Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force: Instability and Insecurity in Post-conflict Societies 9781447354680

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INVESTIGATING CORRUPTION IN THE AFGHAN POLICE FORCE Instability and Insecurity in Post‑Conflict Societies Danny Singh

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Policy Press University of Bristol 1-9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +44 (0)117 954 5940 [email protected] www.policypress.co.uk © Policy Press 2020 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-4473-5466-6 hardback ISBN 978-1-4473-5468-0 ePdf ISBN 978-1-4473-5469-7 ePub The rights of Danny Singh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the author and not of the University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design and illustration by Clifford Hayes Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Policy Press uses environmentally responsible print partners

This book is dedicated to my loving wife Sonali, son Ishaan, my mother, father and brother. The book is also dedicated to the Afghan casualties from numerous proxy wars. I hope that peace and security will be restored for the future of brilliant Afghan minds.

Contents List of abbreviations vi Notes on the author ix Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 1

Definitions and typologies of police corruption

13

2

Preventing police corruption

29

3

Security sector reform, post-conflict reconstruction and police corruption in post-conflict states

47

4

The political, economic and cultural drivers of police corruption

73

5

Corruption in Afghanistan: External intervention and institutional legacy

95

6

Social construction of corruption

117

7

Assessing the drivers of corruption within the Afghan police force

125

8

Prevention strategies in Afghanistan

159

Conclusions 175 References 191 Index 227

v

List of abbreviations ACBAR ACC ACJC ACSFo AFN AIA AIAS AIHRC ALP ANA ANDS ANP ANSF AOG APPS AREDP AREU ARoLP ARTF ASAP AUP CIVPOL COIN CPA CPHD CPIB CSIS CSO CSTC-A DDR DFID DoD DoJ EU

Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief Anti-Corruption Commission (Afghanistan) Anti-Corruption and Justice Centre (Afghanistan) Afghan Civil Society Forum organisation Afghan Afghani (currency) Afghan Interim Administration American Institute of Afghanistan Studies Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission Afghan Local Police Afghan National Army Afghanistan National Development Strategy Afghan National Police Afghan National Security Forces Armed opposition group Afghan Personnel and Pay System Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Programme Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit Afghanistan Rule of Law Project Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund Accelerating Sustainable Agricultural Programme (Afghanistan) Afghan Uniform Police Civilian Police (International) Counterinsurgency Coalition Provisional Authority Centre for Policy and Human Development (Afghanistan) Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (Singapore) Centre for Strategic and International Studies (USA) Civil society organisation Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration Department for International Development (UK) Department of Defence (USA) Department of Justice (USA) European Union

vi

List of abbreviations

EULEX EUPOL FBI FDD FDI FIA GDP HNP HOOAC HRW IAM ICAC ICG IDP IFP IMF INGO INP IPM ISAF ISIS IWA IWPR JSSP LOTFA MAIL MCTF MDG MNF MNSTC-I MoIA MRRD NATO NCO NDI NGO NTM-A

European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan Federal Bureau of Investigation (USA) Focused District Development Foreign Direct Investment Flag International Afghanistan Gross Domestic Product Haitian National Police High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (Afghanistan) Human Rights Watch International Assistance Mission (Afghanistan) Independent Commission against Corruption (Hong Kong) International Crisis Group (Belgium) Internally displaced people Iraq Federal Police International Monetary Fund International non-governmental organisation Iraqi National Police International Police Monitor International Security Assistance Force (Afghanistan) Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Integrity Watch Afghanistan Institute for War and Peace Reporting (UK) Justice Sector Support Programme (Afghanistan) Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (Afghanistan) Major Crimes Task Force Millennium Development Goal Multinational Force Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq Ministry of Interior Affairs (Afghanistan) Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (Afghanistan) North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Non-commissioned officer National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (USA) Non-governmental organisation NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan

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NTM-I NYPD ODA OECD OSCE P&G PAR PMT PRDU PRR RMP SIGAR SPF SSR UN UNAMA UNCAC UNDP UNMIH UNMIK UNODC UNSC USAID USIP

NATO Training Mission – Iraq New York City Police Department Official Development Assistance (UK) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (France) Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (Austria) Pay and grading Public Administration Reform Police Mentoring Team Post-War Reconstruction and Development Unit (UK) Priority reform and restructuring Royal Malaysian Police Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Singaporean Police Force Security sector reform United Nations United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan United Nations Convention against Corruption United Nations Development Programme United Nations Mission in Haiti United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime United Nations Security Council United States Agency for International Development United States Institute of Peace

viii

Notes on the author Dr Danny Singh is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Teesside University. He previously taught at the University of York’s Department of Politics and at Leeds Beckett University. He has published articles on interventions in war-torn states leading to police and judicial reform and anti-corruption in journals including Conflict, Security & Development, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Journal of Developing Societies, Crime, Law and Social Change, Policy Studies, The Police Journal and The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law. He is currently researching the link between just war theory and international relations theory. He has recently been published in an edited collection, both as co-editor and as a contributor, in Comparative Just War Theory: An Introduction to International Perspectives for the Explorations in Contemporary Social-Political Philosophy Series (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).

ix

Acknowledgements This book has progressed from my doctoral research (which included fieldwork) concerning security sector reform in Afghanistan. I would like to thank all the gatekeepers, interviewees and police officers – anonymised for their own security – involved in this project. This work would not have been possible without their efforts and the hospitality of Afghans in general. During the fieldwork I was deeply touched and impressed by young Afghans learning several languages after work and engaging in higher education studies abroad to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of Afghan ministries and agencies focused on ending corruption. I hope that this book can serve as a tool to assist with fighting corruption in Afghanistan, which has been plagued by endemic police corruption and public sector malfeasance. Corruption undoubtedly impacts on the poor the most when they are forced to pay bribes for basic services that should be free. Corruption also constrains development and can intensify both insecurity and insurgency. The book points to the drivers of corruption to help provide a theoretical framework to generate a better understanding of the main causes, practices and consequences of police corruption in other war-stricken societies. Finally, I would like to thank my loved ones for their candid and constant support. My wife Sonali has been extremely patient, and together with my loving son Ishaan, they make my life a joy, particularly when spending precious family time together. In addition, my father has always encouraged my further studies and my mother has been there to provide pastoral support. My brother Paul and brother-in-law Sahil have provided entertaining sanity. I would also like to thank all my colleagues at Teesside University for their teaching support.

x

Introduction Corruption leads to protracted conflict and a rise in insurgency, as well as severely affecting the poor. As a police force regularly interacts with citizens it is thus a pivotal government agent, and if interactions with the public are negative, then both the police and the state will be deemed untrustworthy, or even illegitimate (Wozniak, 2017: 808). When a police force is rampant with corruption, this negatively affects the rule of law, security and legitimacy of both the state police and government. In conflict-stricken societies, this can create a security vacuum, giving rise to security forces’ loyalty to local militias, forming a culture of warlordism, and increasing support for informal security networks and insurgent groups (Özerdem, 2010: S46). All these features of corruption are plainly evident in war-torn and conflictstricken countries. Police corruption may persist due to shortcomings in security sector reform (SSR) and post-conflict reconstruction, namely securitisation post-9/11 and patronage. SSR became a later policy goal as part of the broader aims of post-conflict reconstruction, statebuilding and sustainable peacebuilding. In March 1999, former UK Secretary of State, Clare Short (for the Department for International Development, DFID), put forward a policy goal of SSR, poverty alleviation and a ‘cross-governmental agenda’ (quoted in Varisco, 2018: 101). The justification behind this was that if a security force lacked professionalism, was corrupt, ethnically unbalanced or poorly controlled, security problems would worsen (Hendrickson, 1999: 9). SSR therefore aims to assist with post-conflict reconstruction and a wider peacebuilding and development strategy to protect, rather than endanger, citizens, reduce corruption and promote human rights (Hutton, 2009: 5). Western notions of reform are based on good governance and civilian oversight to disband former fighters and reintegrate them into society, or new security forces, to professionalise both the military and police force, and to reform the judiciary and rule of law from a legacy of disorder (Brzoska, 2000: 9). As part of sustainable development and SSR, Western donors have subsequently supported reconstruction and development in Afghanistan and Iraq. Securitisation has been pivotal in post-9/11 Iraq and Afghanistan, as part of a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, which has meant that other wider SSR initiatives have been cast aside, namely judicial reform. To illustrate, the US-dominated reconstruction and retraining of security forces in Iraq has encountered numerous problems, due

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to corruption in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and sectarian violence within segments of the Iraqi National Police’s (INP) leadership (Perito and Kristoff, 2009: 3–4). In both Iraq and Afghanistan, SSR has included the military, the police, the judiciary and the reintegration of former fighters (there is also the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan). Since 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), as part of the US military reform effort, attempted to form a professional, representative and non-political Iraqi armed forces, but the insurgency was increasing (Sedra, 2007: 12–13). Police reform has been set back due to loyalty to militias, poor vetting, illegal raids and murders by Shi’a officials in the Ministry of Interior targeting Sunnis, torture, violence against the police and high desertion rates (Cordesman, 2006: 73; Sedra, 2007: 14). In addition, there have been shortcomings in the reform of the justice sector due to violence and intimidation of judicial staff to act in the interests of non-state militias, and it also lacks independence and funding, which is similar to the situation in Afghanistan (Sedra, 2007: 15). There is vast research on SSR failings in both Iraq and Afghanistan, which includes data derived from international trainers and senior police and military officers (Bayley and Perito, 2010). Problems with reform include an over-focus on reforming funding for the security sector, meaning that a lack of funding is evident for the judicial sector, as well as sectarian or ethnic tension in the security forces and loyalty for commanders. Patronage and corruption are notable consequences resulting in negative public perceptions of the security forces and governments and a rise in the number of insurgencies (Singh, 2015: 243–44, 250). In the broader field of SSR and post-conflict reconstruction, the centring of voices of actual front-line officers is sorely missing, and so this book aims to fill this gap. The issue of police corruption in Afghanistan is important beyond the internal politics of the country, because tackling (police) corruption would contribute greatly to improved global security.

Aim of the book The specific aim of this book is to provide a study on corruption within the Afghan police force. The book therefore covers the main issues concerning police corruption in Afghanistan and the three drivers of corruption – political, economic and cultural. It will be argued that these drivers should enable a comprehensive understanding of the causes, practices and consequences of police corruption in Afghanistan.

2

Introduction

The aim of the book therefore informs the intentions of the research. The analytical contribution of the research is framed within the three drivers of corruption to assess the results within the literature. The drivers enable an understanding of police corruption that is relevant to the Afghan context. Such an understanding of corruption can inform policy and practice to bring about better planning and implementation of an anti-corruption strategy. The findings are transferable to other post-conflict settings that have attempted police reform. The book therefore draws on Iraq to develop the wider implications beyond Afghanistan. For example, although the social construction of what constitutes corruption is a central theme of the study and is empirically tested within Afghanistan, other countries could adopt the same methodology. This approach is taken to provide an understanding of corruption from a relativist position in order to be able to better plan and implement an anti-corruption strategy and to decide whether or not to cast aside cultural forms of preserving business and social relationships. Therefore, this book aims to provide an understanding of corruption in Afghanistan and how to prevent it, with reference to the policy implications for other developing states and those in conflict.

The methodology Empirical research for the book was conducted with the lower levels of the Afghan police force, because they make up the majority of the estimated 180,000  force (as at June 2019; see Shalizi, 2019); there are, as yet, virtually no studies investigating their perceptions of corruption or its causes and practices. Literature within this field generally concentrates on grand corruption without investigating the impact of misbehaviour, misconduct or corruption by the ‘beat cop’ and their insights into the problem. The work of Wilder (2007), Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh (2013) and Planty and Perito (2013) provide an analytical departure point insofar as these studies discuss interviews conducted with international staff and senior police officers on police corruption in Afghanistan, albeit they ignore the lower levels, despite these officers being regularly engaged with daily and routine police practices on the streets of Afghanistan. The research methods – semi-structured interviews with police and rule of law experts, a survey and structured interviews with low-rank police officers – should fill this empirical void and enable an assessment of the drivers of corruption. The survey was conducted with 100 Afghan police officers, mostly non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and of a low rank, in January to March 2012, and lasted for 10 minutes.

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

Fifty 20-minute structured interviews were subsequently conducted in April to May 2016 with patrol officers, sergeants and lieutenants. It is important to note that there are many units within the Afghan police. Alongside uniformed police officers, specialist units include the Afghan Border Police, the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan and the Afghan National Civil Order. These units serve different purposes ranging from tackling street crime, dealing with external threats, countering narcotics and civilian policing. Despite focusing on street-level police, my research data intends to fill the empirical gap by triangulating the results of both datasets with previous semistructured interviews conducted with 70 elites, namely ministerial, governmental and non-governmental organisation (NGO) staff in Afghanistan, in both 2010 and 2012. The semi-structured interviews lasted for approximately 60–90 minutes each and focused on security and judicial reforms to date. The sampling for the research was based on a snowball (networking) strategy to further interview people from relevant ministries and organisations involved in police reform, judicial reform, the rule of law, human rights and wider development. Due to security risks, most of the interviews were conducted in Kabul, and thus the data is not representative for the entirety of Afghanistan. Similarly, the survey and structured interviews were mainly conducted in Kabul, Nangarhar and Logar, and thus the low numbers cannot be tested for generalisability or statistical significance. Due to these challenges in the field, the data aims to analyse qualitative findings on the economic determinants of everyday life. These include pay reform, salary details and the cost of living. Moreover, the data intends to examine police officers’ perceptions about patronage and corruption, which includes definitions of what corruption entails, the main causes and practices of corruption, components of an anti-corruption strategy and training. A street-intercept strategy was followed to recruit survey participants and structured interview respondents. Permission was requested from police commanders to approach their NCOs and officers within their dominion. Once authorisation was granted, the police officers within the designated jurisdiction were asked a screening question based on rank. If the response for rank indicated NCO or low-ranked officer, the survey or structured interview was conducted.

Overview of the book Chapter 1 covers the basic literature on police corruption, which includes its definitions and typologies. The definitions are based on

4

Introduction

work from Punch (1985, 2009) to reveal that police corruption is for personal gain and involves some form of material benefit for performing a duty or turning a blind eye. The main activities of police corruption are provided in older typologies, and generally include corruption of authority, kickbacks and more severe forms such as adding or planting evidence (which usually includes narcotics) (Roebuck and Barker, 1974: 435–6; Carter, 1990: 92). Integrity violations can broaden disreputable conduct beyond the scope of corrupt behaviour, such as misusing information, discrimination, recreational activities and crime in private time (Huberts, 1998: 28–30). The differences between police deviance and other forms of police malfeasance are subsequently provided. Therefore, activities of police corruption usually involve minor gratuities, small kickbacks, bribery and extortion, and more severe forms include protection rackets in vice areas (drugs, prostitution and gambling) (Roebuck and Barker, 1974: 429–31; Barker, 2006: 47–50). It is further argued in this chapter that police officers may abuse their authority for departmental gain such as falsifying evidence to achieve a just outcome, which is referred to as noble cause corruption. In other words, police officers may exercise their moral judgement to anticipate arrests, due to moral and justified values, by bending some rules for an alleged noble cause (Pyman et al, 2012: 27). As part of divisional advantage, police solidarity may be high, which may prevent whistle-blowing against corrupt colleagues to protect a department (Miller, 2003). Police discretion and the nature of police work can also influence how choices are made regarding performing an action or inaction for particular offences (Banton, 1964: 128; Klockars, 1985: 93). Therefore, police corruption entails activities that are for either personal or departmental advantage. The actions or inactions undertaken are based on police discretion. Chapter 2 looks at an anti-corruption strategy to control corruption and integrity violations. This includes enforcing accountability with the aid of commissions of inquiry after a public scandal; police reform, which includes institutional reform; pay reform; and a strategy for rotation. A typology of corruption divided corrupt police officers into three categories, as presented by the Knapp Report concerning widespread corruption in the New York Police Department (NYPD) between 1970 and 1972. First, ‘grass-eaters’ are police officers who receive bribes, free gifts or accept money for not reporting a fellow officer’s engagement in corruption to senior staff (Kane and White, 2013: xvi). Second, ‘meat-eaters’ are the few police officers who clearly and bellicosely engage in corrupt practices and can support a private

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enterprise (Cole and Smith, 2007: 225). Petty corruption can become systemically embedded within a police institution, which results in acceptance due to the diverse perceptions of police supervisors, and intensifies further misconduct (Ivković, 2005a: 560). Third, ‘birds’ are officers who ‘fly above’ the accountability of corruption by pursuing sanctuary in senior administrative positions, and do little to get involved in spotting corruption or do not engage in it due to lack of opportunities to do so (Punch, 2009: 21). In relation to police reform, institutional reform is a preventative method of police corruption in countries that are plagued with corruption. Recruits join the police force with established close ties with non-standard commanders (distinct from the national army or state police) and criminal entities. Methods to prevent high-level police corruption involve thorough recruitment based on merit, education on democratic policing1 roles – which includes the rule of law – and awareness of corruption from job commencement (Hope, 2017: 5, 9). Training on ethics and integrity within the police are additional prevention strategies that are covered in this chapter. Low pay is regularly documented as a main cause of police corruption (Ivković, 2005b: 88). In many developing and war-torn Asian and African countries, the state police are frequently poorly salaried, which makes it difficult to pay for living costs, especially for those with larger and families. This chapter includes a variety of these cases. A rotation strategy involves deterring personal ties that are moulded with corrupt patronage nets and job favouritism to oblige a patron’s interests. Posting a police officer to a distant area may prevent corrupt networks forming allegiances with the police, or may prevent officers developing connections with organised crime syndicates (Prenzler, 2002: 20). Various cases of rotation strategy are provided in this chapter. Chapter 3 is thematic. It refers to the literature on the interconnectivity between post-conflict reconstruction, statebuilding, sustainable peacebuilding and SSR. It is argued that if SSR is implemented prior to robust planning, citizens may at risk as a result of inept security forces, political factions, a frail and unfair justice system, and irregular mercenaries. SSR specifically focuses on the professionalisation of the security forces, good governance, transparency and accountability, and the wider approach also incorporates judicial reform (Tondini, 2008: 242). SSR thus links with post-conflict reconstruction. Brief examples in this chapter include the United Nations (UN) supported transitional authorities and administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo and East

6

Introduction

Timor during the 1990s. A statebuilding and SSR strategy has been adopted in Afghanistan, which is why comparisons are fundamental to understand the wider context of post-conflict reconstruction and sustainable peacebuilding. The final part of this chapter analyses police reform as part of SSR and police reconstruction and post-conflict policing. In particular, the cases of Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Honduras, Venezuela and Serbia are provided. Haiti involved an intensive six-year police reform process, initiated from a US-sponsored strategy, to create a police force that then handed over to the UN (Serafino, 2005: 71). There are comparisons in both Iraqi and Afghan police reconstruction efforts. Similarities between contexts and US-led training on combat operations and fighting insurgencies were evident in training the police as auxiliary military personnel (Horowitz, 2015: 164). An over-focus on fighting enemies tainted community and democratic policing efforts in both contexts. As a consequence, the local police forces retained loyalty to factions rather than the state police, which intensified corruption (Sedra, 2007: 12–14, 2008: 200). Other cases include difficulties in police reform due to high levels of insecurity, gang violence and a legacy of poorly trained police officers under an authoritarian regime. In Honduras, the police engage in street-level organised crime with urban gangs, which includes the drug trade (Yashar, 2018: 354). Venezuela has high murder rates, insecurity and police engagement with criminal networks and vigilante justice (Carroll, 2009). Private justice and hunting certain groups has hindered community policing in these contexts. Serbia is then discussed, which has problems with ethnic divisions and discriminate practices of policing (Ryan, 2007: 288–9). Chapter 4 is also largely a theoretical one focusing on the potential categories of assessing the causes and consequences of corruption to later examine corruption in the Afghan police. Political drivers cover the structural causes of corruption, patronage and nepotism, state capture and favouritism. Economic drivers cover the low pay hypothesis and opportunity with few sanctions. Cultural drivers cover police corruption for divisional advantage, police discretion and noble cause corruption. These drivers are interconnected. The political economy approach analyses the relationship between economic and political agents within closed economies (limited access orders), rentseeking behaviour and survival approaches of low-paid administrative and law enforcement actors. This doctrine bridges the political and economic drivers of corruption together from a statist perspective. Chapter  5 sets the scene in Afghanistan. Previous chapters have explored how institutional legacy and external intervention have

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shaped the structural conditions of corruption in the Afghan police force and state, initially focusing on post-2001 external intervention. Conditions in the Afghan state and political bargaining with international assistance have resulted in patronage and, debatably, systemic corruption. After the forced removal of the Taliban, the Bonn Agreement in late 2001 triggered a political bargaining process with Northern Alliance warlords who then entered former President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet in government. The use of prevailing patronage networks empowered local warlords to assist US-backed coalition military forces to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda (Goodman and Sutton, 2015). The local warlords were experienced in fighting the Soviet-backed communist regime and the Taliban, and their roles evolved into strongman governance. This new form of governance between the interim Karzai administration and several warlords led to a security pact to secure the rural parts of Afghanistan (Mukhopadhyay, 2014: 1). So the Afghan political system was based on clientelism and short-term peace but, in fairness, there was little alternative. The institutional legacy of the Afghan National Police (ANP) is then brought to attention. The consequences of corruption for Afghan society and its negative impacts on the effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy of the state are subsequently identified. The Afghan government and police are perceived as incompetent and corrupt, which has undermined their legitimacy in the eyes of Afghan civilians (Singh, 2014: 646). Public illegitimacy has led to the re-emergence of the Taliban due to an opportunity to remobilise and gain civilian support against the Karzai regime (Nathan, 2009: 35). Moreover, as argued in the following section on anti-corruption efforts, investigations and probes from the police and judicial institutions have been permeated by political elites to protect their partisan and drug trafficking interests (Farah, 2011: 19, 23). Such conditions of state fragility make it difficult to pursue police and judicial investigations against criminals who have political connections. These problems have been addressed with a myriad of efforts to combat corruption in Afghanistan, which are examined in this chapter. Efforts to curtail corruption include the Public Administration Reform (PAR), the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) (2008), the revised 2018 Afghanistan National Strategy for Combating Corruption (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2018) and the creation of a new Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). This anticorruption roadmap attempted to enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and accountability of the public sector, form meritocratic recruitment and raise salaries as part of pay reform to reduce petty

8

Introduction

corruption (Singh, 2016: 46–50). Pay reform trickled into the Afghan Ministry of Interior but wages remain locked at low levels compared to increasing living costs (Singh, 2014: 626, 634). The predecessor of the ACC – the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOOAC) – remained attached to the Presidential Office, manipulated by political interference and cabinet cronyism, and lacked prosecution powers (Singh, 2015: 242, 2016: 53, 62). Similar debates are currently being undertaken with the involvement of civil society concerning the appointment process of commissioners for the new Commission (Bjelica, 2019: 2). It is argued that these shortcomings impact on state effectiveness, the rule of law and security. The structural conditions of the Afghan state derive from institutional legacy (from various regime changes) and external intervention (post-2001) that have influenced corruption, strongman governance and patronage. The final section addresses how these features of institutional legacy and external intervention have shaped practices regarding the political, economic and cultural drivers of corruption. After identifying the three drivers of corruption that serve as the framework and institutional legacy of corruption in the Afghan context, Chapter  6 covers the contention in Western literature regarding what corruption entails. A cultural relativist depiction is applied within other settings as a central contribution to the field of corruption to study what corruption means and entails in other societies. The concept of social constructivism is used to explore the cultural varieties of what corruption entails in China, Russia, Afghanistan and India. This adoption of social constructivism is to argue that a local cultural understanding also provides an understanding of corruption. Local cultural understandings of corruption can challenge Western-based misuse of power for private advantage – legal definitions – by placing importance on evil or filth. For instance, in the Afghan context, corruption is deemed as ‘dirtiness’ (fasad) and is thus unacceptable. Bribery (rishwat) functions as a blockage to the natural flow of a stream. Gift giving influences a judicial decision (bakhshish) or speeds up basic public services (Azami, 2009). Gifts form social contracts between state officials and citizens. Gift giving may be engrained within local cultures to get things done rather than being considered as corruption from Western literature. For example, gifts may also maintain business and social relationships, as in China, with ‘affective sentiments and guanxi ties’ (Yang, 1994: 122). Similarly, blat in Russia can extend patronage circles, which consists of ‘personal networks’, to obtain extended favours, services and goods while eluding formal procedures (Ledeneva, 2009: 257–8). This local cultural

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understanding can influence the way societies perceive corruption. The cultural drivers support the argument that cultural understandings of corruption contribute to defining corruption. Therefore, culture is significant in local understandings of corruption. The chapters that follow provide an analysis of the empirical data with the police respondents and senior ministerial officials, the police, human rights, anti-corruption and rule of law experts, to examine the three drivers of corruption and the anti-corruption strategy within the Afghan police force. Chapter 7 predominantly examines these main manifestations, causes and consequences of corruption that are present in Afghanistan. The qualitative data is analysed with a thematic analysis approach. These themes consist of the three drivers. In relation to economic drivers, low pay is a cause of corruption and bribery, and extortion functions as a form of police corruption. Despite pay reforms to increase salaries, protracted low wages intensify corruption through economic survival. In relation to political drivers, patronage is widespread, which influences recruitment and undermines screening processes, testing and checks for corruption and human rights abuses that link deception with criminality. In addition, the Afghan police remain loyal to local warlords and commanders – such as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, Field Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Atta Mohammad Noor in northern Afghanistan – instead of the state. Primary state institutions have been permeated by criminal groups that have undermined police, judicial and anti-corruption investigations. Therefore, high perceptions of police corruption have hindered support of the state and its services, and increased Taliban support and the use of informal networks. In relation to cultural drivers, there is no noble cause, motivation, pride or sense of mission to secure the state against intervention or to topple a regime (unlike during the Mujahidin era) in the current Afghan police force to fulfil a clear mandate and work duties. The lack of professional obligation to the role appears to be the case because Western conceptions of police culture find a strong moralistic strand that informs both legal and illegal behaviour, including some corrupt behaviour. The research found no real evidence that the Afghan police have a similar moral underpinning to their culture. After identifying the perceptions on patronage, corruption and anticorruption, Chapter 8 initially covers the anti-corruption strategy in the Afghan police. It specifically reveals the measures and perceptions of an internal police strategy to combat corruption. The police anticorruption strategy includes pay and rank reform to reduce senior staff and increase the salaries of the lower ranks to help with living costs.

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Introduction

Although the respondents were asked questions about their wages and cost of living, there is evidence to suggest that petty corruption, such as bribery and roadside extortion, is a likely outcome due to low pay. The chapter then investigates a stationing strategy that includes the location of a police officer’s present post and a lottery system to reduce patronage and loyalty with local commanders, warlords and elders. The findings suggest that economic hardship has increased. Economic struggles are due to a lottery system of posting police officers to distant provinces to combat patronage relations with informal power brokers because there are fewer breadwinners to support large families in distant provinces. This system has further exacerbated petty corruption for economic necessity, and thus the lottery system has been counterproductive. Hence, a linear anti-corruption strategy continues to fail. Finally, training is covered to outline what it offers and its efficiency in enhancing professionalism and competence. The findings suggest that training for eight weeks at a police academy is insufficient for illiterate and semi-literate police recruits to grasp the legitimate rules of engagement, human rights and anti-corruption. The Conclusions are organised in several sections. An overview of statebuilding, neoliberal police reconstruction and anti-corruption strategy in Afghanistan is provided. The chapter subsequently moves to the main findings from the research, the theoretical implications as well as lessons for police reform in post-conflict or fragile situations. The main findings emphasise how political, economic and cultural drivers inform corruption in the Afghan police force. Pay reform has the latency to curb petty corruption to supplement low wages for survival, but incentives for honest behaviour and anti-corruption remain futile. Low pay, bribery or roadside extortion and weak oversight were expressed by the police respondents as the main causes and practices of police corruption. In relation to political drivers, patronage and job buying in recruitment occurs, and the police remain loyal to informal figures rather than the state (Singh, 2014: 631; 2019: 203, 211). To curb patronage linkages and informal loyalty, a threeyear rotation strategy was adopted. However, the data shows that sole breadwinners employed in distant provinces have found it difficult to provide for their large families, which may potentially intensify petty corruption – bribery and roadside extortion – for economic necessity. In addition, main parts of the state have been permeated to serve narrow criminal interests – usually associated with drug and arms trafficking – which hinders the rule of law, law enforcement and anticorruption investigations (Singh, 2016: 55; McCoy, 2018; UNODC, 2019: 52). When analysing cultural drivers, it can be inferred that

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

Afghan police officers lack a professional calling and noble cause, accountability remains futile (potentially due to high forms of internal solidarity), and it is mainly illiterate recruits who embark on short and futile training programmes. The final section in this chapter focuses on lessons for police reform in post-conflict or fragile situations that address the need for examining the political, economic and cultural drivers of corruption to examine the definitions, causes, practices and consequences of police corruption. Linkages to broader SSR and post-conflict reconstruction are provided, which largely draws on comparisons with the reform of the Iraqi police force because the international actors involved in SSR and the problems with corruption, patronage and insecurity are similar to the context of Afghanistan. In both, similar modes of training within police reform were evident. Neoliberal police reconstruction was driven by the USA to militarise the new police forces – as part of fighting insurgencies – which countered other efforts on the reflexive model. This strategy resulted in stagnated democratic policing and poor resourcing with short training programmes. Taking the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq into consideration, postconflict and fragile states can better inform policy-making on police reform and improve anti-corruption within the police sector. The police are the most visible representative of the state in communities, and thus their engagement in corruption can have the effect of delegitimising the state at large, which intensifies the insurgency or rise of organised crime. In this way, petty corruption at the local level can have a great impact on grand corruption among elites. This issue on the relationship between petty and political corruption needs to be tackled in broader post-conflict contexts to benefit the reconstruction, SSR and sustainable peacebuilding components for improved aid efficiency. Note 1

The main principle of democratic policing is for the police to acknowledge that they are accountable to citizens, their government, the country and law, and thus all works must be transparent with open oversight (Carty, 2009: 13).

12

1

Definitions and typologies of police corruption

Introduction Corruption can loosely be defined, in modern terms, as the abuse of public power or trusted office for private gain or benefit (Ganahl, 2013: 57). Police corruption concerns the misuse of power or authority by a police officer for direct or indirect gain in exchange for an official action or inaction, and they abuse their authority by either providing or neglecting to perform services within their role in exchange for the allocation of this benefit (Edelbacher and Ivković, 2004: 21). Typologies of police corruption identify the main activities of corruption within a police force and integrity violations enhance an understanding of the overlapping practices of police misconduct, misbehaviour in private time and broader malfeasance. Integrity violations have been tested in scenarios and laboratory-based testing for police officers. It is important to cover the definitions, activities and typologies of police corruption prior to recommending prevention strategies to curtail it within a particular setting. The purpose of this chapter is to cover some definitions of corruption and more narrowly, police corruption, which include the main activities of police corruption as stated in the criminological literature. Definitions of corruption are followed by some typologies of police corruption that place the severity of police corruption in a hierarchy. While it is difficult to distinguish a set definition of police corruption, some of the main activities, as provided in the typologies and integrity violations, mean that there can be some agreement on some of the main practices of police corruption.

Attempts to define corruption There are many contested definitions of what constitutes corruption. With more in-depth definitions, there is some ambiguity between the terms ‘misuse’, ‘theft’, ‘immorality’ and ‘corruption’ that can at times be used interchangeably. Usually, the central component of corruption

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

is the abuse of power, or of resources, within a public role for private gain (Rose-Ackerman, 1999: 91). Alemann (1989: 858) argues that corruption is a general term, often associated with bribery, covering the misuse of power and authority for personal gain that does not need to be monetary. This definition – the misuse of trusted power for private benefit – has been prescribed by many international anticorruption bodies such as Transparency International (2018) and The World Bank (Boucher et al, 2007). More recently, Pinková (2016: 91) recognises that Transparency International’s popular definition of the abuse of any trusted power includes the private sector and political corruption concerns the public sector. Therefore, corruption concerns the misuse of entrusted public or private authority for an advantage. Heidenheimer et  al (1989: 6) suggest that corruption is an illegitimate transaction of collective goods between both public and private sector actors that are subsequently altered into private payoffs. A classical definition of corruption is provided by Nye (1967: 417), who identified that corruption is ‘behaviour that deviates from the formal duties of a public role (elective or appointive) because of privateregarding (personal, close family, private clique) wealth or status gains’. The private gains and payoffs are part of social corruption insofar as clientelism – the exchange of material benefits in loose terms – is also linked to nepotism, ethnic and tribal favouritism (Médard, 1998: 308). Clientelism explains how classes and elites uphold their control to legitimately distribute, usually unequally, state resources among loyal or social groups to enhance the status and survival of the political elites, which is thus an abuse of elite trusted authority (although deemed legal and debatably moral) (Seteolu, 2005: 36). The abuse of public authority for private-regarding payoffs is also updated by Khan (1996: 12), who claims that corruption concerns the ‘behaviour that deviates from the formal rules of conduct governing the actions of someone in a position of public authority because of private-regarding motives such as wealth, power, or status’. The private-regarding payoffs persist in societies where there are few political opportunities, which leads to people using their wealth to purchase power, and where there are scarce economic opportunities, political power is used to pursue wealth (Huntington, 1968). Despite such brief definitions of corruption, both The World Bank (1999) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) (2006) argue that corruption must cover more than a simplistic definition – the abuse of public office for private gain. These brief definitions only cover petty administrative corruption and do not include direct embezzlement of funds, misappropriation

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Definitions and typologies of police corruption

and theft. If taking a Latin approach as a definition, corruptus means ‘to break’, which has many other connotations (Nicholls et al, 2006: 1). In relation to theft, an ordinary citizen who steals outside of work breaches the law, but an accounts officer who takes some money from a till could be overgeneralised as corrupt, although this would also most likely be deemed as theft. In sum, the brief definition leads to private gain where a public official or state employee benefits with money and gains the support of a political party, organisation and/or sectarian group in some way – these are common forms of corruption within Western European political parties (Philp, 2008: 311). Contemporary global anti-corruption bodies such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UN and the Council of Europe do not provide a definition of corruption. Instead, they identify particular offences of corruption that mainly concern bribery (OECD, 2007a). Recognising corrupt practices has the advantage of attempting to deal with the activity and consequences of corruption, but cementing around a few variables – such as bribery – has shortcomings similar to a narrow definition of corruption. It is difficult to provide an accurate one-line definition of corruption that covers all of its activities. Even if a definitive definition is possible, the social construction of such deviant acts is debatable, whether they are acceptable from varying cultures as corruption or just a way of getting things done. Local authorities, leaders and elders interpret their roles, rights, jurisdiction and powers from external actors – such as peacekeepers – and other communities (Philp, 2008: 317). VargasHernández (2010: 132) argues that all forms of corruption are based on conflict between an individual’s personal and professional values and interests, but it is difficult to uncover the different forms. A broader definition of corruption embraces abuses of public interest for narrow sectional interests, instead of simply stating that corruption is most often the abuse of public office for private benefit. If prescribing this broad approach, corruption would include racketeering of peacebuilding and reconstruction funds and radical economic policies that serve and protect the interests of a few groups (Klein, 2007). In addition, corruption would entail profiteering from subcontracting networks, high tax-free salaries to overseas consultants, donors driving Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) schemes rather than national entrepreneurship, liberalised tax and trade policies, privatised public assets and economic sanctions (Carnahan, 2007). Furthermore, even during humanitarian relief operations, cronyism in the process of subcontracting, conspiracy in corrupt activities by local authorities,

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

lack of accountability and poor transparency are common documented issues in conflict-affected states (Willitts-King and Harvey, 2005). Philp (2008: 315) argues that a broader definition of corruption in politics involves three actors that are either involved or affected during a corrupt activity. The players include the occupier of the public office, the public official, the anticipated beneficiary of the office, namely the public, and the actual beneficiary such as a third party or private group of the activity of that office. The anticipated beneficiary and actual beneficiary can be the same. I agree with this broad definition – the abuse of public office by someone who holds office and the benefiting entity is affiliated with the office to an extent – but corruption is complex, and identifying all of its forms and all the actors involved is difficult. What constitutes corruption can be identified from typologies and activities, but these can be culturally contested.

Definitions of police corruption Punch (2009: 18) states that police corruption can legally and narrowly be defined as a police officer performing an action against their duty knowingly for financial or material benefit or assurance of such gain. This legalistic interpretation includes situations when an official is assured significant advantage or another reward for executing a duty or not executing a duty and when exercising legal discretion for firm illicit interests (Punch, 1985: 14). A narrow approach to police corruption would regard the acceptance of bribes as corruption but criminal acts such as stealing on duty would not qualify as corrupt practice (Wilson, 1968). Klockars (1985) argues that when police officers burgle from a crime scene they are corrupt, but they are simply thieves if they steal from family and friends, homes and stores. Based on this premise, police corruption is related to the workplace. Police deviance is broader than police corruption. Police deviance can be defined as a police officer engaging in wrongful activities, such as straying from accepted standards, ethics, legality, norms, values and professional conduct (from the perspective of society or the police), but does not include direct victimisation (Gaines and Kappeler, 2015: 416). Further examples of police deviance can include favouritism, nepotism or helping a relative get out of a speeding ticket. When defining police corruption there are also broader notions. For instance, corruption can stretch to gratuities, minor rewards or small kickbacks, and if a public official accepts money or another privilege for acting out their occupational duties (McMullan, 1961: 183–4). Kleinig (1996: 166) expands the definition of police corruption even

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Definitions and typologies of police corruption

further to include abusing authority to progress private or departmental advantage. For instance, an official or police officer may falsify evidence to achieve a believed just outcome, which is referred to as noble cause corruption (Pyman et al, 2012: 27). There are differences between misconduct and corruption. Police misconduct can be defined as performing an act or an omission committed by an individual police officer or entire police agency that abuses the legal rules (whether federal, criminal civil statutes or internal rules within police agencies) (Ivković, 2005b: 17). An example of an act committed by a police officer or police agency that they are not supposed to do includes planting evidence on someone, and an omission is failure to do something such as accepting a bribe for not issuing a speeding ticket for a motorist driving through a red light (Ivković, 2014: 304). Police corruption involves financial gain or a material advantage (for example, bribery, theft, shakedowns, protection rackets, kickbacks and internal payoffs), and misconduct concerns no financial gain or material advantage (for example, perjury, brutality and sex, drinking or sleeping on duty) (Barker, 1983: 31–2). It is difficult to separate police misconduct and police corruption. This is because inappropriate and illegal activities or a breach of internal rules conducted by a police officer or police agency is committed while they are performing their official duties. Activities and omissions while on police duty may overlap with police corruption and police deviance. Hence, police corruption can broadly be defined as a police officer acting in an unethical, improper, dishonest, deviant or criminal manner (Barker and Roebuck, 1973: 3). It can also be deemed as misconduct or engagement in criminal practices, such as drug use or theft, without someone bribing the officer (Newburn, 1999: 14; Miller, 2003: 2). It can also include the failure to act on an investigation, ignoring evidence or insecurely dealing with evidence. For Punch (1985: 14), police corruption occurs when an officer obtains or is promised substantial gain, personal reward or organisational advantage for performing an action within their duties, performing a duty that they are not supposed to, or exercising legitimate discretion for inappropriate reasons. Despite these differences regarding the overlap between dishonesty, deviancy and crime and whether there has to be a corrupter or not, police corruption can include intended corrupt activity for either personal or collective advantage. Sayed and Bruce (1998: 12) similarly work towards the definition of police corruption to entail any illicit ‘conduct or misconduct’ that involves the misuse of ‘occupational’ authority ‘for personal, group or organisational’ advantage.

