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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political corruption
This title is an important and uplifting call to end prisons as they currently are, supported by stories of struggles and uprisings in women's prisons over the years.
In this comparative, historical survey of three East Asian democracies, Jong-sung You explores the correlation between inequality and corruption in the countries of South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. Drawing on a wealth of rich empirical research, he illustrates the ways in which economic inequality can undermine democratic accountability, thereby increasing the risk of clientelism and capture. Transcending the scope of corruption research beyond economic growth, this book surveys why some countries, like the Philippines, have failed to curb corruption and develop, whilst others such as South Korea and Taiwan have been more successful. Taking into account factors such as the success and failure of land reform, variations in social structure, and industrial policy, Jong-sung You provides a sound example of how comparative analysis can be employed to identify causal direction and mechanisms in political science.
The book provides a detailed description of the Russian crime of the twenty-first century as well as a thorough examination of the eighty sessions of the nine-month-long trial (during 2016-2017) of Boris Nemtsovs alleged killers. It directs attention to the chief obstacle in determining what precisely happened shortly before midnight on February 27, 2015, on a bridge located a mere stones throw away from the Kremlin, in an area under the active surveillance of the Russian Federal Protective Service. The glaring absence of closed circuit videos from this most heavily guarded site in Russia is underscored. Given the absence of such key evidence, those seeking to investigate the murder have been akin to blind people stumbling about in obscurity. The attempts to penetrate this man-made fog undertaken during the course of the trial by the Nemtsov family attorneys, Vadim Prokhorov and Olga Mikhailova, as well as by numerous tenacious analysts of the crime, such as former deputy Russian energy minister Vladimir Milov, former Russian presidential economics advisor Andrei Illarionov, and leading mathematician Andrei Piontkovskii, are covered in full. The uneven case mounted by the prosecution and the scrappy defense effort of the attorneys for the alleged killers, many of them ethnic Chechens, are highlighted, as is the non-unanimous verdict which was reached by the twelve jurors. The findings of this study are in agreement with those of a number of commentators who contend that the actual organizers of the crime remain at large as does the assassinations shadowy mastermind.
'A fun history of political dishonesty' The Times In a history full of wit and acumen, Private Eye journalist Adam Macqueen dissects the gripping stories of the biggest political lies of the last half-century, from the cover-up of Churchill's stroke to Iraq's WMDs to Theresa May's announcement that she wouldn't be calling a snap election. Also covering a selection of Donald Trump's litany of untruths, other infamous lies from foreign shores, and lesser known British whoppers, this is the quintessential guide to dishonesty from our leaders.
An LA Times Best Book of the Year * A New York Times Editors' Pick * A Newsweek 25 Best Fall Books * A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year "Gripping and beautiful. With the artistry of a poet and the intensity of a revolutionary, Lovato untangles the tightly knit skein of love and terror that connects El Salvador and the United States." -Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Natural Causes and Nickel and Dimed An urgent, no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare, intergenerational trauma, and interconnected violence between the United States and El Salvador, Roberto Lovato's memoir excavates family history and reveals the intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence and mass Central American migration, one of the most important, yet least-understood humanitarian crises of our time-and one in which the perspectives of Central Americans in the United States have been silenced and forgotten. The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s and 80s San Francisco as MS-13 and other notorious Salvadoran gangs were forming in California. In his teens, he lost friends to the escalating violence, and survived acts of brutality himself. He eventually traded the violence of the streets for human rights advocacy in wartime El Salvador where he joined the guerilla movement against the U.S.-backed, fascist military government responsible for some of the most barbaric massacres and crimes against humanity in recent history. Roberto returned from war-torn El Salvador to find the United States on the verge of unprecedented crises of its own. There, he channeled his own pain into activism and journalism, focusing his attention on how trauma affects individual lives and societies, and began the difficult journey of confronting the roots of his own trauma. As a child, Roberto endured a tumultuous relationship with his father Ramon. Raised in extreme poverty in the countryside of El Salvador during one of the most violent periods of its history, Ramon learned to survive by straddling intersecting underworlds of family secrets, traumatic silences, and dealing in black-market goods and guns. The repression of the violence in his life took its toll, however. Ramon was plagued with silences and fits of anger that had a profound impact on his youngest son, and which Roberto attributes as a source of constant reckoning with the violence and rebellion in his own life. In Unforgetting, Roberto interweaves his father's complicated history and his own with first-hand reportage on gang life, state violence, and the heart of the immigration crisis in both El Salvador and the United States. In doing so he makes the political personal, revealing the cyclical ways violence operates in our homes and our societies, as well as the ways hope and tenderness can rise up out of the darkness if we are courageous enough to unforget.
