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UN Performance Problems UN Management Accountability Struggles Where is the Rule of Law? Inadequate UN Oversight Recent Developments
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Over the past two
decades, corruption worldwide, in both the public and private sphere, has
become quite widely recognized as the most damaging disease that any
organization must confront, and a serious public policy problem that must
be addressed at the local, national, and international
levels. This subsection
explores the dimensions and significance of corruption and of
anti-corruption actions. It
begins with the excellent introductory quotes below, and then explores the
evolution of corruption observations in the general administrative
literature, followed by a compilation of quotes on corruption issues and
problems in the United Nations over the years.
"[O]fficial corruption … thrives
on darkness and invisibility.
It is anonymous and unmeasurable. It is rooted in the very human
vices of greed and lust for power through wealth
… Corruption is colorless,
shapeless, odorless, collusive, secret, stealthy, shameless. Even when it becomes pervasive, it
still retains those qualities. … In today's globalized,
democratized, informatized world, incorruptible governments can be
constructed only using incorruptible citizens as their bricks and
mortar." Jim Wesberry, as
quoted in Gerald E. Caiden,
O.P. Dwivedi, and Joseph Jabbra,
Chapter 1, "Introduction" by the editors, in Where Corruption Lives,
Kumarian, Bloomfield, CN (USA), 2001, pp. 1-13 [1.]
"The essays in this book … probe
the whys and wherefores of contemporary corruption. They raise deeper philosophical
issues about the nature of this particular form of human wrongdoing, how
people confront it, and what they expect others to do about it. If other forms of misbehavior,
once commonplace and legitimate, have become increasingly unacceptable,
why does corruption persist and expand? … One message that comes through …
is not so much that people do not know what to do about corruption as that
they tend to lack sufficient will, fortitude, stamina, resolution, and
persistence to do anything about it. … This book [attempts to] … throw
light on the most important concerns. … [It] has something for everyone,
… from the simple concerns of
fairly clean governance in one part of the world to the worries of
citizens experiencing very dirty governance in another. from long-term
institutional failure to short-term success, from the pessimistic to the
optimistic, from the circumspect to the ambitious, from the half-hearted
to the resolute, from the idealistic to the pragmatic. All of these reflect the current
state of the art." Gerald E. Caiden,
O.P. Dwivedi, and Joseph Jabbra, eds., Chapter 1, "Introduction", in
Where Corruption Lives, Kumarian, Bloomfield, CN (USA),
2001, pp. 1-13, [2, 6, 9.] "In this imperfect
world, corruption is bound to be happening somewhere; no country is
exempt. … What are the major current
concerns about corruption?
First … is business bribery,
which is rampant throughout the world and endemic in all transactions,
public and private. Second, and related
…, is the large
amounts of money being laundered worldwide … Third, related to
dirty money, is organized transnational crime, particularly the operation
of crime syndicates and drug cartels, which cross borders at will
… Fourth is the growing
influence of money in political life … to secure [votes]
… and obtain favored
treatment through bribes and other personal rewards; … manipulate mass
media …; [by] asset-stripping … to obtain public
resources [cheaply] …; and tax
avoidance and evasion.
… what is new is the sophistication
and ingenious devices employed to prevent common knowledge of political
corruption, the spin placed on illegal political contributions when
exposed, and the condescension in official circles toward the public -- as
if everybody does it …
Fifth is yet another
traditional form of corruption, kleptocracy, where public resources are
viewed as private spoils, state largesse is seen as a personal gravy
train, and … [p]ublic
office is a means of self-enrichment with no holds barred. …
Sixth is the
embarrassing situation of the non-governmental organizations, … Some NGOs are
… beyond the reach of public
accountability mechanisms.
While some are indeed noble and heroic, others have become fronts
for organized crime or merely self-aggrandizing, rewarding themselves
handsomely for outcomes hardly worth the
bother." Gerald E. Caiden,
Chapter 17, "Corruption and democracy", in Caiden, Gerald E., Dwivedi, O.
P., and Jabbra, Joseph, eds., Where Corruption Lives, Kumarian,
Bloomfield, CN (USA), 2001, pp. 227-243, [232-235]. "Individual and systemic
corruption Although [the literature has
increasingly] recognized corruption as a social fact, … [analysts] have
continued to think of it in individual terms. The conceptions … do not appear to
stretch to encompass the significance of … systemic corruption -- a situation where wrong-doing
has become the norm. … Such systemic corruption is found today in many
countries and jurisdictions … The key is not so much the techniques of
organizational method, e.g., bureaucracy, as organizational goals and the
qualities necessary to support and maintain them, viz., honest
administration and public accountability. … Systemic corruption has
not been subject to much specific research. … Systemic corruption occurs
whenever the administrative system itself transposes the expected purposes
of the organization, forces participants to follow what otherwise would be
termed unacceptable ways, and actually punishes those who resist. Deviant conduct is so
institutionalized that no individual can be personally faulted
organizationally (not morally) for participating, and dysfunction is
actually protected. In
systemic corruption: (a) the
organization professes an external code of ethics which is contradicted by
internal practices; (b) internal
practices encourage, abet, and hide violations of the external
code; (c)
non-violators are penalized by foregoing the rewards of violation
and offending violators; (d) violators
are protected, and when exposed, treated leniently; their accusers
are victimized for exposing organizational hypocrisy, and are treated
harshly; (e)
non-violators suffocate in the venal atmosphere; they find no
internal relief and much external disbelief; (f) prospective whistle-blowers are
intimidated and terrorized into silence; (g) courageous
whistle-blowers have to be protected from organizational
retaliation; (h) violators become
so accustomed to their practices and the protection given them that, on
exposure, they evidence surprise and claim innocence and unfair
discrimination against
them; (i)
collective guilt finds expression in rationalizations of the
internal practices and without strong external supports there is no
serious intention of ending them; (j) those formally
charged with revealing corruption rarely act and, when forced by external
pressure to do so, excuse any incidents as isolated, rare
occurrences. The point to be stressed above all
is that few corrupt practices can be conducted without collusion.