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

Typologies of police corruption There are a variety of typologies to cover police corruption to identify some of its common practices. Literature from Roebuck and Barker (1974) forms an eight-fold typology of police corruption, and later work from Punch (1985: 10–11, 2009: 27) and Carter (1990: 92–4) agree on nine activities of police corruption. Some of these overlap with police misconduct and police deviance, and include corruption of authority, kickbacks, opportunistic theft, turning a blind eye, protection of illegal activities, fixing, direct criminal activities, internal payoffs, and adding or planting evidence. These are now discussed in turn: • Corruption of authority is the initial indicated facet of the popular typology of police corruption as part of organisational deviance resting ‘on informal peer group norms’ (Vargas-Hernández, 2010: 136). The abuse of authority is present when a police officer takes privileges without contravening the law such as accepting free meals, drinks, sex or other services ‘because the corrupter’ has an interest in enticing the police (Roebuck and Barker, 1974: 428). • Kickbacks include money, services or goods that a police officer receives in exchange for referring business to a particular individual or company. Kickbacks may involve doctors, lawyers, taxi service companies, bondsmen or car garages that reimburse police officers who entice customers to use their services. Kickbacks are not illegal but a form of misconduct, with police officers and their corrupters developing working relationships to avert corruption investigations (Barker, 2006: 48). • Opportunistic theft involves theft from individuals who have been arrested, traffic accidents, criminal activity on victims, or stealing a deceased citizen’s property. Based on this activity, corrupt practices often overlap with crime such as theft (if during working hours or if uniformed), fraud or racketeering. Opportunistic thefts do not involve a corrupter as burglary is committed against an unaware injured or deceased person, and some gains from a vice raid are kept (Roebuck and Barker, 1974: 430). • Turning a blind eye concerns a bribe that is taken for not chasing an arrest, felony or seizure of property. Rose-Ackerman (2008: 330–1) similarly outlines that payoffs for law enforcement officials to turn a blind eye involves the police extracting bribes in exchange for overlooking the illegal smuggling of goods and imports. Averting offences is also referred to as shakedowns and involves a corrupter. Roebuck and Barker (1974: 430) stress that police officers take

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Definitions and typologies of police corruption

•

•

•

•

•

bribes from contraband transporters or traffic violators, who are deemed as non-deviant or less serious, in order to distinguish, and justify, acceptable ‘clean’ money. Even if citizens are not engaging in direct illicit activities, the police can extort payoffs or bribes in return for not arresting them on bogus charges. Protection of illegal activities entices the police to defend individuals or criminal groups tangled up in illegal activities such as drug sales, liquor abuses, gambling or prostitution to allow the illicit business to continue such operations in exchange for payoffs. These criminal activities may include the regulation of protection money that remains an accepted norm due to its concealment. For instance, patrol officers may be engaged in accepting protection money, ‘a bribe or a ripoff’ from drug dealers and traffickers (Carter, 1990: 90, 92). Fixing relates to undermining criminal investigations and proceedings or the deliberate loss of traffic tickets. For instance, a traffic police officer may function as the ‘fixer’ who may agree to dispose of a ticket for money, or an investigative officer may withdraw prosecution in exchange for reimbursement (Roebuck and Barker, 1974: 433). Contact with the fixer can be made by a citizen or a middle person, which can even influence some departments to fix criminal assaults and homicide cases against officers. Direct criminal activities include a police officer committing a crime against either a property or an individual to attain personal gain that clearly abuses the criminal and police code of conduct or norms. In this instance there is ‘no corruptor’ because the actions that lead to a gain from an individual or property, namely robbery and burglary, do not receive peer support (Roebuck and Barker, 1974: 433–4). The Mollen Commission, for example, identified that the NYPD cooperated with criminals by engaging in drug dealing, burglary rings and also robbed drug dealers (Pollock, 2014: 178). Internal payoffs involve a police department selling posts and police privileges – such as shift allocations, holidays and promotions – which are bought, bartered, exchanged or sold (Roebuck and Barker, 1974: 434). For instance, a police officer might approach their supervisor and request an alteration in their work assignment, with the suggestion of a monetary figure, or the supervisor might inform the officer how much the adjustment would cost (Barker, 2011: 73). Jobs within certain locations can also be sold. Adding or planting evidence is the added ninth category of police deviance (Punch, 2009: 27). Rigging or manipulating evidence

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

concerns setting a criminal up to ensure a conviction or prolonged sentence that is predominantly found in drug-related cases and is deemed the gravest activity of police corruption (Punch, 1985: 11). Planting evidence is also referred to as ‘flaking’ or ‘padding’ (Newburn, 2015: 4). Porter and Warrender (2009: 85) refer to planting, ignoring or removing evidence to ‘secure a conviction’ as a strand of noble cause corruption. However, a corrupt police officer may receive monetary incentives to plant evidence against a criminal that would not qualify as noble cause corruption (Corsianos, 2012: 24). These nine activities are also described as a hierarchy by Punch (2009: 27) with the first, corruption of authority, being less likely to be deemed as corruption at all, and the last, adding or planting evidence, being the most severe activity of corruption. Within this hierarchical framework, Kleinig (1996: 178) offers a low to high intensity argument of police corruption, starting with less severe to higher activities of ‘graft stages’ (corruption) over time within the force. In addition, Sherman (1985) notes that police officers start with accepting and taking minor perks such as discounts on meals and free coffee and gradually move on to more severe practices of corruption. This typology offers a framework of what constitutes police corruption as a type of prohibited behaviour that is engaged in by any law enforcement officer who accepts or anticipates receiving, by virtue of official post, a definite or possible illicit material gain or reward (Roebuck and Barker, 1974: 424). Moreover, Miller (2003) argues that the individual drivers of corruption are common. This definition postulates that corruption is not a cultural or organisational problem but rather, corruption can be driven by individual police officers’ domestic and non-work factors (Miller, 2003: iii, 9–10). The individual drivers involve police officers engaging in corrupt activity in isolation from their colleagues in respect of contacts and social networks. However, when engaging with the literature on police corruption, Newburn (1999) is critical of rigid definitions of corruption, and thus presents a five-fold approach. First, one can analyse the motives of the behaviour of police officers and subsequently examine the outcomes of the desired behaviour. Second, the outcomes of the behaviour, even if deemed as corrupt by others, may be supported as acceptable behaviour at the police institutional level. Third, corrupt behaviour may be the consequence of illicit or improper use of police authority. Fourth, police corruption may be engrained internally within an organisation but it has no impact externally. Fifth, police

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Definitions and typologies of police corruption

corruption usually concerns the drive for personal or institutional gain (Newburn, 1999). Departmental advantage includes the fabrication of evidence and other efforts to pervert justice such as lying in court or planting drugs to frame an individual, which is referred to as ‘process corruption’ (Prenzler, 2002: 5–6). There are extensive definitions, and even the basic forms of police corruption are disputed. Police corruption does include several activities generally: bribery, brutality and violence (unjustified police violence such as assault or violent threats), fabrication and obliteration of evidence, racism and nepotism or favouritism (Newburn, 1999: 4). These practices include any violation of codified rules that can occur for private gain, which covers a narrow definition, but the broader definition includes a breach of rules where there is no personal monetary gain such as racism, physically abusing prisoners, perjury or sexual misconduct (Bayley and Perito, 2011: 3). Hence, there are notable activities of police corruption that are recognisable from within and outside a police force, and they may overlap with theft and misconduct. In other words, activities of police corruption are part of police malfeasance that is punishable, at least within a police unit. There is work on police integrity violations that focuses more on the ethics of policing. Huberts (1998: 28–30) has provided a typology of integrity violations that consists of nine components. These include: police corruption, police theft and fraud, doubtful gifts and promises, dubious secondary jobs and activities (moonlighting), abuse of information, intimidation and discrimination of citizens and colleagues, abuse of power for ethical purposes (noble cause corruption), misuse and waste of resources, and police lawbreaking within private time. These are now discussed in turn. Police corruption is related to the abuse of power for private gain that covers bribery, extortion and turning a blind eye. These aspects of police corruption for personal benefit are also found in the aforementioned typologies of corruption as provided by Roebuck and Barker (1974), Sayed and Bruce (1998) and Newburn (1999). In addition, Sherman (1974: 30) stressed that police corruption concerns the illicit use of an organisation’s power for private benefit. These definitions have been informed by a political scientist, Nye (1967: 419), who defined corruption as behaviour that strays from official duties because of ‘private-regarding’ influences (such as family or a private clique) and includes bribery, nepotism and misappropriation of public resources. Based on these definitions, corruption – which would include police corruption – involves the behaviour of an official – which would again include a police officer – in their role. More

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

recently, Ivković (2005b: 16) defines police corruption as an action, promise, attempted action or omission perpetrated by a police officer(s) that is driven by the abuse of an officer’s official post and significantly motivated by achieving personal gain. A commentary is provided on this definition by Semunkhina and Reynolds (2013: 201) who usefully suggest that it encompasses bribery, the abuse of authority in the practice of arbitrary detention, the abuse of physical force and the manipulation of crime statistics. Therefore, several elements from this definition are presented within Huberts’ (1998) integrity violations, which include organisational motives rather than solely individual gain. Fraud and theft are recognised overlapping police malfeasance activities within police corruption (Lasthuizen et al, 2011: 386). Fraud can be defined as the deliberate falsification of financial statements or any other records in order to obscure misappropriating assets for private gain and theft is deceitfully seizing someone else’s property. There are many types of fraud that can be categorised within managerial fraud, such as rigging financial statements and embezzlement that concerns employee malfeasance. In relation to theft, the police have access to various premises, stores and warehouses when investigating alarms and burglaries, which can result in police officers taking money or property while on duty (Dempsey and Forst, 2009: 234). Dubious promises and gifts are part of integrity violations. Gifts involve tips or small gifts provided by a tipper for an expected return of favour as part of indebtedness, which is usually the misuse of police position, authority or power. The type of gift can vary from expensive gifts to attain long-term relationships to instrumental gifts for a utilitarian and short-term relationship, and are exchanged in expectation and obligation of immediate favours, services or goods from the recipient. Therefore, the gift is reciprocal, the expectation of return is obligatory, and the threshold of compulsion is based on the superiority of the tipper. Severity between minor gratuities – such as accepting a free cup of coffee or a discounted meal in return for acknowledging hard work – increases police presence or overlooks offences from a cafe or eatery outlet, and gifts vary (Prenzler, 2009: 40). For instance, in a survey in the Netherlands results showed that receiving discounts or free meals was very serious and thus the police officers were ready to report the receipt of these benefits (Huberts et al, 2003: 226). The police force in Croatia contended that discounts and free meals were more serious integrity violations than accepting infrequent gifts, but the Finnish police conversely perceived receiving free merchandise as serious misconduct (Ivković, 2005a: 557). A similar survey in the UK found that accepting gifts during a holiday was

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Definitions and typologies of police corruption

not a serious infringement of their duty, whereas 36 per cent of the respondents thought that it conflicted with police policy (Westmarland, 2005: 149). In the USA, surveys have shown that police forces are not ready to report receipt of free benefits or minor gratuities due to a ‘wall of silence’ (Banks, 2009: 50). Therefore, local cafe, snack and restaurant owners may provide free gifts or discounts in return for expectations and/or promises. Such promises are unclear and could be based on the expectation of an enhanced police presence or turning a blind eye to shop offences. Questionable sideline jobs and activities concern working additional jobs for extra income. Moonlighting is mainly based on social networks and usually entails bodyguarding, bouncing, debt collection, private investigation, private security, goods vehicle transportation, tracking vehicles or escorting clients. While moonlighting, police officers often abuse their police authority by wearing their police uniform for a private security firm. The officer may own the private firm or be an employee of a second job with security-related tasks to earn extra cash, but moonlighting creates a public–private distortion with police duties due to the abuse of uniform and/or vehicles during non-policing contracted duties. Police forces typically have rules to declare any external businesses or secondary employment. Additional employment can also include non-security-related jobs such as working as a joiner, web designer, photographer or driving instructor, which may be a consequence of low pay rises (BBC News, 2014). Newburn (2015: 4–5) refers to such practices as ‘inappropriate secondary business/employment interests’ that can conflict with policing roles. Moonlighting can thus form a conflict of interests and if not declared, it can also cause a danger to security and the integrity of a police force. Access and misuse of information is when a police officer abuses their position to attain information and misuses it for their gain or for the benefit or a conflicted party. Intelligence-led policing has resulted in more information being stored within computer systems and electronic databases, which intensifies information leakage due to wider policing agencies that have access to them. Perryman (2013) has argued that more than 80  per cent of investigations regarding professional standards in the UK Metropolitan Police Service are conducted for information abuse from police computer systems. When confidential information is misused, a police officer’s impartiality is compromised because the information serves the private gain of the officer or another entity. Information can be leaked outside of a police organisation (Miller, 2003: 8). Police officers have authorised access to information held within computer systems but cannot use the

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

information for unauthorised objectives such as their own personal interests. Therefore, information can be fabricated, omitted, used for personal purposes or compromised with criminals, which, in turn, forms integrity violations if used for unauthorised personal motives, and potentially perverts the course of justice. Intimidation and discrimination of citizens or colleagues are forms of misconduct that are punishable with an internal investigation and the application of anti-bullying policies. Research conducted by Walker et al (2011: 167) demonstrates how over-enforcement can be based on racial discrimination by permitting vice activities to flourish in highunemployment and low-income minority neighbourhoods, which encourages secondary crime against prostitutes, drug dealers and rival gangs. In relation to citizens, the Brazilian police have been reported as using excessive force, engaging in killings, beatings, discrimination and violence against women, and undertaking social discrimination and violence against the gay community (US Department of State, 2013: 1). In addition, the Mollen Commission explains how ‘good cops’ and supervisors who condemned Officer Michael Dowd’s activities (within the 75th Precinct in Brooklyn), namely related to narcotics, did not ‘rat’ him out due to probable exclusion from the force and intimidation and threats (Punch, 2009: 72). The latter was evident with Frank Serpico bringing complaints against the police force in New York to superiors, which resulted in direct intimidation, isolated ostracism (silent treatment) and threats (Kane and White, 2013: xv). Discriminatory practice can thus be attributed to the brutality of certain citizens, but it can also result in the harassment of colleagues (Newburn, 2015: 5). Noble cause corruption (abuse of power for perceived legitimate purposes) concerns the abuse of power or authority for divisional or departmental gain rather than individual benefit. The police have rules and regulations, which is referred to as the ‘official paradigm’, but there is an ‘operational code’ to fulfil police duties (Punch, 2009: 3). It is the latter code that intensifies getting police work done with rule-bending practices and thus violating the former code. In such situations, a police officer exercises a moral commitment to serve their department and the public, which results in value judgements based on moral rather than official codes. In other words, the police have ‘gut reactions’ based on positive sentiments, referred to as a noble cause, which informs ‘rational decision-making’ to weigh up the best decisions in situations, and thus noble causes are embedded in the ‘emotional make-up’ of police officers (Caldero et al, 2018: 86–7). Examples of noble cause corruption range from excessive use of force

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Definitions and typologies of police corruption

for confessions, the fabrication of evidence and falsifying other facts to strengthen justifications to secure convictions that violate a suspect’s rights and corrupt police officers due to ‘institutional purposes’ (Miller, 2017: 90). Therefore, the causes of noble cause corruption are based on organisational gain, and so this is a different type of corruption. This category of corruption creates a moral dilemma for policing because there are expectations, or at least moral courage, for the police to engage in forms of rule bending for undeniably good ends (Klockars, 1980: 47). Striving for a just and/or moral outcome makes the ‘Dirty Harry’ tactics of rule bending intrinsic to policing by removing criminals from the streets to demonstrate that police officers are performing their duties well (Perez and Moore, 2013: 217). Noble cause corruption is part of decisions made in a variety of situations, and is influenced by emotions, ethics and values that are learned and reinforced. Based on this notion, Damasio (1994), a famous neuroscientist, convincingly argues that emotions can shape the beliefs of actions to determine certain results or consequences which, in turn, ‘bias’ the entirety of outcomes at an unconscious level. Emotion is thus inextricably linked to the noble cause and is difficult to circumvent given that it dominates an individual’s decision-making processes. There is a sense of mission within policing that perceives the role as challenging, exciting and worthwhile for ‘non-instrumental reasons’ (Bowling et  al, 2019: 172). Hence, noble cause relates to excessive motivation for the job. Abuse and waste of resources is a facet of police corruption. Police corruption undoubtedly wastes resources, particularly in emerging democracies. Budgets are constrained in various societies, even in democratised and affluent societies during times of austerity cuts. Accountability is placed on material resources to ensure that an operational police manager controls the acquisition and preservation of adequate equipment and supplies for their officers’ functioning (Coleman, 2012: 140). Extensive caseloads for high-cost crime laboratories to investigate seized drugs wastes police resources, and such cases are extensive and pervasive. Therefore, police management and administration applies controls on the acquisition and control of resources needed to avert the misuse and waste of police resources. Finally, crime within private time includes criminal activity outside of police duties. Misconduct committed by a police officer within their private time taints public trust in the police organisation (Lasthuizen et  al, 2011: 389). Lamboo (2005) also provides broad integrity violations, such as private time misbehaviour, which damages the reputation of the police organisation. In particular, excessive drinking

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

of alcohol, use of recreational drugs at parties or connection with criminals are specific activities of police abuse during private time (Lasthuizen et al, 2011: 391). These integrity violations result in antisocial behaviour or other forms of misconduct that a fellow citizen may engage in. Huberts’ work (1998: 28–30) was therefore instrumental in forming a typology on police integrity violations. It was based on previous literature on corruption, abuses of power and organised crime, and human rights and policing. Newburn (2015: 4–5) argues that typologies of corruption cover the ‘abuse of position’ in different ways. The misuse of post infers that the corruption of authority, misconduct, crime, theft, fraud, kickbacks, shakedowns, fixing, internal payoffs, flaking, gifts, secondary jobs and noble cause corruption are all forms of police corruption and/or broader police malfeasance. Although the position of the police officer may be breached, there may be no direct exchange of money or material goods for profit (Newburn, 2015: 5). The absence of monetary incentive points to embedded emotions, ethics and values as part of the noble cause for organisational advantage (Caldero et al, 2018: 86–8). However, these actions are still considered unethical to external observers. Some activities addressed here are also criminal activities and practices of misconduct, but it is clear that these nine facets of malfeasance are integrity violations that are detrimental to any police force.

Conclusion Both police crime and corruption involve the use and abuse of office. A minor perquisite such as receiving a free cup of coffee to attract a police officer to patrol a cafe’s premises is unlikely to significantly influence the act of their duties. Police officers who engage in ‘grasseating’ corruption, such as petty bribery or extortion, are susceptible to more ‘meat-eating’ corruption in their future careers, which fits Sherman’s (1985) and Kleinig’s (1996) slippery slope theory. However, there is a tension between the bad apple and rotten orchard theories. Polarised accounts of police corruption specify that corruption is either a consequence of a few bad apples due to individual deviance or a rotten orchard due to systemic failure at an operational and cultural level. The tensions of both theories rest on an individual’s rights and responsibilities with the bad apples theory and the state and state agencies with the rotten orchard theory. It has been argued that a few bad apples taint the reputation of the police force; however, major commissions of inquiries have argued that police corruption

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Definitions and typologies of police corruption

is entrenched at institutional level (Punch, 2009: 64). Testimonies from Frank Serpico and David Durk revealed that police corruption is beyond the defence of a few bad apples in the NYPD and rather, corrupt practices are extensive, ‘if not a rotten orchard’ (Knapp Commission, 1972: 61). More recently, Gottschalk (2012: 170, 173, 177) has argued that the bad apples analogy is based on an individual approach for personal gain that is in contention with a rotten orchard (systemic failure). Police commissioners and senior staff can easily point to a few individuals rather than acknowledging systemic failings that breed police corruption and deter investigations when brought to them. The few bad apples syndrome makes prevention strategies pivotal to recognise and avert systemic corruption that can plague the reputation of a police force. A rigid definition of police corruption and corruption more generally is difficult to provide. Many typologies and activities constitute what police corruption entails, and it has been extended to cover integrity violations. The main argument drawn on in the literature is that police corruption is based on a variety of activities. Typologies have identified that police corruption can, and often does, overlap with criminal activities, theft and misconduct, and the notion of the noble cause presents a dilemma on embedded emotions for morally justified, and organisationally supported, outcomes. Perceptions on police corruption and these ethical dilemmas raised also vary in different cultures and police institutions. Police corruption is wide-ranging and remains a problem in Western society.

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2

Preventing police corruption Introduction The previous chapter covered the definitions and popular typologies of police corruption to highlight how corruption can overlap with crime, misconduct and other forms of integrity violations for either individual, collective or group gain(s). Now that police corruption has been covered and understood, strategies to mitigate corruption within a police force are outlined. This chapter covers police corruption and a prevention strategy within the police, as well as commissions of inquiries, which led to a prevention strategy for the New York and New South Wales police forces. A prevention strategy to combat corruption in the police includes enforcing accountability with the aid of commissions of inquiry after a public scandal; police reform that includes institutional reform, community policing and the input of civil society organisations (CSOs); pay reform; a rotation strategy; and training.

Commissions of inquiry Detection provides the details of the targets followed by an investigation prior to the final stage of sanctions, but police forces in corrupt countries or even developed states may fail to competently investigate allegations of corruption. A political environment that is corrupt is a huge barrier to combat police corruption, and fails to change the behaviours of the police corrupters and victims of such corruption (Newburn, 1999: 40). However, close supervision and robust internal controls on police behaviour can also generate resentment insofar as police officers risk their lives to protect internal security but are increasingly being targeted and watched as if they are criminals (Punch, 1994: 33–4). A strong and willing political environment and the internalisation of strong ethical standards are needed within a police force’s anti-corruption strategy. In the 1970s and early 1980s, public pressure and activism for robust accountability concerning police scandals in the media led to the establishment of robust commissions to investigate what activities had

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occurred and how, followed by methods for prevention (Ivković, 2005b: 146). Sherman (1978a: 244–55) suggests that reform occurs after a public scandal. Examples include scandals concerning drug-related corruption leading to independent anti-corruption agencies investigating the police in Hong Kong, Singapore and New South Wales (Pyman et al, 2012: 14). Civil society plays a key role in raising awareness of police scandals, which leads to reform, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) exposing police corruption in the USA (HRW, 1998). One of the most famous first commissions was the Knapp Commission looking into pervasive corruption of the NYPD between 1970 and 1972. This Commission became known to the world via the media and films like Serpico starring Al Pacino playing Peter Maas’ biographic Frank Serpico who went undercover to expose corruption in the NYPD and testified to the Commission. Large corrupt networks and links with criminal activity had infiltrated the NYPD leading to bribes extorted from businesses for protection and officers striving for assignments in vice areas – prostitution and gambling – to collect bribes to pay off superiors ‘up the chain of command’ (Rosoff et al, 2007: 454). The Knapp and subsequent New York City commission, the Mollen Commission (1992–94), and the Wood Royal Commission (1995– 97) of the New South Wales police in Australia found substantial evidence of systemic rather than individual corruption (the few bad apples theory). The Wood Royal Commission found that police of all ranks in Kings Cross, Sydney, were engaged in bribery, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, fabricating large amounts of evidence, refusing to attend crime scenes and turning a blind eye, due to links with the local drug trade (Wood Royal Commission, 1997: 92). Police Commissioner Tony Lauer claimed that corruption was the fault of a few rotten apples, and he was later forced to resign (Pyman et al, 2012: 35). Similarly, in China, the government has failed to make long-term changes despite acknowledging that corruption needs to be dealt with as a systemic problem – while the government punished a few ‘bad’ individual officers, a dispersed national police force, political interference and a lack of transparency remain (Sun and Wu, 2010: 28–30). Institutional failure is responsible for police abuse and corruption, and it is this theory of ‘rotten orchards’ that encourages police departmental leaders to engage in reforms and programmes to avoid hunting the few ‘bad apples’ (Punch, 2009: 2). At times, interior administrators and political elites can ignore problems of systemic corruption by firing an entire police department

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Preventing police corruption

to place the blame on them. In Georgia, former President Eduard Shevardnadze ran a state rife with corruption and nepotism, where the police were not paid and had to take bribes and share part of their illegal income with their superiors (that is, the government that had appointed them) (Siegel, 2005). The next Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, inherited the police force from Shevardnadze and subsequently dismissed the entire state’s 30,000 traffic police in 2005 because they were unpopular and produced disorder rather than protecting order (Hiscock, 2006: 140). Georgia had rapidly dismissed 16,000 police officers and replaced them with young energetic law school graduates with no criminal ties, and the remaining police officers had their wages quadrupled (Kupatadze et al, 2007). However, politicians and police administrators can ignore systemic issues by under-resourcing commissions or investing in educational initiatives that lack any punitive feature. The Knapp Report presented a typology that divided corrupt police officers into three categories. First, ‘grass-eaters’ are officers who accept bribes and free gifts. Second, ‘meat-eaters’ are officers who keenly and belligerently hunt corrupt activities for either their personal or departmental gain. Third, ‘birds’ are officers who ‘fly above’ corruption by seeking refuge in senior administrative posts but who can later be involved in reform processes if they are contracted senior managerial posts (Knapp Commission, 1972: 4). Sherman (1985) contends that ‘rookie’ officers start as ‘grass-eaters’ who accept a small bribe such as a minor gratuity, for example a free cup of coffee, which will gradually lead to a redefinition of their character or subculture via peer pressure and threats, resulting in more severe ‘meat-eating’ corruption in the latter stages of their police career. This pressure, from colleagues, is a psychological process, what Kleinig (1996: 178) defines as ‘becoming bent’, part of the ‘slippery slope’ of minor corruption that often progresses to more severe ‘meateating’ corruption. The Committee on the Office of the Ombudsman and the Police Integrity Commission (2002: iv) for the New South Wales police similarly found that police corruption begins with an array of minor acts that then mostly escalate to more ‘meat-eating’ acts of corruption, such as when officers work in victimless vice areas of prostitution, gambling or drug trafficking. Cerrah et al (2009: 71) found that the slippery slope theory in the Turkish police is most likely when police officers begin with petty corruption such as accepting bribes and other minor gratuities that result in more severe forms of ‘meat-eating’ corruption later in their career. Not all ‘grass-eaters’ become ‘meat-

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eaters’, however. Many police officers move up the slippery slope not by petty corruption activities such as accepting bribes and gifts for private gain, but via noble cause corruption that can involve falsifying evidence to convict a criminal suspect, leading to the inability of the judiciary to deliver justice, as evident with the New South Wales police in the 1990s mistrusting the justice system (Holmes, 2010: 9). Commissions are useful for providing details of how the police engaged in such corrupt activities that then lead to public scandal and are brought to the attention of the media, which pushes for an external intervention to reform either the police and/or government administration (Sherman, 1978a: 244–55). Recommendations provided by commissions usually include establishing external oversight with a focus on raising integrity and leadership, enhancing recruitment and training, holding commanders accountable for subordinates misbehaving and changing the culture of the police organisation to avoid tolerating misbehaviour (Bayley and Perito, 2011: 1, 6). Changing policing culture includes ethics and integrity training, which was recommended by the Wood Royal Commission for the New South Wales police. This led to the establishment of the Police Integrity Commission in 1996 that retains independence from the police to detect ‘grass-eating’ corruption and prevent ‘meat-eating’ corruption (Wood Royal Commission, 1997: 540; Committee on the Office of the Ombudsman and the Police Integrity Commission, 2002: 37). Weak independent oversight can hinder public confidence in the police force if allegations of corruption are not investigated adequately without punishments incurred, and insufficient monitoring can result in the police being more willing to engage in corrupt activities. A civilian oversight body requires ‘an independent investigative capacity’ to ‘reassure citizens’ that it is monitoring and investigating police engagement in corrupt activities in order to restore public confidence in a police institution that complies with rules and regulations, and to persuade mainly street and low-level police officers to change their existing practices (Sankar Sen, 2002: 52). In addition, independent internal affairs departments can provide a specialised anti-corruption unit to preserve the police institution’s integrity and to analyse complaints data to enhance prevention strategies (Prenzler, 2002: 18). However, urging reform and striving for accountability can have a counterproductive effect by undermining police morale. Sir Peter Fahy, former Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, claimed that allegations against the police receiving payments from journalists and senior officers for information had ‘dismayed’ the force (Fahy, 2011). Punch (1994: 33–4) similarly argues that being tough on the

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police from the top level can actually result in resentment, particularly of the lower-ranked police officers. Goldstein (1975: 25) stresses that when the media and public expose corruption in the police, this can damage the morale of the organisation, which can fuel widespread corruption due to ‘moral cynicism’. Yet, Transparency International (2011: 46) argues that if change within strong leadership from the top level is targeted and complemented with communicating the benefits of combating corruption, such resentment could be circumvented. Newburn (1999: 45, 48) suggests that the emphasis of ethics in training at the early stages when recruiting new police officers and throughout their careers can successfully deal with daily ethical dilemmas concerning law enforcement and target anti-corruption in high-risk vice areas such as prostitution, gambling rings or drug areas. Ivković (2005a: 562) adds that police administrators have the ability to detect high-risk areas in which to prevent and combat police misconduct. Recommendations provided by the commissions of inquiry and dilemmas in less volatile and stronger democratic states are in safer and more stable conditions, which is not relevant to states emerging from conflict or highly insecure countries. Conflict-stricken states lack the capacity to ensure public safety; police officers have to support large families and remain loyal to tribes and clans; policing is not independent from politics; police pay is insufficient; and the formal judiciary is not independent (Bayley and Perito, 2011: 1, 7–8). All reforms need to take into account local structures and traditions to tailor combating police corruption due to motivations for these activities differing in different environments across the globe (Pyman et al, 2012: 15).

Police reform Petty ‘grass-eating’ corruption such as receiving gifts is cultural but can lead to more severe forms of ‘meat-eating’ corruption, and thus reform must be aimed at local and traditional values in different environments. Corruption is a complex problem that requires more than a single solution. A multifaceted approach is needed, although one multifaceted approach will not be the solution to every environment and may not work fully in the targeted one (Newburn, 1999: 7). Institutional reform, community policing and an active civil society are three prevention methods of police corruption and elements of reform that can combat corruption within the police force (Batchelor and Krause, 2003: 153–4). In South Africa, institutional reform of state

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institutions to bring about social transformation and reconciliation in the aftermath of the apartheid regime included the reform of the South African Police Service to focus on community policing to reduce crime and prevent assault on detainees, with human rights and ethics training (Seekoe, 2007: 43). However, Call (2007: 387–8) stresses that although it is feasible to reform the police institution to include meritocratic selection of new recruits in post-war settings, better professionalisation training, the role of civil society vying for collaboration between citizens and police agencies, and community policing and an abolition of ethnic bias have less success. In states that have ‘high levels of police corruption’, recruitment is not transparent. Recruits join the force with pre-existing close ties to criminal groups, and inadequate salaries for police officers leads to educated candidates avoiding applying as police officers, which leaves candidates with insufficient education being hired (Bezlov and Gounev, 2012: 40). In many states, police recruitment is often exclusive to ‘poorly educated lower class males’ (Prenzler, 2002: 15–16). A prevention method of high-level police corruption for institutional reform involves exhaustive recruitment that is compliant with meritocracy, education about police roles within the rule of law and corruption awareness from the outset (rather than later), and the provision of anti-corruption education to officials and lower ranks throughout their careers. Political will and commitment from both donors and beneficiary nations – the national government and domestic institutions that have leadership and ownership – is needed to implement reforms, namely reform of the police institution (Crawshaw et al, 2007: 324). In terms of leadership, statements from a Minister of Interior and police chiefs on combating corruption, professionalisation of the police and overall reform can bring the confidence needed to stamp out corruption from the top level to the lower ranks (Bayley and Perito, 2011: 10). Part of institutional reform includes robust internal police controls, but this should be complemented with new policing ethics that have high standards, along with the rule of law and a code of conduct and/ or laws. Community policing counters a legacy of mistrust between the police and community by democratising the police institution and its relationship with the community. This form of policing can also enable forums to bring these two entities together to tailor policing to community needs, bring about better communication between the police service and citizens, improve police services to communities at provincial and district levels, and improve police transparency and

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accountability to the community. Community policing can attain communal projects and forums to bring both the police and citizens together, but both need education and a model based on its internal environment rather than a template imposed by external intervention. CSOs are independent from politics and can provide perceptions from within society to identify vital corruption trends, establish advocacy and legal advice centres, improve access to information to channel advocacy and help parliamentarians bring dialogue with the police (Pyman et al, 2012: 20–1). Civil society groups and journalists can reveal scandals to the public, as Sherman (1978b) argued, and this can drive reform for change. In Brazil, newspapers continually criticised President Fernando Collor de Mello in 1990 until the end of 1992 for corruption, leading to his impeachment by the Brazilian Senate, and in Romania, the media supported public rights to access files concerning intelligence that uncovered public officials who had conspired with corrupt intelligence bodies (Matei and Bruneau, 2011: 620–1). Another tactic to combat police corruption in vice areas is to tolerate certain activities to prevent the police being exposed to corruption from the industry, such as legislation to regulate prostitution in Germany and the Netherlands (Bezlov and Gounev, 2012: 40). Politicians can decriminalise vice, but the police can urge the government to reduce their roles in prostitution, drugs or gambling areas, or ‘change the nature of their involvement’ such as diversion from the drug trade to treatment programmes with drug abusers and brothels undergoing legal regulation (Prenzler, 2002: 21). These regulations can undermine organised crime and deter police corruption (Pyman et al, 2012: 19). In addition, a government may help by removing road blocks that are often used as extortion gates for predatory traffic police to profit by harassing, harming (and even killing citizens) and forming disorder, as occurs in Nigeria (HRW, 2010a: 50). Other prevention strategies include human resources management. This strategy provides recruitment assessments compliant with psychological tests measuring ethics and the likelihood of police recruits engaging in crime, violence or corruption, as well as randomised integrity, drug and alcohol tests (Prenzler, 2002: 17, 19). Supervisors must ensure that if police officers expose corruption, they should avoid departmental harassment, and be put in non-operational areas or are dismissed. Furthermore, role modelling from senior levels can have a positive impact on police reform to challenge corruption and raise integrity within a police force. A study conducted by Huberts et al (2007: 587)

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on five regional police forces in the Netherlands stressed that role modelling, strictness and openness from leaders can better control corruption and enhance integrity. Role modelling significantly limited unethical behaviour due to police officers copying their leader’s standards of integrity within frequent interactions, and together with strictness controlled corruption, favouritism, fraud, misconduct, harassment, bullying and dishonestly calling in sick (Huberts et al, 2007: 596–9). This study demonstrates how leadership integrity can influence the positive behaviour of police officers, limit unethical conduct and reduce integrity violations.

Pay reform A main cause of corruption within the police is low pay, which leads to petty bribery, extortion and potential engagement with a drug mafia (depending on the country and vicinity) in order to supplement wages due to lack of economic provision. Low pay is regularly documented as a main cause of police corruption globally for economic survival (Ivković, 2005b: 88). In many developing and post-conflict states, the national police force are paid low wages which does not provide for their living costs, especially for larger families in Asian and African countries. In Thailand, commissioned police officers are underpaid, with a salary of US$153 per month to pay for US$500 of monthly expenses if living in a large city, which is why they engage in corrupt practices, and in the Philippines, the Bureau of Immigration pays ‘starvation wages’, leading to these workers accepting bribes to survive (Quah, 2013: 29). In Nigeria, low and irregular pay is a main cause of corruption where the police are deemed the most corrupt institution, and in Zambia, the police earn as little as US$25–63 per month and consequently live in poor accommodation that lacks water, electricity and other basic sanitation (Gootnick, 2004: 11–12). In Kenya, the police are poorly paid, which makes many police officers and immigration officials highly vulnerable to corruption and earning supplementary wages, which serves and protects both criminal and terrorist groups (Carson, 2005: 190). Despite the weakened Bolivar currency, the Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, has recognised that low pay intensifies corruption and has thus tripled the salaries of police officers by US$3 per month to deter desertion rates and attacks on the government (Laya, 2018). Even in developed parts of the world, low wages paid to the police provide incentives for the police to engage in corruption. In Russia’s police force, they receive regular fine payments and protection

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money from retailers, engage in organised crime and subvert criminal investigations (Anderson, 2012). Therefore, a measure to prevent police corruption is to increase the wages of police officers. Dizard (2015), for instance, reports that paying US police officers good salaries is pivotal to preserve honest officers, which can challenge the various temptations ‘for officers working a beat’ such as being bribed by criminals instead of arresting them. Low pay within a police force results in lack of motivation and low esteem, and thus police reform must be frequently reviewed, especially in developing countries, to challenge issues with bribery. Furthermore, if incentives to engage in corrupt activity outweigh weak sanctions imposed, the police officers will likely participate in a corrupt activity when opportunities arise (Quah, 2011: 14). By way of illustration, Hope (2018: 90) stresses that Kenyan police officers have argued that ‘low pay and incentives’ impact the most on their ‘police performance’. A psychological laboratory-based experiment on accepting bribes found that high-salaried public officials accept 31 per cent of bribes on average compared to 91 per cent of low-paid officials, which demonstrates that higher wages significantly reduce corruptibility (van Veldhuizen, 2013: 351–2). Therefore, higher salaries may function as the payoff for better behaviour and disengagement with corrupt opportunities. Some studies, however, argue that merely increasing the wages of police officers and public officials does not necessarily curtail corruption. Foltz and Opoku-Agyemang (2015: 3) found that despite the Ghanaian police having their salaries doubled in 2010 comparative to custom agents to curb roadside extortion, it increased efforts to take bribes due to less time and opportunity to attain them. There is no evidence to suggest that Ghanaian police officers collected significantly fewer bribes than their public official counterparts (Foltz and OpokuAgyemang, 2015: 1). A cross-comparative study of 31 developing countries has also proved that increasing salaries can aggravate corruption insofar as bribery will dominate total income due to higher bribes demanded by those who are continually corrupt or who have low detection of corruption rates (van Rijckeghem and Weder, 2001: 329). A more recent 10-year longitudinal cross-country dataset for 129 states found that increasing the wages of any public sector body can assist in curtailing corruption in developing states, but solely relying on enhanced pay reform can be extremely costly – having to raise it by an estimated seven times (An and Kweon, 2017: 823). Overall, it can be contended that low pay, increased opportunities for participating in corrupt practices, low risk of engaging in corrupt

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activity and weak accountability, even if detected, are multidimensional causes of police corruption. Pay reform cannot have a positive impact on reducing petty forms of corruption, such as bribery and roadside stops, if it is part of a linear anti-corruption strategy. Pay reform – if complemented with better detection and more robust sanctions – has the potential to reduce survival-based corruption such as bribery and extortion and engagement in organised crime. However, it does not challenge clientelism and corrupt patronage networks that entice police officers to work in vice areas enriched with drugs, prostitution or gambling. Positioning police officers in other jurisdictions can be offered to deter engagement in vice areas serving as part of a multifaceted anti-corruption strategy.

