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"This book investigates the history, development and current state of anti-corruption agencies in Latin America. In recent decades, specialized anti-corruption agencies have sprung up as countries seek to respond to corruption and to counter administrative and political challenges. However, the characteristics, resources, power and performance of these agencies reflect the political and economic environment in which they operate. This book draws on a range of case studies from across Latin America, considering both national anti-corruption bodies and agencies created and administered by, or in close coordination with, international organizations. Together, these stories demonstrate the importance of the political will of reformers, the private interests of key actors, the organizational space of other agencies, the position of advocacy groups, and the level of support from the public at large. This book will be a key resource for researchers across political science, corruption studies, development, and Latin American Studies. It will also be valuable guide for policy makers and professionals in NGOs and international organizations working on anti-corruption advocacy and policy advice"--

Despite progress made over the past two decades, current international anti-corruptionefforts continue to struggle with implementation issues in individual nations. The presentstudy proposes an approach to anti-corruption policy implementation that considers thefight against public malfeasance in terms of its potential costs and benefits for politicalleadership. The existence of a political cycle for anti-corruption initiatives is proposed andtested through an examination of Peru's National Anti-Corruption Commission from 2001 to2005. The empirical analysis supports the theoretical tenets, showing how the governmentof President Toledo created and later devolved the anti-corruption commission due to private interests and political circumstances. ; A pesar del progreso hecho en las últimas dos décadas, los actuales esfuerzosanticorrupción continúan luchando con problemas de implementación en determinadospaíses. El presente estudio propone una aproximación a la implementación de políticas anticorrupción que considera la lucha contra las inconductas públicas en términos de susposibles costos y beneficios en el liderazgo político. La existencia de un ciclo político paralas iniciativas anticorrupción se propone y se prueba a través de un examen de la ComisiónNacional Anticorrupción de Perú entre los años 2001 y 2005. El análisis empírico respaldalos principios teóricos, demostrando cómo el gobierno del Presidente Alejandro Toledocreó y luego retrocedió con la comisión anticorrupción, dados los intereses privados y lascircunstancias políticas.

Despite progress made over the past two decades, current international anti-corruption efforts continue to struggle with implementation issues in individual nations. The present study proposes an approach to anti-corruption policy implementation that considers the fight against public malfeasance in terms of its potential costs and benefits for political leadership. The existence of a political cycle for anti-corruption initiatives is proposed and tested through an examination of Peru's National Anti-Corruption Commission from 2001 to 2005. The empirical analysis supports the theoretical tenets, showing how the government of President Toledo created and later devolved the anti-corruption commission due to private interests and political circumstances.

Are national leaders really invested in curbing corruption in their countries? The present paper addresses the realpolitik basis of national anti-corruption measures by positing the persistence of a political cost-benefit analysis behind initiatives to curb public malfeasance, which leads to the adoption and implementation of mostly symbolic policies regardless of public discourse. The model is tested by reviewing in detail the adoption and political management of the Peruvian National Anti-Corruption Office between 2007 and 2008. The analysis confirms the theoretical expectations and provides ample evidence of the political instrumentalization of the anti-corruption agenda during the administration of President Alan García Pérez (2006-2011).

Since the beginning of the past decade, the tolerance of corruption by citizens of most Latin American countries has become a concept in its own right within the broader study of corruption. This construct, however, lacks a systematic approach and is yet to account for specific types of corruption tolerance or identify appropriate indicators to measure them. The present study addresses these voids by analyzing data provided by LAPOP's AmericasBarometer 2006 for Peru (a typical case for the incidence of bribery in Latin America) and the Global Corruption Barometer against a carefully constructed framework for the understanding of the phenomenon of corruption tolerance. The results indicate that attitudes toward specific types of low-level corruption should not be equated to citizens' decisions to engage in such behavior. They further suggest that the study of corruption tolerance has the potential to greatly improve our understanding of the determinants of corruption in developing countries.

Since the beginning of the past decade, the tolerance of corruption by citizens of most Latin American countries has become a concept in its own right within the broader study of corruption. This construct, however, lacks a systematic approach and is yet to account for specific types of corruption tolerance or identify appropriate indicators to measure them. The present study addresses these voids by analyzing data provided by LAPOP's AmericasBarometer 2006 for Peru (a typical case for the incidence of bribery in Latin America) and the Global Corruption Barometer against a carefully constructed framework for the understanding of the phenomenon of corruption tolerance. The results indicate that attitudes toward specific types of low-level corruption should not be equated to citizens' decisions to engage in such behavior. They further suggest that the study of corruption tolerance has the potential to greatly improve our understanding of the determinants of corruption in developing countries. (author's abstract)

AbstractHow do we know when corruption has become widespread? Despite the rich body of literature on the problem, there are few proposed methods to conceptualize and empirically identify it within a geographic context. Using spatial analysis, this paper expands the means to identify corruption as an informal institution by examining the degree to which favoritism—in the form of preferential treatment for politically connected firms—is widespread in the Czech procurement sector. Using the conceptual guidance from literature on informal institutions, the empirical results show the prevalence throughout space, the stability over time, and the places by which preferential mechanisms coordinate widespread construction award disparities. These preferential patterns, which are not limited to one or a few individuals, exhibit characteristics that the problem is less of an exception and more of the rule.

One of the main steps in an uncertainty analysis is the selection of appropriate probability distribution functions for all stochastic variables. In this paper, criteria for such selections are reviewed, the most important among them being any a priori knowledge about the nature of a stochastic variable, and the Central Limit Theorem of probability theory applied to sums and products of stochastic variables. In applications of these criteria, it is shown that many of the popular selections, such as the uniform distribution for a poorly known variable, require far more knowledge than is actually available. However, the knowledge available is usually sufficient to make use of other, more appropriate distributions. Next, functions of stochastic variables and the selection of probability distributions for their arguments as well as the use of different methods of error propagation through these functions are discussed. From these evaluations, priorities can be assigned to determine which of the stochastic variables in a function need the most care in selecting the type of distribution and its parameters. Finally, a method is proposed to assist in the assignment of an appropriate distribution which is commensurate with the total information on a particular stochastic variable, and is based on the scientific method. Two examples are given to elucidate the method for cases of little or almost no information.