Judge Not
Crony judges appointed by friends in high places. Whistle-blowers punished for reporting corruption. Political influence bought through donations. Sound like classic corruption plaguing states on the brink? Think, instead, of countries like Canada, Spain, or Italy. Wealthy countries often suffer the same institutional weaknesses that breed corruption as developing nations do, according to a recent ...
Crony judges appointed by friends in high places. Whistle-blowers punished for reporting corruption. Political influence bought through donations. Sound like classic corruption plaguing states on the brink? Think, instead, of countries like Canada, Spain, or Italy. Wealthy countries often suffer the same institutional weaknesses that breed corruption as developing nations do, according to a recent report by the Washington-based governance watchdog Global Integrity.
Crony judges appointed by friends in high places. Whistle-blowers punished for reporting corruption. Political influence bought through donations. Sound like classic corruption plaguing states on the brink? Think, instead, of countries like Canada, Spain, or Italy. Wealthy countries often suffer the same institutional weaknesses that breed corruption as developing nations do, according to a recent report by the Washington-based governance watchdog Global Integrity.
In assessing 55 countries on dozens of corruption safeguards, Global Integrity placed several G-8 nations in the same league as developing countries when it came to such critical protections as political finance laws, judicial transparency, and whistle-blower defenses. Although Italy received an overall rating of "strong" for government accountability, its laws shielding those who report corruption were rated as deficient as those in Ecuador and Tajikistan. France’s safeguards against corruption in the civil service scored as low as those in Uganda, where nepotism and patronage are requirements for government jobs. And Canada received a rating of "very weak" for its lack of transparency in judicial appointments, the same rating as Kenya and Mexico. It’s a "bit of a wake-up call that, even in the West, we haven’t really solved a lot of these issues," says Nathaniel Heller, Global Integrity’s managing director.
But some experts argue that because Global Integrity doesn’t measure actual corruption — just the potential for it — more nuance is needed when interpreting the report’s results. According to Troy Riddell, a political science professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, "The study’s methodology and conclusions overstate the lack of transparency [and] accountability in Canada," adding that "putting Canada in the same category as Kenya and Mexico exaggerates the problem." Heller disagrees. "It’s actually interesting… to hear a lot of the reaction to the Canada assessment… from Canadians who said, ‘You know what? This is accurate,’" he says. It suggests that, for all the Western sermonizing on corruption in the developing world, there’s plenty of work to be done closer to home.
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