The main purpose of this essay is to examine the effect of budget transparency on petty and grand corruption. To highlight the differences between the two measurements of corruption, and their relationship with budget transparency, the study will also make a comparison to a broader measurement of corruption. The research question for this essay is: Does budget transparency affect grand and petty corruption differently? Regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between budget transparency and corruption. The regressions are based on cross-section data from close to a hundred countries from all regions of the world. It is widely recognised that corruption is a difficult concept to measure. However, the study does find some interesting results. The initial bivariate regressions indicate that budget transparency is associated with lower levels of both petty and grand corruption, these are however not statistically significant. When controlling for democracy the coefficient for budget transparency is statistically significant for grand corruption, but not for petty corruption. The results also indicate that budget transparency generally has a stronger negative effect on grand corruption compared to petty corruption.

This thesis explores the effects of "peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice" on innovation. These three factors are necessary to protect the property rights in every country, and protecting these rights is one of the fundamental chores for the institutions. However, in developing economies, lack of these institutions or non-functioning institutions can lead to corruption, crime, and tax corruption. The main objective of this thesis is how corruption, crime, and tax corruption are affecting small and medium-sized firms' innovation in developing economies. In order to explore this relationship and analyze the different aspects of it, quantitative econometric analysis is used. The empirical analysis is based on the data from the Enterprise Surveys by the World Bank group, which contains firm-level data regarding business environments from 139 countries. Furthermore, this thesis reports the effect of a variety of factors which influence innovation in developing countries. The results show that corruption and crime in emerging economies are facilitating innovation, while tax corruption is not significantly affecting innovation in small and medium-sized firms.

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Corruption has gained attention around the world as a prominent issue. This is because corruption has greatly affected several countries. Following the exploration of various definitions and types of corruption, this thesis focuses on two efforts to rein in “grand corruption”, also known as executive corruption. The thesis is informed by existing theories of corruption as well as anti-corruption agencies and then situates Peru’s experience with corruption in its theoretical context and its broader Latin American context. This work conducts a comparative analysis and follows a process-tracing approach to examine and evaluate Peru’s recent anti-corruption agencies and their effectiveness in holding politically powerful people to account. An analysis is made regarding the efforts of two presidents who claimed to be committed to battling corruption; however, each had different motivations and operated under different circumstances. These differences are showcased in the following influential pillars: institutional design, funding, and oversight within the National Anti-Corruption Commission (CNA) and the Superior Court of Justice Specialized in Organized Crime and Corruption (CSJ).

Corruption is an increasingly important factor in development. Despite a range of initiatives to address the issue, few anti-corruption initiatives to date have had a positive impact. Popular definitions of corruption are reductive, normative, and economics-based, and common ways of addressing corruption are also deficient. In addition, local contextual factors are often not taken into consideration in anti- corruption initiatives. The present study focuses on the most influential non- governmental organization in the anti-corruption industry, Transparency International (TI). The study is based on a social constructivist approach to knowledge and employs a combination of Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis and Philipp Mayring’s qualitative content analysis to a single TI initiative to answer the question Do Transparency International’s youth anti-corruption initiatives neglect local contextual factors? The study’s findings are inconclusive: Social actors’ agency is encouraged, but cultural norms are neglected.

The problem of corruption is an enduring problem in societies throughout time. In this study I examine Machiavelli and Ibn Khaldun's perspectives on corruption, a major theme in their writings. I show that corruption in their works is identified in relation to the polity. Both thinkers diverge from classical and ethical views of corruption, while also differing from modern approaches. I study how they define corruption, their understanding of the primary reasons leading to corruption, and their recommendations and treatments to address the problem. The underlying theme in their discussions is that corruption eats at the very fabric of a society, leading to the downfall of the political regime. Through a comparative lens, I not only analyze the distinct historical contexts in which they wrote, but also their distinct intellectual repertoires and rhetorical methods. By comparatively examining their insights, I aim to make their views relevant and insightful for contemporary discussions on corruption.

