Is Corruption Endemic in Latin America?

The article deals with the causes and specifics of the corruption cases, which took place in some Latin American countries in 2013 – 2016, including very scandalous ones in the highest echelons of power. The author marks a very dangerous tendency towards the cooperation between the corrupt politicians and the powerful gangs of organized criminality in such countries as Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and some Central American states, seeing a special danger in the fact, that a further convergence between them may transform those gangs into terrorist groups. The author does not agree with those experts (L. Cockroft,

P. Hakim, etc.), who consider corruption “endemic” for Latin America, and demonstrates that it is an international phenomenon. Nevertheless, he admits a special character of corruption in Latin America: its historic, socio-economic and cultural specifics. Their recognition is essential for successful struggle against corruption. All the history and practice of this struggle, including in the Latin American countries, has proved the inadmissibility and counter-productivity of any conjectural and precipitated approaches to it. The author proves, that a converged character of the modern organized criminality and corruption demands similarly converged methods of patient and consistent struggle with them, based on the use of complex and differentiated methods. A special significance for the poliactive cultures (to which Russia also belongs), will acquire, along with the liquidation of economic disproportions and the sophistication of the methods of governance, creation of an atmosphere of the zero-tolerance towards corruption. An important place in this struggle will belong to the cultural and educational policies, to the bringing up of the new generations in the spirit of radical non-acceptance of the very “culture of corruption”.

1. (2012). Politichaskaya identichnost’ i politica identichnosti. T. II. Identichnost i sotzialno-politicheskie izmenenia v XXI veke [Political Identity and Politics of Identity. Vol. II. Identity and Social and Political Changes in the 21st century]. Moscow. 377 p.

2. (2016). Analiticheskiye doklady IMI. Vypusk 1(45) [Analytical Reports of the Institute of International Studies. Issue 1 (45)]. Moscow: MGIMO University, 2016. 45 p.

3. (2016). Seguridad ciudadana. (Ed. M.-P. Moloeznik) M xico: Univ. de Guadalajara. 512 p.

4. Casar M.A. (2015). M xico: anatomía de la corrupci n. M xico: CIDE-IMCO. 135 p.

5. Cockroft L. (2014). Global Corruption. Money, Power and Ethics in the Modern World. NewYork: I.B. Tauris. 266 p.

6. Freeman Ch. (2015). Diplomatiya – utrachennoe iskusstvo? [Diplomacy – the Lost Art?]. Rossiya v globalnoj politike. No. 5 P. 63–76.

7. Iwanovski Z.W. (2015). Tendentsii politicheskogo razvitia v nachale XXI veka [Tendencies of Political Development in the Beginning o the 21st]. In Iwanovski Z.W. (ed.) Latinskaya Amerika: izbiratel`nye protsessy i politicheskaya panorama. Moscow: ILA RAN. P. 246–265.

8. Lewis R. (2013). When Cultures Collide. Moscow: Ivanov i Farber. 630 p.

9. Martynov B.F. (ed.) (2017). Organizovannaya prestupnost v stranach Latinskoi Ameriki i Karibskogo bassejna [Organized Crime in the countries of Latin America and the Carribean]. Moscow: Ves’ Mir. 220 p.

10. Okuneva L.S. (2016). Impichment prezidenta Brazilii: kak eto bylo [Impeachment of the Brazilian President: How it Happened]. Latinskaya Amerika. No. 8. P. 28–42.

11. Sergeeva A.V. (2005). Russkie. Stereotipy povedenia, traditsii, mental`nost [Russians. Patterns of Action, Traditions and Mentality]. Moscow: Nauka. 313 p.

12. Velasco R. (2012). Las Cloacas de economía. Madrid: ABC. 159 p.

13. Маrtynov B., Moloeznik M.-P. (2017). Mexico on a Criminal Traffic Scenario. Vestnik MGIMO Universiteta. No. 2 (53). P.184–195.