the problematic way in which they are framed. The book's detailed engagement with understandings of corruption within policy and academic debates will make it a useful resource for undergraduate teaching. It will also be of keen interest to researchers, academics, and postgraduate students who engage with the issues of corruption, NGOs, civil society, African politics, governmentality, and hybridity.

In The Great Reset: And the War for the World, the most controversial man on earth Alex Jones gives you a full analysis of The Great Reset, the global elite's international conspiracy to enslave humanity and all life on the planet.   From central bankers, corporate billionaires, and corrupted government officials, global elites have been organizing a historic war on humanity under a trans-humanist, scientific dictatorship. Alex Jones was the first major figure to expose the World Economic Forum’s agenda. He has dedicated the last 30 years of his life to studying The Great Reset, conducting tens of thousands of interviews with top-level scientists, politicians, and military officials in order to reverse engineer their secrets and help awaken humanity.   The Great Reset: And the War for the World chronicles the history of the global elites' rise to power and reveals how they’ve captured the governments of the world and financed The Great Reset to pave the way for The New World Order.   Once dubbed a conspiracy theory, but now openly promoted by the most powerful corporations and governments, The Great Reset is a planned attempt to redistribute all the world’s wealth and power into the hands of banks, corporations, billionaires, and The World Economic Forum.   If you read one book in a lifetime, this is it. In The Great Reset: And the War for the World, you will discover from the self-appointed controllers of the planet in their own words, their plan for what they call the final revolution, or The Great Reset.   The only way this corporate fascist conspiracy can succeed is if the people of the world are not aware of it. And this book lays out their sinister blueprint and how to stop it. While many great books have been written to help awaken people to this sinister agenda, no author has ever spent as much time and research on The Great Reset as Alex Jones.   The Great Reset: And the War for the World is the undisputed trailblazer for understanding what’s happening and how to stop it.   

This book considers the causes of high-level state corruption as well as the political constraints of countering corruption in Africa. It examines elite corruption in government as well as in the political and military spheres of state activity, and focuses on illegal behaviour on the part of state and non-state actors in decision-making. Situating corruption and anti-corruption within a political framework, this book analyses the motivations, opportunities and relative autonomy of state elites to manipulate state decision-making for personal and political ends. Based on detailed case studies in Uganda, the authors focus on corruption in the privatization process, military procurement, foreign business bribery, illegal political funding, and electoral malpractice. The book examines why anti-corruption institutions and international donors have been constrained in confronting this executive abuse of power, and discusses the wider relevance of Uganda's experience for understanding elite corruption and anti-corruption efforts in other African countries. The Politics of Elite Corruption in Africa will be of interest to students and scholars of African politics, African political economy, development studies, corruption and government.

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.

This book is a newly revised edition of Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera's classic work The Green Shirts and the Others published by the Hoover Institution Press in 1970. This book is the standard work in English on the history of fascism in Romania and Hungary. The Green Shirts and the Others is the first comprehensive and comparative work in English on the history of the fascist movements in Hungary and Romania. The author presents an objective account of the history of the two countries from 1918 to 1945 and the role of fascist movements during these years. He considers the rise of these movements, the Arrow Cross in Hungary and the Legion of the Archangel Michael in Romania. He considers their evolution and growth during the interwar period, as well as during the tragic periods in which each movement came to power in its respective country. The author then draws conclusions and parallels from the comparative history of the two movements.

The tragedy of American science is that its direction is determined by private profit rather than by the desire to improve the human condition. As a result, Conner argues, Big Science has been irredeemably corrupted by Big Money. This corruption threatens the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the medicines we take. The Tragedy of American Science explores how the U.S. economy's addiction to military spending distorts and deforms science by making it overwhelmingly subservient to military interests. The primary motive driving American science and technology has become the search for new and more efficient ways to kill people. This transforms science from the classic ideal of a creative force for the advancement of humankind into its destructive and antihuman opposite. That those trillions of dollars in resources and scientific talent are not devoted to solving the problems of poverty, disease, and environmental destruction is one of the greatest tragedies of our times. While the underlying problems may appear intractable, Conner compellingly argues that replacing the current science-for-profit system with a science-for-human-needs system is not an impossible, utopian dream. But to get there, we'll need to grapple with this important history.

As corruption is a serious problem in many Asian countries their governments have introduced many anti-corruption measures since the 1950s. This book analyzes and evaluates the anti-corruption strategies employed in Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. These countries are selected because they represent the three major patterns of corruption control with Japan adopting Pattern 1 (anti-corruption laws without any anti-corruption agency [ACA]); India, the Philippines and Taiwan employing Pattern 2 (anti-corruption laws with multiple ACAs); and, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, and Mongolia belonging to Pattern 3 (anti-corruption laws with a single ACA). Among the ten countries only Singapore and Hong Kong SAR have succeeded in minimizing corruption because of the commitment of their political leaders in curbing corruption, their favorable policy contexts, and the impartial implementation of effective anti-corruption measures. On the other hand, the other eight Asian countries have failed to curb corruption because of the lack of political will, their unfavorable policy contexts, and their reliance on ineffective anti-corruption measures.

