It is estimated that almost 100 trillion dollars will be needed for traditionally high-risk infrastructure projects by 2040 [i], including more than a trillion dollars in US infrastructure improvements[ii] and trillions of dollars a year to combat climate change.[iii]

The World Bank and other development organizations have expressed particular concern that the massive scale, urgency and importance of the Climate projects, many of which will involve critical infrastructure works, will create “unprecedented” risks” of loss and project failures, with potentially “existential” consequences.[iv]

Traditional controls, such as occasional, brief supervision missions, and ex post audits, will be wholly inadequate; greatly enhanced and innovative oversight procedures will be necessary, such as the digital Automated Fraud Detection and Prevention Programs described below.

THE ADVANTAGES OF AUTOMATED FRAUD DETECTION PROGRAMS

The Programs exploit the trend to digitized record keeping systems to offer major advantages over traditional “paper” control systems, including greatly enhanced transparency, efficiency and economy, and, most importantly, the unique ability to:

• • Detect and prevent potential wrongdoing ex ante, before fraudulent transactions are approved and losses incurred.[v]
  • Conduct continuous, real-time remote monitoring and supervision by independent oversight personnel, rather than having to rely on oversight by project officials who may themselves be involved in corruption.[vi]

EXAMPLE OF A DIGITAL AUTOMATED FRAUD DETECTION PROGRAM

All project participants – contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, inspectors, etc. – would submit relevant data on procurement, construction and payment transactions electronically from laptop or cell phone applications to a dedicated project website; this would permit the creation of a digital record of all relevant project transactions, even in “low IT” environments.

The website would be equipped with cloud-based software that would apply sophisticated rule-based algorithms and AI programs to instantly analyze the data as it is received to:

• • Identify indicators or “red flags” of fraud, corruption, waste and abuse

• • Match the indicators to the related scheme or schemes, including:

Collusive bidding (Cartel activity)

Bid rigging

Kickbacks

Conflicts of interest

Shell companies

Phantom vendors

Failure to meet contract specs

Product substitution

False, inflated and duplicate invoices

• • Look for other indicators of the suspect scheme(s)
  • Extend the analysis as necessary to reduce the risk of “false positives”
  • Score the results to reflect the level and certainty of risk
  • Immediately report the results to oversight personnel for appropriate follow up.

Most of the fraud tests could be standard rule-based algorithms, many based on proven forensic accounting tests; other, more sophisticated tests could be developed and tailored to the specific locations and circumstances. Most of the tests could be run on readily available project data, avoiding the delays and disruption caused by the need to access multiple, disparate databases as in many other fraud detection programs.

More advanced AI programs could be run to detect previously unknown or well-hidden indicators or reduce the risk of false positives.  For example, the Swiss Competition Authority used AI to examine voluminous prior tender data to identify previously unknown indicators and patterns of collusive bidding.

The digital data and AI analysis would be far quicker, more comprehensive and accurate than traditional document analysis, and could cover data sets of virtually unlimited size, rather than being limited to smaller sample sets.

EXAMPLES OF THE ADVANTAGES OF AUTOMATED PROGRAMS

As noted above, the digital Programs offer significant advantages over traditional “paper” anti-fraud controls, including most importantly:

1. 1. 1. The ability to provide ex-ante fraud detection and prevention

In the PROCUREMENT stage, the Programs could identify indicators of potential bid rigging and collusive bidding schemes (cartel activity), such as unusual bid patterns, instantly as bids are received, before they are evaluated and contracts awarded.

In the CONSTRUCTION stage, the Programs could detect and block the attempted use of substandard construction materials by, among other means, instantly matching the relevant supplier’s sales and delivery records to the contract specifications.  The detection of such abuses in traditional control systems typically would occur, if at all, in ex post audits, months or even years after the frauds were completed and the damages sustained.

In the PAYMENT stage, the Programs could block false and inflated payment applications by automatically matching the claims in the applications to the relevant time and labor records, supplier records and inspection reports.  Again, the detection of such misconduct in traditional systems typically would occur only long after the transactions were completed.

1. 1. 2. The ability to conduct continuous, real-time remote monitoring by independent oversight personnel

The Programs could alert donor or other oversight personnel, perhaps thousands of miles away, to potential fraud indicators, as described above, instantly as they arise, permitting them to immediately block or suspend the suspect transactions pending further inquiry.  Such independent oversight is critical in high-risk environments where most corruption and fraud losses are caused by local officials in charge of project implementation and supervision.

The increased transparency and prospect of detection provided by digital systems also should help deter attempted misconduct in the first place.

1. 1. 3. Immediate access to voluminous project files in ex-post audits and investigations

The algorithms also could be applied ex post in audits or investigations involving digital record keeping systems.  This would permit virtually immediate access to 100% of voluminous project files, yet another exercise that could take months or longer in traditional paper systems.[vii]

SEE A LIST OF SAMPLE AUTOMATED FRAUD REPORTS FOR AN INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT

Initially the oversight should be conducted by the donor or related government agency but ideally would be conducted by a new an entirely independent international facility, yet to be determined or established. [viii] This is important because donors and government agencies are often reluctant to acknowledge or address fraud and corruption in their operations because of institutional embarrassment and the fear of negative impact on funding.

OTHER POSSIBLE ANTI-FRAUD TECHNOLOGY THAT COULD BE EMPLOYED

Other automated and AI powered programs that could be applied include:

• • Comprehensive background checking programs to identify fictitious or unqualified suppliers and subcontractors or evidence of corrupt officials

• • Investigative steps and procedures, e.g., whistleblower reports could be automatically linked to relevant project data to quickly evaluate complaints and expedite follow up steps; AI could quickly and comprehensively identify and analyze relevant documents, etc.

• • Fraud prevention and anti-corruption programs, such as compliance with ISO 37001
  • Satellite-based analysis of construction defects in road projects in otherwise inaccessible areas

• • Hyperspectral analysis tools to verify that construction materials meet required quality standards
  • Drones and geospatial monitoring programs

ENDNOTES

[i] E.g., “Global infrastructure investment needs to reach USD97 trillion by 2040;” GitHub (World Bank); https://www.gihub.org/media/global-infrastructure-investment-need-to-reach-usd97-trillion-by 2040/#:~:text=The%20report%2C%20Global%20Infrastructure%20Outlook,Goals%20(SDGs)%20for%20universal%20household.

