Fighting a war on corruption
02 Apr 2008
Harry Seldadyo from Indonesia did his PhD on corruption and bad governance around the world. He was awarded his degree last Thursday. “This is a global war.”
The PhD thesis completed by Harry Seldadyo opens with what can only be described as a rather direct statement. “In the world corruption league, the grand prize goes to… Mr. Soeharto, the former president of Indonesia. Let’s have a loud cheer for the most corrupt president in the world”, he writes.
President Soeharto, who held office from 1967 to 1998, was placed at the top of a list of the world’s political leaders accused of stealing state assets by the United Nations and the World Bank last year. The dishonesty of Soeharto and his cronies was a direct personal reason for Seldadyo to begin his research into corruption and bad governance, Seldadyo says.
In his research, Seldadyo looked for determinants of corruption, which he defi nes as the misuse of power or infl uence for one’s own benefi t. One of the problems he ran into was that it is very difficult to measure the level of corruption in a country because, by definition, it is a hidden activity. “One of the ways to measure it is by asking people about their perception: ‘Do you think your country has corruption’or ‘How severe is the corruption in your country’ or even ‘How often do you have to bribe an official’. Then you can make an index based on the answers.” Seldadyo used such an index to see if he could fi nd variables that infl uence the level of corruption between different nations. One of his discoveries is that corruption is not a static phenomenon, but it is prone to change – mostly for the better. “There’s a dynamic. The situation in most corrupt countries has improved over the last two decades.” “Say for example in Indonesia, during the Soeharto era, the government’s top officials used to be untouchable, they could do as they liked. But that’s changed now. We’ve sent the country’s highest police commander and the director of the central bank to jail for corruption. Or, more recently, the Attorney General, whose job it was to investigate corruption, was jailed after being bribed.” These high profile cases change people’s perception about corruption in their country, explains Seldadyo. More importantly, it influences the whole system. When it’s possible to bring the country’s highest chief of police and the Attorney General to court, government officials at all levels begin to realize they’re not immune to prosecution. “It will make them think twice before accepting bribes.” But even though there are changes – not only in Indonesia, but in other countries as well – corruption remains a problem that is very hard to fight because people at so many different levels benefit from it. “Corruption is about power and if you want to fight it, you need power – more power than the people you’re fighting”, Seldadyo says.
By identifying the
determinants of a country’s level of
corruption, Seldadyo also identified measures to fight the problem.
Democracy turns out to be one of
the major forces for change. “It’s
impossible to fight corruption in
a country where there’s no
democracy or free press and where there’s
no freedom of speech, where there’s
no government transparency. The
keyword is control – control by the
public”, he explains. “In my research I also
found that there is a geographical
spread to the problem. If a
country suffers from corruption, it’s
likely that its neighbours also struggle
with the problem.” It is like
dominos: if the first one falls, so
will the next – and the next, and the next.
But this also works the other way
round: if the level of corruption
in a certain country is declining,
it’s likely that the whole region will
benefit.
“If a country has a
good, clean government, it will be
easier for it to attract foreign
investors because they will not have to
bribe all kinds of officials. People in
neighbouring countries will see this
and think: hey, there’s a lot of
foreign investment going there, why can’t
we improve
our government too?” Does Seldadyo consider
himself a corruption fighter? “In
a way, yes. One of my main messages
is that corruption is not
persistent, the system can change, but
it doesn’t happen overnight. It
takes years and years and years, but
we can do it.”
“The fight against corruption is a global war. My message to the people is: be optimistic. It’s a global war, but it’s a war that we’re going to win.”
Harry Seldadyo Photo Elmer Spaargaren.
(ERNST ARBOUW)