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This chapter traces the origin of the term ‘Washington Consensus’ to a paper written for a conference in 1989 that aimed to explore how the set of ideas accepted as a basis for policy in developing countries had changed. Ten policies — covering the areas of macroeconomic discipline, microeconomic liberalization, and opening up the economy (globalization) — were asserted to be widely believed in Washington as widely needed in Latin America, and the conference papers were intended to explore the extent of agreement with those propositions in the region. The term subsequently evolved: while some people continued to use it in the original sense, it has also been identified with IMF/World Bank policies (and thus used to embrace capital account convertibility and the bipolar exchange rate doctrine as well as institution-building and anti-corruption policy) and with a belief in market fundamentalism. The chapter argues that this is a very different usage with little support (and certainly not consensus support) in Washington. It concludes by emphasizing that the reforms listed in 1989 are not adequate for the present day, and outlines desirable directions in which to supplement them.

This chapter analyzes international harmonization of regulations controlling two major types of international economic crimes: transnational money laundering and foreign corrupt practices. In both cases, harmonization efforts started as domestic, notably US, regulation, which expanded into global regulation through international standard setting bodies, such as the FATF (Financial Action Task Force), the European Council on transnational money laundering and the OECD and UN on foreign corrupt practices. Involvement of the private sector, notably by private banks, in the drafting and implementation of the FATF Forty Recommendations is analyzed as an example of public-private partnership (PPP) in international harmonization.

This chapter examines anti-corruption dramas. It focuses on Pure as Snow (Daxue wuhen, 2001) and demonstrates how a traditional Chinese cultural icon, Judge Bao (a fearless judge who pits himself against politically powerful criminals), is reinvigorated in contemporary dramatization of corruption scandals to create an emotional moral community. The emotion of anger is the hallmark of this fictional community. By appropriating the ownership of this community, the Party, represented by “clean officials” in the drama, attempts to reconstitute its moral leadership.

This introduction discusses the theme of this volume, which is about the two paradigms designed to control corruption in India. These include the older paradigm which is in ferment, and the new one which offers a solution to the paradigmatic puzzle. The older paradigm, that is, merit-based bureaucracy, has failed to control corruption, and public bureaucracy in India today is rated as one of the most corrupt in the world. The alternative public management model or ‘new managerialism’ emphasizes that corruption is best fought when systematic efforts are made to inform citizens about their rights and entitlements, and empower them to resist corruption, thus, giving them the leading role in anti-corruption efforts.

The introduction explains the theme of the book, which is about the human rights implications of corruption in India. It argues that corruption in India is not merely a law enforcement issue where the existing laws of the state are violated and which can be remedied merely by more stringent law enforcement. It suggests that the existing anti-corruption framework in India places far too much emphasis on the criminal justice system for dealing with corruption, a system that is itself facing a crisis due to corruption and other problems. It also discusses the focus and principles of the so-called rights-based approach to fighting corruption.

This chapter presents a comparative perspective of corruption and its consequences for governance in Asia. It discusses the proliferation of corruption and the models for combating corruption in Asia. These include anti-corruption laws with no independent agency, anti-corruption laws with many agencies, and anti-corruption laws with an independent agency. This chapter argues that the third model which involves the creation of an independent institutional machinery to fight against corruption has proven to be most effective. It also explores the impact of corruption on cultural values and identifies the challenges to promoting human rights in Asia.

This chapter describes the existing framework for fighting corruption in India. It explains that historically, the legislative framework for ensuring corruption-free governance in India has largely been based upon two approaches. These are the promulgation of anti-corruption laws and vesting police and other similar law enforcement institutions with the task of the investigation and prosecution of crimes relating to corruption. It also discusses the issues of public interest litigation and judicial enforcement of corruption-free governance.

This chapter examines the proposal for the establishment of an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in India. It contends that this proposal recognizes the inherent challenges of any institutional approach to seeking reforms, given the bottlenecks and obstacles for enforcement of the rule of law. It discusses the necessary framework for a successful anti-corruption agency, according to Transparency International. These include committed political backing at the highest levels of government, adequate resources to undertake its mission, and adequate powers of access to documentation and for the questioning of witnesses.