[ii]  $1.2 trillion US Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA); https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684; https://www.brookings.edu/articles/fighting-fraud-waste-and-abuse-the-infrastructure-bill-and-lessons-for-the-future

[iii] “[C}limate finance needs for developing countries and emerging markets are put at 1 trillion dollars per year and rising;”https://baselgovernance.org/blog/strengthen-alliances-counter-environmental-corruption-new-practitioners-forum-transparency;  Developed countries at COP 29 committed “$300 billion a year until 2035 to fight climate change, less than a quarter of the acknowledged $1.3 trillion needed annually to reduce emissions and build resilience in vulnerable countries;” https://www.voanews.com/a/nations-at-un-climate-talks-agree-on-300b-a-year-for-poor-countries-in-a-compromise-deal/7874947.html

[iv]  “The risk of corruption in climate change financing is significant because massive investments need to be deployed on public infrastructure, an economic activity that—as discussed below—has traditionally been plagued by large-scale bribery and theft” https://www.piie.com/publications/policy-briefs/corruption-risks-loom-large-over-financing-green-infrastructure.

“The largest recipients of climate-related overseas development assistance are notorious for having significant systemic corruption, i.e. India, Bangladesh and Indonesia; The top recipients of climate finance rank high in corruption and are scheduled to receive almost 42% of all climate related overseas development assistance” https://www.u4.no/publications/corruption-and-climate-finance.pdf

Largest “upscale” of infrastructure financing into “low governance” countries in history, equal to four times annual GDP; “extremely high risk” of fraud and corruption with potentially “existential” consequences.  https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2023/06/27/deep-dive-sessions-the-green-transition-and-anticorruption.

“The $1.2 trillion US IIJA is not immune from fraud concerns.  Despite the widely acknowledge fraud risks…IGs say inadequate attention paid to fraud: ‘the word fraud appeared only seven times in the 2000-page bill;’” https://www.brookings.edu/articles/fighting-fraud-waste-and-abuse-the-infrastructure-bill-and-lessons-for-the-future

[v] In addition to it’s obvious advantages, the World Bank has warned that ex ante fraud detection and prevention will be critical in climate projects because of the need for immediate remedial action, which does not permit the delays inherent in traditional ex post responses to fraud. https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2023/06/27/deep-dive-sessions-the-green-transition-and-anticorruption

[vi] Many international development agencies delegate almost all project supervision and reporting to local project officials and oversight agencies, often the same officials and agencies involved in corrupt practices.  Local inspectors and oversight officials also may be corrupt or pressured to ignore fraudulent and corrupt practices; even international civil engineering firms, serving as supervision consultants, may be removed if they fail to approve fraudulent works.

[vii] Section 5113 of the US Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) provides for $100 million in grants to expedite the digitization of construction records to obtain its “business benefits.”

[viii] See, for example, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC),  an independent group of U.S Inspectors General created to oversee and prevent fraud in COVID-19 spending.

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In September and October 2025, for example, Transparency International (TI), an international organization which publishes an annually updated index ranking the countries of the world according to perceptions of how corrupt they are, described youth-led anticorruption movements in widely dispersed countries, such as Georgia, Nepal, and Kenya. See TI, “The Week in Corruption,” 9/26/25 and 10/10/25. Describing the movements as “youth-led,” TI identified commonalities among the complaints of the protesters, such as:

• Entrenched corruption and lack of accountability
• Suppressing dissent and weakening democratic institutions
• Politically motivated investigations and prosecutions
• Impunity for corrupt actors

Other mass protests occurred in the Philippines, Indonesia, Tanzania, Morocco, India, and Mexico, and the United States. The Philippine protests (September 2025) were focused on alleged corruption in a flood control project; there were more protests in the Philippines at the end of November.

In Indonesia people took to the streets in August 2025 to protest government corruption, economic inequality, and police brutality. Youth-led anticorruption protests in Morocco (September-October 2025) contrasted questionable spending on sports stadiums with the deterioration of health care. Tanzanian protests (October 2025), in which there were deaths, resulted from perceptions that the incumbent president had persecuted opposition leaders and rigged an election to stay in power. Alleged election-rigging was also at the center of protests in the Indian state of Bihar (September 2025), while in Mexico (November 2025) there were protests directed against crime, corruption, impunity, and democratic backsliding. Finally, the October 2025 “No Kings” demonstrations drew many thousands of Americans into the streets to protest the perceived undermining of democratic norms and institutions; they occurred in the context of widespread perceptions that government corruption has increased in the United States.

Like anticorruption movements in Russia and Ukraine (the subject of previous commentary in this space) others around the world have begun as loosely organized expressions of popular disgust with regimes increasingly perceived as hopelessly corrupt and became—or may yet become–more lasting opposition political forces. There is a logical progression from demanding action against corruption to reforming political systems that are unresponsive to such demands. Indeed, widespread corruption is a symptom of an unhealthy political system, one that has weakened the role of law and other democratic norms and institutions forcing its people into the streets to make their voices heard.

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The Global Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Centre (GIACC) has published a suite of eleven online anti-corruption training Modules.

They are available in 45 languages, and are free of charge to take. 

Each Module requires between 15 to 30 minutes to complete.  A certificate of completion can be downloaded or printed at the end of each Module.   Each Module covers a specific topic, so users can choose whether to take one, some, or all Modules.

The Modules are of particular benefit for persons working in the infrastructure sector, who need to understand how corruption takes place, and how to avoid, deal with, prevent or investigate it.  They are applicable to persons working for small or large organisations, in both the public and private sectors, anywhere in the world. 

For further information, and to view and take the Modules, go to:  https://giaccentre.org/training-online-modules/

Anti-corruption Training for University Students

The Global Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Centre (GIACC) has published two resources which Universities can adapt and use to provide persons who are studying subjects relevant to the infrastructure sector with an overview of the different types of corruption, liability for corruption, the damage it causes, what can be done to prevent it, and what they should do to avoid it in their working life.

1.       GIACC’s University Seminar, “The Silent Killer: Corruption on Infrastructure Projects” requires approximately three hours of a student’s time (one hour in a teaching environment and two hours of reading).   For further information, see: https://giaccentre.org/university-seminar/

2.       GIACC’s University Course, “Preventing Corruption on Infrastructure Projects” is a more in-depth course than the seminar, and requires approximately 36 hours of a student’s time (12 hours in a teaching environment and 24 hours of reading).  For further information, see:  https://giaccentre.org/university-course/

The seminar and course materials are available free of charge to universities and colleges.

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Effective whistleblower systems are particularly important today; it is estimated that almost a 100 trillion dollars will be needed for traditionally high-risk infrastructure projects by 2040, trillions of dollars a year more to combat climate change, which the World Bank claims present “unprecedented” risks of fraud with potentially “existential consequences,” and still more trillions for critical aid programs in the developing world. Well managed whistleblower systems will be essential to successfully address these risks.

