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| most corrupt politicians in history: Dirty Little Secrets Larry Sabato, Glenn R. Simpson, 1996 Political corruption in America is worse today than it has been since the Watergate era. Americans know it, and the politicians have known it for years. Urgent calls for reform have become standard fare, but nothing changes. A Democrat President and a Republican Congress were both elected on the strength of their promises of reform. Neither has delivered. Americans contemplate the tottering remains of our ethically bankrupt political system with despair. Fact: The Christian Coalition's 1994 voter guides appear to have been skewered to favor Republican candidates in key congressional races across the country, in direct contravention of federal election law. The truth is, the politicians couldn't be happier dickering over the remains of the welfare state. Because, as you'll learn in Dirty Little Secrets, there is probably not a politician in America who does not benefit directly, personally, and continually from the status quo. Fact: The state Democratic party in Tennessee paid sums in excess of six figures to a number of groups and organizations for various political services in 1994. The problem? None of the groups actually exist, except on paper. Our Politicians, from those in the highest reaches of the Republican and Democratic parties to those in the humblest state congressional districts, evade, massage, and even break the law in order to hold on to power. But instead of merely unmasking corrupt politicians in every region of the country, Dirty Little Secrets analyzes why corruption persists in American politics, despite scandal after scandal, and in spite of periodic bursts of reform. Fact: On the eve of the 1994 elections, mock pollsters called up thousand ofvoters in one Wisconsin congressional district to ask whether their electoral decisions would be influenced if they knew one of the candidates was a lesbian. Most politicians want to do the right thing. But they also want to be reelected, and the system is far stronger than any honest man or woman. The influence of money and the intricacies of the levers of power make it easier for politicians to ignore the law than to obey it. In Dirty Little Secrets you will read of the conservative movement's hidden manipulations in 1994, and learn the truth about Newt Gingrich's twenty-year program of political destabilization. The history of the corrupt House the Democrats built with the help of liberal interest groups stands revealed. And Larry J. Sabato and Glenn R. Simpson expose the corrupt and illegal tactics both parties have used for decades to protect and promote their own power. Fact: In 1994, in Alabama, one local election was decided by three hundred votes. Seventeen hundred ballots cast in that election were illegally admitted absentee ballots, some of them submitted by dead people. Sabato and Simpson's fresh reporting and thousands of hours of background research include interviews with influential politicians, consultants, and political operatives, Freedom of Information Act requests, and thousands of pages of obscure campaign reports. They prove corruption is not about bad apples or colorful local traditions. And they offer a completely original plan for reform--Deregulation Plus--that will frighten both parties and make the American electorate smile for the first time in years. Dirty Little Secrets pulls together the corruption story from all parts of the country sooverwhelmingly that no one--from the White House to your house--will be able to deny that political reform must be one of the key issues of the 1996 election campaign. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Gilded Age Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner, 1904 |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Global Corruption Report 2004 Transparency International, 2004 Compiled by the world's leading independent anti-corruption organisation, this work provides a comprehensive overview of corruption around the globe. The special focus of this report is political corruption. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Political Corruption in Africa Inge Amundsen, 2019 Analysing political corruption as a distinct but separate entity from bureaucratic corruption, this timely book separates these two very different social phenomena in a way that is often overlooked in contemporary studies. Chapters argue that political corruption includes two basic, critical and related processes: extractive and power-preserving corruption. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Republic for which it Stands Richard White, 2017 The newest volume in the Oxford History of the United States series, The Republic for Which It Stands argues that the Gilded Age, along with Reconstruction--its conflicts, rapid and disorienting change, hopes and fears--formed the template of American modernity. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: On Corruption in America Sarah Chayes, 2020-08-11 From the prizewinning journalist and internationally recognized expert on corruption in government networks throughout the world comes a major work that looks homeward to America, exploring the insidious, dangerous networks of corruption of our past, present, and precarious future. “If you want to save America, this might just be the most important book to read now. —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains Sarah Chayes writes in her new book, that the United States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption, she argues, is an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private-sector interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to serve the public but to maximize returns for network members. In this unflinching exploration of corruption in America, Chayes exposes how corruption has thrived within our borders, from the titans of America's Gilded Age (Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, et al.) to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression, and FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth to the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution--undermining this nation's proud middle class and union members. She then brings us up to the present as she shines a light on the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment and documents Trump's hydra-headed network of corruption, which aimed to systematically undo the Constitution and our laws. Ultimately and most importantly, Chayes reveals how corrupt systems are organized, how they enable bad actors to bend the rules so their crimes are covered legally, how they overtly determine the shape of our government, and how they affect all levels of society, especially when the corruption is overlooked and downplayed by the rich and well-educated. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Bad Times for Good Ol' Boys Harry Holloway, Frank S. Meyers, 1993 By the time federal prosecutors announced an end to their investigation of Oklahoma local government in the early 1980s, more than 200 people had been convicted in 60 counties. Most were county commissioners who had been taking kickbacks paid by suppliers on orders for county road-building supplies. