Introduction: there for the taking

Oligarch-and-Clan corruption generates some of the most spectacular corruption stories we are likely to see. As a contentious, sometimes violent scramble for high stakes in a setting of very weak official institutions, it poses difficult challenges and great risks for reformers. Opportunities for political and economic gain abound, while the institutions on which many corruption controls depend – courts, law enforcement, the bureaucracy, political parties, civil societies, and levels of trust – are overmatched by powerful factions exploiting government, society, and the economy. The state usually has little autonomy with respect to oligarchs and their followings, and often little public credibility. Taxes are not reliably collected, revenues from natural resources are likely to be squandered or stolen, and public services are chronically short of resources. Even where civil society does exist, reform efforts by citizens are hobbled by repression and potential violence – not to mention the poverty and desperation that corruption helps perpetuate. Can anything be done to check this disruptive and dangerous form of corruption?