THE BASICS OF AN EFFECTIVE WHISTLEBLOWER SYSTEM

The system should be professionally managed internally or outsourced to a reputable provider. If internal, the system should be staffed by experienced personnel, ideally skilled in interviewing and knowledge of fraud, and supported by adequate resources – not just a telephone number in the HR department, answered from 9-5. These requirements are intended not just to successfully handle complaints when received but to encourage whistleblowers to file them in the first place – many whistleblowers will assess the professionalism and reliability of the systems in deciding whether or not to complain.

The “hotlines”- email, phone or in person access – should be widely publicized and promoted through notices on contractor’s and agency websites, clauses in bidding and contract documents, and “fraud awareness” presentations to contractors and agency staff. These presentations, which typically last about 2 hours, emphasize the organization’s commitment to integrity, describe some of the major fraud risks it faces, preventative measures, and explain how to report suspected wrongdoing through hotlines or other means.

The systems should permit anonymous complaints; otherwise, many honest people will not report, and important complaints will be lost. If the legitimacy of a report is questioned, it can be evaluated by linking it to red flags or other evidence of the alleged offense.  For example, if a whistleblower alleges that it lost a contract because a competitor paid a bribe, the investigator can test the allegations by looking for other indicators of corruption in the award, rather than just speculating on the accuracy of the report or motivation of the complainant.  This process can be automated in digital fraud detection systems.

In fact, in practice, red flags often are much more useful to evaluate complaints than they are as direct indicators or evidence of potential fraud or corruption.

THE IMPORTANCE OF “PROFESSIONALISM” IN HANDLING A WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT

It is well known that many if not most persons with knowledge of misconduct in an organization are reluctant to report for many reasons, most importantly the fear of retaliation and the expectation of futility, i.e., that no useful action will be taken or result achieved despite the risks taken by the whistleblower. 

Many of those who do report often retain the above concerns and may withdraw or limit their cooperation if they do not trust the system or the investigator assigned to follow up. Experience has shown that their trust depends primarily on their assessment of the investigator’s “professionalism” – defined as his or her competence, dedication and integrity.  The investigator might inadvertently lose this trust by an unreasonable delay in responding to the complaint, by a lack of preparation or even by unintentional signals of disinterest in the case or a lack of belief in the whistleblower’s claim.

This failure to “project professionalism” can have most unfortunate consequences, as illustrated by the following actual case example:

The Investigation Unit for a major development agency received a confidential report that an aide to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) was alleging that the CTO was accepting bribes in exchange for IT contracts.

The unit’s manager sent two junior investigators with accounting backgrounds to interview the aide. Neither were experienced interviewers and neither took any steps to prepare for the interview. They promptly returned and announced that the report was false, that the aide had no knowledge of corruption by the CTO.

The unit’s manager then sent two more experienced interviewers to reinterview the aide. They first did some research on IT contract awards which tended to support the allegations of corruption involving the CTO

The aide then confirmed, confidentially, that the CTO was taking bribes and provided evidence that led to his eventual dismissal.

The aide said that he did not disclose this to the first team of investigators because they appeared to be unprepared, inexperienced and disinterested, that he did not trust that they would protect his anonymity, or accomplish anything if he disclosed the evidence, at great risk to himself and his career.

In summary, it is most important for the investigator to remember that, just as he or she is evaluating the credibility of the whistleblower, the whistleblower is evaluating the trustworthiness of the investigator, and act accordingly.

See How to Respond to a Complaint in the Guide to Combating Corruption and Fraud for more information on how to handle a whistleblower, including useful questions to ask.

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It is easy to be lulled into the impression that all anticorruption campaigns are the same, but they are not; those in established or aspiring democracies differ fundamentally from the ones in autocracies. Here’s why.

Periodically, anyone scanning media headlines from around the world will come across stories about campaigns to stamp out corruption. Sometimes the anticorruption crusade is being waged by an existing democracy or subdivision of one, such as a U.S. state. At others, it is an aspiring democracy such as Ukraine, as described in a previous post.

Then there are the reports that an autocratic government—China’s or Russia’s, for example—has launched a campaign to suppress corruption within its borders. In China such campaigns have been virtually nonstop since Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012; in 2024 The Wall Street Journal reported that under Xi’s chairmanship the ruling Communist Party had punished roughly five million persons for corruption-related offenses and quoted Xi as saying that battling corruption “is the most thorough form of self-revolution.” [Chun Han Wong, “China’s Corruption Purge Paralyzes Party,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 2, 2024, A6] In Russia, where rampant corruption in the military as well as other sectors has long been tolerated, the war in Ukraine has sparked a sudden and aggressive crackdown. [See Robyn Dixon, “In wartime Russia, military corruption is suddenly taboo,” The Washington Post, June 11, 2024, A9.]

These campaigns should be viewed with skepticism. Anticorruption laws serve different purposes in democracies and autocracies; consequently, efforts to enforce them proceed from different motives and are intended to reinforce values that are fundamentally opposed to one another.

The Purpose of Anticorruption Laws in Democracies

Consider three examples of corruption, all based on actual cases:

All of these forms of corruption, and many others, can be found in places governed by autocracies as well as in established and aspiring democracies. The fundamental differences lie in (1) who anticorruption laws are designed to protect; and (2) what happens when evidence of corruption surfaces.

In a healthy, functioning democracy, laws against bribery, abuses of official power, and other forms of corruption are designed to protect society at large from corruption and the harm flowing from it. In the examples described above, there were multiple potential harms, some concrete and quantifiable, others less tangible, but nevertheless real: selection of contractors through corruption and financing bribes through substandard materials not only offends a society’s moral standards and inflates costs, it can also lead to human tragedies when an earthquake destroys shoddily constructed buildings; selling justice, as in the second example, violates one of the oldest standards known to civilizations; and corruptly allowing favored persons and interests to use public assets for private gain can undermine national security, among other harms. Implicit in  a democratic society is the rule of law, not rule by individual humans or elite combinations of them. In the social contract of a democracy, government officials are bound by the same rules that apply to ordinary citizens, meaning that even the highest of them are subject to being prosecuted for violations of anticorruption laws.  

Upon exposure of corrupt schemes like the ones summarized above, what should happen in a democracy approximates the following: first, an investigation by competent authorities whose loyalty is to the law and the entire community, not to one individual or political faction; second, the results of the investigation are reviewed by equally competent and independent public officers with the power to file charges if warranted by the facts applied to relevant law; third, trial by independent judicial officers committed to following the law and not the whims and dictates of ruling elites; and, finally, appellate and other institutions to safeguard the integrity of the proceedings and ensure adherence to law and due process.