Rotation strategy Many causes of corruption are based on personalised ties that are formed with corrupt patronage networks and the favouring of jobs to serve the interests of the patron. Personal connections is why a rotation strategy is implemented, to reduce favouritism and clientelism. Periodic and forced mobility for public officials, civil servants and even the police can remove them from regions where they enjoy close family and social relations. This stationing strategy is designed to prevent officials and police officers from establishing new relations. When they are moved frequently, it takes time for officials to develop such relations with citizens and bureaucrats who are dependent on them, and thus this scheme can reduce patronage-based corruption in large countries (Tanzi, 1994: 17). Staff may be bribed and develop corrupt networks, and so assigning workers to certain fields can be based on a random obligation that might be periodic or include reassignments rather than allowing employees to select the fields and location in which they wish to work. Random assignments and management rotation can challenge third parties cooperating with state officials extending their networks of bribery and corrupt networks, leading to appointees engaging in kickbacks up the chain of command to their appointer. This strategy is not novel, as evident with officials in Imperial China who were systematically rotated to prevent them from establishing alliances with the local elites, and managers who were systemically rotated in the Soviet Union for similar reasons (Skinner, 1977: 341). Corruption may fester within an institution due to uncertain recruitment and posting outcomes, but the introduction of random assignments as part of bureaucratic measures may sometimes combat patronage networks and corruption that serves as a preventative anti-

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corruption strategy. In a police institution, there are usually both honest and corrupt officers, but opportunities for corrupt police to practice extortion or take bribes may be reduced if the territory and time that a police officer patrols is randomised to prevent them from forming corrupt relationships or accomplices with other officers on duty, and knowing whether they will be working on their own (Hood, 1995: 214). Assigning a police officer in a different region and if in the same region, a random territory and time of duty, can achieve ‘an effective means of deterrence’ in corrupt activity and prevent corrupt networks forming within the police force and beyond (Duxbury, 2002: 83). Prenzler (2002: 20) also suggests that a prevention strategy of the police manipulating corruption opportunities over a long period is to rotate police officers in corruption-prone units or areas to avoid them developing ties with organised criminals or forming corrupt networks. Rotating border officials and the police in high-risk areas means assignments being limited to 3–5 years. This strategy may include new recruits being deployed away from their residential area for a period of time to help prevent durable corrupt networks forming, ‘entrenched corrupt relations’ and ‘personal relations with local communities’, which may influence law enforcement action (Gounev et al, 2012: 9, 101). Public officials are regularly rotated in Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and the Fiji Islands, and in the Philippines, officials of the state police are routinely rotated. In Malaysia, public officials who work with citizens regularly change posts, and Pakistan has attempted to randomise and minimise personal contacts between both public officials and clients (Asian Development Bank and OECD, 2007: 12). In Hong Kong, there are many law enforcement officers who have businesses and/or properties across the border in China and who are thus vulnerable to bribery and corruption from Chinese officials. Vulnerability to corruption resulted in the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC), on 15 February 1974, suggesting that the Hong Kong government speed up the regularity of rotating police, custom and immigration officers stationed on the border to minimise the abuse of power for private gain (Shiu-Hing, 1996: 163–4). The ICAC and Police Corruption Prevention Group combated police corruption in Hong Kong in the 1970s (Bayley and Perito, 2011: 13). In Singapore, police officers are rotated every three years to other departments when they have worked in high-risk areas (such as antivice locations, tackling gambling and field investigation) (Quah, 2006: 63). In Peru, investigations of police engaged in corruption reached 6,000 between 2011 and 2012, so the Peruvian authorities started

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rotating 80 per cent of the police to make it harder to become involved in organised crime (Rotta, 2013). In Germany and Lithuania, border officers who are exposed to more opportunities of corruption in highrisk areas, such as those awarding entry permits, passport control, drug detection and front-line officers, are rotated to control and prevent bribery and corruption (Gounev et al, 2012: 88, 90). So regular rotation of the police in high-risk areas is an attempt to reduce opportunities for police engaging in corruption (Chêne, 2010: 5). Police officers working in vulnerable areas should only be permitted to work in those fields for a certain time frame, such as procurement officers in the defence sector, who are often rotated in many states to avoid working in vulnerable fields for a long period of time (Pyman et al, 2012: 18). Law enforcement organisations that combat police misconduct should also rotate duties to ensure impartiality and avoid political or personal bias and connections while maintaining an anticorruption environment. For instance, after special constables and a civilian robbed US$90,000 in Jamaica, an anti-corruption branch in Montego Bay disclosed that personnel of the Police Anti-Corruption Branch would be rotated with personnel from Kingston filling the roles (Hay, 2013). Therefore, random assignment is an attempt to reduce clientelism, namely politicians who attempt to preserve political support, loyalty and corrupt networks by posting individuals who share their interests in regions close to them to guarantee votes. However, a rotation strategy for anti-corruption purposes may have the opposite desired effect. McLinden (2005: 83) recognises that individual officials can enter random job assignments to improve integrity in customs and border posts and reduce clientelism, but many states find it hard to introduce staff rotation or random mobility schemes due to available housing, costs and education for their children. In addition, bribery is frequent in posting police personnel and hiring (Bayley and Perito, 2011: 5). These problems related to further economic hardship can make staff rotation and random mobility counterproductive.

Training Training is pivotal to prevent corruption within a police force by enhancing the professionalism, ethics and integrity within a department. Integrity violations can be challenged as unethical conduct in order to prevent misbehaviour and malfeasance within a police department (Prenzler, 2013). Integrity abuses can expand unethical conduct beyond corruption, such as abusing information,

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discrimination, deviant leisure activities and crime committed within private time (Huberts, 1998: 28–30). There are a few examples of how integrity and ethics have been integrated into police training. In Singapore, the British colonised the country until 1963 and helped to fund the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in October 1952 as an independent anti-corruption agency – separate from the police – to help combat prevalent corruption in the Singaporean Police Force (SPF) and investigate all cases of corruption (Root, 1997: 46). The CPIB has broad legal powers, and enjoys independence from both the police and political intrusion, with the power to prosecute and investigate all corruption cases in both public and private sectors. The wages of police officers increased significantly, with recruitment and training focused on understanding integrity and ethics in policing, and ‘successive governments have’ demonstrated ‘a strong political will’ to combat corruption (Pyman et al, 2012: 66). Due to the recommendations from the Wood Royal Commission, integrity and ethics were implemented in training for the New South Wales police. The Commission (1997: 406) initially found that a constable would never ‘speak out against’ their senior officer due to an internal code of silence. However, ethics are now integrated within the New South Wales Police Academy. Longitudinal research conducted by Wooden and Nixon (2014: 51) with 286 New South Wales police officers found that they would report misconduct or unethical behaviour of a senior officer if ordered to perform a wrongful duty. Training can assist with the efforts made by anti-corruption commissions. Hope (2011: 64) believes that on-the-job training within the workplace, while performing duties, can promote higher professionalism and morale in the police organisation. Training at work is also part of informal learning because practicalities are acted out in work settings. This method of learning can relate, in particular, to police anti-corruption training in developing countries. For instance, Carty (2009: 17) stresses that the police in developing states require training to raise honesty, ethical behaviour and integrity standards. These standards must include efforts to retain one’s own professional image and organisational reputation (Carty, 2009: 17). Efforts to retain integrity means that an act of corruption can tarnish personal and divisional reputation. The ‘professional calling’ within the police force, as Waddington (2010: 314) terms it, can be raised – with anticorruption training and efforts to raise honesty, ethical and integrity standards – which can enhance emotional investment and pride in policing. Training can also enhance staff retention and job satisfaction, and new recruits require greater training concerning their code of

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conduct, regulations, statutes, application to a constitution and laws related to integrity and ethics (Hope, 2017: 5). Despite this suggestion, it is questionable whether it can immediately apply to transform police culture and positive forms of honesty, integrity and ethical behaviour in situations where pay is so low and the job is very dangerous. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) integrates efforts to mitigate the temptation of corrupt behaviour by ensuring that police trainees learn how to comply with professional standards and avoid accepting favours, gifts and gratuities (Carty, 2009: 17). Hope (2017: 7) argues that standard lecturing or teaching on ethical standards, honesty and resisting engagement in corrupt activities cannot work alone, and thus problem-based learning is required for more effective police anti-corruption training. This includes real-life scenarios that the learners solve, which encourages collaboration with colleagues on good practice and assistance from a discussion tutor. Police recruits undoubtedly require more intensive forms of training, but senior officers should also have annual up-to-date training on the application of laws, the constitution and the relevant professional code of conduct. Hope (2017: 7) recommends that anti-corruption must be undertaken as a distinct module within police training and training commences at least once per annum, especially in states where the police are deemed the most corrupt institution. For new police recruits, anti-corruption training should include what police corruption entails, the causes and practices of police corruption, temptations of engagement in corruption, knowledge of a domestic anti-corruption strategy and global standards to combat corruption (Hope, 2017: 8). In addition, strategies should include raising awareness, prevention, prosecution and sanctions, and detection (Singh, 2019: 213). For senior officers, integrity and responsibilities in leadership roles to lead by example is required to ensure that the police institution is compliant with oversight and accountable to relevant laws. There are a variety of examples where applied strategies and training programmes orientated on police anti-corruption training have been applied. In Malaysia, the National Integrity Plan has attempted to improve the ‘quality of excellence’ in an integral and holistic way in organisations and individuals by reinforcing integrity on ethics, moral principles and noble values within laws and ‘daily lives’ (Integrity Institute of Malaysia, 2004: Section 4, 21–3). This Plan increased the pride and integrity within the police force in a society that holds strong religious and spiritual values and is supported by ethical practice and behaviour (Razak, 2006: 9; Embong, 2007: 156). In a survey measuring 11 integrity violations with a Likert scale (n=189) within

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the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP), the scenario-based violations included conflict of interest, bribery, theft and excessive force against a car thief (Bakri et al, 2015: 123). Bakri et al (2015: 125) found that most of the RMP stressed their disapproval of the deviant behavioural scenarios, which implied that they were unlikely to engage in the listed forms of integrity violations. Similarly, in Kenya, a survey conducted with 150 police officers found that training on integrity, ethics classes and review of behaviours, alongside creating a culture of professionalism, attempted to deter misbehaviour and engagement in corruption (Mathenge, 2014: 73–74). A survey conducted by Khalid (2016) on three Pakistani departments (Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Attock) with their traffic police officers points to similar findings. Almost half (40–50 per cent) of the 440 sample size also suggested that training to improve professional skills and ethical behaviour could curtail integrity violations and corruption (Khalid, 2016: 305). Khalid’s (2016: 306–7) data also highlights that better wages, meritocratic recruitment and leadership cannot reduce integrity violations, but training, control and supervision can stimulate the positive segments of organisational culture, by limiting the negative segments to reinforce an ‘ethical culture and moral awareness’ to deter corruption. These studies provide evidence that previous integrity training within the Malaysian, Kenyan and Pakistani police forces have improved – or have the potential to develop (Kenya and Pakistan) – ethical behaviour and desistance from corrupt practices. Moreover, in 2001 in the Czech Republic, Project Transparency included a substantive survey to shape an anti-corruption strategy for the national police force. This was based on control, auditing, a code of ethics and four-day teacher training at police training colleges (Michael, 2005: 25–6). There were mixed anti-corruption outputs in the context of Georgia. In 2006–07, the Police Assistance Programme concentrated on community policing, training and human resources management, which included the OSCE-led National Strategy on Community Policing to improve citizen and police relations (di Puppo, 2010: 2). However, this was not pursued from the Georgian Interior Ministry. Despite this pitfall, President Saakashvili pursued the Rose Revolution to disband the entire traffic police force, 30,000 officers, by July 2004, and new officers were hired (Devlin, 2016). As a result, street-level corruption was effectively challenged by reforming the traffic police, which enhanced public trust and gave them more confidence to report corruption cases. After examining the prevention strategies, I argue that there are multiple levels and causes of corruption that span beyond both ‘grass-’

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and ‘meat-eaters’, so there is not a single form. Dealing with ‘grasseating’ corruption may include pay reform and changing the culture of the police institution, but this singular strategy would fail to cover preventing corruption at the systemic level. Methods to improve integrity, and to recognise integrity violations, ethics and desistance from corrupt activities with anti-corruption training, can transform police culture to promote better behaviour and reinforce a professional motivation. However, raising integrity levels can be harder in societies that have legacies of conflict, patronage relations and institutional corruption.

Conclusion Corruption negatively impacts on the rule of law, security and state effectiveness, which leads to poor economic growth and development, and it is the poor who suffer the most in developing and war-torn states. In addition, corruption seriously hampers law enforcement, particularly the institution of the police. Police corruption reduces public confidence more than corruption in the military due to the police being an integral part of everyday society rather than being distant, like the military, and police corruption can be challenged by the media and civil society as a public scandal, leading to commissions and reform (Transparency International, 2011: 1, 47). In relation to the police commissions and case studies on police reform, the main reform attempts include five categories: structural changes; recruitment and training; both internal and external monitoring; transparency; and wider reforms. Structural changes include increasing wages, as evident in Georgia and Venezuela. Other reforms involve flattening the hierarchy, as in the New South Wales police force, and widening the hierarchy to limit the capacity of superiors to form a patrimonial chain of corrupt networks and a separation of powers to prevent the police serving a faction or exercising military power. Recruitment and training include a more rigorous vetting approach, as evident in Singapore, and ethics and integrity implemented in training, which occurred in the New South Wales police force. Internal monitoring includes early warnings as preventative measures of petty ‘grass-eating’ corruption prior to it becoming ‘meat-eating’ corruption, as evident with the New South Wales police’s Police Integrity Commission. The Commission prevents, detects and investigates serious police misconduct, such as distorting the course of justice (Miller et al, 2005: 135). In addition, internal monitoring includes the creation of internal anti-corruption commissions.

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External monitoring includes independent monitoring agencies or commissions such as the CPIB in Singapore and ICAC in Hong Kong to enforce accountability in the police force, rather than relying on the police force to challenge high-level corruption due to the commissions retaining independence from both the police institution and the government (Quah, 2013: 40). Continual commitment from the government of Singapore has enhanced the abilities of CPIB such as the introduction of polygraph testing in 1995 (CPIB, 2006). Singapore is a paradox example of how to tackle corruption and raise the standards and integrity of police officers, but this is due to the stable conditions and high political will of successive governments that is not feasible in the majority of developing or post-conflict countries. Transparency at both internal and external levels includes open communication of all police ranks with the civil society to restore public confidence in both law enforcement and the state, which will also boost the morale of the police that may have suffered from a publicised scandal. However, there are many political obstacles in post-conflict states that include political interference with law enforcement activity and lack of political will to truly implement anti-corruption and police reforms. A domestic inquiry or commission may lead to reform based on recommendations, but these may be superficial such as blaming a few individuals under the ‘bad apples’ approach rather than looking at the systemic problem higher up the chain of command, as evident in the Wood Royal Commission (1997) in the New South Wales police and also in China. In contrast, a more robust approach to a public scandal, such as dismissing an entire police department for serious engagement in corruption, may satisfy public trust in the government and renewed faith in law enforcement. For instance, the disbandment of the Afghan highway police in 2006 was due to high rates of corruption, namely attaining large bribes from drug smugglers, in exchange for police protection and police vehicle use (Hodes and Sedra, 2007: 39), yet the dismissal of the entire Georgian traffic police by President Saakashvili also punished officers who had not engaged in corruption (Hiscock, 2006: 140). High-level or ‘meat-eating’ corruption is the most severe form of corruption that damages the police institution, the state and public confidence, but petty ‘grass-eating’ corruption should also be targeted for long-term reform, or else corruption can become endemic and institutionalised. Almost all ‘meat-eaters’ start as ‘grass-eaters’, so all levels of corruption need to be tackled with long-term reforms

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in monitoring, recruitment and vetting and training (Cerrah et al, 2009: 71). Police reform and anti-corruption have a better chance of succeeding with improved ‘transparency and service to the public’ with a strong civil society to reduce the incentives and opportunities for engaging in corruption rather than merely increasing the size of the police force or focusing on protecting political elites (Pyman et al, 2012: 77–8). Other prevention strategies that are endorsed are pay reform to reduce petty corruption and the rotation of the police, border police, customs officials and public officials in high-risk vice areas to combat the creation of corrupt social relations and patronage. Despite these prevention strategies, the commissions of inquiries point to the main problems that are difficult to mitigate. These rest on opportunities to engage in corrupt activity, which is higher in vice areas, weak sanctions, high internal solidarity (code of silence) and socialisation from ‘grass-’ to ‘meat-eating’ corruption. Training on ethics and integrity can also be part of an anti-corruption strategy. Hope (2017: 7) has convincingly argued that distinct courses on police anti-corruption training that integrate ethical behaviour, integrity and desistance with corruption activities, within problem-based learning scenarios, can improve police conduct to curtail corruption. I argue that prevention strategies cannot succeed alone in significantly reducing police corruption. Pay reform can reduce survival-based corruption such as bribery and extortion but would fail to challenge clientelism and promote ethical and integrity standards. Moreover, rotation and a random assignment strategy can reduce patronage and corruption for low-level police officers. However, this prevention strategy cannot function linearly because of potential police chiefs buying their posts for high sums of money (internal payoffs) that link with the drug trade, which means that systemic corruption and state capture would remain. These challenges to prevention strategies indicate the importance of grasping the popular typologies of police corruption and integrity violations to begin to understand the causes, practices and consequences of police corruption.

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3

Security sector reform, post‑conflict reconstruction and police corruption in post-conflict states Introduction Now that police corruption and prevention strategies have been covered, the purpose of this chapter is to explain how police reform fits within wider security initiatives based on political ideals. We begin by looking at the dynamics of SSR, and more narrowly police reform, to focus on rebuilding a police sector and reforms that include the justice sector. We then explore post-conflict reconstruction and the liberalist forms that dictate externally driven statebuilding operations and the repercussions these have on patronage relations. The subsequent parts of the chapter cover post-conflict policing in the context of Haiti and Iraq to draw out some comparisons with Afghanistan. I will demonstrate that the liberal model of police reconstruction has attempted to move to a more reflexive model of democratic policing but former liberal imperatives – namely fighting an insurgency and thus militarising the police – commence in post9/11 conflict zones. The final section covers police reform to curtail corruption in volatile settings, which includes Honduras, Venezuela and Serbia. Although Honduras and Venezuela are developing states and affected by instability, and may not necessarily qualify as postconflict states, they are appropriate examples here because they share similar traits of police forces engaged in high levels of criminality and corruption.

Security sector reform Corruption seriously undermines security and the rule of law. It has been recognised that security actors in conflict-stricken states are ethnically, religiously and politically polarised due to their affiliations, and lack professional standards, which leads to corruption, nepotism and lack of oversight (Özerdem, 2010: S43). In order to combat corruption by strengthening the security and judicial sectors, SSR

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and poverty alleviation became a policy goal forwarded by the DFID in early 1999 (Ball, 2007: 94). This rationale contended that if a security force is not professionalised, corrupt, ethnicised or is poorly regulated, it will aggravate security problems (Hendrickson, 1999: 9). If SSR is planned incorrectly, citizens may be in danger due to incompetent security forces, political factions, a weak and unjust justice system and irregular militias (distinct from the national army or state police). SSR is endeavouring to professionalise state police and the armed forces, to undergo human rights, anti-corruption and ethics training to reduce corruption and oppression, and to install a security sector that does not actually endanger its citizens (Hutton, 2009: 5). The main objective of SSR is to create security structures to utilise resources effectively and efficiently so that the sector can operate under civilian control and, most crucially, provide security for its civilians (Özerdem, 2010: S43). SSR is thus part of a strategy to bring about sustainable peace and recovery within a once-shattered war-torn environment. Within the literature there are two notable approaches to SSR. These comprise the narrow and wider doctrines, which are now discussed in turn. The narrow approach of SSR consists of protecting ‘physical security’ by building a new national army, reforming the police, training, disciplining and professionalising these security forces, and enforcing effective disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants while avoiding excessive military expenditure (Brzoska, 2000: 9). Disarmament is the collection, control and disposal of light weapons and small arms and the development of management programmes for responsible arms (Sedra, 2008: 158). Demobilisation is the process when the armed forces of the government, opposition or factional forces either downsize or utterly disband. Reintegration is ‘the process whereby former combatants and their families and other displaced persons are assimilated into the social and economic life of (civilian) communities’ for states to recover from conflict (Özerdem, 2002: 962). In short, DDR consists of collecting arms, disbanding irregular militias and/or pre-existing security forces and returning ex-fighters to society to undertake sustainable livelihoods and forms of political and social reconciliation (Özerdem, 2010: S42). Since the end of the Cold War era, the UN has included DDR to strive for sustainable peacebuilding in war-torn societies (Brahimi Report, 2000: 18). The narrow option of SSR integrates DDR and largely focuses on ‘civilian control’ that minimises ‘resource use’ to reform the security forces, national police and armed forces and security institutions (Brzoska, 2000: 12). DDR requires political commitment from

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internal and external actors and its success also rests on the security of neighbouring states to avoid regional spillovers, as evident in Liberia and the Great Lakes region of Africa. DDR can only contribute to broader SSR initiatives if other factors concerning governance, justice and issues of corruption are simultaneously considered (Özerdem, 2010: S43). These facets are covered in the subsequent more holistic doctrine of SSR. The wider approach of SSR encompasses promoting good governance, transparency and accountability that support both democratic input and output processes (Hänggi, 2004: 9). Good governance concerns the effective, efficient and legitimate use of resources by the governing elites. It consists of transparency, accessibility, accountability (including all the security forces), efficiency, equitability and processes of democratic policy decision-making and operation under democratic governance (Brzoska, 2003: 16). The role of the civil society is crucial in providing democratic control and oversight of the security forces and enhancing trust, civil–military relations and transparency for further developmental programmes to succeed. This holistic approach also covers aspects of human security to meet basic human needs, promote distributive justice and monitor and supervise political participation, which is advocated in much UN and European discourse (Boutros-Ghali, 1992: 8; Brahimi Report, 2000). SSR can be summarised as a focus on the professionalisation of the security forces and also includes judicial reform that covers the rule of law, the training of legal professionals and accountability of all security forces, including external forces (Tondini, 2008: 242). Some academics prefer the term ‘security sector reconstruction’ because of the social, political and economic context (Hänggi, 2004; Özerdem, 2010: S44). During SSR, external actors are involved, and thus interventions require legitimacy, and a level and duration of political commitment and coordination between different actors. In addition, the inclusion of local actors, an active civil society and measures to build faith in the new security arrangements can enhance local ownership during and post processes. Therefore, SSR initially focused on protecting ‘physical security’ but, as Hänggi (2004: 9) suggests, the understanding of security has shifted to human security ideals and wider development. These liberalist ideals make SSR a more difficult task because wider parameters of postconflict reconstruction and peacebuilding, such as justice, health and wellbeing, cannot be ignored from an over-focus on solely reforming and training a new security sector. Objectives need to be clear from the onset.

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Post-conflict reconstruction Since the early 1990s, post-conflict reconstruction is the main ingredient for endorsing SSR, DDR and wider peacebuilding initiatives. It is aimed at abating hostilities, and more importantly, improving the security forces, governance, economic stability and social conditions to avert future conflict and ethnic, religious and/or tribal strife (Saul, 2014: 40–1). This concept is related to justice and notably development in the aftermath of armed conflict jus post bellum. According to Ferguson (2010: 1–2), post-conflict reconstruction usually occurs at a period in time after formal hostilities have ceased and a peace arrangement has been endorsed that strives towards a peaceful social order. Based on this notion, war-torn societies will have a twilight period between a conflict and peace phase that can be renewed if violence re-emerges. It is a mammoth task to rebuild state organs, security forces, a judicial system and public services, often from scratch, but the main challenges lie in reconstructing civil society and rebuilding broken social relationships (Ferguson, 2010: 2). The World Bank (2005: 1–2) has also recognised that conflict is a main barrier to development, and the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (which include access to primary and secondary education), and negatively impacts economic development, aggravates and/or protracts poverty and stagnates social cohesion. Conflict recovery is needed to prevent future strife and breakdown of social relationships, and thus a competent and trustworthy security sector is needed because corrupt or weak security can cause insecurity. Since the 1990s the majority of conflict-stricken states have been rated low on the Human Development Index, are undergoing economic stagnation, or have been involved in a war or some forms of conflict (The World Bank, 2005: 7–8). Similarly, during the 1990s, fatalities reached 5.5 million in 35 civil wars and the cost of UN peacekeeping operations surpassed US$7 billion (Vos et al, 2008: 1). The work of Ghobarah et al (2003: 192–3) has also contended that prolonged civil wars – notably in Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi, Tanzania and Zaire – cause and/or protract insecurity, corruption, a fragile infrastructure, poor economic activity, an increase in the number of refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) and weak basic services. As a consequence, disease may spread due to a poor health infrastructure that fails to deter the spread of communicable diseases within IDP camps, crime increases due to a weak judicial system and policing, and unemployment remains high due to lack of foreign investors. Therefore, conflict, security, poverty and development are interconnected. Economic security and longer-

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term goals for primary education and gender equality, as part of the MDGs, are objectives for stability and development, which post-conflict reconstruction strives for. The main components of post-conflict reconstruction are threefold. First, security is pivotal to restore order and enable effective humanitarian relief, with a police and military to protect ‘physical security’ (Vos et  al, 2008: 1). Second, reconciliation is based on strengthening social capital to rebuild trust and social relationships in order to reduce groups’ alienation and improve local participation in decision-making processes (Vos et al, 2008: 2). Third, development is a broad spectrum and is loosely based on the solidification of state institutions to achieve successful dispute resolution and transparent, free and fair elections. These components include DDR, rehabilitation of physical infrastructure, economic restructuring, working towards a functional judicial system, and enhancing wellbeing and education in order to combat uncontrolled weapons, poverty, sectarian, ethnic and religious divisions to bring about sustainable peace. There are two noticeable models within post-conflict reconstruction, the neoliberal and reflexive. The neoliberal model suggests that post-conflict reconstruction, like developmental programmes, is driven by Western donors, officials and multilateral agencies. The neoliberal approach encourages economic liberalisation, which includes privatisation to promote more business opportunities, competition, potential FDI and political liberalisation (largely based on a democratisation process). These forms of liberalisation can support ‘police reconstruction’ because this is perceived as a technical problem that Western ideology can mitigate. The focus is to import Western ideals and training based on economic and political liberalisation, which, in turn, ignores problems with the former government or ongoing violence (Wozniak, 2017: 807). In relation to police reform, Western methods mean the police being accountable to law instead of a government, the protection of human rights, accountability to people outside of the police force and prioritisation of the needs of citizens. However, there are numerous problems with the application of neoliberal reconstruction. It assumes that a weak and predatory state is in need of an open market, but this can result in a stronger market than the state, prioritising international actors’ objectives at the expense of local actors’ needs and goals (Richmond and Mitchell, 2011: 326). Therefore, the process of neoliberal reconstruction is externally driven, and a free market within a predatory state, under the conditions of neopatrimonialism, runs the risk of limited access orders favouring some groups. Neopatrimonialism can loosely be defined

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as the relationship between the hybrid domination of political elites and ‘legal-rational bureaucratic domination’ that favours clientelism to preserve the political regime (Erdmann and Engel, 2007: 95, 104). This system of domination alienates most of society ‘from the economic spoils of the free market’ (Wozniak, 2017: 808). The strengthening of institutions prior to neoliberal forms of economic and political liberalisation, and civilian control and local ownership – prerequisites of SSR – are required to avoid such problems with neopatrimonial states. The reflexive model focuses on local expertise, community participation and more grassroots involvement that moves away from linear externally driven imperatives. The main focus is on ‘indigenous autonomy’ and includes local actors to reflect on local expertise and knowledge, attempting democratic and institutional reforms with flexibility and adaptability (Goldsmith and Dinnen, 2007). Although the intervention in Afghanistan largely reflects the neoliberal reconstruction model, it did adapt at some points to include local actors and local knowledge. The initial intervention was driven by the US ‘War on Terror’ and subsequent support from the UN Security Council (UNSC), but it included local militias to hunt al-Qaeda in the mountains. The Afghan intervention also included tribal elders in both the arrangement of the Loya Jirga – when inaugurating Hamid Karzai from chair of the Afghan Interim Administration (AIA) to President – and with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)headed ‘Winning Hearts and Minds’. Post-conflict reconstruction thus contains a neoliberal model, driven by Western ideals, but the reflexive model has hoped for more engagement with local stakeholders and indigenous expertise to better support reconstruction efforts (Wozniak, 2017). Elements of both models can be adopted, but due to the nature of SSR, the conditions of reconstruction are largely influenced by external actors. External actors usually reflect Western ideals, and thus the neoliberal reconstruction model takes the lead in the majority of interventions. Hence, post-conflict reconstruction is prescribed by international donors as a measure to promote their designed statebuilding and development attempts after civil war to transform conflict-stricken states into functional states with efficient governments. This externally driven reformist strategy has been central to the foreign policy of the USA, large European donors and multilateral actors. Foreign aid and donor initiatives attempt to strengthen states with economic policies, development programmes and SSR so that war-torn aid-dependent states can stand alone and avoid a relapse into conflict once donor aid

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ceases. In order to avert donor dependency, a new democratic state requires public and international support to enhance its legitimacy, and the services rendered must be effective. It is the police that provide internal security and public security by legitimately performing their duties as discernible government agents. Post-conflict reconstruction thus envisages a better future for war-torn environments. This peacebuilding objective overlaps with multilateral and powerful states’ impositions on broader notions of positive peace – rather than negative peace merely ceasing hostilities – to improve state, security and economic conditions. As part of post-conflict reconstruction, peacebuilding and statebuilding are based on liberalist ideals. A large segment of the reconstruction process is to build or rebuild principal state institutions to enable a democratic transition to peace, security and justice. In much political discourse, the word ‘peace’ has had no set definition and is difficult to conceptualise. At face value, the ideas of peace are to achieve a world that is peaceful, in social and psychological harmony, or at least to be violence-free (Kant, 1795: 107). The Brahimi Report (2000: 10) was designed to pursue the notion that the longer-term prevention of conflict and statebuilding focuses on building a solid state to achieve sustainable peace. Peacebuilding aims to build peace beyond a quick cessation of hostilities. It includes the reintegration of former combatants into society, training local police, human rights monitoring and penal and judicial reform to strengthen the rule of law. In addition, it involves democratic development supported by electoral and technical assistance, free media and the promotion of conflict reconciliation (statebuilding) (Brahimi Report, 2000: 13). In brief terms, statebuilding concerns the attempt of external actors to build or rebuild the institutions of a post-conflict or failing state to enhance security, legitimacy and economic, social and political development (OECD, 2011: 43). The external intervention that becomes involved normally involves a UN peacekeeping operation to prevent the collapse of the state’s institutions and to reform all administrations so the state can stand alone once aid ceases. The UN incorporated statebuilding into their operations, with precedents found in the 1989 UN Transition Assistance Group in Namibia and the 1993 UN  Transitional Authority in Cambodia. In both contexts, the UN supervised free and fair elections and provided citizens with the opportunity to elect their new governments democratically to rebuild their states into stable democracies (Chesterman, 2007: 5; Stahn, 2008: 271). In 1999, the UNSC

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authorised internationally led interim administrative governance in both Kosovo and East Timor respectively (Strohmeyer, 2001: 46–7). The NATO-led Kosovo Stabilisation Force and largely Australian International Force in East Timor were deployed respectively to preserve internal security, defend against external threats and police referendums on independence and democracy efforts (Security Council Resolution 1244, 10 June 1999; Security Council Resolution 1264, 15 September 1999). In December 2008, the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) replaced the multinational civilian police of the UN  Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) throughout the territory, and the Kosovo Police Service supplanted the UN International Civilian Policing. EULEX provides mentoring and training on the rule of law and human rights for the Kosovo police force, to form a secure and safe territory for all residents irrespective of ethnic group (Kammel, 2013: 153). Yet, Earnest (2015) recognises that post-conflict reconstruction in Kosovo post-1999 had problems that included developmental challenges, refugees and IDPs, psychological trauma, donor conditionality, lack of community participation, lack of resources and political, economic and social disorder. Tondini (2010) argues that the stated UN transitional administrations are driven from an externally driven top-down (dirigiste) approach to reform the entirety of a shattered administration from scratch. This strategy does little to provide local participation during the statebuilding and broader institutional reform processes. Therefore, post-conflict reconstruction can be donor-driven, externally dominated and may lack communication and local participation. Kühn (2012) is also cynical of the term ‘peace’, which is arguably used as a tool for the security community, which has thwarted its emancipatory meaning. Peace is politically motivated and related with interventions and statebuilding, which is centred on the promotion of economic liberalisation and the redesigning of administrations, often from a transitional authority or other trusteeship, alongside the peacebuilding ideas of SSR, the rule of law and democratic policing (all being mainly a Western application) (Kühn, 2012: 400). It can be contended that the foreign policy of powerful donor nations and multilateral actors can drive the broader parameters of post-conflict reconstruction to reflect their ideals of physical security, liberal economic policies, democratisation and social development. The liberal peace doctrine in international politics promotes the threefold process of democratisation, economic liberalisation (marketisation) and pacification as mechanisms of peacebuilding

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that will ostensibly promote sustainable development (Kurtenbach, 2007: 7). The assumption is that these three objectives will positively reconcile and thus promote sustainable development. Liberal peace ‘is marked by its increasingly formulaic, top-down and ethnocentric nature’ (Mac Ginty, 2007: 457). This doctrine is promoted by international peacebuilding and reconstruction interventions that reflect the norms and aspirations of Western liberal philosophy that have seen worldwide dynamism (Boutros-Ghali, 1992: 5). Hence, like a commercial monopoly, this model attracts states, international organisations and NGOs due to the commercial interaction attached, namely financial resources (Mac Ginty, 2010: 399). Liberal peace disregards alternative peacebuilding approaches such as local ownership to negotiate with local governments and civil society during the reform of the security and justice sectors. These facets are integral for successful SSR and more narrowly DDR. Liberal peace is dictated by external actors’ proposed mandates that specify the duration of operations and funding in certain sectors, such as elections, economic policies and other reconstruction efforts. This doctrine leads to externally led interventions, even during periods of reform of security and judicial institutions. In a state with weak institutions, post-conflict reconstruction attempts to bring about a more rapid process to conflict recovery. Postwar recovery can thus result in political elites and other powerful leaders ‘buying off’ powerful criminal groups, private actors and individuals with affluent business interests with patronage. These private actors also ‘buy off’ politicians with financial incentives such as money, a promise for future appointments or the prospect of joining a lucrative business venture (Rose-Ackerman, 2008: 328). Le  Billon (2003: 420) argues that ‘corruption buys peace’ where rulers can appoint opposition groups or militias, which provides a degree of political stability to avoid conflict. Based on this literature, corruption is thus legitimate as it satisfies greed and reduces grievances by expanding clientelism. In both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia, the prominent and surviving former rebel leaders and warring factions were made vice-presidents. They entered cabinet positions respectively in compliance with the 2002 Global and All-Inclusive Agreement and 2003 Liberian Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which left them to reap state resources, the economic benefits of the posts and opportunities to form patronage networks (Cheng and Zaum, 2008: 303). This accord was the consequence for getting prominent figures of the warring factions to surrender their arms. It made powerful

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rebels heads of Liberian government ministries for a two-year interim era prior to presidential elections, in which warlords within this short time frame looted ministry resources and enjoyed extravagant lifestyles (Perito and Kristoff, 2010: 2–3). Therefore, corrupt patronage networks are not challenged, or else it could pose a risk to stability, particularly in rural and inaccessible areas that have been long conquered by warlords and factional commanders. External reformers are aware of this in Afghanistan and, according to Goodhand (2008a), the reformers and donors need to understand the repercussions of attempting to thwart certain corrupt and patronagebased trade bargaining due to the threat of violence for combating the corrupt but relatively peaceful status quo. In such post-war or ongoing armed conflict scenarios, the international community and peacebuilders may accept former and surviving warlords continuing with their patrimonial politics with limited reforms taking place as a trade for peace and to eliminate the risk of destabilising the state further. The groups and few prominent warlords who manage to sustain their dominance over economic and political posts via corruption from the political buyoff for peace have the opportunity to prevent redistributing power by avoiding institutional checks (Le Billon, 2008: 353). Hence, corruption is highly prone in post-war states, particularly when there is a political negotiation with warlords and factional commanders with the opportunity to reap state resources, senior positions and economic benefits with no abstract or legal oversight.

