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Leicester academic discusses world corruption
When the EconomyWatch website were preparing their special report on corruption around the world, they called on the expertise of Dr Jon Moran from our Department of Politics and International Relations.
Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International has published a Corruption Perception Index, ranking the world’s most corrupt countries. Somalia comes top (or bottom, in a sense), followed by Myanmar and then Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The lack of basic security [in Iraq] after 2003 fuelled violent crime,” explains Dr Moran. “Basic services disappeared and everyone was forced to use contacts, and black markets and other desperate measures to simply get by.”
Discussing the situation in Afghanistan he points to the opium industry as a key factor in the country’s high corruption ranking: “Afghanistan has always been a major supplier of opium, but the war has created a surge in opium growth. Lack of security, corrupt local security, and the encouragement by the Taliban of opium-growing have all contributed.”
Dr Moran's new book Crime and Corruption in New Democracies: The Politics of (In)security will be published by Palgrave in August.
