Kleptocracy Meaning In English

[Beronike Watkin]

Kleptocracyis different from plutocracy (rule by the richest) and oligarchy (rule by a small elite). In a kleptocracy, corrupt politicians enrich themselves secretly outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes, and special favors from lobbyists and corporations, or they simply direct state funds to themselves and their associates. Also, kleptocrats often export much of their profits to foreign nations in anticipation of losing power.[6]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use in English occurs in the publication Indicator of 1819: "Titular ornaments, common to Spanish kleptocracy."[7][citation needed]

Kleptocracies are generally associated with dictatorships, oligarchies, military juntas, or other forms of autocratic and nepotist governments in which external oversight is impossible or does not exist. They can also be found in liberal democracies with crony capitalism. This lack of oversight can be caused or exacerbated by the ability of the kleptocratic officials to control both the supply of public funds and the means of disbursal for those funds.

Kleptocratic rulers often treat their country's treasury as a source of personal wealth, spending funds on luxury goods and extravagances as they see fit. Many kleptocratic rulers secretly transfer public funds into hidden personal numbered bank accounts in foreign countries to provide for themselves if removed from power.[6][2]

Kleptocracy is most common in developing countries and collapsing nations whose economies are reliant on the trade of natural resources. Developing nations' reliance on export incomes constitute a form of economic rent and are easier to siphon off without causing the income to decrease. This leads to wealth accumulation for the elites and corruption may serve a beneficial purpose by generating more wealth for the state.

In a collapsing nation, reliance on imports from foreign countries becomes likely as the nation's internal resources become exhausted, thereby contractually obligating themselves to trading partners. This leads to kleptocracy as the elites make deals with foreign adversaries to keep the status quo for as long as possible.

To some observers, a thievery society allows the politically connected to redirect wealth to those deemed worthier by state apparatchiks. According to some pundits, one reason governmental bodies subscribe to theft-prone policies is to lay the groundwork for the socialization of labor and property in an effort to permit thievocrats to make the populace "subservient to an institutionalized authority."[8] Newspaper columnist Paul Greenberg, in writing against the idea of the United States sending large amounts of foreign aid to Poland in 1989, argued that Poland was emerging from "40 years of a Communist thievocracy that has obliterated not only economic progress but also the idea of a modern economy."[9]

A specific case of kleptocracy is Raubwirtschaft, German for "plunder economy" or "rapine economy", where the whole economy of the state is based on robbery, looting and plundering the conquered territories. Such states are either in continuous warfare with their neighbours or they simply milk their subjects as long as they have any taxable assets. Arnold Toynbee has claimed the Roman Empire was a Raubwirtschaft.[10]

Kleptocrats abuse the freedoms found in Western countries by transferring funds out of a kleptocracy and into Western jurisdictions for money laundering and asset security. Since 2011, more than $1 trillion has left developing countries annually in illicit financial outflows. A 2016 study found that $12 trillion had been siphoned out of the kleptocracies of Russia, China, and developing economies.[16] Western professional services providers are taken advantage of by kleptocratic Russians and Chinese, exploiting legal and financial loopholes in the West to facilitate transnational money laundering.[17][18] The kleptocratic financial system typically comprises four steps according to one opinion.[19]

In a 2011 forensic study of grand corruption cases, the World Bank found the United States was the leading victim of illegal incorporation of entities involved in money laundering schemes.[25] The Department of Treasury estimates that $300 billion is laundered annually in the United States in violation of US law.[26]

Currently[when?], there are only around 1,200 money laundering convictions per year in the United States and money launderers face a less than five percent chance of conviction.[30] Raymond Baker estimates that law enforcement fails in 99.9% of cases to detect money laundering by kleptocrats and other financial criminals.[31]

Other Western jurisdictions favoured by kleptocrats include South Africa, the United Kingdom, and its dependencies, especially the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, and Jersey.[32][33] Jurisdictions in the European Union which are particularly favoured by kleptocrats include Cyprus, the Netherlands, and its dependency the Dutch Antilles.[34][35]

