ABSTRACT
The irony of corruption control in the United States and elsewhere is that the more severe and more bureaucratic the controls, the less effective they prove to be. This is not to say that laxness or the absence of rules is preferable, but that a careful combination of strategies, excluding bureaucracy to the extent possible, has been considerably more effective in a number of settings. This chapter will first present the argument against bureaucratic controls (those in place around the United States). Second, several more effective strategies will be described by focusing on a key element of the anticorruption project: corruption control in public procurement. The chapter will conclude by examining the evolution of corruption control in the Netherlands and a proposed combination of elements that may be adopted by jurisdictions that have tried more traditional tactics with poor results.
