ABOUT THIS BOOK

This book is not a study of anti-corruption policies. Instead, it looks at the politics of anti-corruption. Policies are what institutions do. But in analyzing politics, this book seeks to discover why institutions do what they do. The author delves into political motivations at a time when "combating corruption" is the fashion among the academic community. Krastev argues that anti-corruption sentiments are not driven by the actual level of corruption but by general disappointment with liberal reforms that cause rising social inequality. In this collection of essays, the author makes the provocative argument that the current corruption-focused policies are doomed.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Aryeh Neier is an American human rights activist. He was the president of the Open Society Institute and a founder of Human Rights Watch.

Ivan Krastev is Chairman of the Board of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and research director of the Politics of Anti-Americanism project of the Central European University in Budapest. He has published widely on post-Socialist transition, corruption and politics of anti-Americanism in Central and Eastern Europe.

REVIEWS

"Shifting Obsessions should stimulate a more healthy, sorely needed debate on corruption, anti-corruption policy, and the politics of anti-corruption. It could contribute to the encouragement of anti-corruption policies divorced from rhetoric and linked more closely to local problems. For these two reasons alone, it is one of the most important contributions to the anti-corruption debate in recent years." - Transitions Online

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures Foreword Aryeh Neier Preface Acknowledgements When "Should" Does not Imply "Can" The Making of Washington Consensus on Corruption Corruption, Anticorruption Sentiments and the Rule of Law The Missing Incentive: Corruption, Anticorruption, and Reelection with Georgy Ganev