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Soft Corruption William E. Schluter, 2017-02-24 New Jersey has long been a breeding ground for political corruption, and most of it is perfectly legal. Public officials accept favors from lobbyists, give paid positions to relatives, and rig the electoral process to favor their cronies in a system where campaign money is used to buy government results. Such unethical behavior is known as “soft corruption,” and former New Jersey legislator William E. Schluter has been fighting it for the past fifty years. In this searing personal narrative, the former state senator recounts his fight to expose and reform these acts of government misconduct. Not afraid to cite specific cases of soft corruption in New Jersey politics, he paints a vivid portrait of public servants who care more about political power and personal gain than the public good. By recounting events that he witnessed firsthand in the Garden State, he provides dramatic illustrations of ills that afflict American politics nationwide. As he identifies five main forms of soft corruption, Schluter diagnoses the state government’s ethical malaise, and offers concrete policy suggestions for how it might be cured. Not simply a dive through the muck of New Jersey politics, Soft Corruption is an important first step to reforming our nation’s political system, a book that will inspire readers to demand that our elected officials can and must do better. Visit: www.softcorruption.com (http://www.softcorruption.com) |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Profiles in Corruption Peter Schweizer, 2020-01-21 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Washington insiders operate by a proven credo: When a Peter Schweizer book drops, duck and brace for impact. For over a decade, the work of six-time New York Times bestselling investigative reporter Peter Schweizer has sent shockwaves through the political universe. Clinton Cash revealed the Clintons’ international money flow, exposed global corruption, and sparked an FBI investigation. Secret Empires exposed bipartisan corruption and launched congressional investigations. And Throw Them All Out and Extortion prompted passage of the STOCK Act. Indeed, Schweizer’s “follow the money” bombshell revelations have been featured on the front pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and regularly appear on national news programs, including 60 Minutes. Now Schweizer and his team of seasoned investigators turn their focus to the nation’s top progressives—politicians who strive to acquire more government power to achieve their political ends. Can they be trusted with more power? In Profiles in Corruption, Schweizer offers a deep-dive investigation into the private finances, and secrets deals of some of America’s top political leaders. And, as usual, he doesn’t disappoint, with never-before-reported revelations that uncover corruption and abuse of power—all backed up by a mountain of corporate documents and legal filings from around the globe. Learn about how they are making sweetheart deals, generating side income, bending the law to their own benefits, using legislation to advance their own interests, and much more. Profiles in Corruption contains tomorrow’s headlines. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Dictator's Handbook Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, 2011-09-27 Explains the theory of political survival, particularly in cases of dictators and despotic governments, arguing that political leaders seek to stay in power using any means necessary, most commonly by attending to the interests of certain coalitions. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Wrong Stuff Marcus Stern, Dean Calbreath, George E. Condon Jr., Jerry Kammer, 2007-08-05 Profiles the celebrated war hero and congressman whose deeds shocked the nation when he was unveiled as the most corrupt congressman in United States history, charting his rise and fall and exposing the seedy side of American politics. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics Terry Golway, 2014-03-03 “Golway’s revisionist take is a useful reminder of the unmatched ingenuity of American politics.”—Wall Street Journal History casts Tammany Hall as shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft and patronage personified by notoriously crooked characters. In his groundbreaking work Machine Made, journalist and historian Terry Golway dismantles these stereotypes, focusing on the many benefits of machine politics for marginalized immigrants. As thousands sought refuge from Ireland’s potato famine, the very question of who would be included under the protection of American democracy was at stake. Tammany’s transactional politics were at the heart of crucial social reforms—such as child labor laws, workers’ compensation, and minimum wages— and Golway demonstrates that American political history cannot be understood without Tammany’s profound contribution. Culminating in FDR’s New Deal, Machine Made reveals how Tammany Hall “changed the role of government—for the better to millions of disenfranchised recent American arrivals” (New York Observer). |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Grafters and Goo Goos James L. Merriner, 2004-03-11 Examines the roles of politicians and reformers in Chicago against a backdrop of social history from 1833-2003. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Modern Tyrants Daniel Chirot, 1996-05-05 Along with its much vaunted progress in scientific and economic realms, the twentieth century has witnessed the rise of the most brutal and oppressive regimes in the history of humankind. Even with the collapse of Marxism, current instances of ethnic cleansing remind us that tyranny persists in our own age and shows no sign of abating. Daniel Chirot offers an important and timely study of modern tyrants, both revealing the forces that allow them to come to power and helping us to predict where they may arise in the future. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Boss Tweed Kenneth D. Ackerman, 2005-01-01 A lively account of the life of a New York legend traces the rise of Boss Tweed, the corrupt party boss who controlled New York politics through a combination of corruption, bribery, and coercion until his own over-reaching destroyed him. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Almanac of Political Corruption, Scandals and Dirty Politics Kim Long, 2008 Describes notable instances of political corruption and malfeasance in the United States from the colonial era to 2006, and includes a list of corruption benchmarks and censure histories of the U.S. House and Senate. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Throw Them All Out Peter Schweizer, 2011 Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, discusses the state of government and the depths of its political corruption. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Extortion Peter Schweizer, 2013 A major new expose of financial outrages in Washington, by the best-selling author and investigative journalist. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Going Dirty David Mark, 2009-04-16 Going Dirty is a history of negative campaigning in American politics and an examination of how candidates and political consultants have employed this often-controversial technique. The book includes case studies on notable races throughout the television era in which new negative campaign strategies were introduced, or existing tactics were refined and amplified upon. Strategies have included labeling opponents from non-traditional political backgrounds as dumb or lightweight, an approach that got upended when a veteran actor and rookie candidate named Ronald Reagan won the California governorship in 1966, setting him on a path to the White House. The negative tone of campaigns has also been ratcheted up dramatically since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: Campaign commercials now routinely run pictures of international villains and suggest, sometimes overtly, at other times more subtly, that political opponents are less than resolute in prosecuting the war on terror. The book also outlines a series of races in which negative campaigning has backfired, because the charges were not credible or the candidate on the attack did not understand the political sentiments of the local electorate they were trying to persuade. The effect of newer technologies on negative campaigning is also examined, including blogs and Web video, in addition to tried and true methods like direct mail. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Paranoid Style in American Politics Richard Hofstadter, 2008-06-10 This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?, ” The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Dark Quadrant Jonathan Marshall, 2021-04-09 From Truman to Trump, the deep corruption of our political leaders unveiled. Many critiques of the Trump era contrast it with the latter half of the twentieth century, when the United States seemed governed more by statesmen than by special interests. Without denying the extraordinary vigor of President Trump’s assault on traditional ethical and legal norms, Jonathan Marshall challenges the myth of a golden age of American democracy. Drawing on a host of original archival sources, he tells a shocking story of how well-protected criminals systematically organized the corruption of American national politics after World War II. Marshall begins by tracing the extraordinary scandals of President Truman, whose political career was launched by the murderous Pendergast machine in Missouri. He goes on to highlight the role of organized crime in the rise of McCarthyism during the Cold War, the near-derailment of Vice President Johnson’s political career by two mob-related scandals, and Nixon’s career-long association with underworld figures. The book culminates with a discussion of Donald Trump’s unique history of relations with the traditional American Mafia and newer transnational gangs like the Russian mafiya—and how the latter led to his historic impeachment by the House of Representatives. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Age of Acrimony Jon Grinspan, 2021-04-27 A penetrating, character-filled history “in the manner of David McCullough” (WSJ), revealing the deep roots of our tormented present-day politics. Democracy was broken. Or that was what many Americans believed in the decades after the Civil War. Shaken by economic and technological disruption, they sought safety in aggressive, tribal partisanship. The results were the loudest, closest, most violent elections in U.S. history, driven by vibrant campaigns that drew our highest-ever voter turnouts. At the century's end, reformers finally restrained this wild system, trading away participation for civility in the process. They built a calmer, cleaner democracy, but also a more distant one. Americans' voting rates crashed and never fully recovered. This is the origin story of the “normal” politics of the 20th century. Only by exploring where that civility and restraint came from can we understand what is happening to our democracy today. The Age of Acrimony charts the rise and fall of 19th-century America's unruly politics through the lives of a remarkable father-daughter dynasty. The radical congressman William “Pig Iron” Kelley and his fiery, Progressive daughter Florence Kelley led lives packed with drama, intimately tied to their nation's politics. Through their friendships and feuds, campaigns and crusades, Will and Florie trace the narrative of a democracy in crisis. In telling the tale of what it cost to cool our republic, historian Jon Grinspan reveals our divisive political system's enduring capacity to reinvent itself. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Corruption and Reform Edward L. Glaeser, Claudia Goldin, 2007-11-01 Despite recent corporate scandals, the United States is among the world’s least corrupt nations. But in the nineteenth century, the degree of fraud and corruption in America approached that of today’s most corrupt developing nations, as municipal governments and robber barons alike found new ways to steal from taxpayers and swindle investors. In Corruption and Reform, contributors explore this shadowy period of United States history in search of better methods to fight corruption worldwide today. Contributors to this volume address the measurement and consequences of fraud and corruption and the forces that ultimately led to their decline within the United States. They show that various approaches to reducing corruption have met with success, such as deregulation, particularly “free banking,” in the 1830s. In the 1930s, corruption was kept in check when new federal bureaucracies replaced local administrations in doling out relief. Another deterrent to corruption was the independent press, which kept a watchful eye over government and business. These and other facets of American history analyzed in this volume make it indispensable as background for anyone interested in corruption today. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Keystone Corruption Brad Bumsted, 2013-09-09 'Keystone Corruption: A Pennsylvania Insider's View of a State Gone Wrong' traces the cyclical nature of misconduct in Pennsylvania government over the course of the last hundred years. Most of the book focuses on corruption since the 1970s, when the author had a front-row seat during the unprecedented scandals of 2007 through 2012. . . The book is not intended as a complete history. It includes the author's impressions of powerful legislative leaders and top aides who abused the taxpayers in ways that did not, like many of the allegations against them, land in criminal court. When it came to crimes, from Bonusgate to Computergate and the BIG caper-Bumsted tracked the cases at every turn. -- Cover page 4. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Money for Nothing Thomas Levenson, 2020 The sweeping story of how the greatest minds of the Scientific Revolution applied their new ideas to people, money, and markets--and invented modern finance along the way. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Systemic Corruption Camila Vergara, 2022-06-07 A bold new approach to combatting the inherent corruption of representative democracy This provocative book reveals how the majority of modern liberal democracies have become increasingly oligarchic, suffering from a form of structural political decay first conceptualized by ancient philosophers. Systemic Corruption argues that the problem cannot be blamed on the actions of corrupt politicians but is built into the very fabric of our representative systems. Camila Vergara provides a compelling and original genealogy of political corruption from ancient to modern thought, and shows how representative democracy was designed to protect the interests of the already rich and powerful to the detriment of the majority. Unable to contain the unrelenting force of oligarchy, especially after experimenting with neoliberal policies, most democracies have been corrupted into oligarchic democracies. Vergara explains how to reverse this corrupting trajectory by establishing a new counterpower strong enough to control the ruling elites. Building on the anti-oligarchic institutional innovations proposed by plebeian philosophers, she rethinks the republic as a mixed order in which popular power is institutionalized to check the power of oligarchy. Vergara demonstrates how a plebeian republic would establish a network of local assemblies with the power to push for reform from the grassroots, independent of political parties and representative government. Drawing on neglected insights from Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolas de Condorcet, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt, Systemic Corruption proposes to reverse the decay of democracy with the establishment of anti-oligarchic institutions through which common people can collectively resist the domination of the few. