Monday, 12 December 2016

Are the recent political crises in South Korea,Brazil,South Africa etc. harbingers of bad times?Think again.

-Attention is focused on South Korea, where the Parliament voted Friday to impeach President Park Geun-hye.

-In Brazil,the so-called ‘car-wash’ scandal implicated much of the country’s governing class and led indirectly to the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff in August.

- South Africa seems to be heading in the same direction after it was revealed that President Jacob Zuma misused public funds, prompting calls for his ouster.

-In Argentina, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and four officials from her party were indicted in August on corruption charges.

-The cavalcade of scandals can make it seem like the world’s politicians have suddenly become greedier en masse.

-But focusing on individual wrongdoing is misleading, said Raymond Fisman, a professor of behavioural economics at Boston University.

-He studies systemic corruption, which occurs _when the corruption is so widespread and severe that it becomes an integral part of a country’s economic and political life._

-Once systemic corruption takes hold, he explained, it can quickly infect an entire system, encouraging or even forcing bad behaviour.

-Seen through that lens, experts say, the recent scandals may be cautiously good news.

-They show that prosecutors and other institutions have managed to break free of those systems and hold their leaders to account — with overwhelming public support for that accountability when they do.

Source:The Hindu

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