Post-conflict policing Now that SSR and the problems with broader post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding have been discussed, this section specifically focuses on post-conflict police reconstruction and police reform in war-torn environments. After an initial overview of the main challenges police reform faces in post-conflict states, the contexts of police reconstruction predominantly cover Haiti and comparisons between Iraq and Afghanistan. In post-war contexts, or states still undergoing forms of armed conflict, the reconstruction of the police sector requires stability and consensus between a variety of religious, ethnic and cultural groups (Wozniak, 2017: 807). The police are the fundamental state actors to build multiple variances between these groups. Policing impacts on the trust of the government, support and perceived legitimacy of the state because the police are visible government agents in daily relations, and negative dealings with them can form animosity for both

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the police force and the state (Wiatrowski and Goldstone, 2010: 80). Therefore, in post-conflict states, there is a greater need to reform the police as they are often involved in corrupt activity and human rights abuses during the previous and current regimes that destroy public trust in the police (OECD, 2007b: 176). Police reform is harder to achieve in post-conflict situations or in states undergoing conflict due to a shortage of good suitable police recruits who are ‘properly vetted’, which means that positions are continually ‘filled on the basis of ethnicity and political connections’ instead of competence (Aepli et al, 2009: 6). Police reform and anti-corruption strategies to fight police corruption are prone to failure in post-conflict societies that have weak institutions to implement such reforms. If senior police are linked with organised criminal groups, it is hard to stop them due to an absent or weak monitoring body maintaining independence from political interference (Pyman et al, 2012: 23). The police and other law enforcement agencies such as border patrols are the main target for powerful organised criminal networks to constrain effective and efficient law enforcement (Sherman, 1995: 103). In these settings, state capture occurs. This can loosely be defined as the permeation of state institutions by private groups, whether businesses or organised criminal entities, to serve their narrow legal or illegal profit-making interests (Cornell, 2007: 109). Kajsiu (2016: 44) has convincingly argued that rapid economic liberalisation and democratisation policies have empowered ‘powerful private actors’ to lobby and collude with political elites to ‘extract rents’ by manipulating their state power. In such political reform situations, the state does not have the structure for transparency, which makes the implementation of anti-corruption more difficult. The lack of control is due to the underlying features of the state, namely frailty of its institutions and penetration of criminal interests that subvert law enforcement. Moreover, political elites and their cronies are frequently unwilling to relinquish their corrupt enterprises and patronage networks, and merely pay lip service to transparency and accountability of imposed donors’ reforms to secure continual aid, as evident in both Afghanistan and Nigeria (Spencer, 2010; Ndiokwere, 2012: 152). There are a variety of cases in which police reconstruction, or more narrowly police reform in conflictaffected environments, have commenced. In the 1990s, efforts were prescribed by UN-supported missions in Haiti, former communist regions in Europe and later in the Great Lakes region of Africa. In the context of Haiti, the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide was faced with an impoverished nation, few resources and

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conditionality (terms and conditions) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). State fragility resulted in the government attempting to raise taxation for wealthy people with increased income, and corporate and import taxes that angered the elites and the armed forces (Copeau, 2008: 114). As a consequence, on 29 September 1991, President Aristide was overthrown by Brigadier General Joseph Raoul Cédras and resentful armed forces to form a military junta (YarhiMilo, 2018: 239). The US-framed ‘Operation Uphold Democracy’ stopped the military coup with UNSC support (Security Council Resolution 940, 31 July 1994). Security Council Resolution 940 also extended the mandate of the UN Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) as part of the peacekeeping element, which reached 6,000 troops. During this time, there was only the Haitian Armed Forces that performed both military and policing duties, and thus a civilian police force was absent from their history (Cann et al, 2010: 28). In 1994, this armed force consisted of 7,000 ill-equipped and untrained men who were supported by a plentiful supply of thugs (Cann et al, 2010: 29). The US-led Multinational Force (MNF) organised police reform by authorising 920 International Police Monitors (IPMs) from 26 states, and subsequently a UN Police to hold sidearms, engage with arresting powers and use robust force as self-defence or to avert internal Haitian strife (Greener, 2009: 18). The IPMs were deployed to Haitian police stations with the US Military Police. Internal security was provided by IPMs and they supervised a transnational Haitian security force, consisting of 3,000 screened and retained armed forces members (Cann et al, 2010: 29). After the MNF arrived, the US  Department of Justice (DoJ), with help from both France and Canada, created the initial Haitian Police Academy with over 300 trainers and 3,000 cadets undertaking training (Cann et al, 2010: 29). The ‘four men in a jeep’ strategy, which consisted of a military police driver, an IPM, Interim Public Security Force recruit (part of the screened Haitian police force) and interpreter, was working (Hansen, 2002: 113). By February 1996, the number of police personnel to complete the training increased to 5,243 (Bailey et al, 1998: 231). The matching number of transitional security forces were demobilised, and the UNMIH succeeded the US MNF in late March 1995, when 870 UN Police replaced the IPMs to train and monitor the Haitian National Police (HNP) (Perito, 2004: 111). The SSR strategy of police reform worked well, and the mentors to patrol officers were 1:10 at the outset and subsequently 1:6. These ratios are far better than in Afghanistan, which exceeded 1:100, and sometimes lower if mentors were unavailable (Cann et al, 2010: 29).

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Furthermore, commercial contractors (namely retired officers) were appointed in Haiti, who were assigned by the US Department of State to recruit, mentor on a daily basis, train, equip and uniform new Haitian officers, which resulted in lack of preparedness for international settings (Perito, 2007: 5–6). Similarly, the US Indian Police Academy holds a 16-week Integrated Basic Police Training Programme and nine written exams, which includes conflict management, conduct, ethics, narcotics, civil rights, searching, detention, survival and firearms (Bracey, 2005: 672). Hence, Haiti and native Indian tribes in the USA have daily mentoring and protracted formal training. Despite progress with training in Haiti, the reformed police force from initially the US-led MNF and then the UN Civilian Policing (CIVPOL), under UNMIH, failed to combat later issues with corruption, excessive use of force, drug abuse and human rights violations (Greener, 2009: 18). In addition, the HNP is plagued with high levels of illiteracy, positions are filled by ‘inexperienced political appointees’, and new recruits received more training than superiors, resulting in disrespect and poor discipline (Alexandre and Bjorken, 2005: 1089). Unlike the context of Haiti and other 1990s interim administrations, post-9/11 meant predominant US intervention, without transfer to the UN, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. After Barack Obama declared a potential withdrawal and wind-down of US military intervention in Iraq, it was highly unlikely that a UN mission would follow. The intervention in Iraq from 19 March 2003 comprised of robust military intervention, from the USA and coalition forces, to overthrow Saddam Hussein and subsequently start the neoliberal reconstruction phase. This intervention comprised of reforming the security sector and forming an array of policing units, including specialist police commando units, and a national police force that was later trained by the Italian carabinieri police. Initially, in April 2003, the USA and coalition forces and the Iraq police fought a heavily armed insurgency and militias in many streets and dealt with high rates of crime. The US  DoJ had undertaken responsibility for police reform after the CPA disbanded the Iraqi armed forces as part of de-Ba’athication. A month later, the US DoJ decided that the initial aim of instilling the rule of law and democratic principles of policing, which had worked well in previous DoJ missions in Haiti, could not commence, and thus extensive US support was required. During this time, the insurgency increased – with numbers growing from al-Qaeda in Iraq, which would later branch off to D’aesh (Islamic State, ISIS) – and criminal violence intensified.

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In the previous regime, Saddam Hussein had invested in the public sector and modernised the state to make Iraq supply decent living standards, and it was economically sound. Although the Iraqi Police were not managed and were not professionalised, heavily militarised and weakly invested in compared to the armed forces and other specialised police agencies (Perito, 2011: 2), Iraq had a professionalised police force that was strict and loyal to the state and Ba’ath political party. During Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iraq had low rates of interpersonal crime (Wozniak, 2017: 810). As a result of prevalent criminal violence, in May 2004, the US Department of Defence (DoD) was officially given responsibility for training and equipping the Iraqi Police (Perito, 2011: 2). The US DoD heads the US army and thus had a militarised approach to police reform that significantly differed to the US DoJ. The US DoD approach aimed at equipping and training the Iraqi Police to fight insurgency and deal with high levels of criminal gangs rather than focus on community policing. Perito (2011: 3) outlines that there were three issues based on: the mission of the police force, the robust role of US military forces heading training and on COIN, which meant that ideals on community policing had to wait. Training specifically commanded by MNF – Iraq was to focus on an eight-week course to fight insurgency, survival and self-defence skills that threatened ‘democratic policing principles’ that ‘should not be eliminated or reduced’ (Krongard and Schmitz, 2005: 24–5). However, the newly graduated police from training conducted by the US DoJ in Amman, Jordan, or the academy in Baghdad, struggled against insurgency militias and sectarian forces. Therefore, the renewed COIN mission from the US DoD did not match democratic policing from the US  DoJ, and light arms were useless against the heavily armed militias holding AK-47s and grenades. Due to the violence that ensued, the Iraqi Police deserted their posts after constant insurgent attacks, but continued to receive nominal training (Perito, 2011: 4). There were opportunities for patronage-based recruitment and relations due to a lack of oversight when Minister of Interior Falah al-Naqib was sworn in charge of the Iraqi Police institution. Bayan Jabr Solagh was subsequently appointed Interior Minister and appointed thousands of Shiite militias to replace the disbanded Sunnis. The recruited Shiite militias retained loyalty to their radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and further infiltrated the Ministry (Perito, 2011: 5). Therefore, patronage and loyalty to Shiite figures deterred meritocratic appointments and recruitment was based on both loyalty and ethnic ties. Moreover, moonlighting and the abuse of police uniforms were

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problematic. There was an array of sectarian violent attacks, under the guise of operations conducted by uniformed police that targeted Sunnis. These violent outbreaks included the torture and murder of 36 Sunni men in Baghdad on 25 August 2005, but the warrant to arrest Volcano Brigade’s commando was not carried out (Perito, 2011: 6). In addition, the Wolf Brigade of the Special Police Commando Units illicitly tortured and arbitrarily detained over 1,400 prisoners (Moore, 2006). There were other numerous instances of secret prisons that tortured and starved Sunnis. The US armed forces attempted to reorganise the Iraqi Police to challenge sectarian violence that resulted in torture, killings and the misuse of police uniforms. In mid-2004, the Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq (MNSTC-I) was mandated with the authority to assist COIN within Iraq’s Interior and Defence Ministries, and equipment underwent tracking and procurement procedures (Cordesman and Mausner, 2007: 97). As a result, MNSTC-I rearranged the pre-existing Special Police Commando Units into the Iraq National Police (INP) and they were better equipped. MNSTC-I ran simultaneously with the NATO Training Mission – Iraq (NTM-I). The pre-existing NATO mission was based on professionalising the Iraqi Federal Police and Oil Police with Italian-led carabinieri-style policing enhanced training them in intelligence, planning, police ethics and human rights in seven-week training courses in Camp Dublin, just outside Baghdad (NATO, 2011). During this process, on 15 December 2005, national elections to transfer power from the CPA to Iraq commenced, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was inaugurated. However, sectarian violence and more members of Iraqi Police units were arrested. To provide one example, on 29 May 2007, five British security guards were kidnapped by gunmen in police uniforms and the Iraqi Interior Minister was blamed by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (Tran, 2007). Militias continued to murder, operate hit squads and continue with secret prisons while wearing police uniforms, but political allegiances to a variety of factions hindered accountability, the rule of law and police reform (Parker, 2007). Therefore, patronage had hampered the ability of the Iraqi Police to combat crime, and resulted in factional loyalty within the Ministry of Interior. Former President George W. Bush indicated that he had authorised an additional 20,000 US troops as part of the ‘Surge’ in January 2007. The Surge expanded internal forms of traditional and civilian policing ranging from patrols, chairing checkpoints, gaining the trust and protecting neighbourhoods by adopting a door knocking strategy

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rather than merely hunting out insurgency and irregular militias (Bush, 2007). However, the INP needed to be replaced because the Ministry of Interior remained crippled by low literacy rates, particularly among Shiites, endemic corruption and sectarianism, and had weak leadership to provide controls over the police force (Perito, 2011: 8). The carabinieri training attempted to instil moral and ethical dilemmas with policing to form better trust building and community forms of policing. These democratic policing efforts later pressed for the June 2008 INP code of ethics to respect the rule of law and human rights within democratic norms in order to ensure that police behaviour was legal, and that civilians were treated fairly and as suspects rather than criminals (de Saint-Claire, 2011: 3). In August 2009, the INP changed its name to the Iraq Federal Police (IFP) to reflect its gendarmerie paramilitary policing strategy that bridges local policing and the armed forces. The MNST-I formed 41 national police transitional teams for monitoring purposes. Despite these renewed efforts of democratic policing, as reiterated by the US coalition, the police were better trained and equipped in COIN for fighting armed opposition rather than civilian policing (Jones, 2007: 35). Despite progress in fighting insurgency, Baldor (2007: 17) reported that the Iraqi army had improved but the police force remained divided, with sectarian loyalty and engagement in militia activity, and was beleaguered with corruption. The reasons for corruption within the Iraqi Police include lack of training, patronage, loyalty to militias or other commanders, low pay and the danger involved in fighting insurgency. Wozniak (2017) argues that post-conflict police reconstruction in Iraq has both the neoliberal and reflexive doctrines but ignores material factors ranging from material deprivation, under-qualified officers and low pay. Despite huge aid put into police reform, private subcontracting with companies such as DynCorp, without the relevant oversight, has resulted in US$750 million being paid for 1,000 training advisors, but only 50 arrived (Hughes, 2008). The lack of budgetary oversight leaves low funds for poor equipment and training. As a consequence, the police are supplied with old uniforms, training is too short, and the police in the Kurdish region are paid US$428.95 monthly but have to pay US$171.58 for rent, and if they are injured, there is no compensation for families (Wozniak, 2017: 812). This material deprivation has resulted in the public mistrusting the Iraqi Police as corrupt. Patronage is rife in the recruitment process and many officers are mis-accounted as ‘ghost’ police (Pianin, 2014). Based on interviews conducted in Iraq with the police, corruption is rampant from the top

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to lower levels, connections are pivotal for the recruitment process, and low-qualified staff are promoted if their relatives are high-ranking officials (Wozniak, 2017: 813–4). Transfer from the CPA to democratic elections in January 2005 was part of securitisation for political liberalisation and thus prescribed neoliberal reconstruction. These security and political objectives result in disinterested police officers who are low-paid and lack equipment and funding in training centres, which discourages talented applicants and fails to prevent corruption. The main problems associated with neoliberal post-conflict police reconstruction in Iraq have done little to deter the rise of the insurgency, which includes D’aesh (Wozniak, 2017: 814). The process of de-Ba’athification, as part of broader DDR, has disbanded skilled personnel from positions by leaving 750,000 unemployed in May 2003, and thus intensified angry Iraqis (Özerdem, 2010: S45). Due to the lack of public legitimacy of the Iraqi Police, the public turn to private militias for security protection, which includes D’aesh, angered at Shia governance and US support (Kirkpatrick, 2014). The rise of informal security networks is supplemented with high rates of crime and unemployment, which was not the case during Saddam Hussein’s reign. In addition, Arab Sunnis have been repressed by the government and denied citizenship rights – 80 per cent of Sunnis in Shiite-dominated army checkpoints in Mosul did not feel safe (Levallois and Cousseran, 2017: 7). D’aesh are supported by ideological reasons and failures of the government and US support. While D’aesh initially attracted recruitment from lucrative pay, since 2016, foreign fighters’ salaries have been significantly reduced and halted due to bombing by the international community (Levallois and Cousseran, 2017: 15). Despite this setback, if the Iraqi government and police force continue to fail to bring stability and public confidence, via corrupt-free means, the insurgency will continue to be supported, even if it is on the decline. These problems with neoliberal police reconstruction, training and corruption have similarities within the context of Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the Security Council deployed 5,000 NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops to support ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ to provide security in the countryside while fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces (Security Council Resolution 1386, 20 December 2001). The SSR included five donor nations to lead each pillar to pursue their national and geopolitical interests. In relation to the security sector, the USA led military reform and Germany initially led police reform, but both failed to advance the reforms (Singh, 2014: 632). The Afghan police force still had

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poor equipment, the majority remained illiterate and untrained, and retained loyalty with local warlords instead of the state. Since 2003, the USA became increasingly involved in police reform, and by 2007 it was the largest donor to focus on short-term security objectives (Hodes and Sedra, 2007: 9). Germany focused on civilian policing. These policing ideals were succeeded by the intervention of the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL) on 30 May 2007 to focus on democratic policing with human rights, the rule of law and anti-corruption training while mentoring Ministry of Interior Affairs (MoIA) staff (Gross, 2012: 116–7). EUPOL’s estimated 112 international trainers, and 122 Afghan personnel, disbanded in December 2016 and were replaced by a smaller EU External Action (2016) civilian policing team ‘under Afghan ownership’. In contrast to EU civilian policing, the USA aimed to train the police in line with military training to fight insurgency and adhere with the COIN strategy (Larivé, 2012: 189–90; Singh, 2014: 632). It is important to note that the COIN strategy has the purpose of prioritising the safety of the civilian population and promoting comprehensive political, economic and security improvements rather than prescribing a police force that is militarised. However, in the context of Afghanistan, the USA and NATO implemented their visions of the COIN strategy with an influx of forces charged with aggressively targeting the enemy. In a US military testimony on the conflict, the late Senator John McCain similarly underlined that US military forces are currently, since the outset of intervention, focused on COIN (so that Afghanistan will not provide a ‘safe haven’ for another terrorist group), and training Afghan forces (US Senate Committee on Armed Services, 2017: 2). Moreover, Clark (2017: 4) reports that the Taliban have remobilised since 2007, and thus the USA wanted the ANP to act as a paramilitary force – instead of a civilian force – to combat the Taliban. However, the contention between democratic policing and COIN has resulted in confusion for policing operations. Therefore, the ANP quickly found themselves as an undertrained and underequipped front-line force confronting an increasingly violent insurgency, namely the Taliban. The attention on fighting had initially resulted in the US military subordinating police corruption and other abuses (Clark, 2017: 4). The US decision to militarise the police with a vision to becoming a paramilitary force was never clearly provided, and therefore the ANP persisted with an ambiguous mandate between a paramilitary and community policing force. The MoIA was left with the task of fitting this training into a sixweek programme that expanded to an eight-week Focused District

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Development (FDD) programme (ICG, 2008: 4). In November 2007, the USA executed the FDD programme to advance police reform, curb corruption, deliver new equipment and improve the competence of the rule of law within the Afghan police, with completion rates of 65 out of 365 police districts (Kelly et al, 2011: 47). FDD training was conducted by 800 military staff and 700 DynCorp, private military contractors and civilian trainers (Perry, 2009). The Afghan National Civil Order Police replaced the trainees. In relation to specific training, the initial eight-week curriculum consisted of dismounted patrols, coordination and basic security operations, but lacked civil policing and the rule of law (Inspector General, 2009: 120). Ethics, compliance with a policing code and civilian policing, criminal investigation training and human rights and reference to the Afghan constitution only received minimal attention (Inspector General, 2009: 120). In a survey within six districts of FDD graduates, it revealed that negative experiences were regular and improvement in operations needed to be complemented by an increase in ethical behaviour (Military Professional Resources, 2009: 11). Moreover, there was a shortage of police mentors and the lightly armed ANP were being used to fight the insurgency, which left high police casualty rates (Rosenau, 2008). In June 2019, an Afghan security advisor declared that a minimum of 50 people were being killed on a daily basis due to fighting the security forces who are fighting terrorism (Tolo News, 2019). Furthermore, local elders initially approve FDD candidates and officer-level vetting from US civilian police mentors removes those who fail the FDD training, yet screening basic recruits is less systematic (Cann et al, 2010: 26). At the same time as the district police were being trained, all Afghan Uniform Police (AUP) recruits were transferred to a regional training centre under the management of a Police Mentoring Team (PMT). PMTs consist of civilian and military mentors. The former focus on police management and law enforcement and the latter train basic combat operations and offer protection for civilian mentors (Cann et al, 2010: 26–7). However, there was a shortfall of personnel vice and additional trainers for the Brigade Combat Team, which left over 200 personnel short (Maurer, 2009). Despite training efforts, the Afghan police force engage in excessive forms of violence, many are addicted to heroin and are engaged in criminal activity (Brady, 2012). In addition to poor training within the police force, low pay, pervasive corruption and high casualty rates – fighting insurgency, drug trade and organised crime – have hampered police reform (Sediqi and Jain, 2019). Moreover, rosters with ‘ghost’

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police officers are inflated by Afghan police leaders to receive funds for non-existent police officers, and posts are sold in high poppycultivating districts for corrupt earning potential (SIGAR, 2017: 60). These myriad of problems in relation to Afghan police training result in hazardous conditions for a lightly armed force, low skills for civilian policing and weak staff procurement. Patronage and loyalty occur due to lack of efficient screening procedures for basic recruits and potential bias from local elders. Police reform in Afghanistan runs parallel to the internationalled police reform training in Iraq. It started with a neoliberal police reconstruction strategy and moved on to the reflexive model, but geopolitical imperatives, namely US-influenced COIN and paramilitary policing to support the armed forces, continue to dominate police reform in both Afghanistan and Iraq, which has undermined community policing and rule of law attempts. It could also be argued that this training programme is too short a period of time for illiterate and semi-literate recruits to learn. These changes to international police training in the context of Afghanistan are based on geopolitical responses to the conflict. Police reform and police training clash with civilian policing and fighting insurgency, which has created confusion with the Afghan policing mandate. The lack of clarity with training has resulted in an unclear mandate that is associated with a weak sense of command.

Police corruption in post-conflict states This section now draws on further cases of police reform strategies in violent zones including Honduras, Venezuela and Serbia. Honduras is a narco-state that has undergone a transition from a military dictatorship to a republic. High homicide rates and police corruption are rife, which includes taking bribes, fabricating and destroying evidence and engaging with criminal groups (Johnson et al, 2012: 32). Although not now considered a post-conflict state, Honduras has similar traits as Iraq such as weak and politicised institutions and a police force that is prone to corruption (Brownfield, 2010: 7). The Honduran police force has been militarised by US law enforcement agencies to seize air, sea and land transhipment of cocaine (Brownfield, 2010: 323). There are an estimated 36,000 criminal gang members in Honduras, the largest in Central America, which consequently breeds corruption due to police officers being offered a month’s pay for one or two nights’ work from narcotics trafficking organisations (Bosworth, 2010: 18). Reform efforts have included the creation of a Public

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Ministry/Public Prosecutor’s Office to hold a police investigation unit. Despite reform efforts, when Ministers of Security Gautama Fonseca and Oscar Alvarez, and Police Commissioner Maria Luisa Borjas attempted to fire corrupt police officers, the officers were reinstated and the Ministers and Police Commissioner were sacked (El Heraldo, 2012). Political elites also intervene and derail reforms to protect criminals and undermine reform efforts to promote meritocracy in the police. Yashar (2018: 354) has recently argued that the Honduran police remain unprofessionalised due to lack of training received in community policing from authoritarian regimes, and thus remain engaged in organised crime, with local criminal groups connected with political elites and the drug trade. In Venezuela, criminal networks have infiltrated the police at all levels, including Colombian cocaine traffickers bribing officers to influence and gain information from the police force (Abadinsky, 2011: 298). The Venezuelan police are ‘trigger-happy’, leading to an estimated 900 shootings per year in poorer areas such as Caracas (Carroll, 2009). Corrupt police officers avoid facing penalties from investigations – 204 out of 6,300 police officials were charged between 2000 and 2007 – which has led to communities mistrusting the police and being afraid to report police corruption (Holland et al, 2008: 211). As a response, in late 2009, the late President Hugo Chávez announced the establishment of a new and centralised national police force, the National Bolivarian Police, to report to the Ministry of Interior, undertake training in human rights and work closely with local community councils (Nichols and Morse, 2010: 349–50). Chávez focused on community policing by empowering local councils to direct and monitor the activity of policing in their areas so that both the local police and people would share knowledge and bring about better daily relations and improve trust (Pyman et al, 2012: 71). Yet community policing has also been misinterpreted as directives for vigilante justice and in some areas neighbourhoods are patrolled by civilians with light arms. Another strategy to reduce police corruption in Venezuela is pay reform to increase the wages of the police. Salaries were raised by 318  per cent, with the base salary of police officers earning US$1,1300 per month (2,800 Bolivars) and a risk premium of US$140 (300 Bolivars), which included child and personal accident premiums, insurance, food vouchers and other benefits (Pearson, 2009). Although it can be argued that increasing police wages will provide better standards of living and lessen the likelihood of police bribery to supplement living costs, 8 out of 10 corrupt police officers are still

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involved in kidnappings due to the large amounts of money gained (McDermott, 2011). It is unlikely that the increase in wages alone will significantly reduce corruption in the Venezuelan police force. Despite reforms by Chávez, the Venezuelan public still perceive the police as the most corrupt institution in the state (Transparency International, 2010: 44). Chávez called for a revolutionary police force that consisted of his government members in social missions to form a politicised police force instead of an independent force (Holland et al, 2008: 215). Sherman (1978b: 32–3) would argue that high-level politicians can seize a police service and transform it to act for their political interests. Even with community policing and the empowerment of local councils, if the local culture continues to perceive corruption as a way of doing things, corruption will become endemic (Pyman et al, 2012: 72). Although violent crime has reduced since the reforms, the Venezuelan police force is often the primary facilitator with Colombian-organised drug trafficking criminal networks (Stone, 2011). As a consequence of state capture, the infiltration of regional organised crime, engaged in drug trafficking, has undermined the Venezuelan police force. In post-conflict Serbia, the end of Slobodan Milošević’s presidency in October 2000 formed a rushed division of state security focusing on intelligence and the police to deal with internal security, which left the latter unstable and highly prone to corruption (OECD, 2007b: 163–4). Ethnic tensions in southern Serbia remained, with ethnic Serbs feeling protected and Albanians being policed, and the police inherited a corrupt force from the authoritarian regime (Ryan, 2007: 288–9). Immediately after the departure of Milošević, the Stability Pact helped Serbian police reform efforts from 2000–08 that included efforts to combat corruption, increase transparency and raise the standards of the police adhering with laws and ethics while encouraging a multiethnic police. The reform included anti-corruption strategies, oversight and transparency, a code of ethics, a gendarmerie and community policing, a multi-ethnic police element, an increase in the number of female officers and laws on the police and criminal procedures with agencies. The agencies included an Office of the Inspector General, a police and an organised crime directorate and ombudsman (Pyman et al, 2012: 63). The April 2003 Vision Document and November 2005 Law on the Police underlined that the role of the police was to support the rule of law within a democratic society, which also included police accountability, and the respect of human rights and civil liberties (Edmunds, 2007: 164). The Stockholm Programme that provided a five-year holistic strategic plan attempted police reform in

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Serbia with an emphasis on human rights and ethics in EU member states that has already included training in anti-corruption for border police workers (Đorđević, 2010: 73, 78). However, the Serbian administrations failed to construct an overall strategy with a lack of capacity and specific timeframes, and the Office of the Inspector General can only combat corruption if it has the independence to do so to avoid political interference (Gajic and Bakic, 2006: ii, 2). In addition, multi-ethnic police officers have been undermined due to remaining ethnic tensions. The deployed armed gendarmerie aim to protect multi-ethnic officers from Serbian militia separatists, which has tarnished their authority, and therefore community policing is difficult to tailor in a state that has remaining ethnic tensions (Ryan, 2007: 294–5). The culture of civilians merely wanting the police to protect their ethnic group and oppress others has undermined extensive anti-corruption reforms. Civilians and the police force need to support the fight against corruption and discrimination to bring about better community policing relations. Long-term donor efforts can prescribe an anti-corruption culture with pay reform and an independent agency to investigate corruption cases and raise both the integrity and ethics of the police, as evident with Singapore. However, in post-conflict states and countries with high homicide rates, police reform and a prevention strategy are more difficult to accomplish due to state capture, particularly political elites protecting a drug trade. The interests of drug traffickers and criminal gangs infiltrate criminal and corruption investigations, which are protected by political elites, so that corrupt police officers, ministers and commissioners remain in volatile and high homicide states, as evident in Honduras. Even with pay reform and community policing efforts with the police that are engaged in high homicide rates, drug trafficking persists, and the police remain involved in kidnappings and the drug trade, and locals carry light arms to protect neighbourhoods, as evident in Venezuela. Similarly, Sajjad (2013: 60) identifies that the ANP are engaged in kidnappings, theft, brutality and drug trafficking. Donors can assist by supporting a police force that is rife with corruption and in a society where organised criminal groups profit from the drug trade and provide locals with security due to public distrust of the national police force. In post-conflict states, extensive reform efforts can attempt to professionalise the police force and combat corruption. However, in a region that has been fragmented by ethnic tensions, the police continue to protect and serve their own ethnicity and oppress others, as evident in Serbia.

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Conclusion In a conflict state or post-war environment, a peacebuilding strategy may focus on providing a few powerful individuals with the means of state and economic monopoly such as warlords, or those who have been or are currently fighting international enemies. However, this strategy forms an unequal society that lacks competition and mismanages aid monies (Cheng and Zaum, 2008: 302; RoseAckerman, 2008: 334). A newly installed democracy that is linked with prevalent corruption and a weak established public order can result in violence, vote buying and paying off of corrupt politicians. Endemic corruption can seriously undermine SSR and broader post-conflict reconstruction efforts. Former President Karzai’s reiterated preference of peace to justice in which the government accommodated warlords and elites while ignoring the needs of ordinary Afghan citizens has led to 35–50  per cent of donor aid money being wasted (Delesgues and Torabi, 2007: 28), which included the estimated US$5 billion donated by the USA in 2007 (USAID, 2019).1 Warlords who have been favoured, particularly in war-torn states, frequently loot state and economic resources without oversight, and continually enjoy patronage networks with other elites, criminal groups and armed militias that preserve and protect an illicit market such as a drug, arms or diamonds trade. In Honduras, loyalty with criminal gangs influences the continuation of the drug trade due to interference with investigations and the involvement of law enforcement actors. State capture seriously undermines the legitimacy of the government and hinders both security and justice sectors due to law enforcement actors being bribed, threatened or intimidated. Recruitment and training are requirements in vetting, as evident in the SPF and Venezuelan police, but inter-ethnic tensions in postconflict states such as Serbia can lead to prejudice and discriminatory policing. Realistic long-term time frames are needed instead of radical changes, as learned from Serbia’s police reforms. The Stability Pact, Vision Document and Law on Police were futile in practice due to ethnic tensions, biased vetting and police discrimination (Ryan, 2007: 294–5). The main obstacle to a police anti-corruption strategy and reform is political interference and lack of political will. Patronage is evident, with Chávez providing social groups that were loyal to him positioned within Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolutionary Police (Holland et al, 2008: 215). Strong political will has previously been addressed with ICAC and the CPIB within secure societies not undergoing armed

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conflict or ethnic tensions, as experienced in both Afghanistan and Serbia. The contexts of police reform in both Iraq and Afghanistan run in parallel. Strategies focused on the US’ ‘War on Terror’, and more narrowly COIN, to fight insurgency – D’aesh and the Taliban – which was prioritised over civilian policing despite efforts to provide democratic policing. This over-focus on COIN has resulted in failure to deal with patronage, negatively impacting on fair recruitment, meritocracy and promotion, and corruption due to low wages. The focus on neoliberal police reconstruction has failed to deal with the material shortfalls of training, patronage and low pay, and thus, despite being in a good position, police reform has failed to build public support and deter insurgencies. Longer training programmes and mentoring have had success in Haiti and native Indian tribes in US policing, which is non-existent in both the Afghanistan and Iraq contexts. However, the aftermath of police reform in Haiti has not been successful. These issues – namely corruption, violence, testing positive for drug use, patronage-based recruitment, training and illiteracy – are also prevalent in the Afghan police force despite US-led efforts with the Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan (CSTC-A) and allied NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan (NTM-A) (Brummet, 2010: 20; Singh, 2014: 627, 632, 634–5, 641; 2019: 204). Therefore, despite US attempts at police reform in both Haiti and Afghanistan, police corruption, patronage and a variety of malfeasance still occur. Due to the shift in police training from community policing to COIN and a return to democratic policing and a focus on human rights – US  DoJ to DoD/MNSTC-I and later the carabinieri in Iraq and Germany to CTSC-A and later EU civilian policing in Afghanistan – confusion has occurred. Despite efforts to focus on democratic policing, such confusion of overlapping mandates and COIN’s prominence to risk their lives for very low pay, the Iraqi and Afghan police forces have lost their pride and sense of mission within their duties. These issues related to training, pay and insecurity hinder professionalism. Honour, pride and professionalism were high during the reign of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and in both the Mujahidin irregular militias and Taliban religious police in Afghanistan. The history of policing therefore needs to be understood to determine loyalty, involvement in organised crime, discrimination against ethnic groups and the underlying factors behind their professional calling. Corruption can become institutionalised and embedded within a police force, and it is important for external police

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reformists to analyse the institutional legacy and patronage relations. Traditional forms of patronage and the role of external intervention, including reforms, will be analysed in the Afghan context in Chapter 5. Note 1

Despite severe misuse of aid, USAID reports that the US government donated US$5.7 billion in 2017, which was reduced to US$980 million in 2018 as part of US military forces winding down and pressing for local ownership (USAID, 2019).

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Introduction The previous chapter provided an overview of the challenges related to post-conflict policing under post-conflict reconstruction and SSR initiatives. A variety of conflict-stricken and developing contexts were illustrated to demonstrate that when corruption and criminality within the police forces are high, reformists face a number of problems, and their attempt to reshuffle policies, as evident with COIN, can result in ambiguity in policing mandates. This uncertainty is particularly evident with the contention between militarising the police force to fight insurgency and community policing, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This chapter covers the theoretical framework of the political, economic and cultural drivers of corruption. A political economy approach on corruption examines the political drivers and economic coping strategies of low-paid police officers. Associated with the cultural drivers, police culture, motivation and emotional investment in policing and the socialisation processes of corrupt behaviour and shortcomings in training to deter corrupt practices are addressed.

Examining the drivers of corruption According to the ideals of a liberalist society, the police are pivotal actors for law enforcement, which is part of SSR and the rule of law. This book provides an investigation of the situated economic, cultural and political conditions and motivations for corruption in the lower levels of the Afghan police force. The cultural category is usually ignored from the study of corruption in post-conflict reconstruction because the focus on state corruption merely covers the political and economic causes and consequences of corruption based on individual gain rather than institutional benefit. The interrelationship between the three drivers help to generate an integrated understanding of the causes and consequences of corruption rather than solely forming an additional typology of police corruption or testing for integrity violations.

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Political drivers The political drivers of corruption are divided into four sub-categories that are discussed thematically here and then linked to the context of Afghanistan. These components include: the structural causes of corruption; nepotism and patronage; state capture; and ethnic favouritism. Structural causes of corruption Systemic corruption concerns high-level or grand corruption. Like institutional corruption, systemic corruption concerns certain situations in a society or institutions that are entrenched with corruption from the senior to the lower levels due to lack of law enforcement and absent controls. It involves the relationship from top to bottom within an entire governmental structure, electoral system or bureaucratic hierarchy (Rose-Ackerman, 2008: 330). Consequently, the state’s wealth and resources are tapped by the ruling political elites without constraint from institutions or accountability. The lack of controls and weak transparency is for the elitist benefit to corrupt lower personnel within a self-perpetuating system. Systemic corruption is prevalent within state institutions. Individuals purchase or rent a post by paying a lump sum and/or send a monthly stipend of bribes extorted up the chain of command to their superior or recruiter to maintain their post, which is often in a lucrative drugproducing and/or trafficking area. An example is of prevalent job selling at the Afghan MoIA in high drug-producing provinces and poppy-cultivating districts where police chiefs can pay US$100,000 for a half-year appointment with a $60 per month clean salary (Goodhand, 2008b: 63). Provincial police chiefs are likely to have either paid a large bribe to the MoIA to work in a high poppy-cultivating district or paid a parliamentarian to be introduced to the right connection (Rubin, 2013: 397). Moreover, Afghan police officers request to be sent to work in Kabul for better opportunities such as extorting more bribes from both street vendors and passing vehicles for bogus offences in which a portion of the bribes collected is paid upwards to the police chief or other senior officer (Axe, 2007; Dost, 2008). Perito (2009: 7) also indicates that senior MoIA officials accept huge bribes for protecting narcotics traffickers and sell senior positions at provincial and district levels to individuals engaged in drug trafficking. Internal payoffs are linked to non-meritocratic recruitment and prevalent patron–client relations in the interests of preserving private gain and loyalty.