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Politics and the English Language George Orwell, 2021-01-01 George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Politics and the English Language, the second in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, ‘is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. In an age where the language used in politics is constantly under the microscope, Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Political Corruption in a World in Transition Jonathan Mendilow, Eric Phélippeau, 2019-10-31 This book argues that the mainstream definitions of corruption, and the key expectations they embed concerning the relationship between corruption, democracy, and the process of democratization, require reexamination. Even critics who did not consider stable institutions and legal clarity of veteran democracies as a cure-all, assumed that the process of widening the influence on government decision making and implementation allows non-elites to defend their interests, define the acceptable sources and uses of wealth, and demand government accountability. This had proved correct, especially insofar as ‘petty corruption’ is involved. But the assumption that corruption necessarily involves the evasion of democratic principles and a ‘market approach’ in which the corrupt seek to maximize profit does not exhaust the possible incentives for corruption, the types of behaviors involved (for obvious reasons, the tendency in the literature is to focus on bribery), or the range of situations that ‘permit’ corruption in democracies. In the effort to identify some of the problems that require recognition, and to offer a more exhaustive alternative, the chapters in this book focus on corruption in democratic settings (including NGOs and the United Nations which were largely so far ignored), while focusing mainly on behaviors other than bribery. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Populism: A Very Short Introduction Cas Mudde, Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017-01-02 Populism is a central concept in the current media debates about politics and elections. However, like most political buzzwords, the term often floats from one meaning to another, and both social scientists and journalists use it to denote diverse phenomena. What is populism really? Who are the populist leaders? And what is the relationship between populism and democracy? This book answers these questions in a simple and persuasive way, offering a swift guide to populism in theory and practice. Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser present populism as an ideology that divides society into two antagonistic camps, the pure people versus the corrupt elite, and that privileges the general will of the people above all else. They illustrate the practical power of this ideology through a survey of representative populist movements of the modern era: European right-wing parties, left-wing presidents in Latin America, and the Tea Party movement in the United States. The authors delve into the ambivalent personalities of charismatic populist leaders such as Juan Domingo Péron, H. Ross Perot, Jean-Marie le Pen, Silvio Berlusconi, and Hugo Chávez. If the strong male leader embodies the mainstream form of populism, many resolute women, such as Eva Péron, Pauline Hanson, and Sarah Palin, have also succeeded in building a populist status, often by exploiting gendered notions of society. Although populism is ultimately part of democracy, populist movements constitute an increasing challenge to democratic politics. Comparing political trends across different countries, this compelling book debates what the long-term consequences of this challenge could be, as it turns the spotlight on the bewildering effect of populism on today's political and social life. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Burning Down the House Julian E. Zelizer, 2020-07-07 A New York Times Notable Book! A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice The story of how Newt Gingrich and his allies tainted American politics, launching an enduring era of brutal partisan warfare When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, President Obama observed that Trump “is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party.” In Burning Down the House, historian Julian Zelizer pinpoints the moment when our country was set on a path toward an era of bitterly partisan and ruthless politics, an era that was ignited by Newt Gingrich and his allies. In 1989, Gingrich brought down Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright and catapulted himself into the national spotlight. Perhaps more than any other politician, Gingrich introduced the rhetoric and tactics that have shaped Congress and the Republican Party for the last three decades. Elected to Congress in 1978, Gingrich quickly became one of the most powerful figures in America not through innovative ideas or charisma, but through a calculated campaign of attacks against political opponents, casting himself as a savior in a fight of good versus evil. Taking office in the post-Watergate era, he weaponized the good government reforms newly introduced to fight corruption, wielding the rules in ways that shocked the legislators who had created them. His crusade against Democrats culminated in the plot to destroy the political career of Speaker Wright. While some of Gingrich’s fellow Republicans were disturbed by the viciousness of his attacks, party leaders enjoyed his successes so much that they did little collectively to stand in his way. Democrats, for their part, were alarmed, but did not want to sink to his level and took no effective actions to stop him. It didn’t seem to matter that Gingrich’s moral conservatism was hypocritical or that his methods were brazen, his accusations of corruption permanently tarnished his opponents. This brand of warfare worked, not as a strategy for governance but as a path to power, and what Gingrich planted, his fellow Republicans reaped. He led them to their first majority in Congress in decades, and his legacy extends far beyond his tenure in office. From the Contract with America to the rise of the Tea Party and the Trump presidential campaign, his fingerprints can be seen throughout some of the most divisive episodes in contemporary American politics. Burning Down the House presents the alarming narrative of how Gingrich and his allies created a new normal in Washington. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Secret Empires Peter Schweizer, 2019-03-26 #1 New York Times Bestseller! Peter Schweizer has been fighting corruption—and winning—for years. In Throw Them All Out, he exposed insider trading by members of Congress, leading to the passage of the STOCK Act. In Extortion, he uncovered how politicians use mafia-like tactics to enrich themselves. And in Clinton Cash, he revealed the Clintons’ massive money machine and sparked an FBI investigation. Now he explains how a new corruption has taken hold, involving larger sums of money than ever before. Stuffing tens of thousands of dollars into a freezer has morphed into multibillion-dollar equity deals done in the dark corners of the world. An American bank opening in China would be prohibited by US law from hiring a slew of family members of top Chinese politicians. However, a Chinese bank opening in America can hire anyone it wants. It can even invite the friends and families of American politicians to invest in can’t-lose deals. President Donald Trump’s children have made front pages across the world for their dicey transactions. However, the media has barely looked into questionable deals made by those close to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Mitch McConnell, and lesser-known politicians who have been in the game longer. In many parts of the world, the children of powerful political figures go into business and profit handsomely, not necessarily because they are good at it, but because people want to curry favor with their influential parents. This is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. But for relatives of some prominent political families, we may already be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. Deeply researched and packed with shocking revelations, Secret Empires identifies public servants who cannot be trusted and provides a path toward a more accountable government. