On Apr. 30, Hamilton hosted Professor Michael Johnston from the Anti-Corruption Academy for a talk entitled “Are We Making Progress against Global Corruption?” Tuesday’s talk, the first of a two-part lecture series, focused on the nature and definition of corruption and whether or not the world is making progress in combating it. Johnston, the Justice and Security Scholar-in-Residence, spoke for about an hour to an audience comprised of students and faculty.
He began by outlining his “First Principles” of corruption, saying that though all societies have corruption, corruption does not explain all that is bad about a society, nor does it negate all that is good. Further, no society has all the answers for reform, as corruption varies from country to country, and we must all learn from each other in order to end corruption. The theme that emerges from his principles, and from his overall talk, is that there is not one solution to corruption. Each country is a unique case study, with its own problems and history that will play into a strategy of defeating corruption in that respective country.
Johnston’s words were realistic, if not pessimistic. He spoke to the stagnant nature of anti-corruption efforts, saying, “The anti-corruption discussion seems frozen in time.” Here, he referenced a discussion he was part of in 1993, saying “you could’ve left the room 26 years ago and come back to the same talk.” This frustration is not unfounded, as he pointed to the rarity of real success stories in anti-corruption, such as in Hong Kong and Singapore. In those cases, though, the subjects were city-states. In his words, “What do you do about India, or Russia, or the United States?”
His answer lay in defining corruption, for that was where Johnston felt current efforts were coming up short. His definition would have us define corruption not as “a category of behavior,” but rather as “a systemic dilemma: that of setting limits around the acceptable sources, uses, and links between wealth and power.”
In simpler terms, corruption is not an action, it is an issue — a dilemma. In contrast, the “consensus model” of reform treats corruption as simply a one-dimensional action, with the only variation being the amount of corruption found in a certain country. In Johnston’s view, this model is problematic because it would have us force similar reform models on vastly different countries, his example being: “What’s best for Sweden may not be best for Botswana.”
The lesson behind his talk did not, unfortunately, come with a solution for corruption. One student even asked, “Do you see an end to corruption?” to which Johnston responded that corruption will likely never be completely eradicated; rather, it will be met through an endless series of individual battles.
Instead of a specific solution, Johnston offered a different avenue to achieve reform. He argued that a strong reform movement will come out of people seeing a “personal interest” in the movement brought about by a desire for “justice” as opposed to “civic virtue.” Essentially, it is the people’s duty to stand up to corruption, as the academics are clearly struggling.