This literary analysis focuses on the correlation between foreign aid and corruption. The “Capabilities Approach” by Amartya Sen is used to discuss how to, and who is responsible for, developing an ethically justified aid policy. Arguments and ideas from five different sources have been analyzed. The primary sources are African Development by Todd Moss, Corruption and Development by Georg Cremer, Lord of Poverty by Graham Hancock, The White Man’s Burden by William Easterly, and Internationalisation of corruption by Daniela Herrmann and Clare Fletcher. This study analyzes three questions. Firstly, does foreign aid affect the level of corruption, and how? Secondly, how do you measure development and justice? Thirdly, who is considered accountable? The results show that there is a connection between aid and corruption and that the aid agencies together with the governments have the primary responsibility to improve the policy and reconstruct the organizations. The policy should focus on enhancing the quality of life of the individual.

published_or_final_version / Comparative Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Corruption as a concept is viewed differently by various disciplines, but there seems to be consensus that it relates to the misuse of public office for private gain. Studies in the social sciences, mainly political science, economics, sociology and law, have provided valuable insights into the subject, for example, its causes, manifestations and consequences. In a country such as Nigeria, corruption is said to have cost the country up to $20 trillion between 1960 and 2005, and it could cost up to 37% of its GDP by 2030 if the situation is not urgently addressed. The paradox, however, is that although all successive leaders of the country have consistently articulated their anti-corruption posture in national speeches, they get accused by their successors of not being tough on corruption both in word and in deed. Regrettably, there have been relatively few close textual analyses of presidential speeches carried out within analytical frameworks in linguistics that have the potential of revealing how presidents can simultaneously talk tough and soft on corruption, a contradiction that could well explain the putative anti-corruption posture of the country’s leaders and the ever deepening corruption in the land. It is against this backdrop that this study draws on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in order to examine language choices related to the theme of corruption in speeches made by Nigerian presidents from 1957 to 2015. The objectives of the study are to (1) provide an overview of how the discourse on corruption has evolved in Nigerian presidential speeches from 1957-2015; (2) determine specific facets of the construal of corruption from the dominant choices made from the system of transitivity (process, participants, circumstance) in speeches by different presidents and at different time points in their tenure in office; (3) analyse how the interpersonal metafunction of language is enacted in the speeches by the presidents through the system of appraisal for a strategy of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation; (4) interrogate from a critical discourse analysis standpoint the interest, ideological, partisan or other bases for the choices made in the speeches from the systems associated with the experiential and interpersonal metafunctions of language; and (5) to evaluate the different presidents in terms of how the above analyses position them in relation to combating corruption.

Perçue au départ comme un phénomène marginal, la corruption est apparue comme un phénomène endémique au point de fragiliser les fondements de la démocratie d'une part, et d'autre part d'engendrer des pertes économiques considérables pour la société. Face à ce fléau, certaines organisations internationales et européennes notamment l'Organisation de coopération et de développement économique (OCDE), l'Union européenne, le Conseil de l'Europe et l'Organisation des Nations unies se sont mobilisées en adoptant des conventions visant à lutter contre la corruption. Ce mouvement de lutte s'est poursuivi avec la participation de l'autorité judiciaire et de la société civile. Enfin, les États parties à ces conventions se sont joints également au mouvement en intégrant dans leur droit interne ces instruments de lutte contre la corruption. Intégration en droit interne, cependant, qui peut différer d'un État à un autre d'où une mobilisation variable. Malgré tout, le mécanisme de suivi sur la mise en œuvre des conventions anti-corruption, propres à certaines conventions de lutte contre la corruption, tente d'amoindrir cette variabilité. / Initially regarded as a marginal phenomenon, corruption appeared as an endemic phenomenon at the point to weaken the foundations of the democracy on the one hand, and to generate considerable economic losses to society on the other hand.Faced with this plague, some European and international organizations including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations organization were mobilized by adopting conventions to fight against corruption. This movement of fight has continued with the participation of the judicial authority and the civil society. Finally, States parties to these conventions also joined the movement by integrating into their domestic law these instruments of fight against corruption. Integration in internal law, however, which can differ from one state to another from where variable mobilization. Despite of everything, the mechanism of follow-up on the implementation of anti-corruption conventions, specific to certain conventions of fight against corruption tries to reduce this variability.