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Poverty in the Philippines Asian Development Bank, 2009-12-01 Against the backdrop of the global financial crisis and rising food, fuel, and commodity prices, addressing poverty and inequality in the Philippines remains a challenge. The proportion of households living below the official poverty line has declined slowly and unevenly in the past four decades, and poverty reduction has been much slower than in neighboring countries such as the People's Republic of China, Indonesia, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Economic growth has gone through boom and bust cycles, and recent episodes of moderate economic expansion have had limited impact on the poor. Great inequality across income brackets, regions, and sectors, as well as unmanaged population growth, are considered some of the key factors constraining poverty reduction efforts. This publication analyzes the causes of poverty and recommends ways to accelerate poverty reduction and achieve more inclusive growth. it also provides an overview of current government responses, strategies, and achievements in the fight against poverty and identifies and prioritizes future needs and interventions. The analysis is based on current literature and the latest available data, including the 2006 Family Income and Expenditure Survey. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Shame of the Cities Lincoln Steffens, 1957-01-01 |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Allure of Toxic Leaders Jean Lipman-Blumen, 2006 Toxic leaders, both political, like Slobodan Milosevic, and corporate, like Enron's Ken Lay, have always been with us, and many books have been written to explain what makes them tick. Here leadership scholar Jean Lipman-Blumen explains what makes the followers tick, exploring why people will tolerate--and remain loyal to--leaders who are destructive to their organizations, their employees, or their nations. Why do we knowingly follow, seldom unseat, frequently prefer, and sometimes even create toxic leaders? Lipman-Blumen argues that these leaders appeal to our deepest needs, playing on our anxieties and fears, on our yearnings for security, high self-esteem, and significance, and on our desire for noble enterprises and immortality. She also explores how followers inadvertently keep themselves in line by a set of insidious control myths that they internalize. For example, the belief that the leader must necessarily be in a position to know more than the followers often stills their objections. In addition, outside forces--such as economic depressions, political upheavals, or a crisis in a company--can increase our anxiety and our longing for charismatic leaders. Lipman-Blumen shows how followers can learn critical lessons for the future and survive in the meantime. She discusses how to confront, reform, undermine, blow the whistle on, or oust a toxic leader. And she suggests how we can diminish our need for strong leaders, identify reluctant leaders among competent followers, and even nurture the leader within ourselves. Toxic leaders charm, manipulate, mistreat, weaken, and ultimately devastate their followers. The Allure of Toxic Leaders tells us how to recognize these leaders before it's too late. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Power Paradox Dacher Keltner, 2016-05-17 A revolutionary and timely reconsideration of everything we know about power. Celebrated UC Berkeley psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner argues that compassion and selflessness enable us to have the most influence over others and the result is power as a force for good in the world. Power is ubiquitous—but totally misunderstood. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, Dr. Dacher Keltner presents the very idea of power in a whole new light, demonstrating not just how it is a force for good in the world, but how—via compassion and selflessness—it is attainable for each and every one of us. It is taken for granted that power corrupts. This is reinforced culturally by everything from Machiavelli to contemporary politics. But how do we get power? And how does it change our behavior? So often, in spite of our best intentions, we lose our hard-won power. Enduring power comes from empathy and giving. Above all, power is given to us by other people. This is what we all too often forget, and it is the crux of the power paradox: by misunderstanding the behaviors that helped us to gain power in the first place we set ourselves up to fall from power. We abuse and lose our power, at work, in our family life, with our friends, because we've never understood it correctly—until now. Power isn't the capacity to act in cruel and uncaring ways; it is the ability to do good for others, expressed in daily life, and in and of itself a good thing. Dr. Keltner lays out exactly—in twenty original Power Principles—how to retain power; why power can be a demonstrably good thing; when we are likely to abuse power; and the terrible consequences of letting those around us languish in powerlessness. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: A People Betrayed Paul Preston, 2020 Nowhere does the ceaseless struggle to maintain democracy in the face of political corruption come more alive than in Paul Preston's magisterial history of modern Spain. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Crossing the Global Quality Chasm National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Health and Medicine Division, Board on Health Care Services, Board on Global Health, Committee on Improving the Quality of Health Care Globally, 2019-01-27 In 2015, building on the advances of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals that include an explicit commitment to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. However, enormous gaps remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, and progress has been both incomplete and unevenly distributed. In order to meet this goal, a deliberate and comprehensive effort is needed to improve the quality of health care services globally. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm: Improving Health Care Worldwide focuses on one particular shortfall in health care affecting global populations: defects in the quality of care. This study reviews the available evidence on the quality of care worldwide and makes recommendations to improve health care quality globally while expanding access to preventive and therapeutic services, with a focus in low-resource areas. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm emphasizes the organization and delivery of safe and effective care at the patient/provider interface. This study explores issues of access to services and commodities, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equity. Focusing on front line service delivery that can directly impact health outcomes for individuals and populations, this book will be an essential guide for key stakeholders, governments, donors, health systems, and others involved in health care. