Book
A practical guide to diagnosing, curing, and preventing corruption at the city level — with case studies from New York, Hong Kong, and La Paz.
Author: Robert Klitgaard
Year: 2000
Publisher: World Bank / ICS Press
Topics: Anti-Corruption, Urban Governance, Municipal Reform, City Management
About This Book
Drawing on decades of experience battling corruption around the world, the authors of Corrupt Cities offer a novel way to defeat corruption at the local level.
Preventing corruption, they argue, can raise city revenues, improve service delivery, stimulate public confidence and participation — and win elections. The book shows how it has been done, even in the most adverse settings, and how it can be done again.
Case studies from New York, Hong Kong, and La Paz, Bolivia demonstrate how seemingly hopeless problems can become catalysts of social reform. The book details how to diagnose municipal corruption, involve citizens and government employees in finding solutions, attack corruption as a crime of calculation rather than simply a failure of individual character, and avoid the common pitfalls that derail reform efforts.
Praise
“This small gem of a book is an exemplar of the transfer of economic principles into the practice of public management.”
Journal of Economic Literature
“Corrupt Cities is a most welcome contribution to the toolkit of everyone interested in fighting corruption. Bob Klitgaard and his coauthors have done it again.”
Peter Eigen, Chairman, Transparency International
“This excellent book lives up to its billing as a practical guide and will be of great value to civic leaders around the world dedicated to honest, capable, and democratic governance.”
Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard University
Related Work
Related themes: Anti-Corruption & Integrity | Governance & Public Management
Related books: Controlling Corruption | Tropical Gangsters