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Nepotism and patronage The structural causes of corruption are linked to nepotism and patronage. Nepotism is the favouring of family relatives during employment, salary increases, promotions and benefits where a person is inclined to favour, respect and remain loyal to family including those related to both politics and business. Patronage is when a person in a public position or politician (the patron) provides an unequal politically motivated distribution of favours, protection and support, recruitment of someone to a post or office, or arranges special treatment of a locality of public services and goods, usually to the patron’s kin (Steiner, 2008: 38). The patron engages in such activity to gain loyalty, votes and the political support or the passing of legislation from their receivers (clients) who have received jobs and other privileges, which forms a network where various resources can be obtained. Similarly, in war-torn states, warlords control and loot state resources to distribute economic resources and jobs to loyal supporters and those who share profitable interests – including the drug mafia – who sell their protection and undermine or capture the national security apparatus. Warlords impose their patronage networks to corrupt and fragment an army or police force and loot state resources rather than rebuild the state and reform the security forces (Marten, 2012: 26). I argue that imposed patronage relations in war environments permeate parts of the state, making corruption systemic (from the top to lower levels). A political economy approach is central to understanding how the structural causes of corruption result in patronage and rent seeking. Although useful for studying what constitutes corruption as deemed from a certain society, its actors and wider public need to be studied as a starting point to apply such frameworks of analysing corruption from a statist perspective. The political economy approach differs from the political and economic drivers. The political and economic approaches of analysing corruption examine the broader political and economic drivers that focus on the wider implications of the structural causes of corruption, lack of economic necessity issues and opportunity outweighing sanctions, which can exacerbate corruption (Singh, 2014: 628–9). However, the political economy approach focuses on the relationship between political and economic elites, agents and power within a closed bureaucracy. This doctrine is highly applicable in neopatrimonial-run administrations and war economies that disrupt progressive political and economic interaction and integration within a society so that

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elites can preserve the status quo and closed economic order. The principal relationships are formed by patrimonial elites bargaining or competing with each other. Figures of authority restrain access to both economic and political opportunities, and these barriers permit them to control economic resources to manage conflict and develop loyalty with desired local populations. North et al (2013a) underline that in less developed states that are governed by corrupt elites with ‘limited access orders’, the closed interrelationship between political and economic power is formed by economic rents and the generation of rents. Rent seeking is an effort to gain economic rent (such as an excess of money needed to run a business or part of the public sector by manipulating the political environment economic activity) instead of generating new wealth. Based on this loose definition, rent seeking lowers economic productivity. Some groups may also utilise the government to coercively relocate resources to themselves at the expense of others. The limited access orders form obligations of rent seeking from elites to participate in a neopatrimonial political economy with clientelistic institutional arrangements, rather than fighting each other and challenging powerful elites with violence, in order for the regime to survive. Although patrimonial elites compete to control the state apparatuses, stability emerges from a settlement in which various different networks are allocated control of different segments of the apparatus. Within such a structure, markets are closed and not openly competitive, which is the opposite of ‘open access orders’ that structure the market competitively alongside elections and meritocracy (North et  al, 2013b: 111). Subsequently, formal bureaucratic institutions that include state institutions and regulatory agencies operate in accordance with this bargain or political arrangement. The linkages that intertwine political and economic power include the norms and incentives that control the behaviours of these political and economic actors. The elites from the top level such as a presidential cabinet have the authority to centralise, channel or disperse the accretion of rents. This is a deterministic view of corruption that can address the tension between socially positivistic accounts and those based on rational actors (such as classicism). This approach of classical criminology explains the contemporary world of crime and economics, and includes the rational choice view. The rational actors that receive economic benefits are those groups that support political elites. In neopatrimonial systems, informal rules govern politics due to weak democratic control, and therefore efforts from donors to overly centralise, formalise legal requirements and enhance political

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competition may remain futile in practice. Even checks, balances and anti-corruption efforts will struggle to make an impact due to the loss of political accountability that preserves patrimonial officials’ continuity of impunity (Budd, 2004: 80–1). Scholars who write about the political economy of corruption, such as Rose-Ackerman (1997: 33), suggest that corruption usually distorts the distribution of economic benefits that favour ‘the haves over the have-nots’, which leads to lower ‘equitable income distribution’ and often public and private spheres are not differentiated. In such limited access orders, the government controls state political institutions and illegal black markets in order to control resources, structure power and dispense economic prospects to those who back such a regime. Therefore, senior elites have the capacity to distribute state resources, economic benefits, jobs and favours as rewards to their affiliates in order to preserve loyalty and their political survival (Kleibrink, 2015: 54). Within such a framework of analysing limited access orders and rent seeking, a political economy approach centres on the bureaucracy and behaviours of the state and actors. Rent-seeking behaviour is also prevalent within Afghan elites. During 2003, Washington supported Hamid Karzai and several powerful warlords in providing deals with them that added to Karzai’s personal weak control over these rent-seeking and self-sufficient warlords (Malik, 2005: 213). To provide a specific example, in 2008, a C$50 million (US$41 million) project for the Dahla Dam in Kandahar from the Canadian International Development Agency was heavily delayed by a few years due to rent-seeking undertakings by a security firm linked to Karzai’s family (Baranyi and Paducel, 2012: 114). Fishstein and Amiryar (2015: 6) suggest that further examples demonstrate that officials, businesses and ‘powerful individuals’ are linked, which results in political elites apportioning the economy so each receives a portion of the rents, particularly from contracts and exports. This interrelationship of rents is part of limited access orders. Rent-seeking behaviour from warlords is likely to continue in Afghanistan, as it is rich in minerals that have not yet been mined. The Karzai administration did not curb prevalent political corruption and special interests (Alikuzai, 2013: 655), so cronyism will provide additional bargaining powers for political insiders. Moreover, the Afghan state structure is based on nepotism, and this system of familial favouritism exists in the Afghan Presidential Office. For instance, former President Karzai appointed his halfbrother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, as interim head of Kandahar’s Provincial Council, to solidify his mandate via an election, and he retained his

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position until his death, despite prevalent narcotics smuggling claims (Ansary, 2012: 304–5). Although the current President Ashraf Ghani has attempted to challenge nepotism with young and educated personnel and the retiring of long-serving generals, nepotism still surpasses merit for most of the country’s police and civilian workforce (Mashal, 2018). Despite Ghani’s intentions to combat nepotism, he placed a direct relative in an overseas diplomatic mission. Since 2016, Ghani has appointed Abdul Qayoum Kochai – his uncle who is over the age of 75 – as Afghan Ambassador to Russia succeeding Azizullah Karzai – the uncle of the previous President Karzai (Mashal and Sukhanyar, 2017). General Dostum criticised both Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah for appointing relatives as diplomatic envoys, and international experts have condemned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for containing a collection of relatives and family members acting as government officials (Tolo News, 2016). This criticism of the National Unity Government demonstrates that nepotism has continued from the Karzai regime to the Ghani and Abdullah powersharing administration. State capture State capture concerns the non-transparent actions of an individual, group or firm in both the public and private sectors in order to influence regulations, policies, decrees and laws to their benefit (Seger, 2008: 30–1). It involves the state predominantly serving the interests of narrow groups that may consist of businesspeople and politicians, occasionally with intertwined criminal components (Rose-Ackerman, 2008: 336). These relationships can attract and influence political elites and public officials to engage in illegal and lucrative black market activities such as drugs and arms smuggling. The engagement of political elites with black market activity negatively affects law enforcement and the judiciary. The police and judges are influenced to protect elite and criminal groups’ black market commodities, while powerful drug lords and involved senior officials are immune from prosecution. A common form of state capture is when a decision is altered that involves bribes or promises to affect, adjust or change decisions and affect government policies and laws, decrees and regulations to the benefit of the bribing individual or entity (VargasHernández, 2010: 139–40). In the context of Afghanistan, parts of the Afghan state have been captured by non-state criminal networks and armed opposition groups (AOGs). Elites, government officials and police chiefs

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serve and protect criminals and presidential cronies’ illicit lucrative drug trafficking by the government interfering in police, judicial and anti-corruption investigations, which hinders both the rule of law and security (Singh, 2019: 202). This form of state capture negatively affects policy-making, with regulations, laws and policies altered to protect parliamentarians. For instance, the 2007 National Reconciliation, General Amnesty and Stability Law (commonly referred to as the Amnesty Law) has pardoned former members of Afghanistan’s armed factions for humanitarian law and human rights abuses perpetrated during the fighting from 1972 to 2002 with unrestricted protection and immunity from prosecution. First Vice-President General Dostum and his militia have been accused of war crimes, rape and the murder of hundreds of Taliban detainees, but Dostum returned to his role from exile in Turkey (Gul, 2019). Dostum is renowned for vicious and brutal human rights violations for over three decades in the north border, but remains supported by Ghani after appointing him for his 2014 election to secure votes and support in the northern provinces bordering Uzbekistan (Olivo and Hassan, 2018). In December 2009, the Amnesty Law was disseminated in the Official Gazette (no 965), which put an end to international speculation of the legality of the bill and tarnished the efforts of numerous repeal efforts. I argue that once sectors of the state have been infiltrated, systemic corruption (usually linked with an illicit black market) and holding senior officials accountable for war crimes or human rights abuses becomes a hard battle. These forms of corruption are particularly evident in cases when a weak government, institutions and investigation units lack independence from political intrusion. In such scenarios, the state functions to preserve illicit activity. State capture therefore links with bribery and patronage when certain powerful individuals and elites monopolise state resources to the benefit of themselves and private ends. This interrelationship of corrupt practices means that these political components of corruption, bribery, patronage and state capture are integrated. Ethnic favouritism In a patronage-based polity, ethnic favouritism commences because voters support the ethnic categories of the recipients of patronage transactions. Ethnic favouritism concerns corrupt practices where an official utilises their public office and position to favour family, friends, employees or other relations with undemocratic or privatised

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biased distribution of state resources such as appointments and land, disregarding meritocracy and based on ethnicity (Nongogo and Chibiya, 2006: 7). Favouritism can overlap with nepotism. In relation to Afghanistan, favouritism within the Afghan security forces is based on ethnic grounds that has influenced wider policies and formed public discontent toward the police in certain areas (Singh, 2014: 630–1). After the overthrow of the Taliban, interior ministers ethnicised the recruitment process by selecting those who were loyal rather than complying with meritocratic procedures (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013: 105–7). Loyalty within the Afghan police force persists in the countryside and many rural areas, which results in police officers remaining loyal to commanders and warlords rather than the state (Sajjad, 2013: 60; Singh, 2019: 203, 211). Provincial police chiefs are still appointed by presidential decree based on relations and patronage, causing friction among regional police officers loyal to warlords. In March 2019, police loyal to Atta Mohammad Noor, ex Mazar-e-Sharif governor, clashed with the ANP due to a dispute between Noor and Ghani over the appointment of Abdul Raqib Mobarez, provincial police chief, by presidential decree (Sahak, 2019). The statebuilding strategy that resulted in Karzai planting powerful figures in cabinet and chief security posts, coupled with patronage politics, has become engrained with senior appointments in the MoIA. Cronyism is also prevalent within the selection processes in the Afghan central government. For instance, Hamid Karzai appointed a childhood friend from Kandahar as governor, Tooryalai Wesa (a fellow of the minority Mohammadzai tribe), rather than someone from the Ghilzai majority tribe (Pape and Feldman, 2010: 124). In relation to the current National Unity Government, it has been reported by Saleh (2016) and reiterated from Dostum that Abdullah always prefers Tajiks and Ghani favours people from Pashto-speaking provinces, namely Logar. At the tribal level, tribal leaders recruit favoured ethnicities, tribes and groups that are expected under qawm ties to provide loyalty in exchange for jobs and financial benefit, which overrides meritocratic appointments (Misdaq, 2006: 17). Qawm is a traditional social ‘solidarity’ group, or elementary political bloc, that is cemented on kinship, political action, rituals and religious beliefs within a commonplace of residence. This solidarity system exclusively considers occupational status and social fellowship and more broadly refers to any token of solidarity that can cross beyond ethnic and tribal boundaries. Within a qawm system or group, an elected arbab has the duty to collect taxes, recruit local soldiers and send them to join the armed forces

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and organise local events. Favouritism in Afghanistan consists of an engrained tribal system that has also infiltrated central government. It hinders meritocratic appointments and formal bureaucratic reforms.

Economic drivers Economic explanations of the causes of corruption occur due to poor living standards and opportunities to engage in corruption that outweigh the punishment of being caught. The incentive of engaging in corruption is arguably due to low wages. However, wellpaid officials may also engage in corrupt activity if there are poor controls or accountability measures. Based on this counter-narrative of pay and corruption, there is an aetiological crisis of determining corruption if economic measures are used. This category on the economic determinants of corruption provides such a discussion on economic necessity and opportunity and is expanded on in the context of Afghanistan. Economic necessity and opportunity Corruption increases in environments where public officials and civil servants have little incentives for good behaviour such as low wages, irregular payments, no pension or health insurance, and when accountability for corrupt activity is weak. Based on this premise, individuals are susceptible to engage in corruption if they are poorly paid, witness many opportunities to participate in corruption and perceive corruption as being ‘a low-risk, high-reward activity’ even if detected due to non-severity of penalties (Quah, 2011: 14). Weak law enforcement results in a low chance of being caught and arrested in corrupt practices. A political economy approach also includes coping mechanisms for low-paid civil servants, judges and law enforcement actors (Pugh, 2013: 91). This coping strategy leads to survival-based corruption to supplement low incomes. Narayanan (2000: 57) similarly argues that the roots of corruption derive from low pay within the public sector and criminal justice bodies, which results in bribery as an incentive and supplementary payments. When income is insufficient for police officers to cater for daily family costs and expenses, they engage in ‘economic corruption’ to complement their low pay (Rose-Ackerman, 1999: 72; Ivković, 2005b: 88). Survival corruption consists of regular bribery and extortion that becomes engrained as an accepted way of life that preserves the status quo (Green, 2013: 23). When considering

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this, corruption is not cultural but is rather interrelated with economic need. This economic and cultural contention (of corruption) forms a dispute of senior officials’ cost of living with low wages for the police, judges and civil servants, which intensifies corruption for salary supplementation. The literature suggests that increasing the wages of civil servants, public employees, politicians and the police and judges will reduce corruption due to the assumption that corrupt behaviour is induced by low salaries, which would reduce bribe money if incomes rise (Quah, 2009: 515; Pollock, 2012: 203). The pay rise resembles an increase of a fine for corruption such as bribery because this is what the employee would lose if detected and dismissed for fraudulent and corrupt behaviour, which raises alternative costs. I argue that the provision of adequate wages, a secure living environment and decreasing incentives for engaging in corruption are crucial for anticorruption in the police, army and for bureaucrats in government ministries. The political economy framework that concerns coping strategies can relate to petty bribery and roadside extortion in the lower levels of the underpaid AUP in order to supplement low income to cater for high living costs and expenses (Singh, 2014: 625–7). The ANP regularly extorts bribes at checkpoints and demands payments at roadsides for bogus crime breaches in order to supplement their low wages (Hafvenstein, 2011: 142; Isby, 2011). Efforts have been made to curb roadside extortion, but informal checkpoints concerning police officers extorting bribes from truckers remain (Shalizi, 2019). Afghans pay bribes on a daily basis in order to attain basic services to avoid delays and to speed up processes (Shelley, 2014: 71). Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) (2016) shows that approximately US$3  billion in bribes were paid in the 2016 fiscal year, which increased by an estimated 50  per cent in comparison to 2014–15. Political and economic interactions between the state actors and citizens explain petty corruption in the police. These range from many factors. Afghan society recognises that police officers are low-paid and so the public provide payments for their services (Azami, 2009; Bisogno et al, 2010: 24). Despite the political economy approach and literature which I partially agree with, even when pay reform is endorsed to raise the salaries of lower-ranked security forces, wages may remain inadequate to cater for living costs and daily expenses. This economic deficiency breeds survival-based corruption to supplement low wages. The salaries of the Afghan National Army (ANA) were raised, but wages for the ANP remained low after pay and rank reform in late 2005

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(Singh, 2014: 626, 634). Pay has been raised during a few additional phases and has now reached US$200 per month, which is still low compared with rising living costs (Mashal et al, 2018; Zucchino and Abed, 2019). As Cordesman (2007: 11) argued over a decade ago, the baseline pay rate for the state police is still too low to bring about stable employment to deter young Afghans from joining the insurgency. Even with increased pay, the lack of police oversight and greater opportunity to engage in corruption – such as part of the buying process or political connections – does little to change the structural conditions of corruption or challenge the culture from the top level.

Cultural drivers These economic and political categories mainly focus on state corruption, but institutional forms of corruption can be unveiled when analysing the literature on police corruption. This category on cultural dynamics is divided into several sub-categories to discuss what police work entails in relation to the police mandate, police discretion, police organisational culture, noble cause corruption and post-conflict policing. Moreover, socialisation that explains police behaviour during a police officer’s career is covered. As with the previous categories, these sub-categories are also threaded through the Afghan context. Police culture, the nature of police work and discretion There are many definitions of culture that have no set agreed terminology. Police culture can be defined as views, values, norms and ‘craft rules’ that make information and procedures on police conduct available (Reiner, 1992: 109). In the same way, Chan’s work (1996: 110) defines police culture as familiar, or informal, occupational norms and values that function under a rigid classified system of police institutions. Manning (1989: 360) contends that police culture is defined as accepted practices, rules and values of police conduct, which are functional in certain situations, and widespread beliefs and rationales. These definitions of police culture underline that the police are a separate organisation and hold a distinct set of norms, values and beliefs that regulate police conduct and behaviour, both individually and operationally, when performing their duties. The police mandate is important when studying the police. Manning (1978) argues that the mandate of policing may be virtually impossible because the official paradigm consists of controlling crime while abiding with rules of conduct and rights. This presents a huge

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task for the police. The overemphasis on targets for the police can result in illicit practices for the noble cause. The leadership of the police has targets. Similarly, police chiefs can work to serve factional, political and/or even criminal ends. Police chiefs may also demand rapid results from the street police and teach subordinates to cover themselves when bending rules (Reiner, 2010: 114–15). Moreover, historically within the police solidarity has become a mutual police organisational culture. Internal solidarity is based on police officers sharing their dangers and confronting them with the support of their colleagues, which leads to bonding and a feeling of isolation from other members of society (Skolnick, 1994: 52–3). Solidarity can play a role in officers shielding one another for wrongdoing, which means that corrupt and delinquent behaviour can be protected within a police unit (Banton, 1964: 114). More recently, Crank and Caldero (2010: 264) argue that police subculture and the landscape of police work may affect delinquent and corrupt acts for a noble cause that is protected by internal solidarity. When police officers face decisions, they exercise their discretion, not as a value but as a necessity based on the enduring values of the police (Rokeach, 1973: 5). This cultural dilemma determines the outcomes of the modes of conduct used. The nature of police work and discretion affects the Afghan police. The ANP code of conduct states that the police must exercise their discretion legitimately (UNDP, 2014). However, when the Afghan police witness weak and corrupt leadership, they are reluctant to desist in corrupt practices (Clark, 2017: 3–4). Despite renowned police corruption and continual initiatives to reform the police, the Afghan MoIA remains incompetent and mismanaged, and governmental services remain weak (Guilbert, 2014; Singh, 2014: 622, 634). The MoIA lacks the institutional strength to guide the exercise of an Afghan police officer’s power. The lack of decentralised power is particularly the case with the locally armed ALP that only function in villages (Barber, 2011: 1–4) and lack accountability for human rights abuses (SIGAR, 2015: 7; Tanzeem, 2017). Noble cause corruption The cultural details of corruption can acknowledge noble causes that justify certain practices for organisational or divisional gain (Ayling, 2013: 92). However, not all culturally driven corruption is for a noble cause. Noble cause corruption is evident when a police officer assertively tries to gain convictions and attain targets and results against criminals, organised criminal groups or suspected terrorists by

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illicit modes of conduct. Noble causers are rule-bending police officers enforcing the law to serve the greater good of the public. Noble cause corruption exists when there is no individual motive or reward (bent for the job, not bent for oneself), with the belief that cutting corners with laws and policies is for good ends. For instance, a police officer may use excessive force to extract a confession for the unit’s gain. Pursuing national security and military ambitions may also hinder compliance with fundamental human rights, or at least subordinate human rights and civil rights to patriotism. For instance, in the aftermath of 9/11, the noble cause from the USA and in Europe was for police forces to abuse their use of force with ‘dirty means’ of policing to gather intelligence and extract confessions (Stanko, 2002: 551). Another example is of waterboarding or what armed forces term ‘drown-proofing’ terrorist suspects at US  Naval base Guantánamo Bay for the alleged utilitarian greater good of society (Pollock, 2012: 399). The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used waterboarding as an ‘enhanced interrogation’ technique with al-Qaeda suspects in Afghanistan (Immerman, 2015: 89). Waterboarding is an internationally recognised form of torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that is applicable to Articles 1 and 16 of the Torture Convention 1984 and to non-international armed conflicts if applied to Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention 1977. Hence, noble cause corruption may result in practices that promote excessive forms of force for a justified goal or belief for departmental advantage such as patriotism by protecting national security interests. Noble cause explanations cover an understanding of police professionalism, which concerns police officers who are educated, committed to police duties and morally committed to serve the country, contribute to the welfare of a nation and fight crime (Caldero and Crank, 2014: 130). Noble cause justifications also include pride in policing, public faith and whether policing objectives are clear and believed in to fight for protecting the state, citizens and the regime. Andrain and Smith (2006: 152) argue that a lack of faith in the political regime, along with distrust in a government and high perceptions of corruption, may result in low satisfaction with political leaders and ‘weak national pride’. If a regime is relatively new and not supported by a police force, or there is confusion with their policing mandate, there may be no incentive to attain goals for the police department and support the state through a sense of national pride. The noble cause explanation could differ between environments. Variations depend on the cultural understandings held by police officers, the public and politicians to determine whether national

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pride, a sense of mission and police professionalism are strong or weak. National pride can be related to a strong sense of mission and police mandate that is respected by police officers within the force to stamp out corruption. Socialisation processes Now that the nature of police work, discretion and noble cause corruption has been covered, this section focuses on the socialisation processes that are related to the police. It provides sociological explanations of the behaviours and practices in the police that may lead to corrupt and deviant activities. Socialisation processes provide an insight into the internalised values that may intensify police deviance and corruption. An officer can stop at a certain contingency or may not enter the phases of ‘becoming bent’ at all. Phases of a moral career, based on corruption, are dependent on the grafting subcultures that are pre-existent in the police organisation. When police precincts or groups are ‘bent’, they ‘socialise’ officers into similar practices (Ruiz and Bono, 2008: 224–5). The stages within the contingencies constitute the police officer’s ‘moral career’. When analysing how police officers become corrupt, Sherman (1985) identified that police officers become ‘bent’ over time within six contingencies, and the moral decisions to act within the contingency depends on the officer’s justification of wrongdoing and peer group pressure. Initially, Sherman’s (1985) contingencies start with minor gratuities or perks such as an officer accepting free cups of coffee and discounts on meals from cafes and restaurants on their beat in exchange for preference when needed. The end of the severity spectrum are narcotics-related crimes when the police are involved in distributing and using illicit controlled substances. However, in criticism of Sherman (1985), I argue that the slippery slope analogy does not account for the division of labour or examine the opportunities of engaging in corrupt activities. Now that the literature focused on socialisation explaining police corruption has been addressed, it is important to cover the socialisation of police culture. Chan’s work (2004) interprets Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of field, capital and habitus to understand the socialisation progression and occupational culture of police officers. This theory covers social change. Socialisation in the police force includes learning procedures, laws and methods of performing law enforcement duties and preservation of order. Socialisation also involves police officers attaining a diverse range of organisational attitudes, skills and

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perceptions that are compatible with other personnel within the police occupation (Chan, 2004: 328). This theory contradicts deterministic depictions of culture such as Sherman’s (1985) outdated slippery slope analogy. Police culture is susceptible to change; it is fluid and nondeterministic, and cultural reference is solid over time. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 127) underline that the relationship between ‘field’ and ‘habitus’ functions in a dual manner. The field provides the conditions of the habitus, which is the product of the personification of the inherent stipulation of a field; and conversely, the habitus establishes the field because it provides the cultural settings for understanding the field. The field of policing, similar to other fields, is a social interplay of both competition and conflict. This dual framework can be structured by capital within hierarchies that explains the rewards (capital) and punishment or sanctions (negative capital) (Chan et al, 2003: 35). The policing field is regularly deemed as a low-status occupation in relation to economic capital, but it has good governmental and public support (symbolic and political capital) due to politics shaping public conceptions of law and order (Reiner, 1992: 2). Enforcing public order is based on political influence, and the police have the power to exercise their discretion and arrest and detain suspects (Manning, 1978: 18–19). Therefore, a dominant political party, or wing of a government, may influence the state police to treat certain groups who oppose the party with excessive force. Habitus are values that are engrained within police work and rules of commonality are adhered to and internalised by new recruits to perform and behave in certain ways during certain situations. The new recruits proceed with the habitus that is the product of the field of policing, police work and the police mandate. At first, the rookie cop may feel awkward within the new situation and experience until they learn how to adapt to the organisation to reduce alienation and apprehension (Schein, 1985). The habitus depends on the situation. Subsequently, the new values, beliefs and practices are adhered to in the new organisation. Therefore, the habitus that is linked to the field of practice cannot always be taken for granted because a new police recruit’s habitus is different. The field of police work and policing in general is changing due to a variety of factors such as globalisation, commercialisation, accountability and alternative policing models (Chan et al, 2003: 38). Socialisation concerns the learning of the habitus from new recruits, but the field of policing is also changing. Changes in the field and habitus will thus inevitably lead to adjustments in the habitus that may form new coping strategies (Chan, 2004: 340). With such sudden

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changes, those who imbued the old culture will struggle to adapt to the new environment and the new recruits will have difficulty holding set dispositions, which means that both groups will have dysfunctional dispositions, and efforts made to prolong new recruits will lead to further failure. In a changing field, socialisation can be unpredictable, diverse and the new recruits become reflective of their initial practices, by learning an internal code from their superiors and/or experienced colleagues, to attempt to fit into the organisation. In the Afghan context, the lower levels have internalised corruption from the senior ranks. For instance, a study consisting of 250 interviews conducted with mid and senior level Afghan police officers by Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi (2015: 23) demonstrates that lower levels of the police force were aware of weak and corrupt leadership, which resulted in an unprofessional and corrupt force. If linking the changing ‘field’ that conditions the ‘habitus’ in policing, this explanation of the socialisation of norms, values and beliefs (cultural knowledge) can, although deterministic, be expanded to post-conflict societies because it is the context that affects policing. However, police culture is fluid. As a result, behaviours and values change. Such an approach can be undertaken to unveil the cultural drivers in the Afghan police force and how external reforms have impacted on culture. Petty and serious forms of bribery and extortion lead to engagement in drug-related corruption (Wilder, 2007: 38). This literature suggests that the ANP internalise a moral career that may or may not fit Sherman’s (1985) analogy of the slippery slope of corruption reaching more serious forms over time (from minor gratuities to more serious engagement in narcotics). However, the relationship between the field and the habitus is clearer. The ‘field’ (environment) of a neopatrimonial state fuelled with a drug economy run by corrupt elites has shaped the ‘habitus’ of policing (individual’s personality structure). This context in Afghanistan has arguably resulted in the socialisation of corrupt practices due to the structure of the state that influences policing. For instance, individuals pay thousands of US dollars to Afghan MoIA administrators to police chief districts that are rich in poppy cultivation (Singh, 2014: 622, 645). Subsequently, these police chiefs prey on lowrank police officers to engage in bribery and drug-related corruption (Checchia, 2012: 40; Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi, 2015: 29). The concept of habitus and field can be applied to other conflictstricken and post-conflict states to develop an understanding of the environment that influences practices within a police force. The environment and practices are dependent on a local understanding of

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culture, corruption and the conflict. The police occupation (the field, in this sense) provides the conditions of the environment (the habitus) that is the result of the representation of the in-built condition of a field. At the same time, the habitus forms the historical and structural conditions of the social field due to the cultural settings to understand the field (Chan, 1997: 73). Socialisation may occur with new recruits, which includes the cultural knowledge (the habitus) of the field in their previous post, but the field is also changing, which affects the habitus and coping strategies (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 127; Chan et  al, 2003: 25). Hence, police officers working under set structural conditions (the field) form and preserve cultural knowledge (the habitus) (Chan, 1999: 118). Based on this assumption, changes to the field can result in either institutionalised practices or changes to cultural knowledge. This influence on culture may exacerbate forms of corruption and an internal code may be learned to protect colleagues from controls and sanctions. Training and literacy issues When new recruits enter the police, they can access education and training on police integrity. This strategy aims to train police officers in the dilemmas faced in police work and the consequences of misbehaviour (Ivković, 2005b: 78). However, senior police officers may teach new recruits how to get police work done in the real world and to never breach the code of silence to preserve solidarity. Updated research by Johnson (2010: 58) indicates that a code of silence for secretive police behaviour is not to be exposed under any circumstances. When police officers provide training in integrity and ethics within a department that is rampant with corruption, corruption is tolerated and recruits undergo a socialisation process into a corrupt police subculture that undermines integrity and efforts to curb police corruption (Knapp Commission, 1972: 241; Mollen Commission, 1994: 120). In more recent literature, Alpert et al (2015: 105) argue that police subculture influences the process of socialisation, which may result in corruption, to cope with internal experiences and the difficulties of being a police officer. Challenging behaviours may inhibit corruption. Police officers require basic literacy skills to attain a standard comprehension of police integrity, morality and ethics. If these basic literature skills are lacking, it could, to a certain extent, lead to poor understanding of these principles. Training and literacy are important to police reform, because anticorruption training, the legitimate use of coercion and compliance with

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the rule of law and human rights are fundamental principles to enhance the competence of the police force and counter corruption. Afghan police trainees initially followed a 15-day programme (Cordesman et al, 2010: 127; Brady, 2012). This consisted of basic combat operations, counter-terrorism, self-defence and apprehension of suspected criminals. The training programme was later extended to eight weeks, which reached the district levels under the FDD programme. Despite extending basic police training, this training programme is still too short to cover other aspects of policing such as human rights, the rule of law, the rights of citizens and anti-corruption. High illiteracy rates in the ANP and inadequate education make training and competence difficult to achieve, which increases the vulnerability of police officers engaging in practices of corruption (Young, 2015: 9–10). NATO has indicated that 85–86 per cent of newly recruited police officers and military personnel in Afghanistan are illiterate (Checchia, 2012: 40). More recently, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) (2018) report that the police literacy rate is below 20 per cent in Afghanistan and new recruits are appointed into the police force after a few weeks of elementary training. Training has been endorsed by CSTC-A and NTM-A on literacy in the Afghan police and armed forces, but illiteracy remains high, which hinders development and the efforts of combating corruption (Brummet, 2010: 20–1). Training lowly educated recruits has failed to decrease petty corruption due to corrupt senior chiefs and administrators preying on illiterate forces (Singh, 2016: 45). Poorly trained and ill-equipped police recruits fall prey to corruption and narcotics, while the MoIA deploy new police candidates to work in areas prior to them being trained (McChrystal, 2015: 1). Afghan police chiefs influence illiterate or semi-literate police officers to engage in drug trafficking and serious forms of corruption for their benefit. If literacy levels are raised in the Afghan security forces, this can prevent higher-ranked actors preying on illiterate officers, and then set standards can be published for all levels up and down the chain of command (Caldwell IV, 2010). Therefore, with low literacy rates, the Afghan police are incapable of reading and writing or learning basic policing skills and human rights, and have little comprehension of corruption and democratic policing while occupied as prey under corrupt leaders (Cordesman et al, 2010: 127). Training and education are crucial to counter corruption in the Afghan police force. I have not argued here that corruption is linked to literacy because literate cops take bribes. The argument is that senior police officers prey on illiterate cops who have a lack of legal knowledge to desist

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from extorting bribes. Illiterate police officers at low ranks are thus vulnerable to corruption with a predatory chain of command. Bribes are collected and pushed up to their seniors or appointers to pay off bosses (Singh, 2019: 203). Police illiteracy can result in difficulty when performing police duties, under corrupt leaders, such as protecting internal security and complying with human rights, anti-corruption and democratic policing (Singh, 2014: 625). Therefore, the knock-on effects of illiteracy within a police force – which include vulnerability of corruption – can be revealed in the context of Afghanistan.

Conclusion: Interconnected drivers of corruption It is now argued that corruption undertakes interpenetrating forms that permeate political, economic and cultural explanations. The cultural drivers of corruption are interrelated with the political drivers due to ethnic favouritism (and discrimination) when exercising police discretion. Moreover, corruption can undertake cultural, economic and systemic forms simultaneously. It is important to note that all these three broad explanations of corruption that frequently occur in Afghanistan are not argued as separate levels but rather, these categories are interpenetrating. It must be acknowledged that grand corruption with former President Karzai’s family, including drug trafficking and illicit businesses, and petty corruption such as patrol officers extorting bribes to supplement a low income, are different forms of corruption. However, corruption constantly permeates within these three categories and may range from low to high levels. For instance, bribery occurs from mainly lowpaid officials due to economic drivers – lack of economic necessity – and opportunities that are stronger than accountability measures (the consequences of being caught). The political drivers include systemic corruption, patronage and nepotism that involve corruption at the higher levels. In addition, state capture concerns illicit enterprises from government elites and border patrols where the police are bribed or engage in extortion with truckers smuggling drugs for economic gain. Laws may have been created to protect and pardon political aides from previous human rights violations and war crimes, as evident with the 2007 Amnesty Law that is yet to be repealed. These political and economic relationships therefore also affect law-making to preserve the status quo. The relationship between petty corruption and the structural causes of corruption is a constant trend that interacts with one another. A

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political economy approach identifies systemic corruption from the top level that proceeds to the lower level. At the top level, senior elites and parliamentarians extract and exploit state resources and distribute them to favoured people who pay the highest fee or who will cooperate with their illicit activities. At the lower level, public employees and lower-ranked police officers extort bribes and protect a black market trade – usually opium in Afghanistan – to supplement their low pay, which benefits the appointer(s), elites and parliamentarians. Afghan police chiefs buy their posts for large amounts of money, which links with the lucrative drug trade. Rubin (2013: 174) similarly argues that in the countryside, the police pay to work in poppy-cultivating areas, leading to drug-related corruption, and kick a portion of bribes collected on to their seniors. The inadequacy of training and literacy levels fuels corruption at the lower levels of the police to serve and protect the illicit activities of their police chiefs who purchased their post with a large bribe. This structure of internal payoffs and kickbacks links the political and economic drivers of corruption. Moreover, the nature of police work in urbanised areas results in Afghan police officers preying on vendors for protection money. Protection rackets are part of police culture and the nature of police work that is present within the police force to preserve opportunities and favours between the police superiors and lower ranks. It is debatable whether police officers in Afghanistan engage in corruption for a noble cause, and if the police rationalise the socialisation processes of minor to severe forms of corruption and deviance. Culture is important. It is difficult to distinguish police culture from local and national culture. Although culture is fluid, it is bound by the norms and values of local culture. Afghanistan is a particular country that has certain structural conditions determined from the previous regimes, political and factional alliances (patronage) and international statebuilding. Culture is a complex area and SSR, including police reform, is driven by Western norms and has thus undertaken a neoliberal police reconstruction approach. Afghanistan has heterogeneous traditions and it is therefore difficult to discuss and study corruption due to the varied nuanced rules of social interactions. This exertion on studying corruption in remote environments is also evident when applying social constructivism to the study of what corruption entails in one society to the next. Trailing patronage politics with leaders rewarding followers has weakened oversight and foreign aid is misused due to the institutional legacy of 40 years of conflict and the protracted collapse of state consensus (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2018: 3, 5). One could argue that the three

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aforementioned drivers of corruption exist in Afghanistan due to the structural conditions set by an international statebuilding strategy and a legacy of patronage networks. Afghanistan has been subject to several interventions from colonial Britain, the former Soviet Union and now the USA and its coalition forces alongside geopolitical impositions from Pakistan and Iran. These regime changes have left Afghanistan in a state that is entrenched by both armed conflict and corruption, and it is the latter that the Taliban have exploited due to their claims of universalism with religion that is free from corruption. Therefore, the drivers of corruption are due to the consequences of war in Afghanistan. The theoretical framework can be applied to other conflict-stricken and post-conflict states to develop an understanding of the political, economic and cultural drivers of corruption.

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5

Corruption in Afghanistan: External intervention and institutional legacy Introduction The first part of this chapter sets the scene by describing the role of external intervention in Afghanistan post-2001. Intervention consists of international liberal and security interventionist policies. The liberal peace thesis was dictated by COIN and short-term peace to pursue US foreign policy and coalition support of eradicating the Taliban from power. It is argued that the trade-off as part of political bargaining has resulted in Northern Alliance warlords and parliamentarians reaping parts of state resources, jobs and economic benefits. Hence, security and liberal peace ideals have enhanced systemic forms of corruption and patronage. Institutionalised corruption has permeated the major institutions of the state, including the police. The next section discusses institutional legacy, which covers the structural conditions of corruption within the police sector. This subsequently discusses what negative impacts corruption has had in the context of Afghan society and the police sector.