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: Rumor, Repression, and Racial Politics George Derek Musgrove, 2012 While historians have devoted an enormous amount of attention to documenting how African Americans gained access to formal politics in the mid-1960s, very few have scrutinized what happened next, and the small body of work that does consider the aftermath of the civil rights movement is almost entirely limited to the Black Power era. In Rumor, Repression, and Racial Politics, Derek Musgrove pushes much further, presenting a powerful new historical framework for understanding race and politics between 1965 and 1996. He argues that in order to make sense of this recent period, we need to examine the harassment of black elected officials - the ways black politicians were denied access to seats they'd won in elections or, after taking office, were targeted in corruption probes. Musgrove's aim is not to evaluate whether individual allegations of corruption had merit, but to establish what the pervasive harassment of black politicians has meant, politically and culturally, over the course of recent American history. It's a story that takes him from California to Michigan to Alabama, and along the way covers a fascinating range of topics: Watergate, the surveillance state, the power of conspiracy theories, the plunge in voter turnout, and even the strange political campaigns of Lyndon LaRouche--Provided by publisher. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Teapot Dome Scandal Laton McCartney, 2009-01-13 In this amazing and at times ribald story, Laton McCartney tells how Big Oil handpicked Warren G. Harding, an obscure Ohio senator, to serve as our twenty-third president. Harding and his “oil cabinet” made it possible for cronies to secure vast fuel reserves that had been set aside for use by the U.S. Navy. In exchange, the oilmen paid off senior government officials, bribed newspaper publishers, and covered the GOP campaign debt. When news of the scandal finally emerged, the consequences were disastrous. Drawing on contemporary records newly made available to McCartney, The Teapot Dome Scandal reveals a shocking, revelatory picture of just how far-reaching the affair was, how high the stakes, and how powerful the conspirators–all told in a dazzling narrative style. |
| most corrupt politicians in history: The Cold War's Last Battlefield Edward A. Lynch, 2011-12-01 Central America was the final place where U.S. and Soviet proxy forces faced off against one another in armed conflict. In The Cold Wars Last Battlefield, Edward A. Lynch blends his own first-hand experiences as a member of the Reagan Central America policy team with interviews of policy makers and exhaustive study of primary source materials, including once-secret government documents, in order to recount these largely forgotten events and how they fit within Reagans broader foreign policy goals. Lynchs compelling narrative reveals a president who was willing to risk both influence and image to aggressively confront Soviet expansion in the region. He also demonstrates how the internal debates between competing sides of the Reagan administration were really an argument about the basic thrust of U.S. foreign policy, and that they anticipated, to a remarkable degree, policy discussions following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. |
World's Most Corrupt Leaders - Infoplease
27 Jul 2023 · The Top Ten: World's Ten Most Corrupt Leaders. Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about. Embezzlement, extortion, and bribery are all tricks of the trade for a corrupt leader, including these amoral persons who dived into even darker political arts.
Who truly was the most dishonest president? - BBC News
7 Mar 2021 · Former President Donald Trump was often accused of having a complete disregard for the truth. Yet some of his predecessors' falsehoods ranged from the bizarre to the horrifying. So how does Trump...
List of political scandals in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia
This is a list of political scandals in the United Kingdom in chronological order. Scandals implicating political figures or governments of the UK, often reported in the mass media, have long had repercussions for their popularity.
Who truly was the most dishonest president? - BBC
Former President Donald Trump was often accused of having a complete disregard for the truth. Yet some of his predecessors' falsehoods ranged from the bizarre to the horrifying.
When power corrupts: 16 of the biggest political scandals of the …
16 May 2016 · In this 2016 election year, we look back at 16 of the biggest political scandals of the last half-century: The scandal that all other scandals are measured against (what isn’t a “-gate ...
Politicians Behaving Badly: 7 UK Scandals | Masterpiece | PBS
Discover true scandals that rocked modern UK politics, from attempted murder and feigned death to affairs with gangsters and more.
8 Very English Political Scandals - HISTORY
14 Dec 2018 · 1963: The Profumo Affair. John Profumo, the British secretary of state for war, was 46 in 1961 when he began an affair with 19-year-old model Christine Keeler. That year, Keeler also had an affair...
25 corruption scandals that shook the world - Transparency.org
5 Jul 2019 · These scandals involve politicians across political parties and from the highest reaches of government, staggering amounts of bribes and money laundering of epic proportions.
From our ancestors to modern leaders, all do it: the story of corruption
7 Sep 2018 · Corruption is as old as human history. The First Dynasty (3100–2700 BC) of ancient Egypt noted corruption in its judiciary. The practice also existed in ancient China.
Pandora Papers: Secret wealth and dealings of world leaders exposed - BBC
3 Oct 2021 · The Pandora Papers is a leak of almost 12 million documents and files exposing the secret wealth and dealings of world leaders, politicians and billionaires.
The Concept of Systematic Corruption in American History
cally corrupt governments to include a broad class of political economy organizations that limit economic entry to create rents that are then used to solidify the political systems. Such “natural states” appear to have been dominant for the last 5,000 years of human history, and continue to exist in most countries of the world today.
Voters’ ignorance means that many corrupt politicians get to stay
electoral penalty would double in size – enough to cost the large majority of corrupt politicians their reelection. However, even this miraculous across-the-board increase in voters’ political awareness would have limits. The most attentive voters in the US are also the most partisan. That is, those who know and understand the most about a
National Corruption Perception Survey TI Pakistan 2023
the most corrupt sector (30%), Tendering and Contracting was seen as the 2nd most corrupt (16%) and Judiciary 3rd most corrupt (13%). The provincial breakdown of the three most corrupt sectors reveals the following: In Sindh, Police has climbed to become the most corrupt sector (37%), Tendering and Contracting was seen as the 2nd most corrupt ...
WHY THE WICKED SLEEP: THE PROSECUTION OF …
ing politicians in the country. And yet corrupt politicians are rarely prosecuted. This is because Japan's prosecutors are barred from using the most important tools available in other democracies to prove official corruption - "sting" operations, wiretaps, , and plea bargains. We will not let the wicked sleep.
Exposing Corrupt Politicians - IZA Institute of Labor Economics
Consequently, one of the most powerful ways of monitoring politicians and preventing cor-ruption is to increase transparency by expanding the right to information disclosure (Sen 1999).2 With better information, voters can identify high quality politicians and hold corrupt politicians
Literature review - Police integrity and corruption - Justice …
cut and dried method of distinguishing corrupt from non-corrupt conduct. The conclusion from the most telling analyses of police conduct is that the matter of police corruption is fundamentally one of ethics. That is to say, there will be some generally serious forms of conduct that it is easy to agree should be seen as ‘corrupt’.
