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A revealing and compelling case for the establishment of a strong national anti-corruption body and the enactment of other vital democratic reforms. Over the last few years, instances of the federal government spending taxpayers'money to gain improper political advantage in elections have continued, with many hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on the Community Sport Infrastructure Program (aka the Sports Rorts) and the Urban Congestion Fund (the Carpark Rorts). As Stephen Charles writes, these electorally targeted pork-barrelling exercises are better understood as political corruption, which can take many forms but essentially involves dishonest conduct that undermines trust in our democratic political system. Keeping Them Honest points to the crucial absence of a federal integrity commission to expose corruption in government and public administration, and to hold wrongdoers to account. While the federal government promised to establish such a commission in 2018 (a promise since abandoned), Stephen Charles argues that, in any case, its insipid terms would protect — rather than expose — ethical breaches by federal politicians. As well, as Catherine Williams reveals, there is an overwhelming need to deal with the dark side of Australia's political system: the hidden influence of political donors and lobbyists, including the revolving door between lobbyists and former ministers; the absence of controls on electoral expenditure and political advertising; and the cavalier, unregulated expenditure of public money. Keeping Them Honest explains what we need to do to expose political corruption, uphold accountability, and restore trust — and why we need to do it now.

•Winner of the European Award for Investigative And Judicial Journalism 2021••Winner of the Premio Alessandro Leogrande Award for Investigative Journalism 2022••Winner of the Premio Angelo Vassallo Award 2022•'I want to live in a society where secret power is accountable to the law and to public opinion for its atrocities, where it is the war criminals who go to jail, not those who have the conscience and courage to expose them.'It is 2008, and Stefania Maurizi, an investigative journalist with a growing interest in cryptography, starts looking into the little-known organization WikiLeaks. Through hushed meetings, encrypted files, and explosive documents, what she discovers sets her on a life-long journey that takes her deep into the realm of secret power.Working closely with WikiLeaks'founder Julian Assange and his organization for her newspaper, Maurizi has spent over a decade investigating state criminality protected by thick layers of secrecy, while also embarking on a solitary trench warfare to unearth the facts underpinning the cruel persecution of Assange and WikiLeaks.With complex and disturbing insights, Maurizi's tireless journalism exposes atrocities, the shameful treatment of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, on up to the present persecution of WikiLeaks: a terrifying web of impunity and cover-ups.At the heart of the book is the brutality of secret power and the unbearable price paid by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, and truthtellers.

The Sunday Times bestseller.'A compulsively readable, carefully researched account of how a malignant combination of rightwing ideology, secretive money (much of it from the US) and weaponisation of social media have shaped contemporary British (and to a limited extent, European) politics... Remarkable'Observer, Book of the Week Democracy is in crisis, and unaccountable and untraceable flows of money are helping to destroy it. This is the story of how money, vested interests and digital skulduggery are eroding trust in democracy. Antiquated electoral laws are broken with impunity, secretive lobbying is bending our politics out of shape and Silicon Valley tech giants collude in selling out democracy. Politicians lie gleefully, making wild claims that can be shared instantly with millions on social media.Peter Geoghegan is a diligent, brilliant guide through the shadowy world of dark money and digital disinformation stretching from Westminster to Washington, and far beyond.Praise for Democracy for Sale:'Thorough, gripping and vitally important'Oliver Bullough'A brilliant description of the dark underbelly of modern democracy. Everyone should read it'Anne Applebaum'A compelling and very readable story of the ongoing corruption of our government and therefore ourselves'Anthony Barnett'As urgent as it is illuminating'Fintan O'Toole'This urgent, vital book is essential reading for anyone who wants to make sense of our politics'Carole Cadwalladr'This forensic and highly readable book shows how so many of our democratic processes have moved into the murky, unregulated spaces of globalisation and digital innovation'Peter Pomerantsev'A call to arms for all those who value democracy'The Herald'Geoghegan's words are those of someone who is prepared to keep fighting to defend and revitalise what shadows of democracy still remain'Scotsman

•••NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER•••An Explosive, Revelatory Assessment of the Greatest Betrayal in American History, Newly Revised and UpdatedWilliam Barr · Paul Manafort · Michael Cohen · Steve Bannon · Rudy Giuliani · Mitch McConnell · Roger Stone · George Papadopoulos · Jeff Sessions · And More!'Impressive... a persuasive whodunit narrative.'-Washington Post In The Plot to Betray America, New York Times bestselling author and renowned intelligence expert Malcolm Nance reveals exactly how President Trump and his inner circle conspired, coordinated, communicated, and eventually strategized to commit the greatest acts of treachery in the history of the United States: compromising the presidential oath of office in exchange for power and personal enrichment. Seduced by the promises of riches dangled in front of them by Vladimir Putin, the Trump administration eagerly decided to reap the rewards of the plan to put a Kremlin-friendly crony in the Oval Office. Even after his impeachment, Trump continues to defend Putin and jeopardize American intelligence. And instead of interfering, Trump's powerful Republican allies have done everything they can to facilitate Trump's irreparable damage to national security. Through in-depth research and interviews with intelligence experts and insiders, Nance charts Trump's deep financial ties to Russia through his family's investments-including those of Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner-and exposes the corrupt behavior of Trump's other double-crossing pro-Moscow associates. In doing so, Nance also draws a portrait of a venal and selfish president, one who willingly sells American national security to dictators, strongmen, and the ultra-rich at the expense, and sometimes the lives, of American citizens. In this newly revised and updated edition, The Plot to Betray America ultimately sketches the blueprint of the Trump administration's conspiracy against our country-and shows us how we can still fight to defend democracy, protect our national security, and save the Constitution.

