The Governance Gauge: Corruption by Design

We hope you enjoy this Wednesday’s Governance Gauge: for more reading material, you can always visit our reading list for more on governance, special economic zones, best practices and studies!

“Corruption by Design” was written as a game-theory modelling paper by Melanie Manion of Harvard University, but grew into a book examining the differences in governance approaches encountered in mainland China as opposed to the SAR of Hong Kong.

The book is split into 6 segments, which take a policy-making approach to the problem of Chinese civic service corruption in the last 25 years. The solutions detailed in the book are examined in isolation, without reference to international government transparency standards.

The chapters regard, in sequence: Anticorruption reform in general, Anticorruption in Hong Kong SAR, Mainland China Corruption, Routine enforcement, Anticorruption campaigns and institutional design.

Creators of zones and societies will find very useful tools and solutions in chapters 2 and 5 — successful zone design will rely on best practices that this book examines quite well.

Policymakers and analysts are the primary audience of this work, and all chapters of the book are highly relevant to the civic service and controlling profession.

Scholars and experts might not find the book a stellar piece, though some interesting game theory and highly-regarded sourcing may be reason to give the tome some attention.

A digital and paperback version can be bought here.