Winner of the 2018 Excellence in Financial Journalism Award From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jesse Eisinger, "a fast moving, fly-on-the-wall, disheartening look at the deterioration of the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission...It is a book of superheroes" (San Francisco Review of Books). Why were no bankers put in prison after the financial crisis of 2008? Why do CEOs seem to commit wrongdoing with impunity? The problem goes beyond banks deemed "Too Big to Fail" to almost every large corporation in America-to pharmaceutical companies and auto manufacturers and beyond. The Chickenshit Club-an inside reference to prosecutors too scared of failure and too daunted by legal impediments to do their jobs-explains why in "an absorbing financial history, a monumental work of journalism...a first-rate study of the federal bureaucracy" (Bloomberg Businessweek). Jesse Eisinger begins the story in the 1970s, when the government pioneered the notion that top corporate executives, not just seedy crooks, could commit heinous crimes and go to prison. He brings us to trading desks on Wall Street, to corporate boardrooms and the offices of prosecutors and FBI agents. These revealing looks provide context for the evolution of the Justice Department's approach to pursuing corporate criminals through the early 2000s and into the Justice Department of today, including the prosecutorial fiascos, corporate lobbying, trial losses, and culture shifts that have stripped the government of the will and ability to prosecute top corporate executives. "Brave and elegant...a fearless reporter...Eisinger's important and profound book takes no prisoners" (The Washington Post). Exposing one of the most important scandals of our time, The Chickenshit Club provides a clear, detailed explanation as to how our Justice Department has come to avoid, bungle, and mismanage the fight to bring these alleged criminals to justice. "This book is a wakeup call...a chilling read, and a needed one" (NPR.org).

If it seems to you that Barack Obama and Joe Biden have weakened America and emboldened our enemies, you're not alone. But Senator Cotton explains that their failures aren't just incompetence or bad luck-it's decline by design. Only the Strong reveals the untold inside story of how progressive ideologues and Democratic politicians abandoned the American tradition of strength, pride, and honor. From the beginning, early progressives like Woodrow Wilson repudiated our Founding in favor of globalist fantasies abroad and big government at home. By Vietnam, leftists had begun to blame America first for the world's problems-just as Barack Obama did for eight years as he apologized and sought to atone for America's supposed sins. Along the way, Democrats have sold out America's sovereignty and hollowed out our military to restrain American power. Even when Democrats have acted tough, it usually ends in disaster, from John Kennedy's debacle at the Bay of Pigs to Bill Clinton's fiasco in Mogadishu to Joe Biden's humiliating retreat from Afghanistan. While offering a timely warning of the dangers ahead and new stories from Senator Cotton's service in the Senate and the Army, Only the Strong also provides a formidable and urgent roadmap to restore American strength before it's too late. Because only the strong can survive in a dangerous world and only the strong can preserve their freedom.

All the Kremlin's Men is a gripping narrative of an accidental king and a court out of control. Based on an unprecedented series of interviews with Vladimir Putin's inner circle, this book presents a radically different view of power and politics in Russia. The image of Putin as a strongman is dissolved. In its place is a weary figurehead buffeted--if not controlled--by the men who at once advise and deceive him. The regional governors and bureaucratic leaders are immovable objects, far more powerful in their fiefdoms than the president himself. So are the gatekeepers-those officials who guard the pathways to power-on whom Putin depends as much as they rely on him. The tenuous edifice is filled with all of the intrigue and plotting of a Medici court, as enemies of the state are invented and wars begun to justify personal gains, internal rivalries, or one faction's biased advantage. A bestseller in Russia, All the Kremlin's Men is a shocking revisionist portrait of the Putin era and a dazzling reconstruction of the machinations of courtiers running riot.

Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government's system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down.

In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it.

Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online - a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet's conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic.

Although, by all appearances, House of Cards is a television series about politics, it in fact explores some of the most subversive questions raised by Machiavelli's writings: what if the Prince were a ferocious animal? What would happen if our political world were overtaken by vampires? Would they be capable of mastering their bloodthirsty instincts, or would they remain true to their fundamental nature? In their relentless quest for power, Frank Underwood, his wife Claire and his chief of staff Doug Stamper are so ruthlessly ambitious that they demolish all boundaries between good and evil. According to a Machiavellian logic taken to its extreme, the specific necessity of a given situation always wins out over common morality. In the struggle for survival, these people are the predators, determined to come out on top whatever the cost. This book examines how the producers of the series take monstrous characters - who would not be out of place in a crime series or a horror film - and set them in the world of politics, which offers little resistance to violence and turns into a laboratory for systematic destruction. In this variation on the conflict between brutalization and civilization at the heart of power, the political sphere therefore becomes the scene of crime par excellence. Although the book contains concepts and theories in political science, it is accessibly written. It is also didactic: many examples are taken from the series and from the novels, so the reader always understands what is at stake in the analysis. It will find both an academic and a more general audience. Primary academic readership will be scholars and students in law, political science, film studies, media studies and cultural studies. The wider readership will include fans of the show, and of course people interested in politics, political thrillers, political philosophy, corruption and democracy, as well as the nature of political leadership.