FILSAFAT KORUPSI - Direktori File UPI

167
bring together the media, politicians and general public as well as people from the business world and
promote transparency. TI works to raise awareness of and spread knowledge about the problem itself as
well as the consequences of it. By trying to prevent multinational companies from paying bribes in order to
get contracts in undeveloped countries they struggle to reduce corruption and increase transparency
throughout the world. TI also works with other organizations that fight corruption and they offer expertise
, tools and funding. Each year, TI gives out a report on corruption called “Transparency International
Corruption Perceptions Index” (CPI) which is based on extensive surveys in each country. The CPI
shows the level of corruption in most countries of the world.
Result
The incentives to corruption are almost always linked to money. People who commit acts of corruption
do so in order to gain a personal profit. The methods used vary, but the motive is always the same – to gain
personal profit. The most common reason is to get money but there are of course other profits to be made
too, e.g. political power, trade licenses, contracts etc. There is also a clear connection between poor and
undeveloped countries and corruption rates. This has to do with undeveloped democratic structures and
political oppression. In countries where there is a tradition of democracy and a free press there is
transparency, there are auditing services that monitor the government and there are opposition parties that
question the government‟s work and ambitions. Since there is transparency all the incomes and expenses
are official documents which make it impossible to hide or censor any additional money that has gone
somewhere else than intended. It is also observable that low salaries are directly linked to corruption,
which leads to countries with low salaries ending up with even more corruption. It is definitely a vicious
cycle; if there is corruption it will ultimately hit the poor people the hardest and by making the poor even
poorer, the risk that they will commit acts of corruption increases drastically. There are many ways of
countering corruption. NGO: s, e.g. TI, works to spread knowledge about corruption and its devastating
consequences. They also fund different projects to reduce corruption and they struggle to increase
ransparency throughout the world. There are also governmental subsidies to support the democratization
process in undeveloped nations. Some subsidies are meant for the education of journalists, lawyers,
auditors etc. This is of course an attempt to increase transparency and democracy.
Discussion
16
TI, About Transparency International, http://transparency.org/layout/set/print/about_us (April 4
th
2007)
Page 10
As mentioned, there is a clear connection between poverty and corruption. This clearly shows that it is
poverty that needs to be countered and the best way to do that is to help countries with their budgets and
finances and educate people locally so that they can administrate the governments using the proper
methods. This may seem like an extremely western way of looking at it; they have to do it the proper way.
However, I stand firm at that statement because , after all, it is we in the industrialized parts of the world,
especially Europe, who have forced them into to operating their nations in a certain way – our way. When
the first colonialists came, they introduced a new, alien form of governing. When we later left, in the
middle of the 20 th century, we left them to handle these foreign administrations themselves, but there were
no people educated in how to run a nation using the “western form of government”. On this basis, I think
that it is our responsibility to contribute financially and educationally to help develop nations. This does not
mean that colonization is a way to reach democracy; there are definitely more ways than ours to develop
and govern countries successfully.A great advantage of globalization is a more widespread democracy and
transparency, and those tools are indispensable for the sustainable development throughout the world.
Transparency is the only way to get rid of corruption and to secure a stable democracy.
Evaluation of sources
The sources that I used for this essay were among others Sida , both material from the homepage and
published booklets and essays. I consider this a reliable source since it is a governmental agency with years
of experience and knowledge about the topic. Amnesty International is an activist organization and one