Other forms of a thievery society that can induce a "culture of systematic fraud" has been described as "political and corporate kleptomania."[36] In this case the plunder and looting enriches not only high government officials, but a narrow class of plutocrats, who usually represent wealthy individuals and families who have amassed great assets through the usage of political favoritism, special interest legislation, monopolies, special tax breaks, state intervention, subsidies or outright graft. This type of economic system of political spoils is sometimes referred to as crony capitalism.[37][38]

The effects of a kleptocratic regime or government on a nation are typically adverse in regards to the welfare of the state's economy, political affairs, and civil rights. Kleptocratic governance typically ruins prospects of foreign investment and drastically weakens the domestic market and cross-border trade. As kleptocracies often embezzle money from their citizens by misusing funds derived from tax payments, or engage heavily in money laundering schemes, they tend to heavily degrade quality of life for citizens.[39]

In early 2004, the German anti-corruption NGO Transparency International released a list of ten self-enriching leaders in the two decades previous to the report. Transparency International acknowledged that they were "not necessarily the 10 most corrupt leaders" and noting that "very little is known about the amounts actually embezzled".[42]

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak had $731 million in his personal bank accounts when his ruling-party alliance Barisan Nasional lost the 14th election to opposition party Pakatan Harapan led by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, in part because of allegations of participating in the 1MDB scandal.[45][46]

A narcokleptocracy is a society in which criminals involved in the trade of narcotics have undue influence in the governance of a state. For instance, the term was used to describe the regime of Manuel Noriega in Panama in a report prepared by a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations chaired by Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.[49]

Scoundrels have always been in the halls of power, along with amateurs, the inept and the deranged. But these days the criminality of some political leaders has reached levels worthy of the tyrants of antiquity. And the ineptitude of those in power now has much graver consequences due to globalization, technology, the complexity of society, as well as the speed with which things happen.

The case of the inept in power is something different. Kakistocracies (literally, governments by the worst) proliferate in weak and disorganized political systems that repel the talented and attract the inept and most debased. Obviously, sometimes they they come together producing a government that is both criminal and incompetent. When the two coincide, the kleptocracy and the kakistocracy feed back on each other.

It is also a mistake to think that it is only in countries with weak institutions and immature political systems that thieves and goons can reach the most important positions. What we are seeing today in the United States and in many European countries that have long democratic traditions simply shows that no nation is immune to the rise of a kakistocracy. Internet searches for this word, derived from ancient Greek, have seen a huge boom since Donald Trump got to the White House.

Transnational kleptocracy is a growing threat to democracy with urgent consequences for national security, human rights, and human development. Kleptocracy combines 19th-century autocracy with 21st-century finance, which empowers dictators to enrich themselves and their cronies, hide the proceeds offshore, and use that wealth to corrode both foreign and domestic institutions. While authoritarian leaders divert public resources to their own pockets and park them overseas, democracies have largely focused on their internal problems rather than acting as a united front to address this peril effectively.

Democracies may believe that their institutions are strong enough to resist kleptocratic influence, but the evidence warns otherwise. Russia under President Vladimir Putin, for example, has used massive wealth stolen from its people to coopt foreign leaders and businesses, spread large-scale and corrosive disinformation campaigns, and interfere in democratic elections. The focus on the strength of democratic institutions misses a larger point: as more kleptocratic wealth infiltrates democracies, it corrupts individuals and members of government, which will eventually degrade independent institutions.

Many democracies appear to be waking up to the threat posed by transnational kleptocracy and enacting policies designed to combat it. The Biden administration in the U.S. has made tackling corruption a top priority, and the U.K. and EU have signaled intentions to do the same. But because kleptocracy is a transnational, networked, and entrenched form of corruption, individual or atomized responses are insufficient. Democracies must be unified and networked in their fight against it. Transnational kleptocracy will always identify weaknesses in the global network of regulation and squeeze through them, meaning the whole network must be strengthened if it is to resist infiltration. Otherwise, the money would just move to the country that remains open to it, and the problem would continue.

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