On December 24, 1989, a man named Charles Taylor marshaled a band of armed rebels in the northern part of Liberia, a small country on the coast of West Africa. Carpeted in green jungle crossed by the occasional red dirt road connecting remote ramshackle towns, Liberia had never managed to attract much attention from the outside world. It carried none of the economic clout or strategic importance of continental powers like Kenya and South Africa. To outsiders, Liberia figured as little more than a historical curiosity, the place where freed American slaves settled and founded Africa’s first independent republic in 1847. Nor did Charles Taylor’s activities attract much notice. Military coups are a common occurrence throughout Africa, as much a part of reality as the tropical downpours that bring life to a temporary standstill in thousands of villages across the landscape before people tentatively poke out their heads and resume their daily activities. But this time something was different. Instead of racing to the capital and storming the presidential palace—as the incumbent dictator, Samuel Doe, had done a decade earlier—Taylor and his men were slow and deliberate in their progress, taking control of one town after the next. Rumors spread that the rebels were supported by Libya, a country that exercises much greater influence throughout the African continent than most people realize. Ultimately Charles Taylor would orchestrate a catastrophic civil war in Liberia, a conflict that would engulf neighboring Sierra Leone and lead to one of the worst humanitarian crises of the past century. At the time I was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, where my wife and I were assigned to work in President Doe’s hometown of Zwedru, a remote place that could only be reached through days of travel along roads with mud pits the size of swimming pools or, alternatively, in a single-propeller plane that the tropical air currents would toss about like a toy in a bathtub. It was in Liberia that I first came to appreciate how national governance impacts the lives of billions of people every day.

This concluding chapter considers the ways that anti-corruption campaigns have been evaluated, by insiders and outsiders, at the implications of different interpretations for policy, and draws some conclusions about the relationship between the corruption literature and the Pacific Islands evidence. Corruption is an old and persistent problem of government, after all. The aid donors and international financial institutions want something to be done about corruption in countries they deal with. So do many Pacific Islanders. So do many Pacific Island politicians, though people may doubt their commitment. For these leaders and activists in particular, this chapter draws some insights about relativism, evaluation, and interpretation.

This chapter reports the degree to which European Union (EU)-sponsored anti-corruption efforts made any difference to the scale of the chronic problem that dominated public life in Romania from 1989 until after it joined the EU. The EU was acutely concerned to discover the extent of corruption in Romania and the determination of figures high up in the political system to allow it to remain unimpeded. Anti-corruption rhetoric was merely a device to scare off or punish rivals. The anti-corruption legislation obliged public officials to fill out income and asset declarations in the belief that ‘the most serious forms of corruption in Romania are associated with organized crime’. The EU failed to acquire its own methodology for benchmarking corruption, which would have made it easier to commit recalcitrant governments to specific undertakings.

This chapter offers policy recommendations that are in tune with the socioeconomic realities of developing countries based on the findings discussed in the previous chapters. It suggests that anticorruption strategies should include the expansion of non-state sources of assistance for average citizens. This book highlights that corruption, despite its negative societal implications, is a sound survival strategy for individuals. Loosening government policies that limit the activities of societal groups, such as religious organizations, as well as actively developing institutions to increase market competition, such as credit registries, would provide individuals with survival alternatives that have fewer social costs. In addition to reforming government, providing citizens with alternatives to corruption is likely to be an effective anticorruption strategy.

On November 29, 2017, Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Rod Rosenstein announced a new and significant shift in the Department of Justice’s Enforcement Policy for the FCPA. The Policy is designed to provide more certainty to companies regarding the benefits of cooperating with federal enforcement officials investigating corrupt business activities abroad. It is critical for companies to understand this policy shift, which can be beneficial to proactive companies. This chapter discusses this policy shift (as well as the DAG’s subsequent clarification of the policy in his “Yates Memo” speech of November 29, 2018), including the definition of what constitutes voluntary disclosure, full cooperation, and remediation, all of which are required for a company to receive the benefits of the policy.

This essay seeks to explore the notion of ‘civil society’. The context to the essay is provided by its frequent invocation in the recent movement against corruption. The popular media has tended to propagate the view that civil society is somehow a more authentic representative of the common people than those elected to the formal institutions of democracy, like Parliament. However, the Campaign against Corruption—of which Anna Hazare was a prominent figure—was more like a movement than an institution of civil society. The essay argues for reconsidering the line that separates civil society from movements because the new social movements that are emerging all over the democratic world are very different from the movements of the past that were seeking fundamental changes in the social and political structure.

This chapter considers Australia as a host for the proceeds of foreign grand corruption, and addresses the common instances in which inward corruption flows have attracted scarce publicity and little or no investigation, and where the host country government has been resistant to the idea of tracing, freezing, and returning looted wealth from abroad. People too often hear about the atypical anti-corruption success stories, while the more typical stories of corrupt leaders being able to enjoy their loot undisturbed are overlooked. The chapter argues that this lack of effectiveness is a result of a lack of willingness to take action rather than a lack of capacity. Australia has some of the most powerful applicable laws in the world, more stringent than those available to its American, Swiss, and British counterparts, but the authorities have lacked the inclination to apply them.