The Purpose of Anticorruption Laws in Autocracies

In contrast, an autocracy’s anticorruption laws serve the interests of the ruling monarch, party, oligarchic elite, or Great Leader. The leaders of such societies are, in practice if not in theory, immune from being held accountable for their own corruption. Opponents of the regime, of course, are not, nor are selected scapegoats such as the Russian military officers meant to bear the blame for corruption that causes too many problems to be ignored. In the worst cases, autocratic anticorruption campaigns can mean the opposite of what the words suggest as if imitating the tyrannical government portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984; they are intended to protect the corruption of the ruling elite, while punishing even the best-intentioned efforts by anticorruption advocates to expose it. This is rule by law, not of it.

There are, to be sure, gradations of both autocracy and democracy and some nations are in transition from one to the other. In such places, the lines between competing systems can be muddled and, reflecting this, anticorruption campaigns can take an uneven course. To whatever extent autocracy prevails, however, certain rules apply: (1) the autocratic elite can break laws with impunity, including laws against unjust enrichment and other practices that in a democracy would be defined as corrupt and subject to civil and criminal penalties; (2) the autocrat can “license” others to break laws with impunity; and (3) the autocrat can punish dissent, including dissent that takes the form of calling for an end to the autocratic elite’s own corruption. Thus, genuine anticorruption activists can be punished by, among other things, being subjected to phony charges of corruption. The harassment and death of Alexei Navalny, Russian anticorruption activist and political opponent of the Putin regime (described in a previous post in this space) is a recent, egregious example of this perversion of anticorruption laws.

Licensed Corruption: The Organized Crime Model

The licensing model outlined above can be analogized to how organized criminal groups regulate illegal drug trafficking and other rackets. In the United States, for example, the criminal cartel known as Cosa Nostra developed a system to tame counterproductive struggles between and within crime “families” over control of rackets in specific regions, such as New York, Chicago, and Las Vegas. Overseeing the system was a nationwide “Commission,” which had representatives from around the country, but was dominated by the powerful New York families. The Commission arbitrated disputes about allocation of territories and other sources of conflict that had national implications, while the bosses of individual families regulated rackets and territories allocated to them. (In the New York-New Jersey area, mobsters were even enlisted to  enforce agreements among otherwise legitimate companies in the garbage industry.) Crime, of course, is not the issue for a criminal enterprise—that is taken for granted. The issue is who will be permitted to control it.

Similarly, in an autocracy like Russia, corruption per se is not the issue. How could it be when the leaders may have acquired vast personal wealth by looting the country’s resources? The issue is which others will be granted licenses to steal and thereby become satellite members of the ruling elite. Unlicensed corruption, however, is akin to poaching on a feudal lord’s hunting grounds and will be punished accordingly as an affront to the powers and prerogatives of the autocrat. Wealth gained through licensed corruption helps autocrats secure and maintain political control, which in turn enables them to acquire still more wealth in a lucrative cycle for them, but a destructive one for the societies they dominate.

Summary

In summary, the meaningfulness of an anticorruption campaign is inseparable from whether societies supposedly fighting corruption observe the rule of law and have healthy democratic institutions capable of enforcing laws effectively and fairly. In autocracies, anticorruption laws are apt to be turned upside down and used to uphold the rule of corrupt autocrats and to punish their opponents, sometimes by making criticism of the regime’s own corruption a crime. Investigators and prosecutors will not evaluate cases solely on the basis of their legal and factual merits, but will be sensitive to the preferences of autocratic rulers; and the judicial system will also be staffed and structured to serve the autocratic regime, not the public. These characteristics in their embryonic form can also be used to detect a drift toward autocracy in a society claiming to be a democracy.

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Pressure to do more about climate change is everywhere, but while debates on the subject are frequent and often contentious, they seldom focus on the threat that corruption poses to preventing and mitigating climate-related disasters. A recent project by the United Nations and the World Bank can help draw attention to this problem.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Bank have prepared a draft report intended to inform “anticorruption and climate change policymakers and practitioners about existing corruption risks and further areas for research.” (UNODC website post, “The corruption climate: how corruption stands in the way of the response to climate change,” June 18, 2024) The report, Addressing Corruption Risks to Safeguard the Response to Climate Change, Discussion Draft II, is scheduled to be published in final form in November 2024.

As observed in the draft report (p.4), climate change-related corruption “is a broad subject area,” affecting “a wide range of activities in the extractive industries and in the spheres of environmental and biodiversity protection,” among other areas. As the UNODC’s June 18 post summarizes, corruption can “distort decision-making and the implementation of key policies. Large financial flows, such as those in renewable energy projects, climate mitigation funds or responses to climate emergencies, among other factors, make this sector extremely lucrative for exploitation:”

While the subject area is vast, this discussion will focus on two aspects of climate change-related corruption: the role of fraud in construction projects and the importance of the rule of law and supporting institutions in undergirding the fight against corruption.

Fraud-Enabled Corruption in Construction Projects

Converting the world’s energy production to green fuels and methods requires construction projects—lots of them costing, in the aggregate, fantastic amounts of money. See Deloitte Report, “Financing the Green Energy Transition: A US $50 Trillion Catch,” (November 2023). The great majority of this construction work will need to occur in developing economies widely perceived as too risky to attract sufficient private capital. Thus, financing green energy and infrastructure projects will require large contributions by governments, charitable NGOs, and international organizations such as the UN and World Bank. Persuading such funders to spend on the scale needed to meet climate goals is hard enough when everyone believes that substantially all of the money allocated for the projects will be spent as intended; it will be impossible if the perception takes hold that large chunks of the funds will be diverted to the pockets of corrupt government officials, criminal cartels, favored private contractors, and other bad actors.

To reduce corruption-related risks to acceptable levels, it will be necessary to incorporate anticorruption measures into the design of each project, both at the procurement and implementation stages, which in turn requires adequate oversight, compliance, investigative, and enforcement structures.

 As described elsewhere on this website, IACRC can support anticorruption efforts aimed specifically at construction projects. While proving bribe transactions directly can be as difficult in construction contexts as in others, corrupt construction projects are invariably accompanied by predictable kinds of fraud. Experts in the field can help detect and prove these frauds, which provides an alternative way to deal with the corruption underlying them.

Governance, Transparency, and the Rule of Law

The UN-World Bank draft report notes that many of the developing countries where resources must be directed in response to climate change have corruption risks associated with “governance challenges:”

Of course, corruption-friendly “governance challenges” are not confined to developing economies in relatively poor parts of the world. The draft report calls for “decision-making processes around climate change to promote the active participation of relevant public institutions, private actors, civil society organizations, and academic experts, to ensure proper representation of the interests of affected parties in policymaking:”

Later (p.10) the draft report calls for supporting “the involvement of civil society, including the protection of investigative journalists in the oversight of climate funds.”

