Sarah Chayes

Deels gelezen. Mee gestopt omdat ik zin had in iets dat vlotter leest, maar op zich zegt dat meer over mij op dat moment dan over het boek. Ik las ca. 100 bladzijden en zal vermoedelijk nooit vergeten hoe de auteur (een Amerikaanse reporter in Afghanistan) beschrijft hoe "onvrij" haar berichtgeving is. Haar hoofdredacteur beslist was de Amerikaanse burger wil lezen en wat niet, ookal doet dat de waarheid veel oneer aan. Ze heeft een stukje naïviteit bij mij weggegomd. Misschien herneem ik het ooit nog eens.… (mehr)

While others diagnose our key political problem as monopoly, Chayes thinks that it’s corruption—which both aids and is aided by monopoly. With fewer specifics than I might have hoped for, Chayes draws connections between the US past, the US present, and the present of other countries. For example, in comparing the US Gilded Age and Afghanistan: “Beneath what is usually framed in economic terms as corporate consolidation, I saw clusters of people sorting themselves out into relatively stable, rival—yet often allied—corruption networks.” And she finds continuities among the corrupt. “Every kleptocratic network that I have investigated, from Afghanistan to Honduras to Central Asian or African countries, has included a skein of outright criminals.” Personal relationships through marriage and kinship might not be as vital in the US as in other places [though see Trump] because other US institutions are stronger—colleges, the Koch network, and money, “that leveler.”

The most common and most effective tactic to deploy against anticorruption is to exploit and inflame ethnic or similar identity divisions. The solutions or natural reactions to corruption come from the labor movement or, if alternatives seem useless, violent extremism; widespread disasters like WWII offer the opportunity for reform. Chayes suggests redefined and expanded criminal prohibitions on bribery and enforcement thereof; also there is no alternative to civic education and continued activism.… (mehr)