Corruption

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Essay, May/June 2009
John Newhouse

Lobbies representing foreign interests have an increasingly powerful -- and often harmful -- impact on how the United States formulates its foreign policy, and ultimately hurt U.S. credibility around the world.

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Essay, Mar/Apr 2009
Joel Brinkley

While much of Cambodia -- and of the world -- holds on to memories of the country’s sorrowful past under the Khmer Rouge, few seem to notice that the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen is destroying the nation.

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Essay, May/Jun 2006
Ben W. Heineman, Jr., and Fritz Heimann

Corruption is widely acknowledged to distort markets, undermine the rule of law, damage government legitimacy, and hurt economic development. The global anticorruption movement has gained ground since the mid-1990s, but its key agents -- developed and developing countries, international organizations, and MNCs -- must do more to prevent and punish misbehavior systematically.

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Essay, Mar/Apr 2005
Adrian Karatnycky

The electoral triumph of opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko and the victory of the Ukrainian people over their country's corrupt leadership represent a new landmark in the postcommunist history of eastern Europe, a seismic shift Westward in the geopolitics of the region. But what will come next for the new president--and the rest of the former Soviet Union?

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Comment, Jul/Aug 2004
Robert I. Rotberg

Poor leadership has been the depressing norm in Africa for decades. But as a bold new initiative by a group of past and present African leaders takes off, good governance may finally come to the continent.

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Essay, Nov/Dec 2001
Ana Arana

In the years since its civil wars ended, this blood-soaked region has been forgotten by the international community. Now Central America risks sliding into a new kind of anarchy, thanks to the legacy of flawed peace treaties, international inattention, rampant corruption, and the narcoterror creeping northward from Colombia.

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Essay, Nov/Dec 2001
Andrei S. Markovits

Germans always knew that their foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, had been a leftist activist in the 1960s and 1970s. More controversial were recent disclosures that he had once assaulted a police officer and may have had links to terrorists. Fischer's evolution is the tale of a generation that changed Germany -- and then itself.

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Essay, Sep/Oct 2001
M. A. Thomas

Many argue that forgiving international debts will help relieve poverty in the world's poorest countries. But an enormous amount of money is already given to aid the poor, with little of it reaching those in need. Widespread corruption, weak political institutions, and a lack of accountability all hinder the provision of important social services in developing countries. The international community must figure out a way to ensure the proper use of debt-relief dollars-before the problems plaguing many of the world's poorest countries grow any worse.

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Comment, Nov/Dec 2000
William Gamble

Thanks to a woefully corrupt and inefficient tax system, Beijing is going broke. China must fix its tax problems fast, before globalization speeds it into bankruptcy.

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Essay, Sep/Oct 2000
Robert I. Rotberg

Venal leaders are the curse of Africa, and Robert Mugabe is a walking reminder of how much damage they can do. No mere thug like Idi Amin, the gifted Mugabe created modern Zimbabwe and then robbed it of its enormous potential. The comparatively well-run, well-off country that he inherited is now a corruption-riddled, autocratic mess sent into economic free fall by its kleptomaniacal president's whims -- including tampering with elections, sending troops to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and hiring goons to invade white-owned farms. An indulgent world contributed to Mugabe's sense of invincibility. Instead, he and his ilk should be ostracized.

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