April and Thomas continue on their hotwifing journey, with another thoroughly indecent, but lucrative, proposal from April's voyeuristic benefactor. But as they stretch the boundaries of their marriage, Thomas senses that he is losing control: of April's actions, of himself, and of his own dark fantasies. Is his wife the same April he married? Or have they really gone too far? Worse yet: has April gone too far, all by herself?
Barack Obama's approval ratings are at an all-time low. A recent Gallup poll found that half of the Americans polled said Obama did not deserve a second term. Weary of the corruption that gushes from the White House faster than a Gulf Coast oil spill, voters are ready to put a cap on smear campaigns, pay-to-play schemes, recess appointments, and Chicago politics. In the updated paperback edition of her #1 New York Times bestselling book Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, Michelle Malkin says, "I told you so," citing a new host of examples of Obama's broken promises and brass knuckled Chicago way.
This book is a collection of chapters on corruption. It highlights the importance of corruption, transparency, and accountability and ways to deal with it. Understanding the types of corruption is very important to know how to deal with it. Types of corruption include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, embezzlement, double-dealing, under-the-table transactions, manipulating elections, diverting funds, laundering money, and defrauding investors. Identifying corruption in all its forms requires analyzing the country and its political system and laws and rooting out the sources of corruption and the people behind it. Corruption and those participating in it must be identified to find ways to deal with it, including installing proper governance mechanisms with complete transparency and accountability for politicians, people in power, and/or citizens, as well as applying rules and holding those who infringe them accountable. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the many types of corruption and how to handle them.
The purpose of this book is to explain why a number of countries have succeeded in combating corruption; and to identify the lessons which other countries can learn from these five countries' successful experiences in curbing corruption.
This book deals with large-scale, systemic corruption, a phenomenon that it identifies as part of the political landscape in most, if not all, societies of the contemporary world. While the analysis is grounded in the political thought of earlier thinkers, especially Edmund Burke, and integrates the insights of several modern analysts of corruption, the volume offers a new, updated theoretical perspective on the topic. This perspective reflects deep concerns with corruption in a world facing accelerated social transition, increased economic polarization, and growing distrust toward political elites in many countries. This book approaches corrupt practices both theoretically and empirically, offering the perspectives of scholars who come to the topic from different traditions and cultures. It contains the collective efforts of members of the Research Committee on Political Finance and Public Corruption of the International Political Science Association. In formulating a comprehensive approach on corruption, the volume offers insights in regard to new developments in the United States, in Middle Eastern countries (especially in the wake of the Arab Spring), in several European counties (Austria, Italy, Spain), as well as in the People’s Republic of China. The analysis goes beyond the traditional legal definitions of corruption or purely economic views of it and focuses more broadly on institutional, cultural, and normative dimensions of this globally important phenomenon.
Corruption corrodes all facets of the world's political and corporate life, yet until now there was no one book that explained how best to battle it. Here, Rotberg puts some 35 countries under an anti-corruption microscope to show exactly how to beat back the forces of sleaze and graft.
This collection of essays to focuses on the critical issue of corruption that lies at the heart of the crisis of constitutionalism in Africa. Most anti-corruption measures over the years have been inadequate, serving merely as symbolic gestures to give the impression something is being done. The African Union's declaration of 2018 as the 'African anti-corruption year', belated though it be, is an open recognition by African governments of the impact corruption will have on the continent unless urgent steps are taken. The key objective of this volume is to draw attention to the problem of corruption, the complexity of the situation, with all its multi-faceted social, political, economic and legal dimensions, and the need for remedial action.
When and to what extent external actors, especially the EU, contribute to induce legal and administrative changes and help domestic authorities address the disconnect between good governance standards and corrupt practices? Comparing external promotion of anti-corruption norms and provisions in civil administration, public finance management and public procurement in Turkey this book identifies the domestic conditions under which external actors can affect real-world outcomes. Providing a comprehensive, empirical account of Turkey’s fight against corruption, the book’s cross-sectoral analysis explores the power relations between major political actors and bureaucratic state elites, and examines how structural administrative factors filter external pressure for anti-corruption reforms and determine the prospects for institutional change in the Turkish public sector. This welcome addition to literature on Europeanisation and external good governance promotion makes an important contribution to the academic and policy debate regarding the "politics" of anti-corruption reforms in Turkey.
This timely Handbook unpacks the underlying common factors that give rise to corrupting environments. Investigating opportunities to deliver ethical public policy, it explores global trends in public administration and its vulnerability to corruption today, as well as proposing strategies for building integrity and diminishing corruption in public sectors around the globe.
Indonesia has transformed from one of South East Asia’s most repressive and centralised political systems to its most decentralised and democratic. Despite this, obstacles still remain that hinder Indonesia achieving the ‘rule of law’, and in particular, the country is consistently ranked as having one of the highest levels of corruption in the world. This book assesses Indonesia’s anti-corruption reforms over the past decade, focusing on the Anti-corruption Commission (KPK) and the Anti-corruption Court (ACC). The book discusses how both institutions have been largely successful since they began operating on 2004. Before 2008, the KPK and ACC largely focused on mid-senior level targets and faced resistance primarily in the form of constitutional challenges to their jurisdictions and powers. From 2008, however, the KPK began targeting politically-powerful figures, drawing resistance that now threatens the future efficacy of both institutions. It is largely in Indonesia’s courtrooms and lawmaking institutions that key battles between reformists and those preferring the status quo have played out. This book describes and analyses these judicial processes and legal changes. It shows that despite persistent claims that Indonesia’s legal system is dysfunctional, law is far from irrelevant in modern day Indonesia. The book is a useful contribution to South East Asian politics and Asian law.