Corruption_in_Nigeria_DEC_2019.cdr
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Challenging Corrupt Politicians? Audits, Electoral Selection, and ...
We start our discussion with a simple fact: corrupt politicians routinely win elections. The reason—assuming fair elections—is quite basic: people do vote for corrupt politicians and corrupt politicians routinely win elections. Even when corrupt politicians are “punished” by voters through a loss of votes, they have often amassed such ...
The History of Policing in the United States - OneNation502
corrupt and flagrantly brutal. This should come as no surprise in that police were under the control of local politicians. The local political party ward leader in most cities appointed the police executive in charge of the ward leader’s neighborhood. The ward leader, also, most often was the neighborhood tavern owner, sometimes the neighborhood
Africans see growing corruption, poor government response, but …
Who is corrupt Among key public institutions, the police are most widely seen as corrupt; on average, almost half (47%) of Africans say “most” or “all” police officials are involved in corruption , in addition to 38% who see “some of them” as corrupt (see also Sanny & Logan, 2020).
Most Corrupt Politicians In Us History [PDF] - ad.fxsound.com
Most Corrupt Politicians In Us History: Dapper Dan Patrick Halley,2015-03-31 He was Charles Ponzi s attorney and bilked the world s most famous con man for nearly 300 000 He had a get out of jail arrangement with three District Attorneys whereby any case up to and including
Most Corrupt Politicians In History (Download Only)
Most Corrupt Politicians In History Peter Schweizer. Most Corrupt Politicians In History: Dapper Dan Patrick Halley,2015-03-31 He was Charles Ponzi s attorney and bilked the world s most famous con man for nearly 300 000 He had a get out of jail arrangement with three District Attorneys whereby any case up to and including
Bad Apples: Political Paralysis and the Quality of Politicians
This is our key insight: part of the value of being in o¢ ce lies in keeping corrupt politicians out of power, and this value increases with the fraction of corrupt types in the population of politicians. The composition of the political class therefore matters, and in countries where most politicians are corrupt we would expect this political ...
Why People Vote for Corrupt Politicians - The IGC
corrupt politicians are coethnics 30.9 they lack information 12.7 corrupt politicians threaten voters 12.3 corrupt politicians are copartisans 4.7 they are promised help with the bureaucracy 1.3 they are promised public goods 0.8 Although both the simple cross-national and Afghanistan-specific a nalyses suggest
The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why Followers Rarely Escape Their …
and Corrupt Politicians - and How We Can Survive Them, Jean Lipman-Blumen (New York: Oxford University Press), 2005. A curious paradox surrounds toxic leaders wherever they take the stage, from the executive suite to the religious pulpit. It is this: While most of us followers complain about toxic leaders, nonetheless, we almost always stay the ...
Corruption in the Philippines: Framework and Context
lated to the nature of the corrupt transaction itself such as distinctions based on the agents involved, scale, type of dea~ predictabz1ity, industrial organisation, etc., all of which affect, /or better or worse, the nature of the relationship between principal (as represented by the public interest) and the agent (politicians and bureaucrats).
CITIZENS’ VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES OF CORRUPTION
politicians as the most corrupt institutions, and EU residents are concerned about the cosy relationships between business and government. This can all change, however. A large majority of people know that they can make a difference in the movement against corruption. If they are supported by their governments and by EU bodies, which can now cut
CORRUPTION IN CITIES: GRAFT AND POLITICS IN …
For city history leading up to the period covered in this paper I recommend Teaford’s fine book, The Unheralded Triumph, 1984. 3 1.2 The City Economy The most powerful limit to urban corruption is the ability of wealth to leave the city. A corrupt government can only steal if the wealth both exists and cannot escape. Therefore the
CITIZENS’ VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES OF CORRUPTION
seen as the most corrupt Fourty-four per cent of people think most or all parliamentarians and government officials are corrupt. Bribery is a regular occurrence for many One in five cit izens who accessed public services, such as health care and education, paid a bribe in the previous year. In Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine,
GRAFT AND CORRUPTION: THE PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE
The history of the Philippine fight against corruption will be taken up in terms of law, anti-corruption constitutional bodies, and other ... “most” of these high officials are corrupt, and another 27 percent said “some” of them were, a total of 67 percent weighing in …
CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX 2023
hindered for the most vulnerable, and justice institutions may be captured by political, economic or special interest groups. In the most extreme cases, patronage and clientelist networks, many of which transcend national borders, can also use their influence to create impunity for themselves by manipulating legal processes, pushing for selective
Latin America’s Battle Against Corruption: A Path Forward - AS/COA
prosecutorial efforts. The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (fCPA) of 1977 also remains key in prosecuting corrupt behavior globally. III 4 3 2 1 “We have discovered the nexus between poverty, corruption, and the lack of opportunities for Guatemalans.” —Thelma Aldana attorney general of Guatemala “Today, the reality is that these ...
Corruption Spikes in Illinois - University of Illinois Chicago
22 Feb 2021 · began collecting the data in 1976, Chicago is the most corrupt federal judicial district in the nation, and that Illinois, on a per capita basis, is the third most corrupt state. Table 1 shows the rankings of the nation's top 15 judicial districts, including their major city, by the total number of public corruption convictions.
Corruption and Reform: Introduction - Scholars at Harvard
corrupt elements as similar, and at times equal, to those found in many of today’s modern ... If the United States was once more corrupt than it is today, then America’s history should offer lessons about how to reduce corruption. After all, the dominant political movement of the ... politicians. He analyzes one of the first episodes of ...
