This paper examines corruption in the United States government through the framework provided by Transparency International, which classifies corruption into political, petty, and grand categories. The paper explores the environmental, social, economic, and political costs of graft, then surveys several high-profile American scandals — including the 2013 IRS targeting controversy, the Hillary Clinton email affair, and Edward Snowden's surveillance revelations — to illustrate how grand and political corruption manifest in practice. Drawing on Chayes (2015) and Rose-Ackerman and Palifka (2016), the paper also examines the rational-choice motivations behind corrupt behavior and evaluates the adequacy of current anti-corruption strategies, including whistleblower protections and ethics oversight.
Transparency International (TI, 2018) defines corruption as "the abuse of entrusted power for private gain." TI points out that corruption can be grouped into three distinct categories: political, petty, and grand. This classification is founded on either the sector affected or the total amount of money unaccounted for. Contrary to the perception of many, corruption is not limited to countries considered to be poor — it also occurs in wealthy nations. As a matter of fact, within the last two decades, dozens of government officials have been found guilty of corrupt engagements including, but not limited to, obstruction of justice, violation of campaign finance laws, outright fraud, and conflict of interest.
Corruption comes at a huge cost to a nation. The relevance of studying its impact, causes, and nature cannot be overstated. Transparency International divides the cost of graft into four main categories: environmental, social, economic, and political (TI, 2018).
When environmental legislation and regulations are not implemented so as to protect against the wanton destruction of natural resources for private gain, "the entire ecological systems are ravaged" (TI, 2018). Graft also has a profoundly negative impact on the collective moral fabric of society. Over time, people develop high levels of distrust for the political class, to the extent that any genuine attempt to rein in the vice is taken with a pinch of salt.
The economy, however, is hardest hit by corruption. In the words of Transparency International, corrupt public officials and their cronies divert "public resources in projects that will line their pockets rather than benefit communities, and prioritize high-profile projects such as dams, power-plants, pipelines, and refineries over less spectacular but more urgent infrastructure projects such as schools, hospitals and roads" (TI, 2018). Lastly, when it comes to the political impact of corruption, it should be noted that corruption effectively obstructs the fair administration of justice and leads to the rampant misuse of public office.
In the past, various strategies have been proposed to rein in corruption. In most cases, however, strategies formulated in the fight against corruption fail to gain traction as a result of a poor ethics infrastructure (Powell, 2014). The Office of Government Ethics does not necessarily have sufficient oversight capabilities to effectively address the corruption problem. Additionally, as Rose-Ackerman and Palifka (2016) point out, the current laws in place do not provide adequate protection to corruption whistleblowers.
These concerns must be addressed even as various strategies are formulated to combat corruption. In addition to ensuring transparency in all political spending, there is a need to conduct regular lifestyle audits of government officials in an attempt to highlight discrepancies. Furthermore, information about government undertakings and dealings ought to be made more accessible to members of the public.
"IRS, Clinton email, and Snowden case studies"
"Rational choice and cost-benefit theory of graft"
It is instructive to note that prior to being entangled in a web of corrupt dealings, most of those indicted on graft charges led otherwise normal lives free of scandal. It is often only upon accessing authority and power that they appear to be corrupted. Various studies have attempted to determine the key motivators behind corruption.
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