Now a major motion picture. The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Bernstien takes us inside the world revealed by the Panama Papers, illicit money, political corruption, and fraud on a global scale. A hidden circulatory system flows beneath the surface of global finance, carrying trillions of dollars from drug trafficking, tax evasion, bribery, and other illegal enterprises. This network masks the identities of the individuals who benefit, aided by bankers, lawyers, and auditors who get paid to look the other way. In The Laundromat, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Jake Bernstein explores this shadow economy and how it evolved, drawing on millions of leaked documents from the files of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca - a trove now known as the Panama Papers - as well as other journalistic and government investigations. Bernstein shows how shell companies operate, how they allow the superwealthy and celebrities to escape taxes, and how they provide cover for illicit activities on a massive scale by crime bosses and corrupt politicians across the globe. The Laundromat offers a disturbing and sobering view of how the world really works and raises critical questions about financial and legal institutions we may once have trusted.
How reforms limiting electoral misconduct completed the process of democratization Between 1850 and 1918, many first-wave democracies in Europe adopted electoral reforms that reduced the incidence of electoral malfeasance. Drawing on analysis of parliamentary deliberations and roll-call votes in France, Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, Protecting the Ballot explores how these electoral changes came about. Reforms limiting electoral malfeasance came in a variety of forms. Some reforms imposed harsher punishments for bribing or the politicization of state resources during campaigns. Other changes improved electoral secrecy, providing better protection of voters' autonomy. By mandating the presence of candidate representatives supervising electoral operations, reforms also reduced the incidence of electoral fraud. Isabela Mares documents how elite splits facilitated the formation of parliamentary majorities in support of electoral reforms. The political composition of these majorities varied across countries and across issue area, depending on the distribution of political resources and the economic and electoral costs incurred by politicians with opportunities to engage in malfeasance. Unpacking the electoral determinants of the demand for reforms, Mares offers an alternative to theories of democratization that emphasize economic considerations alone. By studying the successful adoption of reforms limiting electoral irregularities in first-wave democratic transitions, Protecting the Ballot sheds light on the opportunities and obstacles for ending electoral wrongdoing in recent democracies.
This last title in the series covers the most important findings of the five yearsEU sponsored ANTICORRP project dealing with corruption and organized crime.How prone to corruption are EU funds? Has EU managed to improve governancein the countries that it assists? Using the new index of public integrity and avariety of other tools created in the project this issue looks at how EU funds andnorms affected old member states (like Spain), new member states (Slovakia,Romania), accession countries (Turkey) and the countries recipient of developmentfunds (Egypt, Tanzania, Tunisia). The data covers over a decade of structuraland development funds, and the findings show the challenges to changing governanceacross borders, the different paths that each country has experiencedand suggest avenues of reforming development aid for improving governance.
Wall Street Journal columnist and New York Times bestselling author Kim Strassel argues that the all-out Resistance has become dangerously reckless in its obstruction of President Trump. Among the most consistent and aggressive criticisms of Donald Trump is that he is a threat to American democracy -- a human wrecking ball demolishing our most basic values and institutions. Resistance (At All Costs) makes the opposite case -- that it is Trump's critics, in their zeal to oppose the president, who are undermining our foundations. From the FBI's unprecedented counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, to bureaucratic sabotage, to media partisanship, to the drive-by character assassination of Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the president's foes have thrown aside norms, due process and the rule of law. Resistance (At All Costs) shows that the reaction to Trump will prove far more consequential and damaging to our nation long-term than Trump's time in office. Instant New York Times bestseller.
Conventional wisdom suggests that partisanship has little impact on voter behavior in Brazil; what matters most is pork-barreling, incumbent performance, and candidates' charisma. This book shows that soon after redemocratization in the 1980s, over half of Brazilian voters expressed either a strong affinity or antipathy for or against a particular political party. In particular, that the contours of positive and negative partisanship in Brazil have mainly been shaped by how people feel about one party - the Workers' Party (PT). Voter behavior in Brazil has largely been structured around sentiment for or against this one party, and not any of Brazil's many others. The authors show how the PT managed to successfully cultivate widespread partisanship in a difficult environment, and also explain the emergence of anti-PT attitudes. They then reveal how positive and negative partisanship shape voters' attitudes about politics and policy, and how they shape their choices in the ballot booth.
