Talking About Global Corruption

January 21, 2007—Nathaniel Heller is the Managing Director of Global Integrity, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization that researches governance and corruption trends around the world. Their approach is unique in that they do not attempt to measure corruption itself; but instead assess anti-corruption mechanisms in different countries. Our curiosity was piqued here at Youthink!, so we asked Nathaniel for some details.

YT!: Tell us about Global Integrity's work.

NH: Global Integrity's mission is to fill a gap that we found in available information that can help decision-makers address governance challenges in countries. The philosophy of what we do here is to not measure corruption we don't try to do that; we don't pretend to do that; we stress that we do not measure corruption. We're really trying to measure the opposite. You can't measure corruption because you can't see it all. So, instead we're trying to measure the white space around it. Meaning, we look at the all the anti-corruption mechanisms that should be in place. We look at civil society and media freedom, we look at election integrity, we look at executive, judicial, and legislative accountability, we looked at civil service procurement, privatization, law enforcement, business regulation, and all of the mechanisms that ideally should be in any country.

The other big innovation with the way we do our work is that we have in-country experts. It's not a bunch of Westerners flying around, landing for two days, and flying out. It's local in-country researchers and journalists. We used almost 200 in-country experts this year.

YT!: Is this a new way of addressing corruption?

NH: Well, we're certainly the only organization that quantifies anti-corruption mechanisms. There's other work out there that takes a very qualitative approach, which is also extremely useful. But we're interested in getting the data in a format that provides a very basic insight. So if you're the desk officer at the World Bank or USAID, or some other international aid agency, you'd say, gee, I only have a million dollars to spend on Uganda next year for good governance, maybe I'd think about putting the money into some of these [governance] weaknesses, and see if we get some progress in 12 or 18 months.

YT!: Do you think that individuals can play a role in fighting corruption?

NH: They can play a huge role. What's coming out of our data and reporting this year is that leadership is massively important. You can have a very poor post-conflict country, with very few resources, which can still make progress, based on having strong leadership that's dedicated to reform.

YT!: So you wouldn't say there's a relationship between corruption and poverty?

NH: There's actually fairly little relationship between the two, which is actually quite interesting. And what this tells us is there's something going on which is not about dollars. It's really about leadership, it's about culture, it's about context, it's about political will, and wanting to make reforms. And it's about citizens really demanding that reform, and at some point, with the exception of the most oppressive systems, it's up to citizens to vote and to demand greater accountability from the government.

YT!: Do you have other examples of where anti-corruption mechanisms are working?

NH: There are a lot of new mechanisms and practices in Bulgaria and Romania in response to the EU accession process. Although they are not perfect, and clearly still lack certain enforcement and long-term commitment, it does speak to the effectiveness of a certain carrot and sticks approach. If you hold out the prospect of joining the club, with the financial reward at the end of the tunnel, people are all of a sudden fairly creative and willing to think about reform efforts. So, reform doesn't necessarily need to be a 20-year process, and it doesn't take tens and billions of dollars in foreign aid. It can be domestic and grassroots driven, if there's the will.

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