While democracies are hardly immune to corrupt influences, many of the factors identified in the draft report are inevitable characteristics of autocracies. Governments that are ruled by autocratic elites—whether they take the form of communist or fascist dictatorships, oligarchies, charismatic “Great Leaders,” or theocracies—do not by their nature subordinate themselves to the rule of law, hold themselves accountable, or promote transparency. They are much more likely to jail independent journalists than protect them; the same goes for anticorruption activists and political dissidents. Recent well-publicized cases in Russia offer examples of this tendency and illustrate a difference between democratic and autocratic “anticorruption” campaigns. Such campaigns in autocracies are typically directed against the regime’s enemies or former allies who have fallen from favor. Thus, the genuineness of efforts to reduce corruption is inextricably linked to the character of a country’s political system.

By raising awareness of corruption’s threat to climate change responses, the UN-World Bank joint project has helped fill a vacuum. As important and influential as these two institutions are, however, their reach is limited—not least because a great many of their constituent members are autocracies which cannot be relied upon to implement the draft report’s calls for action. Other international organizations, public and private, nations, and coalitions will have to do their part to remove corruption’s threat to protecting the world from destructive climate change.

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Earlier posts in this space have discussed how corruption can harm societies beyond the obvious waste and inefficiency that occurs when scarce resources are diverted into the pockets of corrupt actors; and how corruption works differently in democracies and autocracies.  Recent media accounts of corruption-related developments in Ukraine, China, and India illustrate some of these differences. This discussion will focus on Ukraine, an aspiring democracy with a legacy of corruption and oligarchy closely tied to its historic domination by Russia. It will highlight Ukraine’s efforts to convince Western allies that its anticorruption efforts are genuine while at the same time fighting a war for its survival.

A recent article by David L. Stern and Michael Birnbaum discusses the conundrum Ukraine faces because of its longstanding reputation for corruption: “Ukraine claims to be winning its war on corruption. The West says: Do more.” Washington Post, June 20, 2024. While recognizing Ukraine’s anticorruption efforts, the authors report, U.S. and Western European officials are telling their Ukrainian counterparts that they must do more because the ongoing perception of corruption imperils the economic and military assistance Ukraine needs to survive Russia’s war against it. To underscore this point, the article notes that a group of congressional Republicans obstructed U.S. aid to Ukraine in part because of claimed concerns about corruption. The delay they caused allowed Russian forces to advance. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken summarized Ukraine’s challenge: “Winning on the battlefield will prevent Ukraine from becoming part of Russia. Winning the war against corruption will keep Ukraine from becoming like Russia.”

A later report concerning the July 2024 NATO meeting in Washington (Missy Ryan, Michael Birnbaum, Emily Rauhala, and Ellen Nakashima, “NATO vows lasting support for Ukraine but won’t promise membership,” Washington Post, July 9, 2024) confirmed Western pressure on Ukraine to do more to fight corruption.

Ukrainian officials insist that they are fighting corruption and doing so effectively. The foreign minister, as quoted in the Stern-Birnbaum article, contrasted “perception of the level of corruption” with the “facts about the level of corruption.” High-profile arrests and dismissals that contribute to the perception of corruption, Ukrainians argue, should instead be viewed as just the opposite. As a Ukrainian prosecutor put it, if the number of corruption cases doubles, it does not mean there is twice as much corruption. “On the contrary: It means that we’re twice as effective as before.”

The prosecutor’s comment touches upon a problem that has bedeviled anticorruption initiatives around the world: how to implement prevention, detection, and enforcement mechanisms that are both effective and perceived to be so, especially when prosecuting corruption cases can increase, rather than diminish, a preexisting reputation for corruption.

One aspect of the problem is the disconnect between the metrics for measuring perception on the one hand and commitment to fighting corruption on the other. Transparency International’s (TI’s) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) provides a long-established metric that ranks 180 countries according to how outsiders perceive their levels of corruption. These days, however, even the most corrupt countries are likely to have made public statements proclaiming their commitment to fighting corruption and there is no comparable metric for ranking countries’ anticorruption efforts. How, then, can we distinguish genuine and effective commitments to fight corruption from those that are fraudulent or, at best, half-hearted window dressing?

While there is no easy formula, the following are key issues for evaluating the credibility of any jurisdiction’s claim to be committed to fighting corruption.

1. Political Support

No anticorruption program is sustainable without political support, which in a democracy means that both the citizenry and relevant government agencies must be on board. In Ukraine’s case, popular support for vigorous anticorruption efforts has been evident since at least the 2014 “Mardan Revolution,” during which hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians took part in public demonstrations against rampant corruption under the Russian-influenced presidency of Viktor Yanukovych. The current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, ran for office pledging to fight corruption; as noted, his administration has taken steps in that direction although the U.S. and other allies are urging him to do more.

The absence of large-scale demonstrations such as occurred in Ukraine does not necessarily mean that citizens do not support anticorruption initiatives. There can be many reasons why citizens appear to accept corruption: fear of reprisal from powerful interests benefitting from the corruption; widespread belief among the populace that they are powerless to do anything about it; propaganda and disinformation, to name a few. In such cases, it is important to avoid buying into a common rationalization for tolerating corruption: it is just part of the “culture” of certain benighted countries, regions, and ethnic groups. Few people anywhere—and certainly not those at the economic margins—enjoying forking over a percentage of their meager wealth to gangsters or corrupt government officials; if they do so, it is because they believe they have no choice.

2. Rule of Law

Without strong legal standards, traditions, and the independent institutions needed to apply them to corruption cases, anticorruption enforcement can degenerate into a convenient way to punish political enemies. Thus, a key test is the extent to which a country holds friends and allies of ruling elites accountable. The rule of law includes an appropriate degree of independence for judicial and law enforcement agencies; adequate laws and regulations defining corrupt practices; and workable rules of evidence and procedure.

3. Responsible Media

The media play an important role in exposing corruption and supporting reasonable efforts to combat it. To do this, there must be a degree of independence and responsibility; the media cannot be either subservient to autocratic or corrupt governments or irresponsible purveyors of misinformation. Independent journalists have uncovered many corruption schemes.  As important as exposing corruption is, however, it is equally important to disprove false allegations and to avoid giving unwarranted publicity to disinformation. One of the most sensational corruption allegations against Ukrainian officials reported in the Stern-Birnbaum article—that Zelensky had used foreign money to buy two yachts–proved to be false and was traced to Russian disinformation sources.

