WP 21. September 5, 2013
Christopher Robertson, Blinding as a Solution to Institutional Corruption
Shortly after becoming dictator perpetuo in 44 BC, Caesar was murdered by conspirators.
Just as his name came to mean the highest office around the world and across the centuries, from Roman and Byzantine emperors through Ottoman rulers and German kaisers to the Russian tsars, so the Ides of March has long been a universally honored day of resistance and reflection. Caesar was popular; the people raised him to a corrupting height; the institutional safeguards failed. One lesson of 44 BC, or 1848 and 1917 CE, was that constructive resistance depends on criticism and self-criticism in equal measure. This lesson was learned and taught on March 15, 1783 by George Washington, a Caesar-like figure in many respects except for unbridled ambition. On that day, Washington diffused the Newburgh Conspiracy by calling for patience and the “detestation” of anyone “who wickedly attempts to open the flood-gates of civil discord.”
According to Plutarch and Suetonius, the first blow in 44 BC was struck with a stylus. On the Ides of March, 2013, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics launched a Working Paper series devoted to fostering critical resistance and reflection on the subject of Institutional Corruption. The series is available here, and under our own SSRN imprint. You can also receive abstracts and links to the latest papers from SSRN.
Christopher Robertson, Blinding as a Solution to Institutional Corruption
Laura Johnston, A Passport at Any Price? Citizenship by Investment Through the Prism of Institutional Corruption
Marc. A. Rodwin, Independent Drug Testing to Ensure Drug Safety and Efficacy
José Vicente Santos de Mendonça, Brazil's Case Against Private-Sponsored Events for Judges: A Not-Yet-Perfect Attempt at Fighting Institutional Corruption
M.E. Newhouse, Institutional Corruption: A Fiduciary Theory
Sergio Sismondo, "You're Not Just a Paid Monkey Reading Slides:" How Key Opinion Leaders Explain and Justify Their Work
Arjun Ponnambalam, The Power of Perception: Reconciling Competing Hypotheses about the Influence of NRA Money in Politics
Oguzhan C. Dincer and Per G. Fredriksson, Does Trust Matter? Corruption and Environmental Regulatory Policy in the United States
Justin O’Brien, Singapore Sling: How Coercion May Cure the Hangover in Financial Benchmark Governance
Elena Denisova-Schmidt, Justification of Academic Corruption at Russian Universities: A Student Perspective
Mihaylo Milovanovitch, Fighting Corruption in Education: A Call for Sector Integrity Standards
Malcolm S. Salter, Annals of Crony Capitalism: Revisiting the AIG Bailout
Irma Sandoval-Ballesteros, From "Institutional" to "Structural" Corruption: Rethinking Accountability in a World of Public-Private Partnerships
Juan Pablo Remolina, The Open Government Index Initiative: A Colombian Tool for Preventing Institutional Corruption
Roberto Laver, Judicial Independence in Latin America and the (Conflicting) Influence of Cultural Norms
Stanislav Shekshnia, Alena V. Ledeneva, and Elena Denisova-Schmidt, How to Mitigate Corruption in Emerging Markets: The Case of Russia
Laurence Tai, Interagency Information Sharing with Resource Competition
Kate Kenny, Banking Compliance and Dependence Corruption: Towards an Attachment Perspective
Gillian Brock, Institutional Integrity, Corruption, and Taxation