Corruption flouts rules of fairness and gives some people advantages that others don't have. Corruption is persistent; there is little evidence that countries can escape the curse of corruption easily - or at all. Instead of focusing on institutional reform, in this book Eric M. Uslaner suggests that the roots of corruption lie in economic and legal inequality, low levels of generalized trust (which are not readily changed), and poor policy choices (which may be more likely to change). Economic inequality provides a fertile breeding ground for corruption, which, in turn, leads to further inequalities. Just as corruption is persistent, inequality and trust do not change much over time, according to Uslaner's cross-national aggregate analyses. He argues that high inequality leads to low trust and high corruption, and then to more inequality - an inequality trap - and identifies direct linkages between inequality and trust in surveys of the mass public and elites in transition countries.

The infamous Seriti Commission into the arms deal. The Glenister case following the disbanding of the Scorpions. Busting open the bread manufacturers’ cartel.

High drama; high stakes brought to South Africa courtesy of the Accountability Now NGO, and its founder Paul Hoffman.

Join him in his journey from jaded silk to corruption buster – a fly-on-the-wall account of courtroom battles, influential personalities, secrets and lies in the battle to speak truth to power.

Why leadership is key to ending political and corporate corruption globally Corruption corrodes all facets of the world's political and corporate life, yet until now there was no one book that explained how best to battle it. The Corruption Cure puts some thirty-five countries under an anticorruption microscope to show exactly how to beat back the forces of sleaze and graft. Robert Rotberg defines corruption in its many forms, describes the available remedies, and examines how we identify and measure corruption's presence. He demonstrates how determined past and contemporary leaders changed their wildly corrupt countries-even the Nordics-into paragons of virtue, and how leadership is making a significant difference in stimulating political anticorruption movements in places like India, Croatia, Botswana, and Rwanda. Rotberg looks at corporate corruption and how it can be checked, and also offers an innovative fourteen-step plan for nations that are ready to end corruption. Tougher laws and better prosecutions are not enough. This book enables us to rethink the problem completely-and to solve it once and for all.

In fifty years of prosecuting and defending criminal cases in New York City and elsewhere, Michael F. Armstrong has often dealt with cops. For a single two-year span, as chief counsel to the Knapp Commission, he was charged with investigating them. Based on Armstrong's vivid recollections of this watershed moment in law enforcement accountability -- prompted by the "New York Times"'s report on whistleblower cop Frank Serpico -- "They Wished They Were Honest" recreates the dramatic struggles and significance of the Commission and explores the factors that led to its success and the restoration of the NYPD's public image.

Serpico's charges against the NYPD encouraged Mayor John Lindsay to appoint prominent attorney Whitman Knapp to chair a Citizen's Commission on police graft. Overcoming a number of organizational, budgetary, and political hurdles, Chief Counsel Armstrong cobbled together an investigative group of a half-dozen lawyers and a dozen agents. Just when funding was about to run out, the "blue wall of silence" collapsed. A flamboyant "Madame," a corrupt lawyer, and a weasely informant led to a "super thief" cop, who was trapped and "turned" by the Commission. This led to sensational and revelatory hearings, which publicly refuted the notion that departmental corruption was limited to only a "few rotten apples."

In the course of his narrative, Armstrong illuminates police investigative strategy; governmental and departmental political maneuvering; ethical and philosophical issues in law enforcement; the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the police's anticorruption efforts; the effectiveness of the training of police officers; the psychological and emotional pressures that lead to corruption; and the effects of police criminality on individuals and society. He concludes with the effects, in today's world, of Knapp and succeeding investigations into police corruption and the value of permanent outside monitoring bodies, such as the special prosecutor's office, formed in response to the Commission's recommendation, as well as the current monitoring commission, of which Armstrong is chairman.

A frontline account of how to fight corruption, from Nigeria's former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.In Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has written a primer for those working to root out corruption and disrupt vested interests. Drawing on her experience as Nigeria's finance minister and that of her team, she describes dangers, pitfalls, and successes in fighting corruption. She provides practical lessons learned and tells how anti-corruption advocates need to equip themselves. Okonjo-Iweala details the numerous ways in which corruption can divert resources away from development, rewarding the unscrupulous and depriving poor people of services. Okonjo-Iweala discovered just how dangerous fighting corruption could be when her 83-year-old mother was kidnapped in 2012 by forces who objected to some of the government's efforts at reforms led by Okonjo-Iweala--in particular a crackdown on fraudulent claims for oil subsidy payments, a huge drain on the country's finances. The kidnappers' first demand was that Okonjo-Iweala resign from her position on live television and leave the country. Okonjo-Iweala did not resign, her mother escaped, and the program of economic reforms continued. "Telling my story is risky," Okonjo-Iweala writes. "But not telling it is also dangerous." Her book ultimately leaves us with hope, showing that victories are possible in the fight against corruption.

Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887) is a book by American investigative journalist Nellie Bly. For her first assignment for Joseph Pulitzer's famed New York World newspaper, Bly went undercover as a patient at a notorious insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. Spending ten days there, she recorded the abuses and neglect she witnessed, turning her research into a sensational two-part story for the New York World later published as Ten Days in a Mad-House. Checking into a New York boardinghouse under a false identity, Bly began acting in a disturbed, unsettling manner, prompting the police to be summoned. In a courtroom the next morning, she claimed to be suffering from amnesia, leading to her diagnosis as insane from several doctors. Sent to the Women's Lunatic Asylum, Bly spent ten days witnessing and experiencing rampant abuse and neglect. There, she noticed that many of the patients, who were constantly beaten and belittled by violent nurses and staff members, seemed perfectly sane or showed signs of having their conditions severely worsened during their time at the asylum. Served spoiled food, forced to live in squalor, and given ice-cold baths by unsympathetic attendants, the patients she met during her stay seemed as though abandoned by a city that had sent them there for the supposed purpose of healing. Showcasing her skill as a reporter and true pioneer of investigative journalism, Bly published her story to a captivated and inspired audience, setting in motion a process of reform that would change the city's approach to its asylums for the better. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Nellie Bly's Ten Days in a Mad-House is a classic work of American investigative journalism reimagined for modern readers.

Corruption is a threat to democracy and economic development in many societies. It arises in the ways people pursue, use and exchange wealth and power, and in the strength or weakness of the state, political and social institutions that sustain and restrain those processes. Differences in these factors, Michael Johnston argues, give rise to four major syndromes of corruption: Influence Markets, Elite Cartels, Oligarchs and Clans, and Official Moguls. In this 2005 book, Johnston uses statistical measures to identify societies in each group, and case studies to show that the expected syndromes do arise. Countries studied include the United States, Japan and Germany (Influence Markets); Italy, Korea and Botswana (Elite Cartels); Russia, the Philippines and Mexico (Oligarchs and Clans); and China, Kenya, and Indonesia (Offical Moguls). A concluding chapter explores reform, emphasising the ways familiar measures should be applied - or withheld, lest they do harm - with an emphasis upon the value of 'deep democratisation'.

A long-overdue expose of the astonishing yet shadowy power wielded by the world's largest law firms. Though not a household name, Jones Day is well known in the halls of power, and serves as a powerful encapsulation of the changes that have swept the legal profession in recent decades. Founded in the US in 1893, it has become one of the world's largest law firms, a global juggernaut with deep ties to corporate interests and conservative politics. A key player in the legal battles surrounding the Trump administration, Jones Day has also for decades represented Big Tobacco, defended opioid manufacturers, and worked tirelessly to minimise the sexual-abuse scandals of the Catholic Church. Like many of its peers, it has fought time and again for those who want nothing more than to act without constraint or scrutiny - including the Russian oligarchs as they have sought to expand internationally. In this gripping and revealing new work of narrative nonfiction, New York Times Business Investigations Editor and bestselling author David Enrich at last tells the story of 'Big Law' and the nearly unchecked influence these firms wield to shield the wealthy and powerful - and bury their secrets.

While the literature of hybrid regimes has given up the presumption that post-communist countries must democratize, its language and concepts still mostly relate to Western democracies. Magyar and Madlovics strongly argue for a vocabulary and grammar tailored to the specifics of the region. In 120 theses they unfold a conceptual framework with (1) a typology of post-communist regimes and (2) a detailed presentation of ideal-type actors and the political, economic, and social phenomena in these regimes. The book is a more digestible companion to the 800-page The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes (CEU Press, 2020), which was a detailed theoretical study with plenty of empirical illustrations. Each of the 120 theses contains a statement and its concise discussion supported by illustrative tables, figures, and QR-codes that connect the interested reader to the more detailed analysis in the Anatomy. In a condensed variety, this book has kept the holistic approach of the Anatomy and treats the spheres of political, market, and communal action as parts of a single, coherent whole. The endeavor to synthesize a vast range of ideas does not, however, result in a too complicated text. On the contrary, freed from the implicit presumptions of democracy theory, the new terminology yields a readily usable toolkit of unambiguous means of expression to speak about post-communism.

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

A brutally honest expose, After Mandela provides a sobering portrait of a country caught between a democratic future and a political meltdown.

Recent works have focused primarily on Nelson Mandela's transcendent story. But Douglas Foster, a leading South Africa authority with early, unprecedented access to President Zuma and to the next generation in the Mandela family, traces the nation's entire post-apartheid arc, from its celebrated beginnings under "Madiba" to Thabo Mbeki's tumultuous rule to the ferocious battle between Mbeki and Jacob Zuma.

Foster tells this story, not only from the point of view of the emerging black elite, but also drawing on hundreds of rare interviews over a six-year period, from the perspectives of ordinary citizens, including an HIV-infected teenager living outside Johannesburg and a homeless orphan in Cape Town.

This is the long-awaited, revisionist account of a country whose recent history has been not just neglected but largely ignored by the West.

