CORRUPTION

International Affairs Forum Fall 2016
Political Will - or Political Won’t
Professor Emeritus Michael Johnston
Colgate University
In May 2016, the Great and the Good assembled in London for an international Anti-Corruption
Summit. Prime Minister David Cameron, hosting the event, was joined by a wide range of officials
and organization activists from around the world. Also present were an unspecified number of
what Cameron himself, in an off-the-cuff remark to Queen Elizabeth II, had termed, “leaders of
some fantastically corrupt countries.” At the end of a string of high-flown speeches, the assembled
delegates issued an equally high-flown communique, along with what they called, “the first ever global
declaration against corruption.” Actually, it is not the first, but they no doubt adjourned to the capital’s
finer clubs and restaurants to congratulate themselves on a job well done.
What is wrong with this picture? Well, not everything: global corruption-control efforts over the past
generation and more have had indifferent results at best. More public attention and high-level support,
if it is sustained, backed by significant resources, and open to a range of new ideas, might be helpful.
No doubt, many of the participants were sincere, as they pledged their support for reform. In his
closing remarks, PM Cameron claimed to detect “far more political will—not just from words but from
actions—that will make a difference.”
Or so we can hope. Unfortunately, history, and a long list of practical problems, many of them, in fact,
reflecting the roles and interests of those self-proclaimed reformers themselves, suggest otherwise.
In all likelihood, the great “political will” of London 2016 will end up being yet another case of political
won’t.
First, there is the obvious question: welcome to the party, folks, but what kept you? It is true that after
a flurry of discussion with a modernization focus in the 1950s through the early 1970s, corruption
more or less dropped off the academic and international policy agendas for nearly a generation.
A handful of us who have been working on corruption issues since the mid-1970s toiled in nearisolation
until the end of the Cold War, and the acceleration of globalization in the late 1980s drew
new attention to the topic. In 1993, Transparency International was launched, and by the time then-
President James Wolfensohn announced the World Bank’s anti-corruption agenda in 1996, a new
reform movement and provocative new streams of scholarship were emerging in many parts of
the world. Will the London Summit bring anything new to the table two decades later? Will it take
In all likelihood the great “political will” of London 2016 [Anti-Corruption
Summit] will end up being yet another case of political won’t.
Fall 2016
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