In 1996, World Bank president James Wolfensohn broke a longstanding
taboo on discussing corruption, bringing the issue to the top of the
international development agenda. Under his successor Paul Wolfowitz,
the Bank has become even more outspoken against corruption, and
even less hesitant to cut off borrowers seen as corrupt, raising concerns
that it may paralyse lending, or target countries arbitrarily. Debates
within the Bank’s governing body and increased vigilance by shareholder
governments are an encouraging sign that policies can no longer
win automatic approval under the label of anti-corruption. Debates
within the Bank may help to replace initial zeal with more fine-tuned
approaches, based on clear and consistent criteria. As a component of
these ongoing debates, the full range of perverse effects, hazards and
opportunities presented in this book could usefully be considered.
Setting debates about anti-corruption policy within the wider democratisation
agenda remains a priority, not withstanding the problems of
the latter. Genuine anti-corruption practice requires systemic global
change, which would deconstruct, in theory and in practice,
Western/Northern double standards embedded in old-style realpolitik,
and aspire to a consistent governance morality. While some donors do
endorse ‘democratisation’, the current thin definition is not a panacea
against corruption – especially if it simply means awareness campaigns
by Western-funded NGOs. There are also high levels of corruption in
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countries commonly considered to be democratic. But currently, the
anti-corruption campaign is chimerical in hiding these global inconsistencies
and Northern problems of democratic accountability, and has
thrived in the dissembled social fabric of post-communist and impoverished
African societies. In other words, for anti-corruption policy to
work, and for the global public to enjoy the fruits of their own energies
without seeing them disappear into the pockets of political and economic
criminal elites, there needs to be a return to the ideals of social
justice and elite accountability. There are no quick fixes in the current
anti-corruption package, but a set of inscribed meanings that further the
cultural, economic and political domination of the North. Corruption
can be better addressed within a morally consistent agenda of political
and economic solidarity