Bribery and Corruption in Weak Institutional Environments Connecting the Dots from a Comparative Perspective

"Introduction: Why Study Corruption in Countries with Weak Institutional Environments? TUNISIA. The country was ruled by the dictator Ben Ali from 1987 to 2011. While he was known to be corrupt, the public did not know the extent of his corruption. Needless to say, Ben Ali was beyond the law and no one could investigate him for corruption. After Ben Ali's fall in 2011, the new government seized the following illegal gains by him and his family and friends: "550 properties, 48 boats and yachts, 40 stock portfolios, 367 bank accounts, and 400 enterprises at an estimated value of $13 billion (the equivalent of 25 percent of the 2011 Tunisian gross domestic product), as well as $28.8 million held in a Lebanese bank account" ((Yerkes & Muasher, 2017), p19). VIRGINIA, the United States. From the early to the mid-2010s, there was a high- profile corruption case mesmerized of all the Virginians, and also shocked the whole nation, because the person charged in the case, Bob McDonnell, was the state's governor and a 2016 presidential hopeful. In 2011, while still in office, Bob McDonnell and his wife were investigated by the Virginia State Police for corruption, and were later indicted and convicted (which was overturned by a higher court for a retrial which never happened) for corruption: receiving gifts and loans from a businessman totaling $177,000 to promote the businessman's product. It turned out that the governor did not even have the power to do so: his call to the University of Virginia to study the product had been ignored by the scientists at the university (Walker, 2013)"--