one of the wikileak cables is about one of kazakhstan's periodic anti-corruption campaigns. the government promotes these campaigns every once in a while. the leaked cable is about one from 2009. but they seemed to be kicking off a new one just before i left the country (as evidenced by this billboard, which went up in taraz about 2 weeks ago).
anyway, the leaked cable is about whether the anti-corruption arrests were a real effort to clean up the country or whether they were more about political score-settling within the ruling elite. personally, i don't see any reason that it can't be both. maybe the powerful sic the financial cops on their political rivals who are genuinely corrupt. given how pervasive the problem is in kaz, they probably are if they are powerful enough to be a powerful person's rival. but selective prosecution of one's political enemies is itself a form of corruption. an anti-corruption campaign can easily become an instrument of corruption by giving the powerful a new tool to abuse the system.
while i was in the country i thought a lot about how a corrupt country could become a non-corrupt country. any system that is set up to fight abuses of power can themselves be abused. the culture of corruption tends to perpetuate itself. but surely there must be some way out. i'm just not sure what would work. has any country that was very corrupt ever managed to clean itself up? how did they do it?
