Table Of ContentGOVERNMENT
ANTI-CORRUPTION
STRATEGIES
A Cross-Cultural Perspective
GOVERNMENT
ANTI-CORRUPTION
STRATEGIES
A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Edited by
Yahong Zhang • Cecilia Lavena
CRC Press
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Contents
Foreword .......................................................................................................vii
Editors ............................................................................................................ix
Contributors ...................................................................................................xi
Introduction: Corruption and Government Anti-Corruption Strategies .....xiii
 1  Anti-Corruption Actions: Nongovernmental and 
Intergovernmental Organizations ..........................................................1
BENJAMIN W. CRAMER
 2  Anti-Corruption Practices in India ......................................................23
MEENA NAIR
 3  The Whistleblowing Program as an Anti-Corruption Tool in China ....43
HUA XU, XUEJIAO ZHAO, QINGMING ZHANG, AND MINGLU XU
 4  Lessons from China: Fighting Corruption in 
the Construction Sector .....................................................................59
JIANGNAN ZHU AND YIPING WU
 5  Anti-Corruption Lessons from Nepal ..................................................77
  NARAYAN MANANDHAR
 6  Evolution of Anti-Corruption Strategies in South Korea ...................103
KILKON KO AND SUE YEON CHO
 7  Anti-Corruption Strategies in Singapore: Demystifying 
the Singapore Model ..........................................................................123
WENXUAN YU
 8  Fighting Corruption in Central and Eastern European Countries 
through Transparency: Regulatory and Institutional Challenges .........139
BOGDANA NEAMTU AND DACIAN C. DRAGOS
v
vi  ◾  Contents
 9  How a Resurgent Antigraft Bureau Helped Croatia Turn 
a Corner on Corruption......................................................................167
GABRIEL KURIS
10  Anti-Corruption Strategies in the Gulf Cooperation 
Council’s States: Lessons Learned and the Path Forward ..................187
MHAMED BIYGAUTANE
11  Combating Bribery of Foreign Officials: A Countercorruption 
Strategy in Developed Countries .......................................................215
CINDY DAVIDS
12  What Can We Learn from Worldwide Anti-Corruption Practices? .....247
YAHONG ZHANG
Index ...........................................................................................................261
Foreword
Delivering good public policy is difficult at the best of times. There are always 
disputes over appropriate aims and deliverables, budget constraints render d esirable 
programs unaffordable, and implementation processes are hugely challenged, espe-
cially as personnel skills, program management, and suitable use of technology 
determine how effectively things get done. But much of this pales into insignif-
icance when prevalent corruption distorts good public policy. Corruption costs 
 governments and businesses trillions of dollars every year; it adds substantially to 
the costs of goods and services, but most importantly it damages policy objectives 
and diminishes trust.
Research has documented examples of low-level officials who take a kickback 
to overlook a violation, certify something that is not right, make something happen 
quicker, or change a document to benefit a briber. We also know of cases where 
groups of officials work together to divert money from programs, run crooked pro-
curement processes, or improperly sell things that are not theirs and pocket the 
benefits. We know of corrupt organizations operating both domestically and inter-
nationally, which have thrived on fraud, bribery, improper allocation of contracts, 
political and market manipulation, unauthorized secondary employment, failure to 
declare conflicts of interest, and the cover-up of safety breaches.
While this book documents and analyzes corruption in nation-states, it is 
  important to remember that corruption occurs only if there are corrupt individu-
als, groups that conspire to undermine government programs, and organizations 
that lack integrity, wherein corruption is not only condoned but also a part of the 
fabric of organizational operation. In addition to all of these, there are occasions 
when kleptocratic leaders corruptly control the institutions of the state and use the 
treasury as their own personal bank account.
The impacts for policy are devastating. Corruption is prevalent all over. Corrupt 
public policy decisions of health services result in fatalities; people are denied 
access to clean water; illegal logging is prevalent in numerous developing countries; 
administration of justice is compromised; educational opportunities are denied; 
civil and military procurement are manipulated; roads are poorly constructed, often 
going nowhere important; responses to natural disasters are appallingly corrupt; 
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viii  ◾  Foreword
and regulatory behavior in the extractive industries is corrupt. Also, moving onto 
a  different domain, corruption impacts national security.
When corruption becomes the norm in a society, the consequences are severe. 
Apart from undermining citizens’ trust in government, it instills a general feeling 
that vulnerable people cannot get justice. Also, corruption compromises services, 
diminishes quality of life, retards human development, discourages investment, 
distorts natural resource development, and damages the environment. It deprives 
governments of sufficient tax revenue to do their job and leads to inefficient public 
administration.
Careful study of corruption is important to understand its dynamics and fur-
ther to develop strategies to deal with it, as corruption affects countries or sectors 
within countries. It is important to note that not all forms of corruption are the 
same. It occurs in different forms in poor and rich countries, in countries that have 
different types of natural resources, and in countries that have different economic 
platforms. Corruption covers a wide spectrum of behaviors that range from bribery 
and extortion, to misuse of information, to conflict of interest, and to nepotism 
and cronyism. It is important to understand and to classify the behaviors so that 
effective countermeasures that are relevant to the country and the situation can be 
put in place.
The architecture of corruption control ranges from international treaties such 
as the United Nations Convention against Corruption, to the building of integrity 
within government agencies, to the development of compliance measures in orga-
nizations and programs, and to the inculcation of moral and ethical behavior as 
the norm.
This book gives an excellent overview of the many faces of corruption in numer-
ous settings. It is written by scholars who are deeply familiar with the countries in 
which they have done their research, and the book provides great examples and 
offers solid insight into the different facets of corruption. All these materials can 
be used to form part of a classification of corruption types and activities, and the 
knowledge gained from this book can enhance public administration and deliver 
 
better quality government outputs, thus enhancing the quality of life for all and 
strengthening trust in the government.
Adam Graycar
Professor of Public Policy, RSSS
Director, Transnational Research Institute on Corruption
Australian National University Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
and Strategic Professor of Social and Policy Studies 
Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia
Editors
Dr. Yahong Zhang is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs and 
Administration, Rutgers University, Newark Campus, New Jersey. She is the direc-
tor of the Rutgers Institute on Anti-Corruption Studies, Newark, New Jersey. Her 
research interests include politics–administration relationships, government per-
formance analysis, government transparency, citizen participation, and human 
resources management in local government. Dr. Zhang is currently working on 
an anti-corruption research project that consists of two phases: data collection of 
 public corruption cases at the individual and organizational levels and empiri-
cal examination of systematic factors that lead to public corruption. Dr. Zhang 
has published articles in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Public 
Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, The American 
Review of Public Administration, and Public Performance and Management Review. 
Dr. Cecilia F. Lavena is an adjunct professor at the Department of Social Sciences, 
Universidad de San Andrés, Victoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is the direc-
tor of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at ADC (Association for Civil Rights, 
“ADC”), a Buenos Aires-based, independent non-partisan NGO working to guar-
antee respect for civil and human rights in Argentina and Latin America. Dr. Lavena 
worked on a project titled “Towards a Culture of Anti-Corruption Compliance in 
  Argentina: Reorienting Incentives through Collective Action” at the Center for 
Anti-corruption Studies at the Department of Law, Universidad de San Andrés, 
under the auspices of the Siemens Integrity Initiative. Dr. Lavena has published 
articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Public Integrity and American Review 
of Public Administration.
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