Highlight 23/2022 – Corruption at the National Level: the Ultimate Betrayal of Public Trust that Undermines Good Governance and Security
Béatrice Jotterand, 22 avril 2022
Corruption is widespread, present at any level of the State and society, in any sector. It takes various forms: giving or accepting bribes or inappropriate gifts, double-dealing, under-the-table transactions, manipulating elections, diverting funds, laundering money, and defrauding investors. Despite joint efforts from the public and private sectors to fight and prevent such dishonest behaviour, notably with the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, no single country can claim to be a corrupt « free zone ». Indeed, despite a first-place ranking in the Corruption Perception Index, Denmark, Finland, and New Zealand cannot boast of being countries where corruption does not exist[1].
When corruption invades the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, the entire State machinery is compromised: the conduct of public affairs, the management of public resources, the preservation of human rights and respect for the rule of law[2]. Moreover, corruption reaches its climax when it becomes systemic, through rules and norms facilitating corrupt activities[3]. Beyond a broken trust between the State and its citizens, corruption has widespread consequences, which are devastating when it is practised or endorsed by the State authority: the election of an illegitimate government through fraudulent elections, the misappropriation of funds intended for education or health, insufficient or never built infrastructure, are all the result of corrupted practices.
Such situation is observed, for example, in the Middle East and North Africa Region (MENA), where the average corruption score is 39/100 according to Transparency International. The region is thus perceived as highly corrupt. Furthermore, the countries’ score has been declining over the years because of a severe lack of capacity to prevent and sanction such misconduct. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the existence and consequences of corruption.
In such fragile contexts, the security sector is a potential tool to prevent the causes that inhibit the State from providing basic public services (for further information, see Fragility and SSR). Nevertheless, the security sector itself is not spared from corruption. Indeed, « corruption undermines the efficiency of security forces, damages populations’ conception of the legitimacy of central authorities and feeds a sense of disillusionment, which threatens the social contract, and ultimately the rule of law »[4]. By adopting concrete reforms to prevent corrupt conducts in the security sector, the latter can better play its protective role and thus avoid exacerbating conflicts that often occur in territories where corruption is commonplace. The Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF) actively works towards Security Sector Governance and Security Sector Reform (SSG-R) to create a safer environment. By fighting against corruption in the security sector, DCAF ensures good governance and contributes to making security a public good.
Béatrice Jotterand, Highlight 23/2022 – Corruption at the National Level: the Ultimate Betrayal of Public Trust that Undermines Good governance and Security, 22 April 2022, available at www.meig.ch
The views expressed in the MEIG Highlights are personal to the author and neither reflect the positions of the MEIG Programme nor those of the University of Geneva.
[1] Transparency International Defence & Security, Corruption Perceptions Index (2021), available at https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/dnk (last accessed 7 April 2022)
[2] United Nations Office of the High Commissioner, About Good Governance, available at https://www.ohchr.org/en/good-governance/about-good-governance (last accessed 7 April 2022)
[3] Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, Systemic Corruption, available at https://issat.dcaf.ch/fre/Apprendre/La-bibliotheque-des-ressources/RSS-Glossaire/Systemic-corruption (last accessed 7 April 2022)
[4] Transparency International Defence & Security, The Common Denominator: How Corruption in the Security Sector Fuels Insecurity in West Africa, available at https://ti-defence.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/SSR_in_WA_ENG_Policy_Paper_v1.2.pdf (last accessed 78 April 2022)