The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Alastair Smith

Author:Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Alastair Smith [de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781610390453
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Published: 2011-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

Dealing with Good Deed Doers

We commented earlier that “Successful leaders are not above repression, suppression, oppression, or even killing their rivals, real and imagined.” The truth of this statement is demonstrated routinely in the world’s smallest coalition environments. Aleksei Dymovsky’s unhappy experience in Russia is nothing compared to what happens when anticorruption campaigns are mounted in really small coalition settings.

Africa provides many of the worst cases. Daniel Kaufman, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, estimates that more than a trillion dollars is spent annually on bribes worldwide, presumably with most of it going to government officials. With so much money on the line, it is no wonder that he also reports, “We are witnessing an era of major backtracking on the anticorruption drive. And one of the most poignant illustrations is the fate of the few anticorruption commissions that have had courageous leadership. They’re either embattled or dead.” Two examples among many include the deaths of Ernest Manirumva of Burundi and Bruno Jacquet Ossebi in the Congo. Mr. Manirumva was investigating corruption at high levels in Burundi when he was stabbed to death. Although he apparently was not robbed of his personal possessions, the president of the nonprofit organization he was working with reported, according to the New York Times, that, “A bloodstained folder lay empty on his bed. Documents and a computer flash drive were missing.” Coincidence, no doubt!

Mr. Ossebi’s error was to cooperate with Transparency International in its lawsuit to recover wealth allegedly stolen by Congo’s president. Mr. Ossebi died as the result of a suspicious fire in his home. Alexei Dymovsky, if he knows these facts, must count his good fortune in living in a country that is transitioning away from democracy rather than in one that never got close to such a status in his lifetime.

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