When Nelson Mandela emerged from decades in jail to preach reconciliation, South Africans truly appeared a people reborn as the Rainbow Nation. Yet, a quarter of a century later, the country sank into bitter recriminations and rampant corruption under Jacob Zuma. Why did this happen, and how was hope betrayed? President Cyril Ramaphosa, hoping to heal these wounds, was re-elected in May 2019 with the ANC hoping to claw back support lost to the opposition in the Zuma era. This book analyses this election, shedding light on voters' choices. With chapters on all the major issues at stake-from education to land redistribution-'Understanding South Africa' offers insights into Africa's largest and most diversified economy, closely tied to its neighbours' fortunes.

The metaphor of 'state capture' has dominated South Africa's political discourse in the post-Zuma presidency era. What is state capture and how does it manifest? Is it just another example of a newly independent, failed African state? And is it unique to South Africa?

The contributors in this collection try to explain the phenomenon from a variety of viewpoints and disciplines. All hold fast to the belief that the democracy that promised the country so much when apartheid ended has been significantly eroded, resulting in most citizens expressing a loss of hope for the future. Read together, the essays cumulatively show not only how state capture was enabled and who benefitted, but also how and by whom it was scrutinised and exposed in order to hold those in power accountable.

The book aims to present a scholarly and empirical understanding of how things went awry, even with various regulating bodies in place, and how to prevent state capture from happening again in the future.

An explosive investigation into how the United States of America built one of the largest illicit offshore finance systems in the world. For years, one country has acted as the greatest offshore haven in the world, attracting hundreds of billions of dollars in illicit finance tied directly to corrupt regimes, extremist networks, and the worst the world has to offer. But it hasn't been the sand-splattered Caribbean islands, or even traditional financial secrecy havens like Switzerland or Panama that have come to dominate the offshoring world. Instead, the country profiting the most also happens to be the one that still claims to be the moral leader of the free world, and the one that claims to be leading the fight against the crooked and the corrupt: the United States of America. American Kleptocracy examines just how the United States' implosion into a centre of global offshoring took place: how states such as Delaware and Nevada perfected the art of the anonymous shell company; how post-9/11 reformers watched their success usher in a new flood of illicit finance directly into the U.S.; how African despots and post-Soviet oligarchs came to dominate American coastlines, American industries, and entire cities and small towns across the American Midwest; how Nazi-era lobbyists birthed an entire industry of spin-men whitewashing transnational crooks and despots, and how dirty money has now begun infiltrating America's universities, think tanks, and cultural centres; and how those on the frontline are trying to restore America's legacy of anti-corruption leadership and finally end this reign of American kleptocracy. It also looks at how Trump's presidency accelerated all of the trends already on hand and how the Biden administration can, and should, act on this tawdry inheritance.

"One reason Koncewicz's narrative is so compelling is that it's also a redemption story."-The Washington Post "Excruciatingly timely."-Kirkus Reviews In more than three thousand recorded conversations, the Nixon tapes famously exposed a president's sinister views of governance that would eventually lead to his downfall. Despite Richard Nixon's best efforts, his vision of a government where he could use his power to punish his political enemies never came to fruition because members of his own party defied his directives. While many are familiar with the Republicans who turned against Nixon during the final stages of the Watergate saga, They Said No to Nixon uncovers for the first time those within the administration-including Nixon's own appointees-who opposed the White House early on, quietly blocking the president's attacks on the IRS, the Justice Department, and other sectors of the federal government. Culling from previously unpublished excerpts from the tapes and recently released materials that expose the thirty-seventh president's uncensored views, Michael Koncewicz reveals how Republican party members remained loyal civil servants in the face of Nixon's attempts to expand the imperial presidency. Delving into the abuses of power surrounding the Watergate era and showing how they were curbed, They Said No to Nixon sheds light on the significant cultural and ideological shifts that occurred within the GOP during the pivotal 1970s. Koncewicz deftly demonstrates how Nixon's administration marked a decisive moment that led to the rise of modern conservatism and today's ruthlessly partisan politics.

A CNN contributor, former Ted Cruz staffer, and "Never Trump" adherent reveals a shocking truth: Donald Trump’s lies and fabrications don’t horrify America—they enthrall us—and explains how we can avoid falling for them.

"Can you believe what Donald Trump said?"

In Gaslighting America, Carpenter breaks down Trump’s formula, showing why it’s practically foolproof, playing his victims, the media, the Democrats, and the Republican fence-sitters perfectly. She traces how this tactic started with Nixon, gained traction with Bill Clinton, and exploded under Trump. If you think Trump is driving you crazy, it’s because he is. Now, in this urgent book, she explains how to withstand the fire. Where some people see lies, Trump’s fierce followers see something different. A commitment to winning at all costs; there is nothing he could say that would erode their support at long as it’s in the name of taking down his political enemies.

His opponents on the left and right continue to act as if his fake narratives and conspiracy theories will bring him down, when in fact, they are the ruses that raised him up.

As a conservative former staffer to a competing presidential campaign, Amanda Carpenter witnessed her fellow Republicans fall in line behind Trump. As a political commentator, she was publicly smeared by one of his supporters on live television without a shred of evidence supporting the allegations. Slowly, she watched her entire party succumb to Trump and become defenders of his tactics, and Gaslighting America may be the only hope to bring them back to reality.