4. Competence

Those responsible for preventing corruption, detecting violations, and enforcing relevant legal standards must have adequate resources, training, and commitment if they are to be effective. Building and institutionalizing such competence depends in large part on the level of political support anticorruption initiatives and agencies have in each country. With such support, equipping and training those engaged in anticorruption activities is a doable project. (IACRC, as described elsewhere in this website, can help in this area.) Training and equipment will be insufficient, however, if those in both leadership and support roles in the fight against corruption do not share a sense of mission guided by an appropriate moral compass.

5. Historical Trends

Any fair evaluation of a nation’s—or other jurisdiction’s—anticorruption efforts must take into consideration the obstacles faced because of historical or other circumstances. Ukraine, for example, is trying to overcome a long history of Russian domination even as it is fighting to prevent Russia from regaining its former control of the country. Implementing a strong anticorruption program in these circumstances would challenge any nation. Thus, the proper inquiry is whether the nation is moving in the right direction notwithstanding a lingering perception that it is corrupt.

***

In summary, democracies and aspiring democracies can fight corruption effectively in a variety of ways suitable to their individual situations provided certain basic conditions are present or in development. The next post in this series will examine recent reports from the much different world of anticorruption initiatives by autocratic governments.

The post Evaluating Anticorruption Efforts by an Aspiring Democracy: The Ongoing Saga of Ukraine appeared first on IACRC.

As noted in this section’s commentary on the Russia-Ukraine war, Alexei Navalny headed a Russian organization dedicated to exposing corruption among the country’s top leaders, including Vladimir Putin.

Navalny’s recent death under suspicious circumstances highlights the risks of fighting high level corruption and the close relationship between democratic institutions and effective anticorruption efforts.  

On February 16, 2024, Russian prison authorities announced Navalny’s sudden death at the remote Arctic prison colony where he had been sent by Putin’s government. Navalny’s untimely demise at age 47 was widely seen as the murder of Putin’s leading political opponent, a perception lent credence by a previous botched attempt by Russian agents to poison him.

Navalny has rightfully been hailed as a champion of democracy who sacrificed himself to keep the hope of free government alive in a society steadily becoming more autocratic, repressive, and dangerous for critics of Putin’s regime. His extraordinary courage—he returned to Russia voluntarily to lead the political opposition knowing that he would be imprisoned and after Putin’s agents had already tried to kill him—will no doubt be a lasting inspiration to pro-democracy forces around the world.

While Navalny is a hero of democracy, he should also be remembered as a corruption fighter; indeed, exposing the massive corruption of Putin and his cronies was at the heart of Navalny’s political movement and brought upon him the wrath of Russian authorities. The Putin regime’s brutal and ultimately lethal harassment of Navalny highlights the close relationship between fighting corruption and maintaining strong democratic institutions.

Corruption and autocracy feed upon each other—both thrive in the absence of legal and political accountability. Autocrats exempt themselves and their allies from anticorruption laws, using them instead to punish dissidents, as Putin’s Russia did to Navalny. By exposing the Russian people to the corruption of their autocratic rulers, Navalny challenged them to do something about it—but that can only happen if the rule of law and restraints on government power are established through democratic reforms. Russians who respond to this challenge run serious risks; nevertheless, many are doing so as evidenced by the thousands who braved intimidation and intense government surveillance to pay their respects to Navalny on the day of his funeral. Meanwhile, the anticorruption work Navalny started continues from outside Russia through the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) [www.ACF.international.com].

Citizens of still-stable democracies, who face far fewer risks when they blow the whistle on corruption or agitate for basic freedoms, can draw two important lessons from Navalny’s example: first, the sacrifices needed to keep an existing democracy reasonably healthy are minimal compared to what will be required to reclaim it from a corrupt autocracy; and, second, the work of preserving democracy and fighting corruption cannot be left to heroes like Navalny—a broad majority of ordinary citizens must want it to happen and support necessary institutions and policies.

Democracy, of course, does not by itself preclude corruption. Anticorruption laws can be inadequate, the will to enforce them subject to shifting political winds, and the institutions responsible for investigating and prosecuting corruption inadequately staffed and resourced. Within a democratic system, however, flaws like these can be publicized and corrected. As Navalny’s fate illustrates, once democratic processes have been surrendered to the whims of an autocrat, anticorruption becomes a cruel joke.

The post The Risk of Exposing Corruption: Alexei Navalny’s Death appeared first on IACRC.

On October 7, 2023, the military arm of Hamas—an extremist Islamist organization that has ruled Gaza since 2007—conducted a raid into Israel during which it killed or kidnapped some 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians. Israel responded with a sustained aerial bombardment followed by a land invasion with the avowed objective of crushing Hamas’s military capabilities and ending its political control of Gaza.

This conflict, like the one between Ukraine and Russia, offers an instructive example of how corruption can exert malign influences affecting war and national security.

Background

The Israel-Hamas war is the latest in a very long series of conflicts between Arabs and Jews in the region between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River historically known as Palestine, which encompasses the nation of Israel plus lands wholly or partially controlled by the Palestine Authority (PA) and Hamas.

The complex history underlying these conflicts includes recurrent wars and other dramatic events that tend to obscure how corruption (1) influenced the events and conditions leading up to the current fighting; and (2) could thwart efforts to recover from it.

As is typical of violent conflicts, Palestinian and Israeli civilians caught up in the machinations of their leaders have endured a disproportionate share of the suffering. These civilians are more diverse than the labels frequently attached to them might suggest. Israeli citizens include persons of various ethnicities, backgrounds, and religious affiliations—Arabs, Christians, and Muslims, for example—and even among the Jews there are sharp divisions reflecting religious, political, and philosophical differences. Palestinian civilians are also a diverse group. They include Christians of different ethnicities and denominations, Muslims of the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, and persons who, whatever their religious affiliation, have a secular view of politics. Given such diversity in the affected populations, it is especially tragic that governing bodies in both Israel and Palestine came to be dominated by religious fanatics with incompatible visions for the future.

These contrasting visions have been much in evidence since December 2022, when Benjamin Netanyahu—a longtime conservative political figure in Israeli and the country’s off-and-on prime minister since the 1990s—formed a governing coalition with right-wing extremists sharing a religiously-inspired vision that the Jewish nation should encompass all of Palestine. (In an ironic twist, Netanyahu turned to his most extreme coalition partners after centrist partners boycotted the coalition over the pending corruption charges against him. See Shira Rubin, “The secretive Israeli think tank behind Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul,” Washington Post, March 25, 2023, A8.) On the Palestinian side, Hamas had for many years made clear its goal to establish a Muslim state controlling the same territory. Thus, with the Netanyahu coalition’s ascent to power, both Israelis and Palestinians had radical political leaders who believed that God wanted them to rule the entire land.