… Individual cases of
corruption can be rooted out by the application of organizational
sanctions. … Systemic corruption cannot be handled so easily. There is no
guarantee that if the most serious offenders are dismissed, or if everyone
who is guilty is replaced, corruption will not persist. The old
patterns will continue with new players. … Moreover, in the wider
society, systemic corruption impedes rather than aids
change. (a) Systemic
corruption perpetuates closed politics and restricts access, preventing
the reflection of social change in political
institutions. (b) Systemic
corruption suppresses opposition contributing to increasing
resentment. Thus corruption, far from being an
alternative to violence, is often accompanied by more
violence. (c) Systemic corruption
perpetuates and widens class, economic, and social divisions, contributing
to societal strain and preventing cohesion. (d) Systemic corruption
prevents policy change, particularly where this works against immediate
market considerations.
Individual or sectional interests are not the best guide to the
public interest. (e) Systemic corruption blocks
administrative reform, and makes deleterious administrative practices
profitable, e.g., induced delays. (f) Systemic
corruption diverts public resources and contributes to a situation of
private affluence and public squalor, especially serious where affluence
is confined to the few. (g) Systemic
corruption contributes to societal anomie in shoring up or transmuting
traditional values into inappropriate
areas. (h) The effects of
systemic corruption are not limited to a specific case: there is an
accumulator effect upon public perceptions and expectations which
subverts trust and cooperation far beyond the impact
upon the individuals immediately concerned. (i) Systemic
corruption is not confined to poor, developing, or modernizing countries,
but found in all organizational societies." … In contemporary public
administration, the issue is not so much individual misconduct in public,
serious as that is, as the institutionalized subversion of the public
interest through systemic
corruption." Gerald E. Caiden and Naomi J. Caiden, "Administrative corruption",
in Richter, William L, Burke, Frances, and Doig, Jameson W., eds.,
Combating corruption, Encouraging ethics: A sourcebook for public
service ethics, American Society for Public Administration,
Washington, DC, 1990, pp. 61-69 [pp. 66-68], originally published in
Public Administration Review (USA). 37:3, (May-June 1977),
301-309.
[emphasis added.] "One of the most perplexing
problems in public administration today [is] how to reform
chronically corrupt agencies … [in this case] the New York City school
custodial system … that has resisted decades of reform efforts.
… … traditional corruption controls
do not allow for organizations whose cultures are so deviant and whose
missions have become so twisted that managers can barely recognize conduct
that is deviant and employees regard wrongdoing as their right.
… [Success elsewhere, in Chicago!]
suggests … three broad reform strategies. The first is
to launch tough, publicized law enforcement initiatives that include
investigations, compliance and fraud audits, and punishment for
wrongdoers. … welcoming outside prosecutors … can be crucial to changing a
deeply deviant culture. … The second
strategy is to oust as much of the dominant coalition as possible, not
just the top layers, and any work rules that block reform.
… The third
strategy is to hold managers accountable for performance … and to provide
meaningful consequences for failure. … Without such minimal reform
strategies, merely tightening existing controls, issuing more rules or
instituting shallow reorganizations in chronically corrupt agencies will
merely create the illusion of change without the
reality." Lydia Segal, "Roadblocks in reforming corrupt agencies: The case of the New York City school custodians", Public Administration Review, July/August 2002, vol. 62, No. 4, pp. 445-460 [445, 456-457.] [emphasis added.]
Perhaps only
coincidentally, both the New York school system and the UN are
controversial and prominent New York features. While the UN may have a greater or
smaller number of conscientious staff, IO Watch believes that it too has
far too many bad managers, and their hangers-on, who engage freely in
mismanagement, misconduct, and abuse of authority. The UN has thus far
provided only public-relations illusions of good UN management and
oversight. There have been scarcely any sanctions for [higher-level]
wrongdoers or a crackdown on their impunity, despite increasingly
embarrassing UN management scandals in late 2003 and early 2004.
Meanwhile, staff-whistleblowers, who were specifically encouraged by the
General Assembly a decade ago, have been consistently intimidated and
punished. This new expansion of an already-entrenched impunity of UN managers is discussed in the rest of this IO Watch archive section, and analysed in more detail in the other major sections on the rule of law, inadequate UN oversight, and recent developments .
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