Corruption and State-Building 1

Corruption has become a major preoccupation of the states and multilateral organizations engaged in statebuilding efforts in conflict-affected states. This is unsurprising given the centrality of questions of governance to international statebuilding efforts, and the apparent pervasiveness of the problem. Ample surveys of the populations in conflict-affected countries identify corruption as a major concern, and anecdotal accounts of rampant corruption and embezzlement of foreign aid in statebuilding environments such as Afghanistan, Liberia, or Kosovo abound. Conflict-affected states have also consistently populated the bottom of corruption indexes such as Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI). ²