For simplicity, the following discussion will focus on corruption’s effect on the main contending parties: Israel, Hamas, and the PA.

Israel

As a democracy with established institutions and traditions based on the rule of law, Israel theoretically is in a good position to deal with corruption within its own borders. Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2022 awarded Israel a score of 63 out of 100 (with 0 being the most and 100 the least corrupt), ranking it 31 of 180 nations covered by the CPI. This compares favorably with the average score of 43 and puts Israel far ahead of most Arab neighbors. A 2019 indictment of Netanyahu on corruption charges would appear to demonstrate Israel’s commitment to enforcing its anticorruption laws even against persons of power and influence.

Netanyahu, however, remained influential despite the charges against him. His trial, which began in 2020, was delayed by Covid and other reasons and was unfinished in December 2022 when, as noted, he formed a ruling coalition by aligning himself with right-wing extremists. (The trial resumed in December 2023.) With extremist support, Netanyahu began a campaign to curb the power of Israel’s judiciary. Opposition to this maneuver was intense: hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to oppose it, a great many of them members of the military, raising the concern that the controversy would interfere with Israel’s national security. In addition to the more general concern that Netanyahu’s proposal would remove a key check on the power of an increasingly radical government, there was the specific perception among many Israelis and foreign observers that Netanyahu was attempting to shield himself from the still-pending corruption charges. (See, e.g., Norman Eisen, Mandi Patel, and Kai Smith, “The corruption and autocracy nexus: The case of ‘King Bibi,’” Brookings Institute, Order from Chaos series, April 10, 2023; Tia Goldenberg, “What is the latest on Netanyahu’s corruption trial?” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2023.)

Palestinian Authority

The PA evolved from the 1993 Oslo Accords in which Israel agreed with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the most prominent Palestinian political organization at the time, to create a self-governing authority for Palestinians living in Gaza and portions of the West Bank. From its earliest days, however, the PA has been weakened by the widespread perception—among Palestinians themselves as well as outsiders—that it is hopelessly corrupt. (See, e.g., Tariq Dana, “Corruption in Palestine: A Self-Enforcing System,” al Shabaka, Aug. 18, 2015) This perception, which has much evidence to support it, has undermined the PA’s ability to deliver effective leadership to people badly in need of it. The taint of corruption also undermined the PA in its rivalry with Hamas for leadership of the Palestinians.

After Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, the PA became the temporary governing authority there pending elections in 2006, which it lost to Hamas. In 2007 Hamas ousted the PA to become Gaza’s autocratic governing body. Gaza has not had an election since then. The PA, in the meantime, has shared governance of Palestinian areas in the West Bank according to a shaky arrangement with Israel, but Hamas also has influence in those areas. Like Hamas in Gaza, the PA has not held recent elections in the areas it governs.

The dynamic that can be seen in Hamas’s encroachment on what was once PA’s dominant position as leader of the Palestinians is a familiar one with many ancient and recent antecedents: (1) a political movement or governing regime becomes—or is seen to be—corrupt and decadent; (2) an insurgent movement viewed as more “pure” in its incorruptibility and uncompromising pursuit of popular goals forces the old regime out of power; and (3) the new, militant regime dismantles legal, institutional, and political restraints on its own power and rules by force. Corruption is not the only factor that contributes to this dynamic, but it can play a major role by discrediting governments and political movements, rendering them less effective in coping with issues of concern to their societies.

In the PA’s case, an additional factor contributes to the downward spiral: its perceived corruption has given Israeli governments a convenient excuse for lack of progress in finding a just and stable solution to its longstanding conflict with Palestinians. How can Israel be expected to negotiate such a solution, the argument goes, without a viable partner on the other side that is both accepted by Palestinians as their legitimate leader and prepared to recognize Israel’s right to exist?  

Hamas

While the PA’s corruption and overall ineffectiveness impose severe limitations on its ability to lead Palestinians in productive negotiations with Israel, Hamas is even more unsuitable for that role because of its avowed goal to destroy Israel and establish an Islamist government in its place. (See Ed Husain, “The Theology of Hamas,” Wall Street Journal, Nov. 10, 2023, A15) Any doubts about the seriousness of Hamas’s strategic goal–and the murderous tactics likely to be used in pursuing it—were put to rest in October 2023 along with any chance that Israel and Hamas could be partners in finding a stable peace. (See Nov. 7, 2023 Jake Tapper report on CNN quoting Hamas spokesmen, including vow to repeat October 7 attack and stating, with respect to the deaths of Gazan civilians, “we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”)

The PA’s corruption-plagued administration of the West Bank (and briefly in Gaza) no doubt helped Hamas gain influence among Palestinians, but substituting Hamas for the PA as the governing authority in Gaza did not end corruption in that quarter. If anything, corruption became more pervasive as resources intended for Gaza’s civilians were diverted to construct a massive network of tunnels designed to contain missiles and other weaponry, military command posts, and the facilities needed for an army to be unleashed against Israel. (See, e.g., “Corruption in Palestine,” cited above, regarding “massive profits” made by Hamas with lack of transparency in construction of tunnels.) This form of corruption hurt Gaza’s civilians in two ways: first, by diverting resources that could have improved their standard of living; second, by provoking a  response from Israel, which attempted to choke off the supply of armaments to Hamas by restricting movements of people and goods into and out of Gaza.

Gaza’s switch from one kind of corruption to another illustrates another longstanding historical pattern: autocratic regimes based on extremist religious, political, or ideological movements may derive popular support from the perception that at least they are more honest and freer from corruption, but once in power they are fully capable of corruption on at least as grand a scale as their predecessors. Systemic corruption need not result from greed for wealth and luxuries; the quest for political and military power can also furnish the corrupt motive. And, in the formulation commonly associated with the nineteenth century British politician Lord Acton, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”   

Summary

The history of conflict preceding the war between Israel and Hamas has many complexities that make it impossible to quantify the part played by any single factor, such as corruption among the political leaders of the major contestants. It is a safe bet, however, that the reality and perception of corruption contributed to the multiple failures of leadership that produced the current human and economic catastrophe.

Whatever corruption’s role was in the genesis of the war, recovering from it will require, among other things, billions of dollars in aid from outside Israel and Palestine, possibly along the lines of the American Marshall Plan that helped Europe recover from World War II. Raising money on such a scale will be greatly impeded, if not made impossible, by a credible threat that resources intended for humanitarian and reconstruction purposes will be drained away by corruption.