Statebuilding, liberal peace and counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan After the Taliban were forcibly removed, the Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending Re-establishment of Permanent Government Institutions (hereinafter the Bonn Agreement) was signed on 5 December 2001. This Agreement precipitated political bargaining with warlords and Northern Alliance militia entering Karzai’s cabinet as part of the political process. The political bargaining with warlords assisted the coalition military COIN to fight the Taliban and further seek political economies beyond Kabul. The role of warlords in post2001 consisted of experienced and locally respected figures who were instrumental in the fight against the Soviet regime and against the Taliban, and such a role evolved into strongman governance. This

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was as a result of the Karzai regime working with several warlords in the countryside as part of a security pact (Mukhopadhyay, 2014: 1). This informal base of security and provincial governance has hindered formal statebuilding by including lawless warlords into a political system based on clientelism. The inclusion of warlords into the cabinet and governors of provinces has been criticised due to their involvement in previous human rights violations and their failure to govern during the 1990s was criticised by international observers and competing Afghan elites. However, warlords hold provincial security with their militias’ loyalty and leverage of assets in exchange for centralised support. After the defeat of the Soviet-backed communist Afghan government, Mujahidin warlords seized the majority of corrupted institutions and the smaller militia factions reaped segments of the countryside. The Mujahidin warlords and smaller gangs later split into further factions and formed the Northern Alliance and Hizb-i-Islami or joined the Taliban and other insurgent groups. These warlords, commanders and militia groups still hold influence over provinces conquered during the Mujahidin civil war and the fight against the Taliban. For instance, Atta Mohammad Noor, Gul Agha Sherzai and Ismail Khan maintained a good sense of control and security over Balkh, Nangarhar and Herat provinces respectively (Mukhopadhyay, 2014: 245). Each provincial warlord transitioned from strongman to a ‘strongman governor’ and ‘servant of the state’ because the warlords had their own resources to leverage with the Kabul government – the warlord required support from the centre to strengthen their power within the province (Mukhopadhyay, 2014: 4). It could be argued that warlords are thus prior to a state and statebuilding reforms because they serve as a form of social (and security) organisation that should be supported by the state (Ahram and King, 2012: 173). Hence, post-2001 has meant an axis of warlords providing a degree of governance and security at provincial level (including fighting the Taliban) but who are enemies of the desired democratic and accountable modes of governance. This type of spoiler management would be addressed by Stedman’s (1997) inducement (of anti-Taliban warlords) and coercion (exclusion of the Taliban and pacifiers) during the Bonn Agreement. Yet this condemned system of neopatrimonialism and clientelism has formed a structure of governance and security at the provincial level. Taking this form of political liberalisation into consideration, one should be pragmatic rather than overly critical of the strongman system of governance across Afghanistan. It could be argued that there was little

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alternative to properly serve an idealistic liberal system of democratic accountability and governance. Although it seems that the state was dominated by warlords when analysing the power relations, technocrats also had an upper hand regarding control of central public funds and foreign aid. The Bonn Agreement resulted in a new political arrangement and renewed confidence of international donors pouring funds into the country for reconstruction and stabilisation (Bizhan, 2013: 3). The cabinet as well as four deputies of the chair of the Interim Administration, Hamid Karzai, somehow fairly represented different ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The political achievements during the initial few years consisted of two grand assemblies (Loya Jirgas), the 2004 Constitution and the 2004 presidential election; the legitimate economy had grown by almost 50 per cent (excluding drugs); and the government followed practical macroeconomic policies (The World Bank, 2005: ix). A nationwide survey conducted in Afghanistan by The Asia Foundation (2004) found public confidence in the country, people felt secure under the new government rather than previously under the Taliban, and were hopeful for the elections. Therefore, the political and economic imperatives of statebuilding appeared optimistic. As a result of liberal political reformist ideals, the Afghan government promoted Public Financial Management to gain the confidence of donors within a well channelled budget structure. The Afghan government is significantly dependent on international aid – the aid to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio reached 71 per cent in the fiscal year 2010–11, which made Afghanistan the highest aid-dependent state in the world at that time (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2010: 15). However, a huge amount of this aid is channelled within an ‘off-budget’ structure in which the Afghan government and the legislature have no oversight or control. A total of US$10 billion out of $65 billion of foreign aid was channelled through the actual budget from 2001 and 2010, and the remainder was ‘off-budget’ due to donors arguing that the country had weak capacity and high corruption rates, with most reaching the security sector (Bizhan, 2013: 4). Hundreds of billions of dollars have been donated to Afghanistan but confidence is low due to money laundering, as demonstrated with the 2011 Kabul Bank scandal in which US$850 million was embezzled and US$160 million spent on lavish homes in Dubai (Danish, 2016). The scandal involved the brothers of the then President Karzai and then First Vice-President Marshall Fahim, but only US$89 million (less than 10 per cent) has been retrieved (Bjelica, 2019: 13). This scandal illustrates cronyism and the top-level embedded culture of corruption. Off-budget aid has made

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it hard for Afghan citizens to hold the government accountable with how it uses public funds (International Budget Partnership, 2008: 1). Bizhan (2017) shows how aid has had rentier effects, which has done little to benefit the statebuilding process. After 9/11, aid shifted to rebuilding fragile states with a high risk of providing a safe haven for terrorists. In 2012, donors donated one-third of their Official Development Assistance (ODA) to fragile countries (Bizhan, 2017). Aid delivery that is off-budget bypasses the Afghan state to support military-based fragmented projects, due to development agencies’ issues with corruption and weak government capacity and the developmental objective of reaching fast, palpable outcomes to provide legitimacy to the war (Bizhan, 2014). Uncoordinated aid has led to a ‘brain drain’ of competent skilled workers joining off-budget projects due to state competition and societal actors, which lowers public sector efficiency and capacity (Bizhan, 2014). Moreover, public funds are persistently misused and action against such wrongdoing is futile, which does little to avert an environment favouring political corruption (SIGAR, 2018a). Therefore, aid is also a factor for competitiveness, fragmentation and low capacity, doing little to boost the efficiency of the public sector, meaning that corruption can intensify. Afghan aid and statebuilding are hindered due to the institutional legacy of neopatrimonialism, state weakness and elites engaged in patronage politics (Bizhan, 2018). Due to the system of neopatrimonial politics that was intensified from the Bonn political arrangement, it is partly true that patronage relations of the favoured warlords and groups tapped state resources and senior military and police posts. Factional competition and the Taliban’s resurgence against the Afghan government from 2006 commenced. Ethnic balance within the Afghan police force, the senior presidential cabinet and ministerial positions is a challenging area. In the post-Bonn arrangement, the Chair and President, Finance Minister, Interior Minister, Minister of Rural Development, National Security Advisor, Chief Justice, Attorney General and some other senior government officials were Pashtuns (Barfield, 2010). However, Tajik and Uzbek leaders of previous Mujahidin factions still controlled their private militias and thus influenced units in the army and police force (Steele, 2015: 77). Corruption and warlordism do not seem to be the (only) drivers of insurgency in post-2001 Afghanistan. Other factors such as the role of Pakistan, which supported the Taliban and Haqqani Network and provided safe havens for them, as well as the rise of narcoterrorism in the country, has frustrated the USA (Felbab-Brown, 2018).

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Despite encouraging political liberalisation, these factors (corruption, warlordism and in particular, narcoterrorism) negatively affect state effectiveness, security and the rule of law and the overall efforts of the Bonn Agreement. Furthermore, SSR has failed. In April 2002, the SSR Geneva Process from two G8 donors’ meeting formed a five-pillared internationally led strategy, with each sector headed by a different donor to meet their requirements. The USA led military reform, Germany initially headed police reform, the UK ran counter-narcotics, the Italians led judicial reform and Japan headed the DDR of former combatants (Özerdem, 2010: S47). SSR in Afghanistan has prioritised police and military reform, leaving a weak and fragile underfunded justice sector to truly install the rule of law, enforce accountability and combat corruption. Since 2005, US$14  billion has been spent by the US military to reform, equip and train the ANP (Singh, 2014: 632). A total of 90 per cent of the SSR budget has been spent on police and military reform compared to 2–4 per cent for judicial reform (Tondini, 2010: 61). In July 2016, the Warsaw Summit resulted in an agreed international pledge for donors to contribute an estimated US$900 million per annum to financially sustain support of the Afghan security forces until late 2020 (US DoD, 2018: 108). Over-dominance of security is due to COIN that prioritises the training of the Afghan armed forces and the police; this focus on COIN has resulted in less focus on the rule of law. Hence, statebuilding and security have been shaped by the liberal peace process to rapidly democratise the Afghan state with the adoption of the Bonn Agreement. In relation to SSR, the security sector has been central to politics and power sharing, as discussed in the Bonn Agreement. These liberal dynamics of statebuilding have, inadvertently, to be fair, exacerbated patron–client relations and factional competition between rival elites for solidarity purposes as well as for state resources and economic benefits. The strongman system of governance has tainted a desired democracy and accountable governance (Mukhopadhyay, 2014: 1). To provide one of many examples, since the Bonn political arrangement, the Afghan Interior, Defence, National Security of Directorate and Foreign Affairs Ministries were manned by factional cohorts of warlords who have since institutionally abused their power with entrenched nepotism, patronage and corruption (Grossman, 2006; Shanty, 2011: 109). The underlying reasons rested on a defragmented Afghan state run under a central authority; the military continued to be disjointed; and factional integration and diversity within state structures failed. Similarly, Karzai

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and his senior aides did not truly comply with human rights, the rule of law and democracy due to the creation of patronage circles and nepotism. These democratic and accountability ideals have been sacrificed for strongman governance because there was little alternative to forming a ‘short-term’ peace to secure the Afghan countryside from the Taliban. In the Ghani administration, police generals are recruited by presidential decree, which is debatably on patronagebased preferences, and it makes it harder to sack them for corrupt or criminal behaviour (Clark, 2017: 6). These senior officers have a post for life even if they are corrupt and/or illiterate. The international liberal statebuilding and spoiler management strategies adopted in Afghanistan suggest that systemic and petty corruption have exacerbated because of patronage due to the conflict and political arrangements post-2001. These structural conditions, because of the conflicts from 1978–2001 and post-2001 that led to social change, have created values among the police that have encouraged or justified corruption.

Structural changes in the Afghan police I now discuss the relationship between conflict and corruption in the Afghan police. Chapter 1 covered the definitions of police corruption, which leads here to an exploration of structural changes in the Afghan police. This is followed by a discussion on how the police have been affected by regime changes, as part of institutional legacy. The next section covers the consequences of police corruption on society and Taliban remobilisation in contemporary Afghanistan. The Afghan police force existed at the outset of the 18th century and was later modernised, albeit at a slow rate. Afghanistan had a functional system of policing prior to the Saur Revolution in 1978 and conflict in the aftermath (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2011: 1–2). Despite the policing system not appearing particularly sophisticated (and operating in tandem with an informal dispute-settlement structure), it was functional. By the 1970s, a small portion of police at the rural level provided early detection of disturbances and at the urban level, civilian-based policing was slowly increasing. Policing still did not meet the standards for prosecution within the rule of law. The police held a paramilitary mandate on border control to assist the army in tackling serious disturbances. Senior police and military officers had benefited with the purges of political patronage during the leadership of Mohammad Daoud (Newell, 1986: 118). Although political loyalty existed in the appointments process, meritocracy was involved in the

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Daoud era. This meritocratic recruitment process was a good sign of the policing system improving in the 1970s. However, the armed conflict (Saur Revolution) led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan against President Daoud’s presidency on 27–28  April 1978 led to Soviet intervention. This Cold War intervention negatively affected Afghan policing due to insecurity and loyalty to political factions. During Soviet occupation in the late 1970s until the overthrow of the Mohammad Najibullah communist government in April 1992, the police agency was further modernised with advances in technological equipment and a structure. From 1980 to 1985, the Soviets used the Department of State Information Services (the secret police) to gather intelligence on the Mujahidin insurgency. In addition, the secret police had extraordinary powers over Afghan citizens and regularly supplemented their earnings by looting businesses and homes that they searched (Koski, 2011: 45). During the Soviet occupation, there was a central Ministry of Interior based in Kabul, and provincial police chiefs held charge of their police officers. Numbers in the police force increased throughout the 1980s, but more politicisation occurred in the Ministry of Interior due to the party organisation structure. This political system resembled totalitarianism. Reporting the behaviour of fellow colleagues to the Ministry maintained discipline and reduced corruption (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2011: 1–2). Throughout the 1980s, the paramilitary capacity of the police surpassed that of the armed forces, with heavy arms to suppress the Mujahidin (Koski, 2011: 45). After Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the police lost virtually all the capability and progress developed over the preceding 70 years, and the new police academy built by the Germans was undermined (Wilder, 2007: 3). There was no attempt to select or train replaced qualified officers. Consequently, the positions within the Ministry of Interior were merely distributed with patronage connections. Uzbek warlord General Dostum retained control of six provinces in northern Afghanistan and kept the policing system the same (Clements, 2003: xxvii). During the 1992–96 Mujahidin civil war (when eight rival political factions were competing for power), there were local police units. These retained loyalty to Mujahidin factional leaders. Professionalism, conduct, morale and loyalty (although encouraged by money to retain Mujahidin fighters) were based on a sense of mission to fight for an independent state (Clements, 2003: 241). The Afghan secret police also acted as a unit of the Northern Alliance during the Mujahidin civil war.

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Once the Taliban seized Kabul in September 1996, they enforced barbaric practices and justice. They quickly created the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice that was built on a Saudi Arabian religious-based policing model to combat corruption and vice in Afghan society (Ghufran, 2001: 476). The police officers were conscripted army men and the police had a hierarchy consisting of national, provincial and district police chiefs. There was no initial investment in police training. Rules and penal codes were ignored, and non-uniformed armed fighters manned the police stations as replacements for the dismissed police force (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013: 34). The Taliban police – acting under the relevant ministry for preventing vice – arrested and beat men for having beards that were deemed too short, for keeping shops open during prayer times and for not attending prayers (HRW, 2000: 167). In addition, Taliban officials beat women in Kabul for violating dress codes, prohibited women from public appearance, closed education facilities for girls and sacked female teachers and maids from their roles (Skaine, 2002). The authoritarian system of policing and the 1960s and 1970s national civilian police based on European police models were halted. The 1978–2001 era of policing from the Saur Revolution to the fall of the Taliban concentrated on paramilitary policing to survive (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013: 35). In late 2001–02, the MoIA re-appointed senior officials from the 1980s. This recruitment process meant that old professionals were functioning in the new internationally driven policing system. The MoIA remained, but the police institution was built on patronage relations. Senior officials were brought back even if they were not qualified for the 2002 system. A handful of regional power holders at the provincial level who dominated these areas retained their provincial policing systems better than the overly centralised MoIA. The maintenance of local forms of policing was evident, with Ismail Khan in Herat and Mohammad Atta in Balk (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2011: 3). Private militias loyal to warlords, such as Khan and Atta, rapidly filled the security void due to decentralised governance and dysfunctional police departments. Progress made with the Afghan policing system during the 1960s and 1970s modernisation period and 1980s Soviet occupation therefore resulted in high professionalism and low corruption. However, patronage was influential in the Ministry of Interior during the Soviet occupation. Despite there being a functional policing system, this was hindered by intense fighting between rival Mujahidin factions during the 1992–96 civil war, which destroyed many parts of Afghanistan,

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including Kabul. This civil war provided an opportunity for a religious movement, the Taliban, to conquer most of the country. The Taliban religious-based police did not follow the previous policing system because they were instructed to comply with Taliban codes that used excessive force. Corruption was also high because higher amounts of bribes were paid. After the forced removal of the Taliban, pre-existing senior officials were brought back into the MoIA, and patronage and police loyalty to regional warlords dominated the new policing system. The policing methods in these various Afghan regimes were based on inequality and patronage alliances to political factions and warlords in exchange for security in rural areas and alleged political support of the government. These structural conditions of policing have arguably made it difficult to develop a democratic, accountable and transparent police force that caters for Afghan citizens. Patronage and corruption in Afghanistan have therefore become deeply entrenched in the police force, which is part of its institutional legacy, and would take decades to significantly combat. Systemic corruption is linked with tribal ties, local loyalties and patronage. These patronage-based loyalties have been prevalent since the monarchy system, the British Empire, the Soviet regime and contemporary democracy.

Consequences of corruption on Afghan society, the police (post-2001) and Taliban remobilisation Corruption is a major barrier to self-sustaining peace and, more broadly, peacebuilding. In conflict-affected countries, public institutions are weak, have frail democracies and lack legitimacy, which heightens risks for FDI and thus leads to poverty, underdevelopment, poor economic recovery and growth and further conflict. Moreover, international aid and corruption intensify the probability of repeated violence and disempower local populations. Boucher et  al (2007) support this notion. Corruption is thus deemed as a contributor to increased poverty and a waste of donor aid. Afghanistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world – the second most corrupt, according to Transparency International’s Global Corruption Index, after joint firsts Somalia and North Korea (Transparency International, 2016). The 2018 report has seen a decline in the value of bribes paid, from US$2.88 billion in 2016 to US$1.65 billion in 2018 (Bjelica, 2019: 13). A deficit in the value of petty bribes paid by Afghan households has improved Afghanistan’s corruption ranking in the Corruption Perceptions Index from third from last to 172 out of 180 countries in

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2018 (Transparency International, 2016, 2018). Despite these positive findings, Afghanistan is the poorest country in Asia, followed by Yemen and Nepal, and has a low US$1,889 GDP per capita (IMF, 2018). Poverty is due to four decades of war and a 30 per cent unemployment rate, which is debatably the highest in the world (Jahanmal, 2018). It has recently been estimated that unemployment in Afghanistan is 25 per cent, and nearly 55 per cent of Afghans reside in poverty (BBC News, 2019). Prevalent and continual graft (public funds misdirected for private benefit and interests) irritates Western donors who have provided aid for over one decade in an extremely corrupt country (Houreld, 2013: 1). More recently, insecurity and the low turnout for elections resulted in a delay with the parliamentary outcome of the election until 14 November 2019, and US President Donald Trump announced that US$160 million would be cut due to corruption (Arif, 2019). The Taliban targeted polling stations, which, in turn, resulted in only 2.19 million out of 9.6 million registered votes in a national population of an estimated 37 million (BBC News, 2019). Ghani is on course to win his second term. In late December 2019, the election results indicated that Ghani obtained a slight majority – with 50.64 per cent of the votes – although further vetting is underway (Mashal and Faizi, 2019). Moreover, Abdullah – Chief Executive of Afghanistan – has recently accused President Ghani of fraudulent tactics (Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, 2019), and problems with biometric machines – in place for voter verification policy – have delayed the counting of votes. The USA has funded approximately US$4.5 billion per year for the Afghan security forces, but corruption within the MoIA undoubtedly drains resources and corruption is prevalent within senior levels (Clark, 2017: 4). Due to low confidence, corruption and insecurity, international donors have pledged to either cut or reduce funding to Afghan authorities in the future. Afghan aid is therefore seen as wasted and impacts on the confidence of major donors, grand corruption, insecurity and negative public perceptions of governance, resulting in low levels of voting. Aid often supports corrupt political elites. These political elites favour their patronage circles, criminal networks and continually exploit the shadow illicit opium economy (Goodhand, 2008a: 411). Patronage and the drug trade also hinder the efforts of international assistance and development programmes due to poor coordination, and breed inequality and illiteracy due to poor education (Gentry, 2012: 183–4). Similarly, Quah (2011: 440–2) contends that basic services that should be free are a consequence of rampant corruption due to kleptocratic leaders who lack the political will to change corrupt structures and

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implement an anti-corruption strategy, despite a large amount of donor aid. The preservation of such political regimes weakens economic development, and the conflict, patronage and corruption contribute to state ineffectiveness. In support of this literature, state effectiveness is hindered from the top level (namely political elites) who spread their patronage relations to maintain the status quo and survive in Afghan politics. This system is to maintain political and security support. High levels of corruption in the Afghan police and government have resulted in Taliban backing as an alternative to a Western and corrupt supported regime. Despite corruption and police brutality during the Taliban era, Afghans have been manipulated by the Taliban to believe that police corruption was worse in the Karzai regime (Sands, 2007; Nathan, 2009: 35; Pyman et al, 2012: 33-34). This strategy is to increase Taliban support to provide local security and shadow governance. Fifty per cent of 6,498 survey participants claimed that corruption added to the development of the Taliban, and one-third of the participants stressed that the Taliban were fighting the alleged corrupt Afghan administration (IWA, 2010: 11).1 Recently, the Afghan public, under Ghani’s administration, have held similar opinions. Sixtytwo per cent of 8,130 Afghan civilians in a nationwide survey across all 34 provinces argued that corruption facilitated the growth of the Taliban and the provincial and district police were at fault (IWA, 2018: 20–1). Therefore, corruption within the Afghan police force still promotes Taliban expansion. Numerous Afghans, especially truckers who are prey to roadside extortion and increased levels of taxes, have been exploited by the Taliban to support the regime in order to bring a cessation to police corruption and the Afghan government (Murrhee, 2013: 181). The Taliban have used this to enhance their political agenda: to fight police corruption and international forces, and to bring an end to the corrupt Afghan administration. Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban chief until his demise, specified that the ANP were wicked, non-religious, drug addicts, incapable of defending the pride, honour, dignity and property of civilians (ICG, 2008: 6). The Taliban published their internal Lahya code of conduct in 2006, the Afghanistan Islamic Emirate Code of Jihad for Mujahidin, in a measure to highlight the high levels of corruption in the ANP and to abolish secular schools (Nathan, 2009: 35; Singh, 2014: 627). The code, updated in 2010, stresses that recruitment, training, accountability and command structures based on both Afghan culture and Taliban interpretation of Shari’a law can enhance good relations with locals and ‘neutralise’ enemy plots (Clark, 2011: 2). The Taliban, and Omar, denounced

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the ‘puppet’ Afghan government as the enemy, functioning under Western interests (Farmer, 2011). Consequently, local Afghans have the problematic option of which side to align with, and repeatedly have to steer within the multifaceted network of local power actors to safeguard their personal protection and survival. Discontent with both the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and the Taliban has also resulted in the development of local anti-Taliban rebellions from formed or revitalised armed mercenaries in the vicinity. Disapproval with the main security forces is why local security forces are used. Yet local forces carry danger, due to poor Afghan Local Police (ALP) candidates who are mainly armed vigilantes. Unprofessionalised police units cause further insecurity because the local force does not fit SSR measures of a professionalised armed or police force. Goodhand and Hakimi (2014: 13–15) have further argued that these groups have a licit status beneath the concealment of the ALP to battle with the Taliban uprising in inaccessible and insecure areas. Therefore, due to prevalent corruption, police abuses and international intervention in Afghanistan, the Taliban have addressed the problems of corruption and have gained support as an alternative shadow government and security provider. Since 2006 they have remobilised, particularly in the south and east of the country, to fight against the corrupt government and to end police corruption (Riedel, 2006; Goodman and Sutton, 2015). Although the Taliban were the losers in the Bonn Agreement, they reserved their capacity to contest their political exemption. Public perception reports reveal that Afghans believe their police to be inherently corrupt and experience negative relations with them. According to the 1,258 Afghan respondents of the National Corruption Survey conducted by IWA, 60 per cent claimed that the Karzai administration was the most corrupt over the last 20 years, with the MoIA and courts being the most corrupt institutions (IWA, 2010). A UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) nationwide survey revealed that an estimated 25 per cent of Afghans were forced to pay a minimum of one bribe of an average of between US$100–200 to both police and local officials in 2009 (Bisogno et al, 2010: 4). In addition, a UNDP nationwide survey with 5,156 respondents found that many police officers misuse their authority, use equipment while off duty, are engaged in the narcotics trade, extort bribes (at roadsides and from farmers), seek gifts for their services and demand frequent protection fees from shopkeepers (UNDP, 2009: 5–6, 20). A more recent IWA (2018: 20–21) nationwide civil society corruption perceptions survey similarly demonstrated that the police are engaged in these petty and

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severe forms of corruption. Furthermore, Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi (2015: 23) show that Afghan police officers believe that poor leadership affects the morale and conduct of the lower levels. The President has similarly recognised that the police force is ‘under-performing’ due to corruption, criminality and an ‘inherited’ patronage system that intensifies ‘institutional corruption’, misuses aid and hinders police reform (Ghani, 2017). Consequently, as these reports and Ghani suggest, the ANP is systemically corrupt and has safeguarded narcotics smugglers and criminals, which has led to a criminal justice system that people don’t trust. However, the perception reports are grounded in social problems that certain organisations intend to address and challenge. Social challenges are evident with reference to the anticorruption institutions striving to combat corruption in Afghanistan. The way the questions are framed in public perception surveys directly addresses specific social problems such as corruption, according to the literature cited, even though other factors may impact more on the daily lives of the respondents. Despite such criticism, Shelley (2014: 71) supports public perception reports by revealing that frustration with daily petty forms of corruption with the police and low-level bureaucrats is a key driver of angry young men supporting and joining the Taliban. Dissatisfaction with the state drives citizens to back the Taliban, who have the ability to depict themselves as an alternative security provider other than the corrupt national police service influenced and trained by the international community. There is a relationship between police corruption and the support of insurgency, which, in turn, protracts the armed conflict in Afghanistan. Therefore, combating corruption in a conflict-affected country is extremely important to avoid conflict and corruption in the security forces. The World Bank argues that knowing the causes, explanations, activities and consequences of corruption within a society that is being studied is crucial prior to combating corruption with an anticorruption strategy (Huther and Shah, 2000: 9). Understanding these causes, practices and consequences of corruption provides a valid point because knowledge of the forms of corruption is crucial. This pivotal knowledge can avert the security forces, and a government, driving civilians to support insurgency in opposition of the state.

Anti-corruption and formal bureaucratic reform efforts Extensive efforts have been made by the international community, aid agencies, foreign governments and international financial institutions

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to enhance Afghan state institutions and state effectiveness with an anti-corruption strategy and formal bureaucratic reform. In order to curb corruption, the anti-corruption roadmap was endorsed. This includes the ANDS and recently revised Afghanistan National Strategy for Combating Corruption (hereinafter the Anti-Corruption Strategy). The roadmap indicates the main problems of corruption and the need for more punitive actions to be undertaken when dealing with corruption. The main strategies for curbing corruption are based on raising awareness and mainstreaming an anti-corruption strategy in government. In addition, enhancing leadership and legal enforcement to implement the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), with oversight provided by the HOOAC, is acknowledged (ANDS, 2008: 14, 73). The HOOAC succeeded the previous anti-corruption agency in July 2008 by presidential decree. It was mandated to work with ministries and departments to decrease the bureaucratic incentives of engaging in corruption; to provide public information on the forms of corruption and reporting with education; and to provide outreach civil society programmes to raise awareness. Articles 75 (Section 3) and 142 of the 2004 Afghan Constitution enacted the offices of HOOAC to eradicate administrative corruption alongside Article 6 of the UNCAC to supervise the tactical application of anti-corruption. Despite the HOOAC acting as the highest authority for investigating corruption without prosecution powers, law enforcement agencies only received 15  transferred cases, which have led to few arrests (Arnoldy, 2009; Sherzai, 2011). The HOOAC remained attached to the Presidential Office having no true independence, and thus highprofile cases involving presidential political cronies and allied narcotics traffickers were rescinded due to political interference. More recently, the National High Council for Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption was established in August 2016 to receive counter-corruption action plans from government entities. This Council planned to eradicate the HOOAC and create ‘an independent palace Ombudsman’ to avert political intrusion (SIGAR, 2018a: 22–3, 68). The current President, Ghani, has undertaken a variety of measures to curb corruption as a top priority. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) (2019: 3) has recently recognised that the Ghani administration has met its targets with laws and instruments at a rapid rate in order to comply with the Anti-Corruption Strategy. The National Unity Government passed the Anti-Corruption Law in 2018 to create a new ACC, to replace the recently dissolved HOOAC, which will function alongside an array of other institutions. These

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institutions include the National High Council for the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (hereinafter the High Council) and the AntiCorruption and Justice Centre (ACJC).2 The High Council adopted the Anti-Corruption Strategy that was revised in early 2019 to include six pillars, which includes fighting corruption in the security sector, ousting patronage via meritocracy and prosecuting corrupt officials (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2018: 6, 8–9). Both institutions complement the roles of the Special Secretariat3 and Deputy Attorney General, decrees and legislation such as the Whistle Blower Protection Law, and revised Access to Information Law and Penal Code. The Asset Declaration Law intends to verify the declarations of assets from high-ranked government officials and prosecutors in order to impose sanctions on those who fail to cooperate with this transparency process (UNAMA, 2019: 10). The Access to Information Law tracks requests and timely responses, which includes complaints by anonymous whistleblowers. The whistle-blowing mechanism provides a public monitoring procedure with Efshagar (an organisation) to report bribes paid online (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2018: 15–16). The Anti-Corruption Law intends to support the multidimensional process by codifying the High Council to coordinate the Anti-Corruption Strategy. These reforms encourage complaints, transparency of asset declaration and sanctions. The role of civil society was initially cast aside with the appointments process of commissioners for the ACC, but are now part of the shortlisting criteria with the Civil Service Commission for the President to make the appointment (IWA, 2019). CSOs will select 10 people to transfer to the President after a debate on ousting political allegiances and agendas, and thereinafter, the Civil Service Commission will screen the candidates. The commissioners will be hired for fixed-term roles to cement job security and avert governmental influence, and a leave period will be granted to avoid governmental favours (IWA, 2019). Moreover, Ghani (2017) initiated the Officers Inherent Law policy to retire over 150 generals from the police and army to avert the maintenance of patronage relationships they had attained with political parties and figures. Force Development Advisors are currently working on this legal policy to shorten compulsory retirement ages and maximum in-service time, which includes police generals at 40 years’ service and eight years within their grade limits (US DoD, 2018: 12). Over 5,000 colonels and generals will be retired from the Interior and Defence Ministries within the next year to open leadership and senior posts for younger candidates ‘based on merit’ instead of patronage (US DoD, 2018: 37).

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Other efforts to install accountability are based on institutional promises to meet targets, and failure to do so results in funding being suspended until the conditions have been met. General John Nicholson instituted a policy of having the Interior Minister sign annual promise letters to instil financial accountability measures by ensuring certain agreed-on reforms were ordained, under penalty of funds being suspended if unfulfilled. CSTC-A has formed commitment letters on the conditions of MoIA funding allocation within a fiscal year. The US DoD (2018) reports on assistance being cut as a result of noncompliance. Measures have been placed to recruit more women in the Afghan police force, which has resulted in funding sanctions. Less than 2 per cent of women serve in the Afghan police force and are usually restricted to the lower ranks (UNDP, 2018). The NATO Resolute Support Mission worked with the Afghan security forces to appoint women, and if 6,425 women are not recruited and trained within seven years, the 2017–18 Bilateral Commitment Letter will enforce a 5 per cent reduction of funds allocated to failing units (US DoD, 2018: 63). The commitment letters with the MoIA intend to promote the security and appropriate use of female facilities, which should not be abused by men, otherwise funding sanctions will be incurred (US DoD, 2018: 99). These funding penalties include CSTC-A withholding $US434,509 for each failing compound, and this strategy to withhold funds was undertaken by the Command in 2017 in such circumstances (US DoD, 2018: 65). Despite these measures, placing and training women in the ANP tashkil4 lags behind, which has resulted in a 5 per cent reduction of funds allocated per month in June 2018 until the SY1397 commitment letter designed for the MoIA is met with career plans specifically aimed at female police officers (US DoD, 2018: 98). It is too early to evaluate the impact of these commitment letters, but the promises mean the Interior Minister must comply, or else parts of the failing departments will face funding sanctions. Hence, Ghani, and his good relationship with the NATO Resolute Support Mission, has attempted to extend the fight against corruption within the Afghan police sector. The Afghan security sector has received billions of dollars, and NATO is attempting to curb security sector corruption (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2018: 8). There are more involvement and screening measures in place from civil society and national institutions to thwart the initial problems that the HOOAC faced, and financial measures to instil accountability with promise letters have been supplanted with international efforts. However, shortfalls and uncertainty remain. The variety of institutions, uncertainty when the ACC will be established and

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numerous new laws makes coordination problematic. In addition, cronyism in arrests and prosecutions – as with previous investigative units – remain. By way of illustration, the ACJC tried 223 defendants, but only one offender was tried (UNAMA, 2019: 3). The Special Secretariat has reported on the revised Anti-Corruption Strategy, but the reporting was patchy, and civil society disagreed with the quantitative results displayed (IWA, 2019). For instance, Dostum, the First Vice-President, alongside some other senior officials have not declared their assets to comply with the Asset Declaration Law (SIGAR, 2018a: 23–4; UNAMA, 2019: 26). It has recently been reported that Afghanistan’s fight against corruption remains pervasive, impedes the recovery process, and numerous laws and bureaucratic processes make the state more predatory within a rentier state (UNAMA, 2019: 6). It is debatable whether the ACC will lack independence, which was evident with its predecessor, the HOOAC, and if the appointments of the commissioners will involve members of civil society. Despite these uncertainties, it appears clear that the President will continue to appoint provincial police chiefs by presidential decree – to alleviate job buying and patronage – which could, however, taint efforts with open competition. Furthermore, formal bureaucratic reform has commenced in Afghanistan to curb corruption and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the public sector with PAR. PAR is a strategy to downsize and restructure the civil service and government staff to promote a more productive, competent, efficient and effective public sector. It is also an anti-corruption strategy insofar as oversight is provided by the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission, ensuring that meritocratic appointments are initiated, have a clear focus on roles to avoid overlapping duties, reduce corruption and enhance the private sector. Priority reform and restructuring (PRR) involves the planning and implementation of pay and grading (P&G) by raising salary scales based on retraining and reskilling programmes to downsize excess staff and manage additional civil servants (Lister, 2006: 7). PAR, PRR and P&G have been implemented in the civil service, which has trickled down to all the ministries, including the MoIA, which led to a pay and rank reform process in October 2005. The reform downsized high-ranking officers by 44 per cent and raised pay scales at consistent levelled rates of wages for lower-ranked police, which were significantly increased, on a par with army personnel (Pyman et al, 2012: 31). The number of generals went down from 340 to 117, and they received an increment of pay from US$107 to

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$750 monthly, and the number of lieutenant generals and colonels went down from 2,450 to 301, with a salary increase for them from $92 to $400 monthly (Wilder, 2007: 39). However, even after pay reform, the number of patrol officers increased from 36,600 to 45,880, but their wages only increased from US$25–70 per month after the pay reform (Wilder, 2007: 39; Kelly et al, 2011: 50, 52). Pay was subsequently increased to $120 per month for the Afghan police recruits, but supporting an Afghan family costs twice this amount (Adams, 2009; Cann et al, 2010: 17). More recently, the starting salary for police officers is US$155 monthly, and they are paid an estimated US$200 on average; many come from very poor communities, they live in poor conditions and risk their lives fighting insurgency (Mashal et al, 2018; Zucchino and Abed, 2019). This literature contends that pay and rank reform has therefore done little to deter petty forms of corruption as a means of economic survival in the lower levels of the AUP. Moreover, weak leadership, job buying and political connections are embedded within the MoIA appointment process, which includes politicians selling police chief posts (Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi, 2015: 21–23). Clark (2017: 5) further stresses that Kabul’s police force remains dominated by officers recruited by patronage relations, and trained and competent officers remain in the mid-ranks, whereas those connected with networks or political factions are promoted into senior posts. All these anti-corruption efforts have been unsuccessful in practice when analysing petty corruption and bribery in the ANP due to low wages and grand corruption and drug infiltration in the Afghan government (IWA, 2010, 2018). Specific examples of grand corruption can be addressed. In early 2010, former President Karzai’s close advisor and government official, Muhammad Zia Salehi, Head of the National Security Council, was investigated by the Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF) and Deputy Attorney General and senior anti-corruption lawyer, Fazed Faqiryar, who was forced to retire (Boone, 2010). Salehi was arrested in July 2010 for soliciting a bribe, a car, as a gift worth an estimated US$10,000, for closing a money-laundering investigation of New Ansari, a money trading firm, providing luxurious vehicles to presidential allies, and having contact with the Taliban (Partlow and Nakamura, 2010). The Attorney General personally approved the arrest, but Karzai quickly intervened and ordered the Attorney General to release his aide because Afghan agents, with the support of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), had breached Salehi’s human rights and operated outside of the Afghan constitution. Salehi,

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Karzai’s crony, was subsequently released within a few hours, and Karzai demanded two investigations of the MCTF for Salehi’s human rights, under the Afghan Constitution, being violated. As a result, the Attorney General dismissed the case on the grounds of human rights breaches, despite evidence of Salehi engaging in corruption (Cook, 2012: 71–2). More recently, in July 2018, a Special Court of the Supreme Court was established to deal with grand corruption. Abdul Razaq Wahidi, ex-minister for Telecommunications and Information Technology, was tried by this Special Court for profiting from a tax account system and the appointment of 37 staff members (Bjelica, 2019: 9). He was acquitted for an alleged lack of evidence and had to pay a fine; four other high-profile cases scheduled for the Supreme Court remain pending (UNAMA, 2019: 56). These cases provide ample evidence that the head of state can manipulate and assert political interference during major cases of corruption to protect close political aides from prosecution, or immunity is granted to senior officials even if they are tried at the highest constitutional court. Hence, a mafia-style chain of corruption persists in Afghanistan, which infiltrates law enforcement to protect drug smugglers’ and/or high-political officials’ interests and retain immunity from arrest or prosecution.

Conclusion This chapter has revealed that the recent statebuilding strategy endorsed by the international community focused on the liberal peacemaking and COIN. This statebuilding initiative is significant for this book. Stedman’s (1997) inducement and coercion spoiler management strategies have revealed how patronage developed from strongman governance. Favoured warlords and political alliances of the previous regimes and conflict were empowered by the Bonn Agreement to assist in fighting the Taliban. This spoiler management scheme has resulted in the structural conditions of patronage and systemic corruption that further promote corruption. The political economy approach is highly applicable to the literature review and any critical assessment of Afghanistan. The liberal peace, which includes the Bonn Agreement political settlement, is part of external intervention. International intervention has exacerbated power and authority to pre-existing corrupt elites and Northern Alliance warlords, to redistribute state resources in order to retain clientelistic ties and political support and to reap economic benefits. In relation to limited access orders and state capture, criminal and insurgent groups use the Afghan government to

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interfere in investigation processes conducted against them to preserve immunity from weak prosecution measures. Afghan elites permeate criminal and corruption investigations to release connected cronies and drug mules, and if they are pursued, they are immune to prosecution as a result of bribery, fear or intimidation of the judiciary. Therefore, anti-corruption efforts remain futile as a result of the limited access orders in which Afghan political actors preserve the status quo, due to it being to their benefit. Consequently, the breakdown of state effectiveness, the rule of law, security and a policing system in Afghanistan are due to patronage and endemic corruption. These conditions of state failure and corruption within the police force are part of the institutional legacy from the 1970s onwards. This legacy, alongside unaccountable off-budget aid and external intervention efforts, has inadvertently intensified corruption, which has become systemic and has infiltrated the Afghan state and police sector. The Taliban have used this to appeal for support in order to promote their alternative modes of security. With the wind-down of international intervention and reduced training still undergoing, it is imperative that the National Unity Government (and the succession of Ghani or Abdullah Abdullah as the single entity) restore faith in the state and the police sector by stamping out corruption in order to benefit the statebuilding process and avoid a further Taliban resurgence. President Ghani has stated his pledges to combat corrupt patronage relations and nepotism by selecting a cabinet based on merit and extensive laws, decrees and bodies to exercise the amended six-pillared National Corruption Strategy. Ghani and his deputy, Chief Executive Abdullah, have attempted to reinstate good governance and the rule of law, the fight against local forms of corruption, by firing a handful of corrupt provincial senior officials, and reinvestigating the Kabul Bank crisis (Malikyar, 2016). In particular, Ghani has fired eight district governors, 15 police commanders, the appellate court prosecutor and five border commanders in Herat based on charges of corruption. However, he subsequently failed to replace them, and locals have complained about an increase in violence within the province. Despite these efforts from the current Afghan administration to curtail corruption, political elitist deep-rooted patronage networks remain (Clark, 2017; Bjelica, 2019: 9–11). Therefore, the pre-existing system and culture will take more than two terms to rectify as rivalry between tribes continue. Legitimacy within the Afghan government and state institutions, including the police sector, need to be restored by curbing corruption, which will eventually lead to better supported security policies and will deter Taliban support.

