CORRUPTION

Political Will - or Political Won’t
advantage of the past twenty-five years’ advances in theory, measurement, and reform thinking?
Given most top-level leaders’ antipathy to scholars and their ideas, and given the reform movement’s
own tendency to roll out the same ideas again and again, without much regard to local realities, there
seems little reason for optimism.
“Political will” is a tempting, but ultimately empty slogan. From an analytical standpoint, it is a
matter of intentions and dispositions, both fundamentally unknowable. From an empirical view, it is
impossible to distinguish between political will and the results we claim it will produce. Leaders may
say they are fully on board for the fight against corruption, but fundamentally we know nothing about
their “will” until we see what they actually do. In that regard, one common tactic for claiming a strong
will—proclaiming new eras of “zero tolerance”—is generally a good indication that those doing the
proclaiming haven’t thought through the problems of corruption in any depth. Governing leaders are
constrained by circumstances, resources, and the powers and agendas of others. Ultimately that only
underlines the fact that “political will”, by itself, is rarely, if ever, sufficient.
Many factors influence the actions and intentions of even the best-intentioned political leaders. Policy
and political tradeoffs are everywhere. The four- and five-year electoral cycles of democracies are
out of synch with the generations-long transformations of institutions, incentives, and expectations,
that lasting corruption control is likely to require. Entrenched interests—often, overlapping with the
ranks of politicians, bureaucrats, business figures, and generals—may be quite happy with a corrupt
status quo, thank you very much, and will go to great lengths to protect it. In any event, many of
those people do much of their business outside the reach of the law; the only real surprise from the
“Panama Papers” is that anyone would be surprised by the scope of wealth, privilege, and impunity
on display. More citizens than we might expect believe, or hope, they might benefit too, even if only
by getting a few crumbs from the high table, or at least, have seen enough failed morality campaigns
to be highly skeptical of the latest round.
International Affairs Forum
Despite all the brave talk about “tackling” corruption, it is not just a particular kind of deviance or
institutional malfunction that can quickly be fixed, nor is it usually the doing of a few “bad apples” in
an otherwise sound system. In the worst cases, corruption is the system. In many others, it operates
in international markets and murky cross-border dealings: illegal trafficking in arms, drugs, and
human beings. These activities may enrich and enjoy the protection of those leaders of “fantastically
corrupt countries” that are often linked to corruption. Despite our fascination with international indices
and rankings, corruption is not a national attribute like climate; it arises and can be concealed
in all manner of niches and personal connections in specific corners of the state and economy.
Naming and shaming may accomplish little: even an utterly venal government can hold a splashy
conference, announce “zero tolerance”, appoint a blue-ribbon reform commission, and imprison a
few alleged fraudsters. Indeed, those sorts of things can be an excellent smoke screen for continued
self-enrichment, and a pretext for locking up alleged fraudsters who just happen to be critics of the
regime.
Corruption is not one single problem that varies only in terms of more-versus-less, and we cannot
control it simply by resorting to “best practices” or anti-corruption “toolkits.” What seems to work in
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