An acclaimed Supreme Court lawyer and former Acting Solicitor General argues why impeachment is the only remedy for the dangers posed by President Trump.No one is above the law. This belief is as American as freedom of speech and turkey on Thanksgiving—held sacred by Democrats and Republicans alike. But as the celebrated Supreme Court Lawyer and former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal argues in Impeach, if President Trump is not held accountable for repeatedly asking foreign powers to interfere in the 2020 presidential election, this could well mark the end of our democracy. After all, as President George Washington said in his Farewell Address: “Foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of our republican government.”Impeachment should always be our last report, explains Katyal, an “extreme centrist,” but our founders, our principles, and our Constitution leaves us with no choice but to impeach President Trump—before it's too late.An instant New York Times bestseller.

Political Corruption and Democratic Governance explores the effects of political corruption on important aspects of democratic governing. Jongseok Woo and Eunjung Choi use a cross-national lens to analyze how political corruption influences different areas of politics and economics, including electoral outcomes, citizens'evaluations of democratic norms and values, economic development, distributional justice, and social and political trust in both developed and developing nations. While most works on political corruption focus on the causes of corruption, this book delves into various consequences of it. The discussion in each chapter engages both theoretical and empirical components of political corruption, introducing competing theoretical arguments on a given topic and puts them under rigorous empirical scrutiny. Each chapter involves large-N statistical analysis to make it truly global in scope and to overcome the limits of single (or small-N) case studies on political corruption. This book concludes with critical evaluations about anti-corruption efforts by various IGOs and NGOs and specific policy recommendations to deter corruption.

Political corruption has traditionally been presented as a phenomenon characteristic of developing countries, authoritarian regimes, or societies in which the value system favored tacit patrimony and clientelism. Recently, however, the thesis of an inverse correlation between corruption and economic and political development (and therefore democratic maturity) has been frequently and convincingly challenged. Countries with a long democratic tradition, such as the United States, Belgium, Britain, and Italy, have all experienced a combination of headline-grabbing scandals and smaller-scale cases of misappropriation.In Corrupt Exchanges, primary research on Italian cases (judicial proceedings, in-depth interviews, parliamentary documents, and press databases), combined with a cross-national comparison based on a secondary analysis of corruption in democratic systems, is used to develop a model to analyze corruption as a network of illegal exchanges. The authors explore in great detail the structure of that network, by examining both the characteristics of the actors who directly engage in the corruption and the resources they exchange. These processes of degeneration have caused a crisis in the dominant paradigm in both academic and political considerations of corruption.The book is organized around the analysis of the resources that are exchanged and of the different actors who take part. Politicians in business, illegal brokers, Mafia members, protected entrepreneurs, and party-appointed bureaucrats exchange resources on the illegal market, altering the institutional system of interactions between the state and the market. In this complex web of exchanges, bonds of trust are established that allow the corrupt exchange to thrive. The book will serve both as a theoretical approach to a political problem of large bearing on democratic institutions and a descriptive warning of a system in peril.

After years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition. Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated.In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contemporary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues that the world is about to change. The marriage between democracy and capitalism, ill-suited partners brought together in the shadow of World War Two, is coming to an end. The regulatory institutions that once restrained the financial sector's excesses have collapsed and, after the final victory of capitalism at the end of the Cold War, there is no political agency capable of rolling back the liberalization of the markets.Ours has become a world defined by declining growth, oligarchic rule, a shrinking public sphere, institutional corruption and international anarchy, and no cure to these ills is at hand.

One of the “Best Books of the Year”: Guardian • Financial Times • Times Higher Education A major collection of essays that questions whether contemporary capitalism will end with a bang or a whimper—from a leading political economist and the author of Buying Time. After years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition. Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated. In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contemporary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues that the world is about to change. The marriage between democracy and capitalism, ill-suited partners brought together in the shadow of World War II, is coming to an end. The regulatory institutions that once restrained the financial sector's excesses have collapsed and, after the final victory of capitalism at the end of the Cold War, there is no political agency capable of rolling back the liberalization of the markets. Ours has become a world defined by declining growth, oligarchic rule, a shrinking public sphere, institutional corruption and international anarchy, and no cure to these ills is at hand.