Corruption and Democracy in Mexico: An Empirical Analysis
In recent years, most international and national measures of corruption show an increase in both the perception of corruption and actual corruption in Mexico. The country’s international ranking has deteriorated dramatically, placing it at the bottom in …
Corruption and public services - Public Services International
The bigger problems concern the corrupt networks of senior officials, politicians, and domestic and foreign businesses. Government contracts and privatisations are at the heart of these systems. Policies which favour privatisation also create the conditions which are most favourable to …
Grand corruption scandals in the Philippines
opportunity for grand corruption. Such agreements encourage the formation of corrupt rent-seeking relationships involving the selling firm, brokers, politicians and top-level government executives. Closure of cases of grand corruption is a serious problem that involves an incoherent and politically vulnerable prosecutorial and justice system.
Account for the endurance of the Ned Kelly legend ... - History …
unfair rules must be enforced by corrupt authorities that force the hero to become an outlaw in a catalysing event. 1 Blair, Dale, ... Faculty of Arts, Victoria University of Technology, July 1998 2 Clark, Anna, “Politicians using History” Australian Journal of Politics and history: Volume 5, Number 1, 2010, pp119-130.
Corruption and the Military in Politics: Theory and Evidence from ...
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (Lord Acton); “Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.” (Ashleigh Brilliant). Although, corruption, i.e., ‘misuse of public power for private gain’ is disliked in its
allure of toxic leaders 02 - The Economist
• From King Henry VIII to Jeff Skilling, the history of politics and enterprise is fi lled with destructive leaders who harm their organizations. • While blaming amoral leaders for their ...
4. Corruption and democratic institutions: a review and synthesis
1. Holding politicians accountable for corrupt acts The most intuitive channel through which democracy might affect cor-ruption arises from the fact that elections enable voters to remove corrupt leaders from power. This is a specific application of the more general idea that democratic elections allow the citizenry both to ‘select good [repre-
A HOLISTIC APPRAISAL OF ELECTORAL FRAUD AND …
reengineering of Nigeria. The national malady where the most corrupt politicians usually emerge as the leaders of government on various modes has been a stumbling block in our collective march to nationhood. A clear solution to the above ills afflicting our society is the conduct of election free of rigging,
Unpopular Corruption and Popular Corrupt Politicians: A Survey ...
Unpopular Corruption and Popular Corrupt Politicians: A Survey Experiment on Electoral Support for Corrupt Candidates in the Philippines By Esther Mary L. Calvo (112863) Submitted to ... Most prominent among them are the following: the former president and now representative of Pampanga Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Imelda Marcos of Ilocos Norte ...
Exposing Corrupt Politicians
fluences the selection of good politicians both by exposing corrupt politicians and promoting good ones (Besley 2005). Our findings contribute to a growing literature that examines the effectiveness of anti-corruption programs. Di Tella and Schargrodsky (2003) study the impact of a corruption crack-down in the city of Buenos Aires.
CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX 2019
punish corrupt politicians. To end corruption and restore trust in politics, it is imperative to prevent opportunities for political corruption and ... corrupt and 100 is very clean. More than two-thirds of countries score below 50 on this year’s CPI, with an average score of just 43. Similar to previous years, the data shows that despite some
Women Politicians, Institutions, and Perceptions of Corruption
use one’s public positions for private gain effectively, politicians must be able to navigate political networks within institutions and must be willing to incur the risk of institutional sanction inherent in corrupt activities. Recent experi-mental research has …
Why Do Voters Support Corrupt Politicians? - research.cbs.dk
support) corrupt politicians if they offer patronage in return for votes. Electoral sanctioning of corrupt politicians can alsobe un-dermined if voters evaluate politicians on the basis of feelings of partisanship rather than performance in office. Indeed, partisan affiliations may create strong (dis)inclinations to
Read and study the sources about political machines, corruption, …
La Follette secured the anti-lobby law and drove from the capitol some of the most corrupt and notorious characters of the age. This law must be enforced. La Follette secured the anti-pass law and thus did away with the common and wholesale bribery of public officials. La Follette secured the corrupt practices acts designed to purify the caucuses
Exposing Corrupt Politicians - University of California, Berkeley
Consequently, one of the most powerful ways of monitoring politicians and preventing cor-ruption is to increase transparency by expanding the right to information disclosure (Sen 1999).2 With better information, voters can identify high quality politicians and hold corrupt politicians
Most Corrupt Politicians In Us History Copy - ad.fxsound.com
Most Corrupt Politicians In Us History: Dapper Dan Patrick Halley,2015-03-31 He was Charles Ponzi s attorney and bilked the world s most famous con man for nearly 300 000 He had a get out of jail arrangement with three District Attorneys whereby any case up to and including
Political corruption in Africa: Extraction and power preservation
Political Corruption is corrupt action by elected politicians and Administrative Corruption by employees of the public sector. Administrative Corruption can be curbed by means of legislation and punishments such as sanctions, but Political Corruption is far more difficult to combat as those in power would not be in favor of this process.
Prepared by Dr. Manikamma N. Sultanpur - HKE S
most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption in India is a consequence of the nexus between Bureaucracy, politics and criminals. C K Prahalad estimated that almost Rs. 2.5 lakh crore is earned by politicians over a 5 year term. Source: KPMG’s Bribery and Corruption Survey 2011 What should common people do? Common people
National Corruption Perception Survey TI Pakistan 2022
the most corrupt sector, Tendering and Contracting was seen as the 2nd most corrupt, while Judiciary 3rd most corrupt. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Judiciary remained the most corrupt sector, Tendering and Contracting was seen as the 2nd rdmost corrupt, while Police 3 most corrupt. In Balochistan, Tendering and Contracting remained the most ...