A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB 'MUST-READ' CNN senior legal analyst and nationally bestselling author Elie Honig explores America's two-tier justice system, explaining how the rich, the famous, and the powerful- including, most notoriously, Donald Trump-manipulate the legal system to escape justice and get away with vast misdeeds. How does he get away with it? That question, more than any other, vexes observers of and participants in the American criminal justice process. How do powerful people weaponize their wealth, political power, and fame to beat the system? And how can prosecutors fight back? In Untouchable, Elie Honig exposes how the rich and powerful use the system to their own benefit, revealing how notorious figures like Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby successfully eluded justice for decades. He demonstrates how the Trump children dodged a fraud indictment. He makes clear how countless CEOs and titans of Wall Street have been let off the hook, receiving financial penalties without suffering criminal consequences. This doesn't happen by accident. Over the four years of his administration, Donald Trump's corruption seemed plain for all to see. The former president obstructed justice, flouted his responsibility to the Constitution, lied to the American people, and set the United States on a dark path to disunity and violence. Yet he has never been held accountable for any of his misdeeds. Why not? Untouchable holds the answer. Honig shows how Trump and others use seemingly fair institutions and practices to build empires of corruption and get away with misdeeds for which ordinary people would be sentenced to years behind bars. It's not just that money talks, Honig makes clear, but how it can corrupt otherwise reliable institutions and blind people to the real power dynamics behind the scenes. In this vital, incisive book, Honig explains how the system allows the powerful to become untouchable, takes us inside their heads, and offers solutions for making the system more honest and fairer, ensuring true justice for all-holding everyone, no matter their status, accountable for their criminal misdeeds.
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.
This book offers a rare insight into the transnational expansion and various corners of the illicit economy in Turkey including the smuggling of pharmaceuticals, oil, antiquities, drugs, nuclear materials and cigarettes. Mahmut Cengiz and Mitchel P. Roth provide an in depth analysis of the criminals, terrorists, money launderers, and corrupt politicians at the highest levels of the Turkish government. They analyze the unintended consequences of corruption scandals which have resulted in the purging of important law enforcement and intelligence entities formerly responsible for countering terrorism and organized crime threats as well as growing political tensions with the United States.
"RADICAL NATION makes it clear what is at stake. If you want to Save America you must read this-it is MAGA all the way." - PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP The Biden-Harris progressive agenda presents a radical change to the American economy, values, national security, and freedom. From the former Trump White House press secretary and New York Times bestselling author of THE BRIEFING and LEADING AMERICA comes a stark warning: Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, America is lurching towards economic collapse, runaway inflation, wide-open borders, an all-out assault on human life and religious liberty, a K-12 school indoctrination plan, "election reforms" to ensure never-ending Democratic Party rule, and more. RADICAL NATION is a bold grassroots agenda for defending America against the Progressives' Socialist agenda. Featuring powerful stories that will move you and keep you riveted, this book will channel conservatives discouragement, anger, and betrayal into meaningful action to keep America free, strong, and secure for our children and grandchildren.
The bestselling book that inspired the Bafta-winning BBC drama Corruption. Blackmail. Conspiracy to murder. A Very English Scandal has all the hallmarks of a classic thriller with one difference. It's all true. In the late 1960s Jeremy Thorp, the charismatic leader of the Liberal Party, was at the height of his political career. But homosexuality had only just been legalized, and a former relationship with a younger man named Norman Scott threatened to destroy Thorp's carefully curated facade. Helped by fellow politicians, Thorpe schemed, deceived and embezzled until he saw only one way to silence his ex-lover for good. Meticulously researched and endlessly extraordinary, Thorp's trial captured the moment that British society discovered the truth about its political class - and learned just how far the Establishment will go to protect its own. 'Gripping. A story of cack-handed assassins, buffoonish policemen, dodgy Home Secretaries' Daily Telegraph 'I loved it; eccentric, dark, humane and English in the very best sense' Alain de Botton 'Retold with masterful skill . . . It grips like a detective story' Daily Mail, Book of the Week JOHN PRESTON'S NEXT BOOK, FALL: THE MYSTERY OF ROBERT MAXWELL, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW
'It will terrify you but it's a story you must know.' - Mandy Wiener It was one of the most brutal criminal acts of the post-apartheid era, and its consequences were devastating. At least a thousand people died between 2011 and 2019 as a result of one senior police officer's criminal decision to sell a huge cache of guns. Colonel Christiaan Prinsloo, former head of the Gauteng firearm license division, and his network of cronies sold guns decommissioned by the SAPS to South Africa's gang lords. The sale of these weapons led to a killing spree of unprecedented proportions. Based on interviews with police and the criminal underworld, this book tells the story of this callous crime for the first time. Shaw explores how the illegally sold guns got into the hands of South Africa's crime bosses. The book describes the bloodbath that ensued and uncovers accounts of rampant corruption within the police and in the gun-licensing system, probing the government failure that has been instrumental in arming the country's gangsters.
