The Rot Within: Security and Corruption in Latin America

• Autores: Mark Ungar
• Localización: Social research: An international quarterly of the social sciences, ISSN 0037-783X, Nº. 4, 2013 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Corruption, accountability, and transparency), págs. 1187-1212
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The rocky but steady global movement toward democracy should, in theory, be gradually breaking down the corruption that has long plagued most countries. But the equally persistent and often growing problem of insecurity is thwarting that effect. From individual misdemeanors to transnational syndicates, violent and organized crime imperils stability and aggravates corruption in every region. That threat is fueled by the state's own security sector and democratic functioning. The state and nonstate armed sectors, two sets of actors traditionally conceived as separate, increasingly overlap and bolster each one through many forms of corruption, ranging from individual actions on one end to the capture of institutional interests on the other. A government's anticrime and anticorruption policies can erode constitutional principles. One central principal is accountability, which is critical to fighting corruption but in the area of security has made limited headway. In most democracies, security policy and agencies have been subject to far less rigorous oversight than other state actors.