Finding a stable political solution will also require both sides to jettison extremists from their political leadership and recommit to democratic principles and the institutions needed to carry them out. A Palestinian journalist recognized the importance of democracy in a recent opinion piece: “The strategic aim should be the creation of an independent and democratic Palestinian state.” (Daoud Kuttab, “To end the war in Gaza, recognize Palestine,” Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2023, emphasis added). As IACRC has emphasized, there is a strong relationship between healthy democratic institutions and effective anticorruption measures, a view reflected in the above-cited Brookings Institution study, which found in the Netanyahu coalition’s attempt to weaken Israel’s judiciary “a vivid example of the connection between corruption and democratic backsliding.”

Ensuring that resources intended to rebuild the damage caused by war are not diverted and building humane democracies capable of negotiating a stable peace will require strong political leaders on both sides who are willing and able to mobilize the better angels of human nature. Such leaders are unlikely to come either from the ranks of those steeped in corruption or from religious extremists intent upon ruling the entire region between the river and the sea.  

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When Russian dictator Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, most observers expected the Ukrainians to fold quickly under the onslaught of a much larger country thought to have one of the world’s most powerful militaries. They did not. Early in the conflict, Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian drive toward its capital, Kiev, killing or wounding thousands of Russians; later in 2022, they reclaimed large chunks of territory in the eastern part of the country which the Russians had overrun in the war’s first phase.

These astonishing events were accompanied by media images of stalled, abandoned, and destroyed Russian tanks, trucks, and other equipment along with consistent reports of dysfunction and incompetence in its military leadership, morale problems among the troops, and frequent equipment, coordination, and communications breakdowns. Glaring conflicts between the propagandistic claims being made by Putin’s agents and what the outside world could see was happening on the ground in Ukraine aggravated the diplomatic and public relations setbacks Russia was experiencing because of its invasion. With the credibility of the conventional military degraded, desperate pro-Putin extremists began dropping dark hints that Russia might turn to nuclear weapons.

Why did Russia’s military perform so poorly in an invasion expected to be a cakewalk?
There were surely multiple causes, not least the determination and resourcefulness of Ukraine’s defenders, but Russia’s massive, longstanding corruption almost certainly contributed. Early in the war Bill Browder, once a leading foreign investor in Russia who became a prominent critic of Putin’s regime, highlighted corruption’s role in checking Russia’s advance. He estimated that 80 percent of the military budget was stolen “because 80% of all budgets in Russia are stolen by the officials in charge.” [“A Veteran Putin Foe Sizes up Ukraine,” Wall Street Journal, Mar.26-27, 2022, A13] More recently, a study by the Foreign Policy Research Institute found “endemic corruption” among the factors contributing to Russia’s subpar performance in Ukraine along with excessive centralization, failure to communicate accurate information, and historic factors including “an imperialist national identity. . .and societal brutality.” [fpri.org/article/2023/03/the-roots-of-russian-military-dysfunction]

The toxic combination of endemic corruption, a political system based on fear and brutality, and a propaganda machine that keeps the Russian public saturated with lies and false narratives can be a short-term strength for autocrats like Putin. It enables them to loot their country’s resources and pursue ill-advised military adventures without running the risks democratic leaders would under similar circumstances. Independent journalists, to the extent they are allowed to operate at all, can be severely punished or even killed if they expose the wrong kind of corruption—meaning that of the autocrats or their friends and allies. Political opponents can be killed or jailed and a false narrative about them concocted by the government’s propaganda machine.

Even less do autocrats fear investigation by officials bound to the rule of law, nor trial on corruption charges by an independent judiciary. Autocracies typically use anticorruption laws selectively to punish political enemies or anyone rash enough to expose their corruption. An instructive example is Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who in 2011 started an anticorruption foundation in Russia that exposed corruption among Putin’s supporters. In 2021 Navalny’s foundation released a documentary, “Putin’s Palace,” which targeted Putin’s own extravagant wealth. That same year, the Russian government dissolved Navalny’s anticorruption foundation; in 2022 it was re-launched outside Russia as the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), an international organization. [ ACF.international.com]

 Navalny was repeatedly harassed by Russian authorities, culminating in a botched assassination attempt that Navalny proved was carried out by Putin’s security agents. The documentary film “Navalny”—which won an Academy Award in 2023—recounts the process by which the attempted murder was linked to Russian agents as well as Navalny’s dramatic voluntary return to Russia, where he is serving a long prison sentence on charges that amount to opposing Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.

What corrupt autocratic governments cannot control through silencing critics are the real-world consequences of sending poorly trained, led, and equipped troops into battle. This happens when government officials and their cronies loot military budgets and disguise their corruption through fraud—such as pretending to furnish the troops with state-of-the-art weaponry while supplying them instead with substandard equipment that breaks down under the pressure of combat. Low morale is also a predictable consequence of endemic corruption. It is hard to instill loyalty among troops sent to war by a government widely perceived to be grounded in self-dealing by those in power. Few persons sent into battle will have benefitted from the corruption, but many will absorb the cynicism underlying it, no doubt accounting for much of the cruder looting that occurs by troops in the field. Small wonder that Russia must empty prisons to fill its ranks in Ukraine.

Because it greatly exceeds Ukraine in population and resources and is insulated from democratic pressures, Russia can keep its war going for a time even as the effects of corruption kill its soldiers in large numbers. Ukraine does not have that luxury. Corruption threatens Ukraine’s war effort—indeed, its survival as a nation–in ways that illustrate how differently it can affect democratic and autocratic societies.

As a fledgling democracy dependent on support from the United States and other democracies to keep its military in the field against the Russians, Ukraine must demonstrate a commitment to democratic and anticorruption principles. Demonstrating a sharp contrast with Putin’s regime is vital to Ukraine’s survival; it allows the Ukrainian struggle against Russian invaders to be viewed as protecting the interests of all democracies against the forces of barbarism and autocracy. The more Ukraine aspires to be accepted as a genuine democracy, however, the more pressure it comes under to show that it adheres to the rule of law—including holding corrupt actors to account even when they are political allies. [See, for example, the Washington Post’s lead editorial for June 15, 2023, entitled “First item in rebuilding Ukraine? Fighting Corruption.” See also, “With aid at stake, Ukraine clamps down on graft: Persistent corruption could threaten funding from wartime allies,” Washington Post, June 20, 2023, A1.]

What Ukraine has done to overcome its history of corruption is a topic for another day, as is corruption’s role in American congressional battles over aid to Ukraine. The next case study, however, will concern another prominent war: the conflict between Israel and Hamas that started in October 2023.

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