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Crime and corruption: Enduring problems of post-Soviet development
Demokratizatsiya, Winter 2003 by Shelley, Louise I
Louise I. Shelley is a professor in the Department of Justice, Law, and Society and the School of International Service at American University and founder and director of the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) there.
In 1994 Demokratizatsiya published its first issue on organized crime and corruption. The issue, a compendium of Russian and American authors, focused on the severity of the problem and its centrality to post-Soviet economic, political, and social development. At that time, it was a daring and unconventional approach to post-Soviet studies. The publication provoked a significant response, and many were startled by its conclusions. The editors of Demokratizatsiya concluded that more attention needed to be paid to crime and corruption because few in the post-Soviet studies community or the policy community understood the significance of those issues. In our analyses we identified it as a security issue, a human rights problem, and a development issue. The regional focus of the journal has taken in the diversification of the crime and corruption problem, which has grown over the decade.
Throughout the rest of the 1990s, Demokratizatsiya published much on those issues and addressed not only domestic problems of crime and corruption but Western complicity. The corruption of foreign aid to Russia and the former Soviet states became an important recurring theme in our issues. The pioneering work of Janine Wedel on corruption and collusion in foreign assistance was published in 1996. The ideas first published in Demokratizatsiya in 1996 were recognized in 2001 by the prestigious Grohmeyer prize for major contributions to humanity.
Demokratizatsiya's critique of the crime and corruption issue was not confined to Russia. Works identified the criminal-political nexus in Ukraine, since affirmed by the indictment of former prime minister Pavel Lazarenko in Switzerland for money laundering and the ongoing criminal investigation of his activities in the United States. Essays on Kazakhstan addressed the problem of corruption, particularly that linked to the energy sector.
Human trafficking out of the former Soviet Union and nuclear smuggling, issues of increasing concern were addressed in Demokratizatsiya before they became so topical. The multiple consequences of these crimes were presented in the multidisciplinary fashion that characterizes the journal.
The controversial position that Demokratizatsiya took in exposing the crime issue in the mid-1990s required courage on the part of our journal and the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation, which publishes the journal. But the leadership of Heldref insisted that it was the responsibility of a foundation to publish controversial works that might not otherwise reach the public and policy makers.
In 2002, it is hard to believe that Demokratizatsiya's attention to the issues of crime and corruption took courage and aroused controversy. It is now the common belief that corruption is a major impediment to Russian development, that significant portions of foreign aid, World Bank loans, and IMF financial transfers never reached their targets and were diverted internally or transferred to offshore accounts. Anticorruption programs are now a major focus of the United States, the European Union, and other donors to Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union.
Organized crime and corruption have not been static phenomena. Russian organized crime and corruption are much more global than a decade ago. The problem of capital flight and international money laundering continues unabated, but the problem is cumulative. The outflows of capital now total in the hundreds of billions, denying Russia the investment capital it needs. The money lost through these outflows far exceeds the foreign aid committed to the region.
The major changes in the problem can be identified as follows:
Russia has high rates of homicide that are now more than twenty times those in Western Europe and approximately three times the rates recorded in the United States. The rates more closely resemble those of a country in civil war or in conflict than those of a country ten years into a transition.
Corruption and organized crime are globalized. Russian organized crime is active in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South America.
Massive money laundering is more than a problem of capital flight. It allows Russian and foreign organized crime to flourish. In some cases, it is tied to terrorist funding.
Crime and corruption differ significantly in diverse regions of Russia.
Homicide
Many expected the Soviet Union to explode in violent conflict. Although there have been many regional conflicts, including the ongoing war in Chechnya, widespread political violence has not occurred. Instead, in Russia there has been an unprecedented rise in interpersonal violence, particularly homicide. This suggests that the violence is inner directed rather than outer directed and may be a substitute for more overt civil conflict.
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