One of the dark sides to democratization can be crime and corruption. This book looks at the way political liberalization affects these practices in a number of ways whilst also challenging some of the scare stories about democracy. The book also brings the politics of power back into an examination of corruption.

Level of compliance - one of the most important prerequisites of good governance - varies widely across countries of the Global North and the less developed, Global South. Acts of non-compliance, such as electoral irregularities, dubious deals between private and public sectors, questionable role of the justice systems and financial scandals, though they vary greatly across countries, are an omnipresent reality of contemporary life. This volume has brought together a number of case studies of such deviant behavior in political, juridical and corporate fields, from several countries of Asia, Europe and South America, within a common framework. Instead of a moral approach based exclusively on the legality and illegality of the act, the authors of these essays dissect non-compliance analytically, taking culture and context into account. They argue that, while criminal and corrupt dealings deserve to be exposed by all means from an ethical point of view, seen from an interdisciplinary angle, one needs to probe deeper into the dynamic that leads to such non-compliance with the law in the first place.

These papers examine, in a range of national contexts, the relationship between democratization and combating corruption.

Taking an ethnographic approach to understanding urban violence, Enrique Desmond Arias examines the ongoing problems of crime and police corruption that have led to widespread misery and human rights violations in many of Latin America's new democracies. Employing participant observation and interview research in three favelas (shantytowns) in Rio de Janeiro over a nine-year period, Arias closely considers the social interactions and criminal networks that are at the heart of the challenges to democratic governance in urban Brazil. Much of the violence is the result of highly organized, politically connected drug dealers feeding off of the global cocaine market. Rising crime prompts repressive police tactics, and corruption runs deep in state structures. The rich move to walled communities, and the poor are caught between the criminals and often corrupt officials. Arias argues that public policy change is not enough to stop the vicious cycle of crime and corruption. The challenge, he suggests, is to build new social networks committed to controlling violence locally. Arias also offers comparative insights that apply this analysis to other cities in Brazil and throughout Latin America.

This new edition of a 1999 classic shows how institutionalized corruption can be fought through sophisticated political-economic reform.

What kind of democracy will emerge in Mexico when the current levels of violence are brought under control? Will democratic reformers gain strength in the new equilibrium between government and criminal organizations? Or will corruption tilt the balance toward criminal interests? In the context of these questions, John Bailey explores the security trap in which Mexico is currently caught where the dynamics of crime, violence, and corruption conspire to override efforts to put the country on a path toward democratic governance. --Provided by publisher.

How do democratic values and institutions impact upon crime and justice? Civic values are promoted in rehabilitation programmes, civil society is emphasised by the government as a crime prevention strategy, and the democratic accountability of policing is often the forefront of the political agenda. How can an understanding of democracy illuminate our understanding of the key issues in the study of criminology and criminal justice? In this exciting and thought-provoking new book, Susanne Karstedt looks at the common link between these issues - democracy - and provides a systematic and accessible analysis of the relationship between our democratic values and how crime and justice is played out in both national and international arenas. Forging new interdisciplinary links between political science and criminology, the book looks at topics from terrorism, violent crime, and corruption, to citizenship, the death penalty and punitiveness. Written for advanced students in criminology, politics, international relations and sociology, this is a compelling text on a growing area of the criminology discipline.