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The Ghani administration has created an array of anti-corruption institutions and international donors have instilled accountability by cutting funds if police units fail to meet targets within their signed promise letters. However, there are now more rules leading to shorterterm leadership roles, and appointments are sometimes direct without an application call. Decrees and laws are changing, which signifies the lip service paid to external pressure, which was particularly evident with both of Karzai’s terms, but the rent economy infiltrates anticorruption institutions to pursue rent seeking for donor aid and to maintain corruption such as officers receiving bribes to not pursue an offender’s cases. Petty corruption has minimally declined, as evidenced by citizens (IWA, 2018; Bjelica, 2019: 12). Yet high-profile trials are lacking, and if undertaken, the perpetrator is acquitted, and thus judicial and ACJC follow-on procedures remain futile. Therefore, political will is lacking, and the current post-election phase is not the time to prosecute for a high-profile case of a political official. Anticorruption institutions and laws may not persist, but grand corruption will because it is systematically embedded in most, if not all, Afghan institutions. Contemporary police corruption in Afghanistan ranges from low wages, state capture, infiltration from drug-related criminal networks to allied political elites. Moreover, the lack of meritocracy and weak vetting due to job selling and training, illiteracy and educational issues with pre-existing systems have resulted in corruption and non-compliance with the Afghan constitution and criminal codes. The police are key actors for the criminal justice system process, and negative dealings with them results in distrust of their services and the government. Furthermore, both institutional legacy and external intervention have had some influence in the current structural conditions of corruption, strongman governance and patronage in Afghanistan, and more narrowly the ANP. The political policies with external intervention resulted in strongman governance to secure rural parts of Afghanistan and assist coalition forces to combat the Taliban. Although there was little alternative for the interim authority headed by Karzai to align with Northern Alliance warlords, this has formed patronage and further exacerbated a political system cemented on neopatrimonialism, favouritism and nepotism. These consequences of neopatrimonial politics and external reform serve as the political drivers of corruption. In addition, political economies expanded outside of Kabul and offbudget aid formed a ‘brain drain’ for competent Afghan workers to join international projects and consultancy roles. The lack of skilled public

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sector employees and a weak meritocracy resulted in the redistribution of state resources and jobs to favoured groups, and has formed a lowskilled and low-salaried civil service and police force. Low wages can intensify corrupt practices, particularly when punishment for getting caught is not severe or even non-existent. High incentives and the low-risk accountability relationship to engage in a corrupt activity can be identified as the economic drivers of corruption. Institutional legacy over regime changes since the 1970s has formed pre-existing and traditional patronage, an array of policing styles and conceptions of the social contract to get things done. These embedded aspects serve as the cultural drivers of corruption. The next two chapters will provide a thorough discussion of these main drivers and the social construction of defining corruption to examine police corruption in Afghanistan. Notes 1

2

3

4

Former Commander of NATO’s Resolute Support Mission, General John Nicholson (2017: 9), similarly argued that corruption, weak leadership and poor training hinder combat efficiency. The ACJC had some success in January 2017 with sentencing the MoIA policy deputy chief, General Abdul Wasey Rauofi, to 12  years’ imprisonment for accepting a bribe of US$150,000 to award a private fuel contract (Pajhwok, 2017). Special Secretariat Ajmal Ahmadi was appointed by Ghani with the role of tracking and monitoring the Anti-Corruption Strategy (UNAMA, 2019: 15). In this context, tashkil can loosely be defined as an official list provided by the government on the required staffing and equipment (Cordesman et  al, 2013: 69–70). If translating from Dari, tashkil literally means ‘organisation’, and refers to the official list of staff and equipment used by the Interior and Defence Ministries (US DoD, 2018: 12).

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Social construction of corruption Introduction The previous chapter provided a critical assessment of statebuilding in Afghanistan. It demonstrated that this has been shaped by ideals of the liberal peacebuilding paradigm and COIN. These externally driven policies have enhanced patronage relations. Moreover, entrenched corruption has become institutionalised, which has led to problems with the police sector. An anti-corruption strategy has done little to prevent Taliban remobilisation, further insecurity and the breakdown of the rule of law and justice. These factors suggest that the actual context of Afghanistan is driven by the structural conditions of an international statebuilding strategy and previous patronage politics. Billions of external funds devoted to building the police force with minimal oversight has resulted in, and made it difficult to curb, the political, economic and cultural drivers of corruption. The book has so far revealed that political economy approaches analyse state corruption. This theory is useful for studying and analysing state crime and corruption within the framework of Western liberal philosophy. The application of a political economy approach to corruption enables an analysis of the political and economic drivers of corruption due to examining the behaviours of political and economic agents. This includes rent seeking and limited access orders and the economic coping strategies of low-paid state employees and police officers. Yet I argue that applying a political economic approach to corruption alone cannot bring about a viable analysis of the cultural drivers of corruption. This chapter argues from a social constructivist perspective on the variations and perceptions of corruption – including gift giving – which is part of social and cultural practices in many parts of the world.

Social construction of examining corruption In Afghan society, corruption is considered as evil. This assertion can be unpacked by examining the social construction of corruption, to link with the Afghan context. The cultural drivers of corruption are

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now examined with the social constructivist theory to amalgamate the relationship between corruption, morality and the social contract. I argue that the definitions and manifestations of corruption are socially constructed. The Western notion of corruption is centred on the abuse of power, authority or office for private gain or benefit (Vargas-Hernández, 2010: 132–3), but I believe that this definition should span beyond Western ideals. In some cultures, a tip or a gift is offered to a public official for provision of a service, but it is contentious as to when a tip or gift constitutes a bribe. Discernments of corruption or immoral behaviour in highly industrialised democratic Western states such as gift giving can be perceived as good manners in other societies such as Asian and African ones (Perito and Kristoff, 2010: 2). Moreover, functionalists would argue that bribery greases the wheels of the bureaucratic machinery, which enhances efficiency and undermines red tape (Ruggiero and Gounev, 2012: 17). Huntington (1968: 386) argues that an honest over-centralised and rigid bureaucracy can hinder economic growth, and thus corruption helps to integrate people within the political state system. If this view is adopted, corruption under functionalism is needed for social forces to foster economic and political integration rather than being socially alienated (Huntington, 1968: 59–64). Azami (2009) argues that Afghan citizens regularly pay bribes to speed up transactions and public services that are culturally accepted. It is acknowledged that Afghan civil servants are low-paid and so minor gifts given by service users are engrained as part of everyday social interactions to ‘get things done’ (UNODC, 2012: 7, 13, 27). However, Méon and Sekkat (2005) argue that cross-country studies in higher and lower red tape states have illustrated that there is no solid evidence to suggest that the hypothesis of necessary corruption to grease the wheels is beneficial for economic growth. Corruption actually negatively impacts on economic growth due to a deterioration of governance. Despite the social practices of corruption that may become engrained in daily interactions, corruption undoubtedly undermines functions of governance. Broader practices such as nepotism, kickbacks and favouritism have diverse moral bases, and thus the broader definitions of corruption may not be deemed as corruption in certain societies. For instance, customary practices in Asia involve gift giving that is a cultural norm and is not deemed as corruption (Gezgin, 2009: 112). In China, there are social relationships and connections. These are referred to as guanxi practices where giving gifts forms compulsory cooperation between two parties or acquaintances. Guanxi is similar to Bourdieu’s ‘social

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capital’ of private assets that serve the holders of connections in which the personalised networks involve instrumental social relations and thus produce social capital (Bjørn and Worm, 2008: 124). Resources are linked to the possession of a long-lasting network. Members within the association have credentials and entitlement to credit, which is converted to capital, and thus a favour is expected to be repaid. Repaying gifts is completed on notions based on doing the right thing and to evade losing familiarity and interest because rejection in accepting or reciprocating a gift routinely leads to ‘loss of face’ (Yang, 1989: 42). Moreover, gift giving can also assist others due to material advantage and self-interest (Yang, 1994: 140). This form of social contract is part of Chinese societal norms and cultural values insofar as acceptance of a gift is for respect and reciprocation in the form of a favour or request, which is the other end of the bargain to avoid loss of face and to preserve good relations. This custom of gift giving is not considered as corruption in China but as rational demands, long-term and personal friendships and helping one another (guanxi) rather than for self-centred and illicit individual benefit (corruption) (Yang, 1994: 62). Similar to China, in Russia personal networks and informal contacts are utilised to access public services and to uncover methods to avoid formal procedures. This social process is known as blat and it involves favours. Favours are based on reciprocated efficiency and personal kinship or friendship ties that form moral duties to help others. Within such circles, bosses distribute favours to preserve their self-image (Ledeneva, 1998: 1). Blat is different to bribery. Blat is a circular network of belonging to preserve long-term relations, and favours are provided to those within this circle, but occasionally some people receive a payoff (although money is not usually involved) (Ledeneva, 1998: 40–1). Blat is parallel to guanxi – both concentrate on establishing, and preserving, personal and friendly relationships among the parties and/or acquaintances involved. A broader conception of corruption may stretch beyond gift giving and other immoral acts such as minor gratuities, but in some cultures lying and ‘womanising’ are considered corrupt (Pavarala and Malik, 2010: 20). In the Afghan context, fasad can loosely be defined as an act that is dirty, such as prostitution, and is not culturally accepted (De Lauri, 2013: 534). Corruption may be perceived as widespread in some societies, with a focus more on ethical and moral obligations. Walton’s (2012) study with 1,825 survey respondents in nine Papua New Guinea provinces found a variety of responses. The respondents stressed that corruption was perceived as the misuse of public trust for

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private advantage (28 per cent), as evil actions (26 per cent) and all immoral activities (17 per cent). Most respondents highlighted moral and legal obligations. Minor immoral (and perhaps illegal) behaviour such as young women engaging in sex for money (68 per cent) was the highest impairment to society. Bribery (60 per cent) and embezzlement (39 per cent) were recognised as fully corrupt, but perceived as less damaging activities of corruption (Walton, 2012: 3–7). Despite corruption being deemed as an immoral act, Afghans recognise that bribery is inevitable when citizens interact with public officials, which includes judges, who take payoffs to continue promptly with the citizen’s duties (Barfield, 2012: x). In Arabic, this form of bribery is referred to as rishwat. Rishwat is directly translated as water gathered from a well with a bucket instead of a natural flow of water (Rosen, 2010: 2). In addition, transactions between citizens and judges frequently involve a gift, tip or favour, which is referred to as bakhshish in Afghan courts, although this may also be perceived as rishwat. This forms a social contract between citizens and the judiciary, or public officials, who use these services. Despite the social contract, IWA (2018: 45) reveals that the majority (39 per cent) of the respondents perceive corrupt individuals as sinful, which is followed by ‘venal’ (motivated by bribery) (23 per cent), and people feel that paying bribes is sinful (43 per cent) which also makes them sad (21 per cent). Therefore, when covering these forms of bribery, for whatever reason, due to the social construction of corruption, this is a ‘harm’ – not solely due to Western legalistic definitions that could be obsolete in other societies, but because of the inequality that affects public services, negative public perceptions and justice. People can pay for better justice against their poorer counterparts. Gift giving is based on local culture and customary practices, in which guanxi, blat and bakhshish serve as examples, and social relations are maintained to get things done. Local and customary practices result in the cultural and social acceptance of paying bribes or gifts to police officers, judges and civil servants who are poorly salaried. These activities would be considered corruption in relation to Western literature, which is why this book explores what corruption means and the potential distinction or correlation with everyday social interactions, not only in Afghan society more generally, but with police officers themselves. If corruption is deemed as a harm or form of inequality, it surely qualifies as, what Huberts (1998: 28–30) terms, an integrity violation. However, integrity violations need to be framed within the social construction of what corruption entails and the drivers behind corruption.

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The majority of Western definitions of corruption are culturally biased because they overlook the cultural implications of what intuitively meet the requirements of corruption. The work of the founding postcolonial intellectual Edward Said (1978) on Orientalism can be applied to engage in conceptions of corruption, particularly from a secular Western perspective. For Said (1978), the Orient and the West are written historical fictions to identify the other, which narrowly perceives ‘us’ as Westerners and the ‘other’ as non-Western societies, and history can be rewritten. People within a region or society have the capacity to put forward their vision of who they are and what concepts they want to believe in. Said (2003) later argued that Arab and Islamic states have been criticised by the West for their lack of progression with democracy and women’s rights, but these concepts of democracy and modernity are not simplistic and agreeable. Likewise, the same could be argued with corruption insofar as the West may perceive corruption as a social, economic and political problem that hinders development, economic growth, FDI, and increases poverty and social inequality. Yet I argue that corruption is socially constructed in accordance with the society studied due to the fact that some activities may qualify as corruption but in other societies the same action(s) may be deemed acceptable and as a means of maintaining social and business relations. Corruption is socially constructed due to various conceptions and manifestations of what it subjectively entails globally. I argue that Western conceptions are dictated by a legalistic perspective that should also cover patronage and gift giving. Western notions of the state are based on a sharp distinction between public and private, that is, corruption being the use of public office for private gain, but part of giving gifts is not the problem in other parts of the world where favouritism is acceptable and where there is a norm of giving gifts. The way in which gift giving is perceived, whether favouritism or corruption, can be deemed as an activity, such as a public official attending to a file or extortion due to an obligatory gesture from the gift giver (Olivier de Sardan, 2015: 40). To support this notion, Gardiner (2002: 26) rightly contends that normal duties are not always part of formal rules regarding official conduct, and thus private affairs may be intertwined. Elites and public officials in many societies blur public and private spheres. For instance, Gupta (1995: 379) discusses Sharmaji, an Indian land official, who held approximately 5,000 plotted lands that were registered at his house despite stressing to villagers that registration or changing land titles cost money. The villagers did not complain about

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paying bribes or that the homeowner, Sharmaji, performed his duties in his office that was within his own house, but grumbled about the difficulty of interacting and dealing with state officials. Such systems that blur public and private spheres may be deemed as corruption from a Western perspective, but may be perceived as acceptable forms of practice in other societies. This assessment of what corruption and/or social interactions contain reveals that a basic definition of corruption is futile concerning the sphere of political office, which cannot apply to all cultures and societies globally. Therefore, what is deemed as corruption in the West, and measurements of corruption, such as Transparency International’s Global Corruption Index, differ in many other societies. There is a difference between accurately measuring corruption, which is impossible, not because of cultural (mis)understandings but because so often acts are illegal and so are under the radar, despite there being ways to approximate corruption levels such as the Corruption Index. This assertion is why this book aims to form a threshold of what Afghan police officers deem as corruption and/or everyday social interactions, and the best methods to curb corruption. Corruption is also subjective when studying its definition and differs from crime and misconduct. Miller (2003: 2) argues that corruption involves a direct misuse of authority with an internal or external corrupter for some sort of advantage, whereas crime entails law(s) that are broken but does not involve a corrupter and/or misuse of position. Crime may involve drug dealing, drug use and theft outside of police duty. Misconduct concerns individuals breaching their internal procedures while at work, such as claiming bogus expenses and overtime or calling in sick when they are not ill (Porter and Prenzler, 2012: 3). It is also important to note that corruption is detached from non-corrupt unethical practice, which can involve conduct that does not include the abuse of authority or exchange with a ‘corrupter’ (Miller, 2003: 2). Corruption is also subjective, like deviance. Both deviance and corruption are either justified or unjustified, dependent on the society studied.

Conclusion In this theoretical framework, I argue that the political, economic and social aspects in Afghanistan affect the way in which we view corruption. The theoretical framework shows the significance of different cultural understandings of conflict. As shown in Chapter 5, these cultural understandings of conflict are based on structural changes

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in the Afghan police force during modernist, communist, Mujahidin, Taliban and quasi-democratic regime changes. In addition, the conditions of the environment, presented from the Bonn Agreement and liberal peace doctrine, have resulted in Afghan elites spreading patronage and nepotistic networks to survive in Afghan politics. These political, economic, social and cultural factors have exacerbated the conflict, with violence spreading to protect favoured groups, as part of clientelism, and elites continue (with the explanation of state capture) to reap the benefits of illicit drug trafficking. These political and social systems are protected by elites to preserve tribal and social cliques and political power. This framework can be transposed to understand the political, economic and cultural understandings of conflict in other conflict-stricken and post-conflict states. In relation to this research, the local cultural understanding of corruption undermines the Western-based Transparency International abuse of power for private gain definition by placing emphasis on dirtiness (fasad), which is not tolerated by Afghan society (De Lauri, 2013: 534). A local understanding of corruption views bribery as a barrier to the flow of a natural stream (rishwat). Moreover, gift giving to influence a judicial decision (bakhshish) or to speed up a basic public service (Azami, 2009) operate as local cultural understandings of forming a social contract between state employees and citizens. Gift giving may be deemed a local cultural understanding to get things done, which is similar to preserving business and social relationships within the contexts of China (guanxi) (Yang, 1989) and Russia (blat) (Ledeneva, 1998), rather than being labelled as corruption from the Western literature. This local cultural understanding may affect the way Afghans view corruption either as an evil action or as a method of getting things done. In short, culture drives understandings of what corruption means, and social constructivism examines the variations of what corruption means to a society. A social constructivist approach, which includes social and cultural aspects, is fluid (and not a one-size-fits-all doctrine) because the perceptions, causes and practices of corruption change throughout the stages of conflict (to a post-conflict phase). Chan’s work (1996, 2004), using Bourdieu’s framework of the ‘habitus’ and the ‘field’, suggests that the environment influences the practices of policing, socialisation and police behaviour. There are two aspects of the field that change during a conflict and that are evident in post-conflict policing. First, there are fewer controls. There tends to be a lack of focus and low resources with internal investigations due to the primary focus on COIN and overlapping mandates with the military to combat external threats.

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In the context of Afghanistan, EUPOL’s and EU civilian policing mandates, and earlier German civilian policing efforts, contrasts with CSTC-A. The former focuses on democratic policing principles, the rule of law and human rights, but the latter concentrates on militarising the ANP to fight the insurgency that has caused confusing police operations (Özerdem, 2010: S47–8; Larivé, 2012: 189-90). The ANP are trained to be professional, study law enforcement, arrest criminals and deal with crowd control, but they then enter the field with heavy arms to fight the insurgency unprepared and thus become violent and do not know how to treat citizens (Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi, 2015: 27). The nationwide public perceptions covered in the UNDP (2009) survey also stress that the ANP operate in a low-risk and highly corrupt environment. Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi (2015: 27) suggest that the police lack accountability because they are needed to ‘fight the Taliban’, and thus the MoIA is not in a position to disband corrupt officers because they are unable to replace them with better officers. Therefore, there are few controls and the police are unaccountable due to problems with replacing corrupt officers with new recruits to fight the insurgency for little remuneration. Second, the sense of mission becomes unclear due to several internationally led police reform initiatives and the lack of desire to fight for the state’s new internationally driven quasi-democratic regime. The concept of noble cause corruption explains police behaviour. To specify, police officers may bend the rules to fulfil a noble cause with brutality, fabrication of evidence or perjury (Miller, 2017: 90). There is a ‘sense of mission’ as ‘the thin blue line’ to protect victims against predacious individuals (Reiner, 1992: 111). Zahab and Roy (2004: 52) argue that this sense of mission was evident with the Afghan police force during the Mujahidin regime to fight against communism and to fight for the pride of the country. Yet the current Afghan police have no clear mandate or pride to fight for (Tolo TV, 2011). They are not motivated to combat insurgency and are uninspired to remain loyal to the Afghan government (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013: 78; Singh, 2016: 60). Taking this example into consideration, it can be argued that the phases of a conflict and regime change can either change to support or oppose the noble cause explanation, or what Waddington (2010: 314) refers to as a ‘professional calling’. Culture is thus fluid, and different types of policing in different environments occur. A flexible approach to culture is influenced by regime changes, which nuances the cultural drivers of corruption that are contingent on conflict, and can be applied flexibly to other conflict-stricken and post-conflict states.

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7

Assessing the drivers of corruption within the Afghan police force Introduction The previous chapters mainly concentrated on aspects of prevention and corruption hindering police forces despite SSR and post-conflict police efforts. An examination of the structural conditions of corruption due to external intervention and the institutional legacy of patronage and conflict in Afghanistan ensued. The book has generated a theoretical framework, consisting of political, economic and cultural drivers (with the debate on the social construction of corruption), to analyse corruption in war-torn and developing societies. This chapter provides an analysis of the main drivers of police corruption within Afghanistan. It specifically refers to data collected with the lower ranks of the uniformed police and elites who specialised in security and judicial reform in Afghanistan. We begin with a brief outline of the methods. The research methods included 70  semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives of Afghan ministries that include the MoIA, Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s Office. Rule of law and anti-corruption organisations were interviewed. The respondents included the Justice Sector Support Programme (JSSP), Afghanistan Rule of Law Project (ARoLP), DFID, United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Max Planck Institute and HOOAC. Moreover, a variety of NGOs assisting with peace, justice and human rights were interviewed. A snowball sampling network was used to establish additional contacts at the end of the interviews. Each interview lasted for approximately 60–90 minutes and was conducted predominantly in Kabul in 2010, 2012 and 2016. Questions were based on SSR, with a particular focus on reforms of both the police and judicial sectors, human rights, corruption and anti-corruption. The lower levels of the Afghan police were subsequently surveyed. A 10-minute survey was conducted in January–March 2012 with 100  participants, mainly NCOs and some lieutenants (76  patrol officers, 16  first lieutenants and 8  second lieutenants). Twentyminute structured interviews were subsequently conducted with 50  participants in April–May 2016, namely with soldiers (lowest-

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ranked NCO below third patrol officer) consisting of 31 of the sample as well as some lieutenants and sergeants. The survey and structured interviews were mainly conducted in Kabul, Nangarhar and Logar due to insecurity in conducting all in Kabul, and so numbers are low. This data does not propose to test for generalisability or statistical significance. Instead, the purpose of the data aims to draw out qualitative findings on pay reform, salary details, the cost of living and perceptions about patronage and corruption. These include definitions of what corruption entails, the causes and practices police corruption undertakes, an anti-corruption strategy and training. The recruitment strategy for the survey and structured interviews were based on a street-intercept strategy. Police commanders were asked for permission to engage with their NCOs and officers within their jurisdiction. Once permission was granted, police officers were approached and asked a screening question on rank. If they were an NCO or low-ranked officer, the survey or structured interview commenced. This purposive strategy of sampling was convenient and proved effective in such insecure conditions. Much of the literature in the field focuses on grand corruption without understanding the impact of malfeasance by the beat cop, and their perceptions of the issue. In this chapter I provide a discussion of the 2012  survey and 2016 structured interviews that relate to the findings of the semistructured interviews, the literature and public corruption perception reports. I refer to public corruption perception reports in this chapter because they reveal state illegitimacy and perceptions that confirm a corrupt police force. I explore the forms and manifestations of corruption in relation to the Afghan police sector. These perceptions are examined within the political, economic and cultural drivers of corruption. The three drivers of police corruption provide the original framework of this book rather than drawing on a specific typology, such as Khalid’s (2016) research on three Pakistan police departments that framed the empirical findings orientated on Huberts’ (1998) typology of corruption and integrity violations. Chapter 8 will cover strategies to curb these drivers of corruption (as prevention) from a EUPOL-supported MoIA anti-corruption strategy, pay reform, recruitment, meritocracy initiatives and a stationing strategy.

Political drivers The political drivers of corruption cover job buying, which is a consequence of systemic corruption, patronage and nepotism, and then state capture.

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Payoffs, patronage and nepotism Systemic corruption is widespread within the MoIA, which is linked with petty forms of corruption within a self-perpetuating system to benefit all the corrupt agents involved. Individuals buy or let a position by repaying a lump sum and/or send a monthly apportionment of bribes extorted upwards in the chain of command that reaches their superior or appointer. Bribery and extortion in the lower police ranks can be linked to paying off their superior, police chief and/or appointer to continue working in a high drug-producing area (Rubin, 2013: 397). It was also stressed by 42 per cent of a UNDP nationwide survey that bribery and gift giving were frequently provided when collaborating with the ANP (UNDP, 2009: 5–6). Afghans regularly pay cash or a gift to police officers and other state officials (IWA, 2018: 42). A rule of law specialist, and former Mujahidin fighter, stated that kickbacks, protecting illegal activities and internal payoffs are evident among police chiefs, which intensifies bribery, [The] person who is going to be appointed to a chief of police in that province or even that district has to have a strong agreement to send a specific amount of dollars every month to the person here. This is one deal. The other deal is that he has to pay the entire amount in the first place, then he has to achieve it when he is working there. For this reason, even in the Defence Ministry, the positions are hard to sell and are not cheap. They are very expensive and that is the reason why people are getting in those positions, by having money. If a person pays US$50,000 then he will be governor for that province, but some provinces might cost $200,000 or $300,000.1 Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi (2015: 29) also suggest that a provincial chief of police post can be purchased for up to US$200,000. The Director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS) specifically stressed that ‘at the higher levels, the senior ministers, police chiefs and governor positions are provided by those in political office which is based on bids, which is expensive in poppy places, and loyalty’.2 This deal is so that the police chiefs or other individuals can retain their post, which is frequent, and costs more money in profitable drug-producing areas. Internal payoffs are also intertwined with nonmeritocratic employment and widespread patron–client relationships. The point made is that the MoIA is arguably a shop that sells positions

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to the highest auction-goers. A structured interview respondent stated one main practice of corruption in the ANP which was to pay for positions, which indicates that positions are sold within the Afghan police force. Payment for positions was the highest reported main practice of police corruption, stressed by 46 out of the 50 structured interview respondents in 2016. The political structures that include internal payoffs, kickbacks, turning a blind eye or shakedowns and the protection of illegal activities are compliant with Roebuck and Barker’s (1974: 429–31, 434) famous typology of police corruption. These mechanisms benefit the governing elite, local power brokers and criminal networks involved in the narcotics trade. These actors have seized parts of the state, resulting in regular intrusion to subvert law enforcement to protect and preserve drug trafficking. State capture has thus undermined law enforcement actions through patronage, bribery, fear and threats.3 Additional perceptions revealed that former President Karzai’s cabinet had been engaged in the drug trade. A worker for the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) stressed that ‘there are many provincial governors who bid and gain from their links based on their kin or nepotism to control areas’.4 The Asia Foundation’s Head of Access to Justice Programme stated that the late ‘Ahmad Wali Karzai, who is the half-brother of Hamid Karzai, is a notorious drug trafficker in the whole of Afghanistan and has been selected by his president brother to control Kandahar as governor’.5 These manifestations suggest that corruption is systemic and entrenched in the bulk of state institutions in Afghanistan, which includes the Afghan Ministry of Interior. Additional powerful individuals with strong political ties pass the screening procedures and a few are voted into provincial councils and the presidential cabinet legally. It was stressed by the Chair of a well-known Afghan and US-linked research consortium that ‘almost all parliamentary elections comprise of contenders affiliated with armed militia groups who are already in power and have the monopoly of money and guns, usually gained from opium trading’.6 ‘Electoral problems have derived from 2005–09 with the issue of the government when it comes to corruption, which is a very significant challenge to any struggling democracy, which is where Afghanistan is.’7 To specify, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) stressed that in March 2010, Hamid Karzai approved an emergency decree that altered the Election Law before the elections, which resulted in the removal of impartiality from electoral law that left his designated ministers in office.8 This provides an example of

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patronage and state capture simultaneously insofar as electoral law was changed to ensure that presidential political cronies remained in office in order to retain clientelistic links. As a consequence of alleged patronage under the former Karzai administration, ex-Mujahidin Gul Agha Shirzai served as Nangarhar’s governor and had served as Kandahar’s governor from December 2001 to August 2003 for a second term (Rubin, 2013: 124). Gul Agha is notorious for his rule of bribery and extortion, narcotics trafficking and prevalent theft throughout his initial term as Kandahar’s governor from 1992–94 (Chouvy, 2010: 56). Despite previous allegations of corruption, he continued to serve in Karzai’s cabinet. Even though he perpetrated heinous human rights abuses for 20 years, Gul Agha ironically made speeches in the Rule of Law Conference for Eastern Afghanistan on 11 October 2009, in Jalalabad (Pokharel, 2009). The lack of public faith in human rights abusers and criminals aiding the presidential cabinet has resulted in weak state legitimacy.9 In addition, when there was worldwide pressure to punish Afghan elites for corruption and drug-related offences, Hamid Karzai’s aides derailed such cases. The Director of a human rights capacity-building organisation argued that in the event of drug-related corruption probes, the Afghan President transferred notorious provincial governors into the presidential cabinet rather than disbanding them, which hinders state legitimacy, governance and the rule of law.10 She specifically stated that, When there are drug-related corruption probes, Karzai transfers infamous provincial governors into his cabinet and I have to ask why they are appointed. Ministers are appointed despite involvement in drug trafficking and corruption which clearly goes against state legitimacy, governance and the rule of law.11 Despite international drug-related corruption probes, the ethnically Tajik leader, Ismail Khan, was removed as Herat’s governor. However, Khan was promoted to Minister of Energy and Water in 2006, and retained influence in Herat, to deliver pivotal Tajik votes for Karzai in Herat that would have gone to Abdullah. Hence, instead of the Afghan President dismissing notorious and unqualified individuals engaged in the narcotics trade from the post of provincial governor, they were instead promoted within the cabinet due to patronage ties for stability and securing votes. This patronage-based system was evident with both Sher Mohammad and Ismail Khan being removed from their provincial

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governorships to parliamentary and cabinet positions as conciliatory gestures to use their private armies, networks and political support. During the interviews, there were signs of discontent concerning the presidential cabinet members and governors retaining their positions despite human rights violations. As one example, a governmental employee stressed that, The political situation does not help either, especially in the south. Warlords that fuel drugs and have guns and money sit in the political system. Ismail Khan is causing havoc. Why don’t the international actors just wipe out the 20 or so of these individuals so that reconstruction can continue without disturbance?12 Furthermore, the Country Director of Global Rights: Partners for Justice stated that Karzai appointed the chief of counter-narcotics, despite his known involvement in corruption. She stated that, [T]ake the counter-narcotics minister, it would appear with others that he has been put out of one place or another for being corrupt but as many people who have questioned his reputation for integrity. I have to ask, why did he get appointed to that position?13 The Country Director is referring to ex-Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbel. Moqbel was disbanded from his post in October 200814 due to US and British allegations of ineptitude, selling jobs and appointing predacious police chiefs who frequently conspired with drug smugglers, but he was paradoxically voted back into the presidential cabinet as chief of counter-narcotics. It seems that the Afghan government lacked the political will to challenge the drug trade and corruption. This explains how these political factors result in patronage and drug-related corruption. Similarly, in the Afghan police force, patronage-based relations influence the recruitment of police officers. Thirty-six out of the 100 survey respondents in 2012 believed that patronage influenced the police recruitment process, and examples were provided. These instances were based on appointments when a police officer knew a senior officer or a commander. However, this perception increased if measured in percentages with the data collected in 2016. Thirty-five out of the 50 structured interview respondents stressed that factional, kinship, tribal, ethnic or geographical ties influenced appointments

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in the Afghan police force and the MoIA. Examples provided ranged from the selection of people who were not qualified, experienced or physically fit to perform the role due to patronage relations (which includes familial or tribal ties). This data reveals that the perceptions on patronage influencing the recruitment process in the Afghan police force and MoIA strengthened from 2012 to 2016. In addition, patronage is a recognised definition of corruption in the ANP. A specialist on the rule of law also claimed that recruitment in the MoIA is based on patronage, favouritism and nepotism, In the Afghan government, we now even have our traditional problems. For example, when you are the Ministry of Interior you can recruit most of the staff/ employees in the Ministry of Interior from your family and even for your deputies: my cousin as the director of human resources, and my nephew as his deputy. They plant them. It is all clientelistic within personally preferred family and acquaintances.15 The study conducted by Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi (2015: 6, 21, 25) on appointments within the MoIA also reveal that nepotism, patronage and job buying were influential in attaining posts. If applying a political economic examination, the situation of factional and political competition – that can often concern policy-making – is protected with informal authoritative rules to allocate state resources. Moreover, informal rules are grounded on distinct tribal, familial and social connections for elites to retain their power and for factions to compete. Usually, patronage is exploited to acquire access to limited public resources such as political decisions, appointments and goods. Apart from public resources and material goods, patrons can offer access to public services such as housing, healthcare or social security. Patrons may provide other immaterial goods, for instance, assistance in court and protection against law enforcement officers and obtaining construction licenses. These resources are traded among patrons and clients to benefit the private governmental interests of the ruling elite. In addition, political parties can disperse administrative positions within state institutions to individuals for an exchange of political loyalty and electoral support. Political parties have authority and are capable of distributing state resources unequally to preferred electorates that comprise regional groups or specific social classes. The selective and unequal distribution of state resources from political parties in exchange for votes from clients fits the broader notion

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of corruption because public power is abused for party rather than private gain. In the context of Afghanistan, patronage was also traditional. This patronage system was influenced by Islamic codes, was inherited, often patrilineal, and the relationship between the patron and client was closed to certain groups (Isby, 2011). Yet the war in opposition of the Soviet invasion altered traditional patronage mechanisms. The previous elites exploited and extracted resources from the populace to a population where newly formed elites – namely Mujahidin commanders – were in authority to redistribute resources (predominantly aid) to the populace in exchange for loyalty and support. Nevertheless, traditional-based structures of patronage during the late 1980s to early 1990s remain in relation to the access granted by strongmen of agricultural land for poppy cultivation, roads, and markets for opium trading to clients. A Director of a research organisation argued that the previous resistance of the Soviet invasion resulted in several Mujahidin factions in the north, which later become the Northern Alliance, with the purpose of defeating the Taliban in their southern strongholds, In the north before the war, when the Soviets invaded, this local Mujahidin – general commanders – gradually replaced the traditional landowners and farms because they mostly either left to the West or Pakistan, India or Iran. But they were replaced by Mujahidin commanders and then the local commanders sat in the Jirgas and some of them were predatory and some of them were definitely criminals. Yet, at least at the larger regional level in the north, they were divided by several regions. Despite the complexity, there was cohesion that emerged among leadership development. There was a kind of relation between the old who defined themselves against the Taliban together. The Taliban had been together and had created leadership and this leadership then sold the support of the second and third levels of people who kept coming, especially the youth, and put them in the system.16 A researcher for an Afghan political think tank also stated that ‘those former commander networks based on the loyalties during the communist and then Mujahidin civil war are still very much in place’.17 Therefore, patronage, clientelism and traditional and informal structures of kinship and clan groups are engrained in the Afghan political system and social culture.18 Those in authoritative posts – such

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as senior officials, governors and khans at the local level – acquire and distribute state resources from the government or market through trading, smuggling or patronage. Political elites function as patrons who provide jobs and grant favours that are based on relations, support and political loyalty. This political economy structure is to form and maintain clientelistic networks rather than recruitment based on values of meritocracy and fairness that supersedes talent. At state level, the USA and their international supporters have failed to deal with preceding patronage circles. The USA backed the Emergency Loya Jirga during 11–19 June 2002 to select an interim Afghan government. This grand assembly supported the political interim leadership of Hamid Karzai under the 2004 parliamentary elections with the hope that he would reap the largest global rents from the Western states. Therefore, the Karzai administration was inaugurated as the interim authority and Western supporters, for combat or services, reimbursed local warlords who were previously engaged in gross human rights abuses in order to progress their strategic interests. These warlords entered trade in opium and arms, which financed their continual warfare, even after substantive drug prohibition programmes since April 2002. Karzai selected Ahmad Wali, his late half-brother, as Kandahar’s governor who allegedly, after suspicions from the British and US diplomats, became one of the most notorious and powerful narcotics traffickers in the entirety of Afghanistan. Similarly, Afghans share the same perception of Hamid Karzai’s brother, Ahmad Wali, ‘being involved in drugs and corruption in Kandahar’ and being one of the ‘biggest drug traffickers’ in the country.19 The Washington Post was also sceptical of Ahmad Wali retaining his post as chair that strengthened the Taliban movement to oust corruption (Jaffe, 2010). These illicit black market trades persist as principal informal sources of income and authority, which is comparable to the international donor aid that fuelled Karzai’s revenue and power. Karzai established a network based on personal patronage connections with provincial appointments to survive in the Afghan political system by gaining influence at the provincial levels. He gained the backing from warlords who held influence in the countryside by hiring or paying them off with deals of cabinet positions or governor posts. Hamid Karzai’s cabinet consisted of several warlords who were legitimised, and they remained in power during the elections to develop anti-Taliban clientelistic relations in order to extend security in rural locations beyond the capacity of the ANA. In May 2004, the electoral law prohibited party lists and prescribed a ‘single non-transferable’ system of voting that protected pre-

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existing Afghan politics. This system was based on patronage and the authoritative influence of regionally based warlords and strongmen. Consequently, patronage associations were further influenced by warlords to provide security in the countryside, due to the poorly equipped and underpaid ANA,20 and additional authoritative electoral contenders remained to dictate Afghan politics. Corrupt patronage networks also influence senior appointments that hinder the efficiency of public services.21 A specialist on transitional justice for an Afghan research consortium argued that close ties with the Afghan president resulted in warlords heading senior positions. She stated that, Certain networks are the gist of loyalty and I think that this concerns people. This was the case even with Karzai when he chose his running mates. Therefore, when Karzai brought back Dostum and Fahim into power and said we need the people behind them supporting them. People in the government or people in the international community are fearful that if you take out someone like Fahim or Dostum, who are popular in some areas, then the people in that area will rise up. I think those old networks still exist very much.22 Similarly, Ghani used the support of Uzbek warlord Dostum for his 2014 presidential election despite naming him ‘a killer’, unable to punish him for ordering a recent abduction, rape and torture abuses of a political opponent, Ahmad Ishchi (Wilford, 2017). Dostum remains protected so that Ghani can retain support in the Uzbek provinces, and there are an estimated 2 million militiamen loyal to Dostum in the north, so an arrest could cause civil unrest (Rasmussen, 2017a). Hamid Karzai had virtually no influence or control over the state security institutions. Due to the lack of control, he offered regional power brokers such as Burhanuddin Rabbani of the Northern Alliance, and Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf of the Mujahidin Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan party, the freedom to select cabinet ministers, presidential officials and police chiefs to safeguard their corrupt practices and drug trade, in return for their support. The accretion of state resources has augmented both inter-factional competitiveness and the rates of jobs; the latter has resulted in the auction of positions and fortification that also occurs in the Presidential Office. Therefore, even after Karzai, patronage still exists during the Ashraf Ghani period, so bias is not intended, but rather, this political economic analysis demonstrates that systemic practices of patronage

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are merely distributed to favoured individuals and groups in exchange for security (and political) support. There are international assumptions based on the failed state paradigm. This pattern occurs when a state’s central authority is too weak to implement law that offers warlords and other paramilitaries the prospect of creating networks in order to reinforce protection and an illicit black market industry. Most of the interview participants, many of whom have been quoted in this chapter,23 agreed with the international postulation of the failed state model concerning Afghan warlords and commanders engaging in opium trafficking that undermines anti-corruption procedures. The tribal structure of patronage, which has elevated local warlords, has also influenced appointments in the Afghan police institution. The lower ranks of the AUP are more susceptible to corruption in order to illicitly supplement their wages by working part-time for the insurgency as a means of economic survival.24 Unsolicited secondment relates to the abuse of police uniform for moonlighting purposes, which, according to Huberts (1998: 28–30), is an integrity violation. The Afghan police force is also undermined with prevalent corruption and clientelism, and a huge segment of the force are persistently loyal and report to local warlords and regional commanders instead of the state MoIA and centralised administration. It has been contended by a Research Officer for a major Afghan think tank that if the Afghan police ‘were formerly loyal to an ex-commander in the north, they are probably still loyal to that commander than they are to the central government’.25 For instance, the Afghan police, and armed forces and irregular militias, retain loyalty to the Uzbek warlord General Dostum rather than the state (Singh, 2014: 631; Wilford, 2017). Dostum was formerly the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the ANA under Karzai. The current Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, has favoured General Dostum as Vice-President to utilise Dostum’s militias based in Jowzjan and the neighbouring provinces to fight the Taliban, despite residents claiming that the militias, engaged in torture and kidnapping, are just as dangerous (Rasmussen, 2017a). This political economy structure fits the ‘moral economy’ – as Olivier de Sardan (1999: 25–6) relates ‘cultural codes’ and a value system that justifies everyday corrupt practice – because patronage and corruption is culturally rooted, morally accepted and embedded from the top to the bottom levels. Thirty-one per cent of IWA’s (2010: 13) household survey respondents claimed that they relied on ethnic affiliation with state officials when engaging in corrupt transactions, which had increased from 17 per cent in 2007. Moreover,

