Anti-corruption

Representing at least five percent of world GDP, corruption is a great challenge in general, and especially associated with sustainable business, both nationally and internationally. In this chapter, I reflect on how to address corruption and anti-corruption practices. Typical forms of corruption include bribery, facilitation payments, gifts, hospitality and expenses, political contributions, charitable contributions, sponsorships, voluntary community contributions, trading in influence, and conflict of interest and impartiality. Corruption leads to weak institutions and injustice, less respect for rights, denial of basic services, and several of the world’s environmental damage and tragedies are associated with corruption. Studies show that almost half of the companies have experienced fraud over the past two years. This chapter addresses the corruption challenges, how they are addressed by corporations and key international laws as well as challenges associated with norms and behaviors. How to detect and avoid corruption receives key attention. As anti-corruption is a huge topic and challenge, and only limited space is available in the book, the topic is presented from a more general perspective. Even though anti-corruption is often left out when talking about sustainability, it cannot be excluded from a book on sustainability and responsibility.

The Political Economy of Sectoral Credit Provisioning in India: An Empirical Analysis

Electoral dynamics is believed to have a direct bearing on the scope of governmental control over the supply of credit to different economic sectors. This paper attempts to examine the impact of opportunistic electoral manipulations, ideological beliefs and political lobbying on the supply of agricultural and industrial credit across the Indian states. The findings indicate that more competitive elections are associated with increases in credit provision. An incumbent party with a more liberal ideology is found to provide greater average credit to agriculture relative to industry. Finally, an increase in the political contributions provided to an incumbent state government is found to entail greater industrial credit and lower agricultural credit, on an average.

State Department Controls on Exports of Defense Articles and Defense Services

Chapter 2 covers U.S. government controls on exports, reexports, and transfers of “U.S.-origin” goods, software, and technology, and the provision of services, that are military in nature. These are governed principally by the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which are administered by the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC). The chapter explains: which items are subject to the ITAR; the basis and criteria for the ITAR’s restrictions; the requirement to register with DDTC if you export or manufacture items subject to the ITAR or if you are involved in other activities regulated by the ITAR; how to determine whether your product or technology is covered and, if so, whether you will need a license to export or reexport it; how to get a license if one is required; how to clear and document the actual export; the potential penalties for violating the rules; and reporting requirements related to political contributions, fees, and commissions paid in connection with certain sales, . The chapter also explains how the ITAR relate to the regulatory regimes covered in other parts of the book.

How the Workplace Affects Employee Political Contributions

How important is the workplace for employees’ political donations? Contrary to research on workplace political mobilization, existing work assumes that most individual donors contribute ideologically. I link donations of employees and Political Action Committees (PACs) from 12,737 U.S. public companies between 2003 and 2018 to show that 16.7% of employee donations go to employer-PAC-supported candidates. I investigate the dynamics between employee and PAC donations within firm–legislator pairs over time and find that both rank-and-file employees and executives contribute more dollars to company-supported politicians. Firm–employee donation alignment is stronger on powerful and ideologically moderate politicians with high value for the employer. Results from a difference-in-differences design further show modest changes in the partisan composition of employee donations after swift changes in the partisan donations of corporate PACs. The results suggest investment-related rather than ideological motives for alignment and highlight the importance of corporations for money in politics.

Philanthropy to the rescue? Detroit’s schools and urban policymaking under austerity

As municipal governments in the US struggle under austerity, philanthropic elites have seemingly come to the rescue. Their money has not come without strings attached, however. By leveraging political contributions and donations to non-profits, philanthropists have moved beyond funding services and into the promotion of their preferred policies to cash-strapped municipalities. This has meant that the super-wealthy can now set the terrain of urban policy debates in cities struggling under austerity, ignoring democratic processes and often working to actively co-opt or stifle dissent. Through a study of the politics surrounding an impending bankruptcy of the Detroit public school system in the mid-2010s, this article provides crucial insights into the nature of elite-led urban policymaking under conditions of racialized austerity. Specifically, it focuses on how competing coalitions of liberal and conservative philanthropists used their wealth and influence to define the parameters of the policy debate over the future of Detroit’s schools. In doing so, these coalitions constrained the ability of residents with alternative visions to participate in decision-making processes and promoted a market-based system of schooling that served Detroit students poorly. This result must be understood as facilitated by the city’s context of racialized austerity, as manifested both through the financial crisis facing Detroit’s schools and through the system of emergency management used to take over Michigan’s majority-Black municipal institutions. These findings highlight that as philanthropic funding and influence have grown under conditions of racialized austerity, we must critically examine their effects on policymaking and on systems of democratic accountability.

The Life and Achievements of Hyder Bux Jatoi, With an Special Reference to His Social and Political Contributions

Comrade Hyder Bux Jatoi, also known as ‘Baba e Sindh’, was the most prominent leader of the farmer societies of pre-independence Pakistan. Although he was a bureaucrat turned into a farmer activist, but later he played a very important role in the social and political settings of the country at that time. Most of the Pakistani people remember him as a sign of change and renovation in the agricultural history of Pakistan. This was a great effort to credit the front-runners and their struggle; it is very prominent among the laborers and landless leaders of the world. He devoted his entire life to set peace up for the struggle of land ownership rights to dispossessed farmers, and highlighted the cause, to be noticed by the notables. The vision of Mr. Jatoi is still reflected in many situations when initiatives are taken by the various governments of the world to provide the masses with the basic requirements of development and peace.

Alcune osservazioni sugli aspetti economicopolitici dell’opera di Juan de Mariana

This paper studies the principal economic and political contributions of Father Juan de Mariana in terms of his possible influence on the evolution of modern libertarian thought. Moreover, the extent to which Mariana can be considered a forerunner of members of the Austrian school of economics is examined. Palabras clave: Escuela austriaca, pensamiento económico preclásico, li-bertad económica, mercado, inflación monetaria. Códigos JEL: B11, B31, B53 Resumen. El presente trabajo estudia las principales aportaciones econó-micas y políticas del padre Juan de Mariana en la perspectiva de su posi-ble influencia en la evolución del moderno pensamiento liberal. Igualmente se analiza hasta qué punto puede considerarse a Mariana como un ante-cesor de los teóricos de la Escuela Austriaca de economía.