SHIFTING OBSESSIONS
Three Essays on the Politics of Anticorruption
Ivan Krastev is a political scientist and Chairman
of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria.
With a foreword by Aryeh Neier, President of
the Open Society Institute and Soros foundations network
A global anticorruption crusade is underway. "As
slavery was once a way of life and now has become obsolete
and incomprehensible, so the practice of bribery will
become obsolete," a modern-day moralist has said.
But how is global consensus on corruption possible?
Why are anticorruption campaigns running out of steam,
and why are post-communist societies obsessed with corruption?
This book is not a study of anti-corruption policies.
Instead, it looks at the politics of anti-corruption.
Policies are what institutions do. But in analyzing
politics, this book seeks to discover why institutions
do what they do. The author delves into political motivations
at a time when "combating corruption" is the
fashion among the academic community.
Krastev argues that anticorruption sentiments are not
driven by the actual level of corruption but by general
disappointment with liberal reforms that cause rising
social inequality. In this collection of essays, the
author makes the provocative argument that the current
corruption-focused policies are doomed.
"Shifting Obsessions should stimulate a
more healthy, sorely needed debate on corruption, anti-corruption
policy, and the politics of anti-corruption. It could
contribute to the encouragement of anti-corruption policies
divorced from rhetoric and linked more closely to local
problems. For these two reasons alone, it is one of
the most important contributions to the anti-corruption
debate in recent years." - TOL
Contents
List of Figures; Foreword Aryeh Neier; Preface; Acknowledgements;
When "Should" Does not Imply "Can";
The Making of Washington Consensus on Corruption; Corruption,
Anticorruption Sentiments and the Rule of Law; The Missing
Incentive: Corruption, Anticorruption, and Reelection
with Georgy Ganev
2004
120 pages
ISBN 978-963-9241-94-7 paperback $14.95 / €12.95 /
£9.99
|