In this comparative, historical survey of three East Asian democracies, Jong-sung You explores the correlation between inequality and corruption in the countries of South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. Drawing on a wealth of rich empirical research, he illustrates the ways in which economic inequality can undermine democratic accountability, thereby increasing the risk of clientelism and capture. Transcending the scope of corruption research beyond economic growth, this book surveys why some countries, like the Philippines, have failed to curb corruption and develop, whilst others such as South Korea and Taiwan have been more successful. Taking into account factors such as the success and failure of land reform, variations in social structure, and industrial policy, Jong-sung You provides a sound example of how comparative analysis can be employed to identify causal direction and mechanisms in political science.
A no-holds-barred insight into the corridors of Westminster and the secretive club of Lobby journalists - from a woman who was at the heart of the political establishment for two decades.
Counterterrorism experts and policy makers have warned of the peril posed by the links between violent extremism and organized crime, especially the relationship between drug trafficking and terrorism funding. Yet Central Asia, the site of extensive opium trafficking, sees low levels of terrorist violence. Webs of Corruption is an innovative study demonstrating that terrorist and criminal activity intersect more narrowly than is widely believed-and that the state plays the pivotal role in shaping those interconnections. Mariya Y. Omelicheva and Lawrence P. Markowitz analyze the linkages between the drug trade and terrorism financing in Central Asia, finding that state security services shape the nexus of trafficking and terrorism. While organized crime and terrorism do intersect in parts of the region, profit-driven criminal organizations and politically motivated violent groups come together based on the nature of state involvement. Governments in high-trafficking regions are drawn into illicit economies and forge relationships with a range of nonstate violent actors, such as insurgents, erstwhile regime opponents, and transnational groups. Omelicheva and Markowitz contend that these relationships can mitigate terrorism-by redirecting these actors toward other forms of violence. Offering a groundbreaking combination of quantitative, qualitative, and geographic information systems methods to map trafficking/terrorism connections on the ground, Webs of Corruption provides a meticulously researched, counterintuitive perspective on a potent regional security problem.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump claimed he would only hire "the best people." It hasn't quite turned out that way. From high-flying former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, whose penchant for first-class travel and a highly suspect housing arrangement raised Washington's collective eyebrow, to Education Secretary Betsy Devos, who vowed to protect children from "potential grizzlies," members of the Trump Cabinet have shown a startling penchant for headline-grabbing behavior. Despite Trump's pledge to "drain the swamp," petty corruption abounds. But what's really going on in the executive branch? In The Best People, journalist Alexander Nazaryan takes readers deep inside the Trump government. Nazaryan shows how laughable "scandals" like Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson's attempted purchased of a $31,000 dining set have masked far more important and potentially devastating developments: a coordinated, systematic effort by extreme right-wing Republicans to shred established institutions. Dogged in their conviction that the scope of government (apart from the military) should be reduced, Trump's Cabinet secretaries--many of them smarter than their gaffe-prone personalities might indicate--are dismantling the federal bureaucracy, showing long-term employees the door and gutting regulations. The result is a leaner, dumber government--one that will be far less equipped to protect the interests of regular Americans. The consequences will be felt for decades to come. In the tradition of Fire and Fury and It's Even Worse Than You Think, The Best People will be a riveting, harrowing, and essential read of Trump-era Washington.
A collection of articles and interviews on the history, psychology, and current state of torture in democratic societies, "Hurt" is a short but hard-hitting look in the mirror for first-world countries. This expose on the act of torture explores this dark world with essays from authors, anarchists, and many more. While striving to provide the general public with a greater understanding of torture, this resource forces readers to think critically about its current uses and the far-reaching implications of letting it continue unchecked. |
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