Swimming Against the Culture of Corruption is, as the title suggests, intended to fight corruption, which has been one of the societal ills in Kenya. It is intended to point out to the ordinary Kenyan that he or she has a responsibility to deal with this evil and not to wait for political leaders to change the culture of corruption exclusively by themselves. Culture in this book is used in its wider meaning as to include such things as lies, which is corruption of truth. I have argued that fighting corruption calls for personal sacrifice, and I have demonstrated this with my personal experience and testimony. That was the purpose of telling my short life story in order to encourage others to come out and tell their stories as well in dealing with the rampant corruption in our society, which is to be found at all levels. Equally, the book argues that legislated law alone cannot deal with the problem as long as corrupt practices have been embedded in our culture. At the same time, I have argued that the culture of corruption is not inherently African. That, whereas its genesis may be traced in the twentieth-century colonization of our country by the British, the real practice as exercised by Kenyans against one another is, indeed, a post-Independence phenomena. In arguing the case of the power and efficacy of culture in determining the destiny of a society, I have said that we need to change our culture, and that by doing so, we shall be reverting to our truly African culture of integrity.

A Very Short History of Corruption Research and a List of What We Should Aim For

THE ANTI-CORRUPTION HANDBOOK Today's demanding marketplace expects CFOs, auditors, compliance officers, and forensic accountants to take responsibility for fraud detection. These expectations are buoyed by such legislation as the Foreign Corruption Practices Act (FCPA), which makes it a crime for any U.S. entity or individual to obtain or retain business by paying bribes to foreign government officials. Written by William P. Olsen, the National Practice Leader of Investigations at Grant Thornton, The Anti-Corruption Handbook: How to Protect Your Business in the Global Marketplace provides guidelines addressing the challenges of maintaining business integrity in the global marketplace. Timely and thought provoking, this book reveals the risks of doing business around the world and the precautions organizations can take to deter such activity. Authoritative, comprehensive, and insightful, The Anti-Corruption Handbook provides clear guidance on: Managing corruption risk in the global marketplace U.S. laws governing corruption Internal controls and accounting provisions of FCPA The human factor of corruption Corporate governance: the key to unmasking corrupt activity Navigating the perils of global business Anti-money laundering Procurement and construction fraud Information security Whistle blower programs Doing business internationally does not need to increase your exposure to fraud and corruption. Filled with case studies, tables, charts, and practical examples, The Anti-Corruption Handbook: How to Protect Your Business in the Global Marketplace equips fraud-fighting professionals whatever their role or responsibility with the knowledge and tools needed to obtain a competitive advantage in the global markets of the twenty-first century.

Cultural pessimism arises with the conviction that the culture of a nation, a civilisation or of humanity itself is in a process of irreversible decline. In an incisive and wide-ranging analysis, Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World charts the growth of pessimism in the West during the last decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on studies from within a very broad range of fields, which include ecology, human rights, military history, international relations, criminology, history of science, cultural criticism and political economy, the author shows how cultural pessimism in the postmodern world can be related to the cumulative effect of four key narratives of decline:*Environmental decline*Moral decline*Intellectual decline*Political declineAfter a review of pessimism in other historical periods, each of these narratives is explored in depth. The book attempts to answer a number of questions: how are the narratives constituted and what are the conditions to which they refer? To what extent are those conditions historically unprecedented? To which cultures do the narratives relate? What values do they reflect? To what extent are the identified processes of decline seen as irreversible? Concluding that cultural pessimism is as much a matter of psychological and biological disposition as of intellectual judgement, Oliver Bennett's challenging book offers valuable new insights into how we view the prospects of the twenty-first century.Features:*Provides an authoritative account of how the postmodern world has been represented as one of decline. *Brings together different perspectives kept apart by professional and academic specialisation*Views culture in its broadest sense as 'a whole way of life'*Provides an historical overview of cultural pessimism, tracing its various manifestations from the modern period back to its existence in early religions*Examines the biological, psychological and sociolog

Is Ali Mazrui a visonary or a "vacuous" intellectual? Is he recationary, revolutionary or essentially a radical pragmatist? These questions were the focus of a special plenary session of the Conference of the African Assocation of Political Science that took place in Harrare, Zimbabwe, in June 2003. The forum was intended to interrogate Ali Mazrui's contributions in the last forty years or so of his career as an academic. The question themselves capture the magnitude of polarization among different sections of Mazrui's audiences generated by his often provocative propositions amd prescriptions on a wide range of issues---from the role of intellectuals in Africa's transformation to the imperative of pax-Africana, from Tanza-philia to Islamophobia, from the condition of the Black woman to the destiny of the Black race. It is some the exchanges, sometimes intense and even acrimonious, arising from Mazrui's ideas on continetal and global African affairs, from the 1960s ti the present, that constitute the subject matter. Together, they are not only a celebration of Ail Mazrui's own intellectual life as one long debate, but also an intellectual mirror of the conours of some of the hotly contested terrains in Africa's quest for self-realization.