The Corruption Obsession Is a Convenient Distraction

The Corruption Obsession Is a Convenient Distraction
The sons of former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, Ricardo and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, stand inside a holding cell after being detained on money-laundering charges, Guatemala City, July 7, 2020 (AP photo by Moises Castillo).

Opposing corruption in international forums is easy. Nobody is openly for it, and popular sentiment is strongly against it. Global public opinion surveys show that corruption is a primary concern of citizens all around the world, and a host of public ills can be attributed to it, from economic stagnation, to the global decline of trust in democracy and a range of other societal challenges.

And corruption does play a role in these issues, which is why it makes for such a convenient target. Major leaks exposing corruption have grabbed public attention and inspired a raft of policies aimed at calling out and sanctioning individuals, governments and business that have engaged in bribery, kickbacks, embezzlement, money laundering and a host of other abuses of public and private power.

But is the international community devoting too much attention to corruption, at the expense of other structural and more difficult-to-tackle concerns? Have we oversold the benefits of tackling corruption, even making the wildly optimistic assumption that this global scourge can be eliminated or significantly reduced?

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