Global Integrity is proud to announce The Corruption Notebooks 2008 (preview here), a collection of stories told by local journalists of the daily struggle to rein in graft and protect the public interest. The authors are among the world’s best journalists, examining the politics of their home countries as no one else can.

Buy the book, preview or download free PDF here.

Corruption is everywhere. Countries worldwide, from the richest to the poorest, are infected by it. But the Notebooks show the culture of corruption varies tremendously from nation to nation. In Bangladesh, a generation of students is bribing its way into university. In Argentina, government fiscal policy filters down to angry shoppers at the grocery store and in Zimbabwe, “if you are not corrupt, people laugh at you.”

The Corruption Notebooks are written as part of the greater Global Integrity Report, an annual study of the existence and effectiveness of national-level anti-corruption mechanisms. In the Report, each country’s notebook is accompanied by an Integrity Scorecard, an indicator-by-indicator assessment of a nation’s governance framework. You can find the Global Integrity Report 2008 at http://report.www.globalintegrity.org

The new edition of The Corruption Notebooks is a collection of dispatches from 44 countries, including:

Canada, where a party gains power on promises to clean up government. Two years later, investigators are tracking down the money used to get there…

China, where simmering discontent and crumbling faith in public institutions creates nostalgia for harsher times—even among those who remember them…

Pakistan, where military action on the Afghan border undercuts efforts to clean up government. But corruption may tip the fight toward the Taliban…

Russia, where to have dark skin on the streets of Moscow means one better be prepared to pay a “foreigner tax” to bribe-hungry cops. From “survival bribes” to “comfort bribes,” these are unwritten laws of the land…

The Corruption Notebooks 2008 is being launched world-wide, with the journalists holding readings and book signings at their local community centers. We want to extend an invitation for you to join in the dialogue by attending a reading, reviewing a notebook, or holding a book party.

You can purchase a hard-copy of The Corruption Notebooks 2008 or download a free PDF on from our distributor, Lulu.com. For more Global Integrity books, including the entire Corruption Notebooks series see https://www.globalintegrity.org/books.

While corruption may not look or feel the same in any two nations, it truly is everywhere. Until we understand each culture of corruption, nothing can be done to change it.

— Global Integrity