5min @LSENews clip - Dr Michael Muthukrishna on The Causes of #Corruption - insights from evolutionary biology #rB>C

 

Text from youtube "Dr Michael Muthukrishna shines an evolutionary light on the problem of corruption revealing that rather than a breakdown in cooperation, corruption *is* cooperation. 

One scale of cooperation, typically the one that’s smaller and easier to sustain, undermines another. The mechanisms that sustain these scales of cooperation are well understood within evolutionary biology and cultural evolution giving us new tools in the battle against corruption. 

Drawing on recent work, he reveals that transparency is not enough in the places with the highest corruption, and can even make the problem worse. He explains how competition between societies and between different ways of doing things - cultural-groups selection - has been responsible for the suppression of cooperation over history. "

1min 38sec #wef clip - The 10 most #corrupt #countries in the world are also some of the most violent

UN Convention against Corruption - intro

what is corruption

2011 Corruption Perceptions Index

12:19 02/12/2011 The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) measures the perceived level of corruption in the public sector. A larger number corresponds to the lower corruption level in the country.>>

Other news of the day

corruption

the full article is here but in summary previously bribes were needed to get most things in georgia - electricity, passports, access to a hospital, a driving licence, a degree.  in 2003 crowds took to the streets, the president resigned and after fresh elections early in 2004, a new president and parliament were elected in part on an anti-corruption ticket.  so what did they do?

- the overnight sacking of the entire traffic police force of 16,000 men on a single night in July 2004 (recognised as the most visibly corrupt)

- new anti-mafia legislation was introduced

- the tax code was changed and simplified

- old cumbersome regulations were scrapped and replaced by streamlined procedures.

- restoring power supply

- minimising the points of contact between citizens and state officials, and simplifying the cumbersome acts of everyday life that both citizens and officials would expedite by resorting to bribery

- the introduction of a zero-tolerance policy for bribery, and imprisonment upon conviction.