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the Afghan President selects his police chiefs and provincial-based governors who subsequently pick the district sub-governors, with little interference from the US  Embassy, despite suspicions of the development of patronage-based local armed militias. At the provincial level, commanders, elders and local power brokers recruit most local police under patronage. The data collected also confers with these perceptions on patronage due to the power of elders influencing the recruitment of the police at local levels. In particular, 14 out of the 100 survey respondents claimed that they were posted by elder selection in their local area. The influence of elders increased from 2012 to 2016 – 33 out of the 50 structured interview respondents stated that they were recruited and stationed from their local elders. Even with the vast capitals financed by international donor aid, patronage has thrived as a predominant source of presidential power and income. It has been contended that the Ghani administration captures the same authorities, patronage-based relations and donor assistance that Karzai had (Hyman, 2014: 28–9). To support this claim, Ghani has been criticised for favouring a high proportion of Pashtuns within his administration, forming an ‘inner circle’ (Gossman, 2017). In direct relation to the Afghan police, the MoIA under Karzai embedded corruption into the Ministry based on connections, so senior people in posts with no qualifications or experience were hired, and this cycle is hard to break (Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi, 2015: 21). Patrons distribute state resources and appointments as favours to individuals and groups striving for them, and this can unsettle the clarity of policymaking and police reform. These patronage relationships also have a significant impact on the perceived legitimacy of the police due to both the police’s interior structures and promotions alongside police relationships with local communities. Hence, it is important to stress that ethnic favouritism is not a major driver of corruption among the Afghan police but rather, recruitment is based on loyalty to those in command. A huge slice of the force provides loyalty to local warlords and regional commanders instead of the Afghan MoIA. These forms of loyalty are usually engrained within a locality. The overly centralised Afghan government is hampered by prevalent nepotism and corruption. Former President Karzai isolated Pashtun tribes in principally Pashtun Kandahar by employing childhood friend Tooryalai Wesa – associated with the minority Mohammadzai tribe – as Kandahar’s governor as an alternative to someone from the majority Ghilzai tribe (Pape and Feldman, 2010: 124). To provide a more recent example, the Director of the newly created Supreme Audit Office, Sharif Sharifi, is the brother of Yunus Qanuni, ex-Vice-

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President and prominent figure of a powerful faction, and held his auditor general post from 2002 until early 2019 (Bjelica, 2019: 11). Hence, nepotism – mainly favouritism – is a result of the traditional tribal system that has been enforced by a centralised government. Consequently, nepotism has also not been fought in the new Afghan administration. Despite President Ghani’s strong campaign on fighting institutionalised nepotism and corruption, virtually no steps have been undertaken, and thus nepotism and corruption – alongside terrorism and high unemployment rates – remain due to the sole concentration on fighting the insurgency to retain control of districts or cities. The NATO Resolute Support Mission recently declared its mandate to both fight the insurgency and to train the security forces, with both components placed at the heart of COIN (Nicholson, 2017: 2–3). Efforts to combat the insurgency and corrupt practices remain widespread, but nepotism remains unmentioned in Afghan law. This section has highlighted that there are political problems with clientelism and the ‘moral economy’, principally in relation to patronage political networks that have become exclusionary around the Afghan presidential cabinet. Robust procedures for merit-based recruitment are virtually non-existent, from the government division down to the ministries, particularly the MoIA, which are cemented on entrenched patronage and factionalism when appointing chief personnel. Moreover, elders at the local level are influential when appointing new recruits. These patronage-based practices persist because ministries lack the capacity to install clear, open and meritbased appointment procedures and accountability systems are weak, with few CSOs to voice concerns. Futile oversight does little to challenge parliamentary bodies that promote patronage. A worker for Action Aid claimed that ‘civil society doesn’t shout and they don’t organise in hard areas’.26 ‘There is no mechanism to have civil society as a watchdog on the civilian side of the government in the state’.27 Those in senior ministerial posts, especially within the MoIA, place their family, friends and childhood friends into posts.28 It is widely viewed that influential and important appointments are devoted to superiors’ relatives, friends and close dependents. For instance, a representative of the NDI argued that ‘Afghanistan is a tribal society and everyone is related to someone’; therefore, ‘it’s a community collective group obligation and is selected by the ends of people that are corrupt’.29 These perceptions reveal that recruitment is influenced by patronage connections or internal payoffs for senior positions, but civil society is too weak to make changes to these deep roots of corruption and patronage. Furthermore, laws are tainted or altered to retain political

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positions of favoured ministers despite narcotics and/or corruption probes, which links with state capture. State capture State capture can loosely be defined as a political party, a majority ethnic group or security force that seizes the state to benefit the narrow private interests of criminal networks, armed groups or powerful drug traffickers, which hinders state security and bureaucracy (Singh, 2019: 205). In Afghanistan, main parts of the state are usually infiltrated by an array of warlords and criminal groups engaging in drug trafficking as a shadow economy.30 Criminal networks liaise with political elites to benefit from the illegal and informal opium economy. This political economy interaction includes ministries, government and security and justice sectors that are permeated to protect and maintain the electoral interests of politicians or the narrow interests of illegal non-state criminal networks and private groups for individual gain.31 This lures political elites and state officials to engage in illicit and profitable black market trading such as narcotics and arms smuggling.32 The opium trade has led to frail law enforcement because of the political meddling with the security and justice sectors, which is why SSR was implemented in 2002 to deal with such issues. Influential drug lords, high-ranking officials and mineral traffickers who are involved in such illegal doings maintain protection from prosecution. Law enforcement actors such as the ANP and border police extort bribes to influence arrests and non-arrests that negatively affect legal actions. These practices of turning a blind eye and protection of illegal activities fit within Roebuck and Barker’s (1974: 430–2) typology of police corruption. These activities adversely affect the roles and functions of the police that are tainted by both political and criminal interference. A manager for a civil society group argued that ‘now, the drug mafia has increased insecurity and the Afghan government has been involved’.33 Such intrusion of the police, including many police chiefs, is formed to protect and preserve criminal groups and elitist black market trading. The ANP is influenced by powerful elites or private groups to discharge drug smugglers, murderers and thieves. Consequently, the Afghan police function based on arrests, bribes and releases, abusing human rights through illicit and arbitrary detentions, and the police are highly engaged in extortion and narcotics trafficking. These practices of police corruption also relate to Huberts’ (1998: 28–30) integrity violations on police

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corruption and intimidation and discrimination of citizens (with arbitrary detention). Politicians, elites, criminal armed groups and narcotics smugglers who influence verdicts through bribery, threats, harassment, fear or intimidation similarly penetrate the judiciary. This form of state capture fits the explanations of a political economic approach, as illustrated by Rose-Ackerman (1996). She later argued that private groups such as drug lords bribe, threaten or intimidate public officials and law enforcement officers in exchange for retaining immunity from prosecution and to retain their authority in the black market (Rose-Ackerman, 1997). In a nationwide survey conducted by the UNDP, over half of the participants advocated that the disbursement of a bribe might influence an early release for a powerful or politically connected individual from police custody (UNDP, 2009: 20). A well-published rule of law specialist contended that narcotics traffickers with powerful political connections avoid jail. The courts operate to serve their interests because of bribery or fear, threats or intimidation.34 A senior member of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission held the same view. He contended that ‘if infamous criminals, warlords and drug traders are caught’, subsequently ‘they are released on the same day by police due to a bribe or fear; if not by the police then by the Attorney General or the prison could issue a decree’.35 Similarly, a specialist working in Afghanistan’s highest anti-corruption agency (at that time) stated that ‘if somebody with power is arrested, the next day he’s released on bail and he’s never prosecuted or pursued again and this is due to existing laws not being implemented’.36 He further argued that this was the main difficulty, due to influential connections, poor transparency and ‘lack of political will’.37 The accused who are released are frequently renowned narcotics smugglers.38 These interviewee excerpts contend that Afghan senior officials collude with corrupt figures, including narcotics smugglers, and interfere in the criminal justice system by releasing them from investigation and/or custody. Even when suspected narcotics traffickers are detained by the ANP or coalition forces, they are often released due to corrupt judges or political pressure on the police and judges to avert investigations so that presidential and parliamentarian loyalty with local warlords and clan frontrunners can persist. Cases are therefore frequently influenced by bribes and the bribe payers or those who have powerful connections are not kept in police custody and do not serve custodial sentences.39 Protection from prosecution is a commodity that can be bought if the bribe paid is superior to the penalties for rejection.40 By way of illustration,

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Mohammad Alim Hanif, Chief Judge of the Central Narcotics Tribunal Appeals Court based in Kabul, declined to accept a bribe to influence the decision of a trial and was consequently shot dead on 4 September 2008 by an undisclosed gunman (UNODC, 2010: 249). More recently, on 6  July 2019, an ACJC employee, Abdul Qadir (a prosecutor), was shot dead and another ACJC employee, Karimullah, was injured on his way to work in Kabul city (Afghanistan Attorney General’s Office, 2019). These manifestations attained from the interview participants and two cases advocate that the fundamental conditions of the Afghan state have led to intrusion in criminal and corruption probes. Weak, corrupted and permeated law enforcement noticeably fits international elucidations of state capture, which explains such detrimental corrupt activities and challenges to the rule of law and policing. Once institutions and ministries of the Afghan state have been permeated to obligate the private interests of criminals, namely the well-structured drug mafia, systemic corruption interconnected with the narcotics industry corrodes state institutions. The narcotics trade is a predominant source of revenue for local warlords’ private militias, which are connected to the Afghan government, while the Taliban exchanges narcotics for arms. A member of the HOOAC contended that political aides affiliated with the President and his cronies alter and corrupt legal inquiries, judicial processes and anti-corruption attempts in order to maintain their authority in the system of allocating benefits.41 These defensive practices are commonly endorsed throughout the main institutions. Intrusion with investigations is due to the economic and political bartering powers of the bribe’s bases and receivers. On the other hand, these politicised institutions similarly redistribute state resources. These affairs are vital to a political economy approach – which includes limited access orders – when examining corruption. The state resources are redistributed from elites to favoured groups, which includes jobs, social provision and economic benefits. For instance, Ismail Khan (former governor of Herat, Western Afghanistan, and Minister of Water and Energy) recruited and rearmed Herat militias who he controlled during the Mujahidin era and loyal Tajiks due to his negative perceptions of international forces (Alikuzai, 2013: 993). Khan’s allegiance to loyal militias over new police recruits, while supporting Hamid Karzai, clearly circumvented the MoIA meritocratic appointments system. Therefore, Afghanistan has fragile governmental institutions and investigative units are not free from political influence that challenges their independence. The Global Rights Director stressed

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that the Afghan administration undoubtedly does not desire ‘a truly independent judiciary or anti-corruption agencies’.42 Similarly, the ACC is yet to be established and it is questionable whether the Commission will operate with independence (UNAMA, 2019: 4). Due to such practices of political interference that serve the interests of criminals, anti-corruption agencies’ chiefs apply their discretionary powers, flexibility and ‘leave cases on the shelf ’ to ensure that certain individuals with political acquaintances are not held accountable.43 Therefore, state capture has developed due to the permeation of the predominant parts of the state, which includes the police sector and anti-corruption institutions, from the corrupt interests of politicians and criminals linked with the narcotics industry.44 Afghan parliamentarians and senior elites who were involved in narcotics smuggling, war crimes or human rights abuses prior to 2001 were forgiven, conferring to the 2007 Amnesty Blanket Immunity Law. ‘The Amnesty Law contravenes’ international law, the rule of law and ‘Shari’a law’.45 All people, irrespective of political position, involved in war crimes and human rights violations must be held accountable because under ‘the rule of law, no one should be treated above the law’.46 A UN human rights expert shared this perspective. She stated that, There is Amnesty Law in Afghanistan which was passed in 2009; passed before in 2007 by the Afghan Parliament but came into force in 2009 and this Amnesty Law contravenes all international standards. It is a blanket amnesty covering all typology of crimes and offences. This, in turn, has no time frame as said in the public report of March 2010 and thus green lights impunity. There is no exception. International law is very clear. Crimes under international law which are crimes of war: war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture cannot be pardoned from the positive way where each state has an obligation to investigate and prosecute crimes under international law.47 As a problem of strategy, this Amnesty Law should be rescinded if the rule of law and compliance with international law are to be reinforced (HRW, 2010b). Hence, the causes and consequences of corruption that are constructed on the structures, institutions and political and illegitimate groups’ procedures – underlined by a political economy doctrine – demonstrate the reciprocal impacts of the activities of the rule of law and law enforcement.

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Economic drivers The economic drivers cover an analysis of low pay and bribery and extortion in the Afghan police, which includes their relationship with each other. There is also a discussion on opportunity and the susceptibility of the lower ranks engaging in such practices. Economic necessity In relation to Afghan police officers, corruption is initiated by the deprivation of economic necessity to supplement low wages, and thus bribery is a socially accepted practice (Singh, 2019: 204). Data from the AUP suggests that low pay is a main cause of corruption, bribery is a main practice, and petty corruption, due to poor wages, is the justification. In particular, 22 out of the 100 survey respondents claimed that low pay was the second highest cause of police corruption. The perception of low pay being a main cause of police corruption increased to 29 out of 50 structured interview respondents in 2016, and 33 stated that corruption was viewed as acceptable practice. During the semi-structured interviews conducted in 2010 and 2012, there were many accounts of why Afghan police officers, especially the lower ranks, were involved in corrupt practices. For instance, a Project Coordinator for a research and advocacy organisation claimed that ‘low salaries in the police are not sufficient for them to meet their family needs’.48 The Executive Director for the International Assistance Mission (IAM) stressed that ‘unless you pay the police a proper salary, you’re going to invite them to be corrupt’.49 A ministerial employee stressed that the Afghan police: [G]et peanuts that hardly caters for their food so they have to do other things and some may join the insurgency, part-time, or other clientelistic networks. The police earn around 70 Afghanis a day [an estimated US$1.45 at the time] and most are illiterate with minimal training despite international donors.50 Salaries are fixed way below levels of basic subsistence, which is why gifts in exchange for favours are deemed natural as part of traditional behaviour.51 In the Afghan police, salaries are insufficient to cater for living costs in the majority of provinces. Consequently, the ANP engage in bribery and extortion as main sources of income, and drug abuse52 as economic survival and coping mechanisms. High illiteracy

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rates and drug abuse is historically apparent with lower-ranked AUP officers, which makes them vulnerable to desertion (Daulatzai, 2015: 2). In the ANP, wages were increased by a governmental tashkil in November 2005, which came into force in July 2006, to put wages on a level with the ANA to alleviate petty corruption. Yet even after pay reform, wages remained low, but the opportunities for corruption are high, leaders remain corrupt and oversight is weak. The majority of the 2012 survey and 2016 structured interview respondents expressed that their salary, after pay reform, was inadequate to cater for an Afghan family’s living costs – 35 out of the 50 structured interview respondents had either received a pay rise or been promoted, and 40 stated negative opinions on pay reform. When analysing the structured interviews, mainly with NCOs and lower-ranked officers, there are deficits to report on salary and living costs. The average salary of the 50 respondents was 11,451.20 Afghan Afghani (AFN) per month. The average living costs for all the respondents was 17,530 AFN monthly.53 This means that there was a deficit of 5,690.80 AFN per month. In relation to soldiers (the lowest-ranked NCO), the average monthly salary of these 31 NCOs was 10,239.68 AFN (to two decimal places). The average monthly cost of living and total expenses for soldiers was 17,225.8 AFN, which means a deficit of 6,986.12 AFN per month. However, the mode salary of soldiers was 10,300 AFN per month and the deficit, if taking the mode salary into consideration, was 6,925.8 AFN per month. Therefore, the deficit of wages to cater for living costs and expenses was greater for the lowest-ranked Afghan NCOs. In 2012, when analysing the 76 patrol officers in the survey, the average total monthly cost of living and expenses was 15,237 AFN, which means that the cost of living had risen since 2012 by 1,988.80  AFN per month for patrol officers. Since 2012–16, the cost of living has increased by 1,988.80  AFN monthly for patrol officers, and the deficit of wages in comparison to pay for soldiers was 6,986 AFN monthly. The majority of the respondents in 2016 (32 out of 50) therefore stressed that their pay was not enough to cover all their living costs. The deficits of wages to cover living costs frequently resulted in police officers thieving and engaging in other petty acts of corruption for economic survival. It has been argued by Afghan legal experts that wages need to be efficiently restructured in the Afghan police to decrease bribery and other forms of petty corruption.54 Moreover, anti-corruption staff and senior employees of CSOs stressed that if the security forces are paid

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higher wages, it can pledge economic security for housing, living and familial costs, augment state loyalty and curb both corruption and the growing insurgency.55 A Legal Consultant of the JSSP contended that it costs ‘not less than US$400’ to rent a house in Afghanistan, and the salaries of police officers are lower than 50 per cent of this figure. Consequently, when a police officer ‘does not have enough money to pay the rent of his house, he will take bribes. Higher salaries are another resolution’ to combat this.56 Therefore, the provision of sufficient salaries, secure living standards and a healthcare scheme can lessen incentives for corrupt activities that are pivotal to curb police corruption in Afghanistan.57 If this is supported, corruption and economic necessity are unified. If police salaries are increased, corruption may decrease. Increasing pay to curtail corruption is only functional if one infers that corrupt behaviour is prompted by low wages, and thus money obtained from bribery would be reduced in value, although not to zero, if salaries increased. In order to address this, US$3.17 billion has been donated to the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA) by the international community to reform and increase police wages, but salaries remain low (Mulero, 2014). The EU Delegation ‘pay the salaries of the police’ and ‘are the biggest contributor to LOTFA: The Rule of Law Trust Fund’.58 The practices of police corruption covered in this section, namely taking bribes, turning a blind eye, working part-time for the insurgency and protection of the drug trade, overlap with typologies of police corruption and integrity violations (Roebuck and Barker, 1974: 429–32; Huberts, 1998: 28–30). Bribery and extortion Low pay in the Afghan police, as identified above, is related to bribery and extortion for supplementation of poor wages. According to the data, bribery and roadside extortion was identified as one of the main practices of Afghan police corruption. Twenty out of the 100 survey respondents expressed this in 2012, which had increased by 2016, with 42 out of the 50 structured interview respondents stating bribery and roadside extortion as a main practice of Afghan police corruption. Traditional practices of police corruption were also highly reported. In particular, 13 of the respondents stressed bribery and extortion as the meaning of corruption in the Afghan police force. They stated that corruption existed when the police took money for performing their job. Traffic police in the provinces demand disbursements to permit vehicles to pass. If such requests are not paid, drivers can be

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fined for spurious abuses, and the proceeds are subsequently paid to the police chief. Reports also support this notion. The police hold illegal checkpoints, drivers risk having their cars damaged and truckers reported being taken hostage to pay a ransom for their release (SIGAR, 2017: 133). The police still engage in roadside extortion with the use of informal checkpoints aimed at truckers (Shalizi, 2019). There are firm influences encouraging police corruption such as the potential illegal plunders to be acquired by participating in poppy trafficking. This enticement with the lucrative drug trade frequently arises, provincially with the local government at higher levels and local power brokers at the lower levels. The police, law enforcement staff and counter-narcotics prohibition teams also control poppy extermination schemes by regularly accepting and extracting bribes from farmers and/or drug traffickers, which erodes the rule of law. These forms of corruption also conform to Roebuck and Barker’s (1974: 430–1) typology that includes shakedowns to turn a blind eye and the protection of illegal drug cultivation and trading. The Taliban, local power-holders, the police, drug interdiction forces and the ALP forcibly tax farmers who grow the illegal poppy crop in order to maintain profitable incomes for poppy farming due to the absence of the Afghan government in these remote and hostile areas (Home Office, 2019: 39). A recent opium survey conducted by the UNODC (2019: 5, 42) reported that poppy-cultivating farmers paid an estimated 5 per cent tax to state or non-state actors from 36 per cent of villages, and half paid tax to AOGs that included (17 per cent) referring to the Taliban by name. The ANSF engage in many other activities of corruption rather than merely taxing growers of the illicit poppy crop or opium trafficking. SIGAR (2017: 133) reports that Afghans perceive the MoIA, provincial police chiefs and the ANP as involved in the narcotics trade. Felbab-Brown (2017a) also suggests that provincial police chiefs and officers profit from the opium business. A specialist on the rule of law for UNAMA stressed that ‘now, the security sector is facing serious challenges from the lack of trust of the security forces from citizens. At the regional level, corruption is also widespread all over institutions and this is more evident in the security forces’.59 Corruption in the Afghan police force has therefore tainted civilian trust and, as argued by a senior member of a media institute, possibly fuelled the insurgency.60 Similarly, the revised AntiCorruption Strategy recognises that corruption undermines security, reduces trust in governance and weakens the rule of law by granting access to state funds and patronage that push dissatisfied youth to join in the insurgency (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2018: 1).

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The Rule of Law Advisor for USIP contended that narcotics traffickers have the ability and influence to bribe or intimidate and threaten the Afghan police to close their custodial sentences.61 The majority of the ANP – especially the border police and the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan – are widely engaged in drug-related corruption. Powerful narcotics traffickers and criminals frequently bribe border police, senior or police officers for an exchange in the form of cash inducements in the opium industry, and local power brokers are also involved in the drug-related protection trade. Senior police officers prey on the lower police ranks to engage in corrupt activities. Hence, bribery within the police is a consequence of state capture, which means that the economic and political drivers of corruption are interconnected. In sum, the lack of economic necessity causes and intensifies petty levels of corruption, such as bribery and extortion, and more severe forms of corruption, such as engagement in the drug trade. When applying the low wage hypothesis, it is argued that in less developed countries or transition states, public officials are generally poorly paid and normatively accept illicit payments, such as bribes, for economic survival. Van Veldhuizen’s (2013: 351–2) laboratory-based experiment has also demonstrated that higher-paid public sector employees are less likely to engage in corruption. As reported by Hope (2018: 90) on a study with police officers in Kenya, low pay impacts on the motivation of police officers’ professionalism. The interviewee responses on the Afghan police concur with this hypothesis. Bribes can supplement poor salaries if the low wage hypothesis is adopted, but this also positively allows the government to preserve a lower tax load that can support growth. In addition, the poor suffer because they are forced to pay a greater portion of their incomes for public services that should be cost-free.62 Research conducted in the civil service has exposed that low wages are a focal cause of corruption, because they induce public administrators to complement wages by extorting bribes, whereas increased pay under the ‘fair wagecorruption hypothesis’ can lessen survival-based corruption that may not be costly for governments (van Rijckeghem and Weder, 1997: 41). Pay reform has been attempted as a strategy to combat these economic drivers of corruption, which will be discussed in the following chapter on remedies to curb corruption. It can be contended, however, that low pay is an excuse or justification because a police chief taking a US$10,000 bribe is not due to low pay but rather opportunity and lack of controls.

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In contrast, increasing salaries may also increase the request for higher amounts of bribes to be paid due to the higher initial payoff. Agents have to decide whether to serve the principal or bribe payer. If the agents are paid higher salaries, some may reject bribes out of gratitude. For instance, van Rijckeghem and Weder (2001: 329) argued that raising salaries to high levels in developing states could intensify corruption due to higher bribes being demanded. Therefore, betterpaid agents are not necessarily more honest and may request higher bribes, which would mean less reciprocity to the principal.

Cultural drivers The cultural drivers of corruption provide an analysis on corruption functioning as a means of social contract to preserve everyday business and societal relationships. This section covers the culture of Afghan policing driving corruption. Police culture is followed by a critical examination of noble cause corruption that is not entirely evident in the context of the Afghan police, particularly at the lower levels. Corruption as a means of social contract There are cultural, religious and customary inferences with bribery and gift giving. In Afghanistan, daily bribery and the provision of a small gift is a recurrent means of social contract and is offered as an expression of gratitude to accelerate a basic service or transaction between the bribe giver and bribe taker: typically, a civil servant, police officer or judge (Azami, 2009; Singh, 2015: 241). Thirty-three out of the 50 structured interview respondents stated that corruption was an acceptable social practice in 2016. To illustrate further, a JSSP Legal Consultant stressed that he was forced to pay a bribe to get his drivers’ licence which would assist with his new job appointment, meaning he could earn a wage to provide for his family.63 By the same token, the Project Coordinator of the Centre for Policy and Human Development (CPHD) contended that ‘it is an unbelievable task to be able to get your passport without paying someone a bribe’ due to the pervasiveness of ‘administrative corruption’.64 Corruption has cultural connotations and is therefore a social construction. The predominant argument is that corruption, whether professed as systemic or cultural, is deep-rooted in Afghan state structures and society (Singh, 2016: 53). These embedded forms of corruption function in daily interactions between the public sector and law enforcement with citizens.

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Police culture Police culture is complex and includes occupational forms of solidarity such as loyalty and secrecy (Corsianos, 2012: 95). Police officers belong to a rigid culture, and solidarity within teams can be high. High internal solidarity intensifies peer group pressure, which relates to socialisation with other police officers. Prenzler (2009: 24) identifies that police culture is attributed to ‘on-the-job socialisation’, which can support police corruption. Therefore, police corruption may be part of the socialisation process, as identified by Serpico at the Knapp Commission. Sherman (1985) recognised that police peers encourage corruption and secrecy as part of police culture. Taking this literature into consideration, it can be argued that peer pressure and solidarity can inform police corruption as part of the socialisation process that is integral to police culture. Police solidarity was expressed as a main cause of corruption in the Afghan police force from over half of the structured interview participants in 2016. In particular, 27 out of the 50 structured interview respondents claimed that corruption existed when police officers protected their colleagues and/or superiors for wrongdoings. The lower ranks have little incentive to report or desist from corruption if they witness their leaders receiving profits and benefits from corrupt practices (Clark, 2017: 3). It is poor leadership and lack of controls that fosters this mentality for lower and mid-ranks to do nothing, even if they have knowledge of corrupt activity within the force. Police solidarity was further emphasised as a cause of corruption, with five of the respondents stating that peer (colleague) pressure was a main cause of corruption. Police solidarity may be why the majority of the structured interview respondents indicated that police accountability was failing at the institutional level. Forty-seven out of the 50 structured interview respondents had not witnessed or heard of any police officers who had been sacked, prosecuted, fined or punished for corruption. These findings on police solidarity, peer pressure and accountability were absent from the 2012 survey. Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi (2015: 34) also found that corrupt senior police officers enjoyed ‘political protection’ from prosecution due to bribes, support from a parliamentarian or backing from a powerful local figure and if dismissed, it was hidden, and they were reappointed. Violence and perjury were also expressed as a practice of corruption. They are part of police culture because police officers may apprehend criminals with excessive use of force or an officer may fabricate evidence and police reports (Freckelton, 2000: 167–8). Excessive use

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of force, fabrication and perjury can be for a noble cause (Caldero et al, 2018: 34–5). Fifteen out of the 50 structured interview respondents expressed violence as a main practice of Afghan police corruption, and three stated that perjury was a main practice. Surplus violence and perjury fits Miller’s (2003) notion that corruption is networked as an internal protective layer. Excessive violence and perjury relate to the abuse of power for ethical purposes (noble cause corruption), which is a component of Huberts’ (1998: 28–30) integrity violations. Police misbehaviour for alleged justifiable outcomes upholds that the police are a unique organisation with a distinct culture that has shared working experiences within it that are separate from other state institutions or the public. Hence, perjury and the protection of colleagues and supervisors is part of the habitus, which is the engrained functional values of police work internalised by new recruits to conduct the job and behave in certain ways (as part of the socialisation process) during specific situations to reduce the feeling of alienation. The habitus is linked to the field, which is the nature of police work, cemented on the structural conditions of police ‘institutional practice’. Social constructivism provides the context for understanding the law. Nothing is absolute in law and law enforcement. These legalistic notions differ to China (guanxi), Russia (blat) and the Afghan police. Distinguishing what corruption entails, according to the perceptions of the AUP, is potentially a significant finding. The data on the structured interviews conducted in 2016 reveal that some of the perceptions from the AUP on what constitutes corruption differed with Western definitions of police corruption and police deviance. However, a link to police misconduct and lack of professionalism can be reported. The highest stated perception of what corruption entailed was not performing the job or work duties correctly, which was expressed by 22 out of the 50 respondents. There are cultural factors to address, with the following most emphasised meaning of corruption. Six of the 50 structured interview respondents stated that corruption entailed what it meant. The word ‘corruption’ may mean rishwat or fasad in this context, but this is only based on an assumption. Rishwat is a term used in Urdu and Hindi that refers to a bribe, promise or gift given to a person to corrupt the activity of a person within a post of trust. Fasad is an act that is very dirty, such as prostitution, which is not tolerated by society. These meanings indicate that the original way of doings things is tainted by other means that may be vehemently detested by society. However, the connotation of corruption meaning corruption linked to rishwat and fasad is only based on an assumption.

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Afghanistan is an Islamic state that has historically engaged in intrastate warfare to protect its culture and integrity. It was therefore unsurprising to report that treason and betrayal of the country was emphasised as the meaning of corruption. Five out of the 50 structured interview respondents stressed that corruption was based on treason and dishonesty to Afghanistan. Treason may include being dishonest to the state by allying with other groups and performing actions for them or serving private interests. The core of such a cultural analysis demonstrates that corruption is a socially constructed phenomenon that is reliant on the manifestations held by a society and/or culture instead of rigid definitive definitions. Functionalists such as Huntington (1968: 386) deem corruption as necessary to grease the wheels of bureaucratic machinery by undermining red tape. Bribery and gifts are thus necessary to get things done, as argued by Azami (2009) when dealing with Afghan civil servants, because an over-centralised and rigid bureaucracy can hinder economic and political integration. Gifts and dubious promises are part of Huberts’ (1998: 28–30) integrity violations. However, cultural explanations in the West are not compatible with Afghanistan because it is not imbued in the same symbolic explanations of the West. Assuming the empirical stature of this study, the manifestations of corruption in the context of Afghanistan – primarily based on the interviews that were mostly in Kabul – can be related with the shared accounts that can be located in policy briefs and agency reports. Noble cause corruption In relation to the police engaging in corrupt activities for a noble cause, there were few perceptions from patrol officers and lieutenants on the ground to indicate such instances. Moreover, senior administrators within the MoIA did not express this. Rather, some of the advisors in the MoIA and a leading academic in the field argued that the ANP had no sense of pride and did not believe in their mandate or the solidarity of their police force for the greater good of the country.65 It is possible that the lack of pride in the Afghan police force is a reason why corrupt and/or deviant acts are not committed for the noble cause of putting criminals in jail, abusing rights for perceived moral purposes or for divisional advantage. A sense of mission, professional calling and symbolism recognised as the brand and idea of emblematic power and moral virtue among public consensus is not currently experienced in the Afghan police force. However, this was not the case during the

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Mujahidin who fought for a mandate, sense of mission and symbolism that they believed in. The Taliban…that has been radicalised by Mullah Omar since 1995 [is an] insurgency [that] fights constantly with little remuneration. In the 1990s, the armed militias under the Mujahidin had higher officials engaged in corruption but the lower were not engaged in corruption because they worked for a mandate, to protect people and had national pride for Afghanistan. Now, this has been lost as the police do not have any pride and do not know what they are working for.66 This finding on the lack of emotional investment in contemporary Afghan policing provides knowledge on police culture because there is no noble cause to fight for. In other words, there is no sense of mission focusing on ‘us’ versus ‘them’ for the community, as Reiner (1992: 111) argues. The Afghan police lack pride to protect Afghans from security threats. Moreover, symbolism in the idea of the police, as Loader (1997) argues, has been lost, which means there is low motivation in the Afghan police force. The symbolism of the Afghan police is not at a high level, unlike the British ‘Bobbies’ who had established a historic identity of policing based on moral virtue, decency and their distinct values. With no noble cause corruption, there is little emotional investment in their job, which is why economic drivers were mainly found from the data (survey and structured interviews). Police officers can only resist forms of corruption and misconduct if they feel proud of their ‘professional calling’ or standing, which can supplement the professionalisation of officers to dishonour those who are against these ethics (Waddington, 2010: 314). If pride is low within a police force, the police may lack the motivation to fulfil their policing duties, even by rule bending, for divisional advantage and patriotism to protect the country’s regime. The professional calling, based on being a noble one, will be absent. The political and economic drivers have revealed that patronage impacts on recruitment in the ANP and wider Afghan bureaucracy. A political economy approach reveals this relationship between the bureaucratic and economic agents, which has resulted in the state being infiltrated by the drug industry. In addition, the coping mechanisms of low-paid police officers are aligned with petty forms of bribery and roadside extortion for salary supplementation. Moreover, the Afghan police force engages in discriminate practices, including

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excessive violence and perjury, and run protection rackets against shopkeepers and stall peddlers. Therefore, a political economic methodology to corruption is vital to comprehend the role and duties of the institutions, structures and activities and political and criminal practices. The predominant structure of the Afghan political economy is multifaceted and engaged with informal and institutional networks. The rules of the game regard formal and informal rules, cultural norms and neopatrimonial links – whether tribal, social or familial – which administer the behaviours of actors.

Interconnected drivers of corruption It is vital to stress that the three drivers of corruption that regularly transpire in Afghanistan undertake different forms that are interrelated and intersecting. It must be recognised that grand corruption within the Afghan presidential family, which includes narcotics trafficking and illegal enterprises, and petty corruption, such as patrol officers extorting bribes to complement poor wages, are not the same forms of corruption. In relation to wages and the cost of living, low pay to supplement income for economic survival is related to the economic drivers of corruption. At the same time, this is acknowledged by Afghan society, which is why it is culturally engrained and accepted as everyday business relations. Socially engrained practices of daily corruption and gift giving therefore fit the cultural drivers of corruption. Moreover, there are examples of components within one driver that are interpenetrating. For instance, state capture and patronage are interconnected within the political drivers of corruption. This is evident with the electoral law in March 2010 that was reformed to safeguard pre-existing presidential political aides prior to the election in office so that clientelism could persist uninterrupted.67 The 2007 Amnesty Law also pardoned parliamentarians, such as warlords, from previous violations of human rights and engagement in corruption and drug trafficking (Singh, 2019: 201). In addition, bribes are requested by the police and adjudicators due to threats and intimidation from powerful drug traffickers and criminal networks (also supported by elites) to preserve their engagement in the drug trade. The economic and political drivers of corruption are intertwined insofar as bribery is a cause of state capture. Corruption continually varies between these three drivers and may differ from lower to higher levels of corruption. Therefore, the connection between petty and systemic corruption is a persistent trend, and the two interrelate. The empirical data collected on low-

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rank Afghan police officers suggests that the relationship is between the economic and political drivers of corruption. The survey in 2012 suggested that pay remained low in the AUP, especially for patrol officers, and it was difficult to cater for living costs, which exacerbated bribery and roadside extortion. The structured interviews conducted in 2016 similarly suggest that the levels of police corruption were perceived as very high and wages remained low, with high costs of living resulting in further difficulty in catering for total living costs and familial expenses. Related to high perceptions of police corruption, the main causes of corruption consisted of low pay and the main practices were bribery and roadside extortion, which debatably supplement income for economic survival. Moreover, patronage influencing recruitment, payment for posts, cultural acceptance of paying bribes to influence police work and police solidarity to avoid accountability measures were recognised as some of the predominant practices of police corruption. These perceptions were either low or non-existent, according to the 2012 survey. Furthermore, it appears that elders have more influence when stationing NCOs and lowerranked police officers.

Conclusion This chapter has revealed the detrimental effects of corruption and clientelism within Afghanistan’s MoIA that has concentrated on the lower ranks of the police force. The cost of living has risen, and the deficit of wages has increased from 2012–16, which arguably makes patrol officers, NCOs and low-rank police officers susceptible to corruption. Low wages, suggested as a main cause of police corruption in the ANP, have resulted in survival-based corruption. The main practices of corruption are petty bribery, extortion and permeation by political elites allied with narcotics smuggling and favouritism or loyalty. The AUP, border police and customs officials are susceptible to bribes from drug smugglers and other felonious groups to overlook such illegality. Corruption of the voting procedures during the elections has tarnished the legitimacy of state officials in the eyes of the Afghan public, and this can be recognised as a cause of Taliban remobilisation. During the period of the ballot counts, it is unlikely that a high-profile corruption probe will be investigated thoroughly and tried (Bjelica, 2019: 12). This time of political sensitivity does little to support the exhaustive anti-corruption efforts, institutions and laws in place. These political conditions and corrupt practices are also impeding the value, competence and capability of the ANP and Ministry of Interior.

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Endemic corruption, clientelistic relations and the accumulation of state resources have increased the sale of posts and protection – from purchased job security – which is present in the MoIA (Clark, 2017: 3). In relation to senior police officers, internal payoffs persist. Powerful figures place their cronies and agents into the best posts (Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi, 2015: 25). Chief of police posts in poppy-rich districts are sold to the highest bidder willing to provide protection to narcotics traffickers for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a six-month post that pays a low licit salary.68 This system is selfperpetuating due to all actors benefiting from corrupt practices. The MoIA can be thought of as a market that sells police posts to the highest bidder, which arguably confirms its reputation as Afghanistan’s most corrupt institution.69 High-level corruption in the Afghan police and the government has tarnished state legitimacy in the eyes of Afghan civilians.70 However, when studying corruption from a functionalist and social construction perspective, corruption avoids delays and undermines red tape. A gift is part of everyday relations rather than being deemed as a bribe in the West. This functionalist approach was reiterated in the structured interviews in 2016 insofar as the respondents claimed that corruption was accepted as a main practice. Despite such theories, a highly corrupt government has actually weakened the social contract between citizens and the police due to prevalent and engrained corruption (Singh, 2015: 249). Young (2015: 9) similarly argues that police corruption in Afghanistan is rife in public and social life, which profoundly affects the security condition. Pervasive police corruption has resulted in Taliban resurgence, particularly in 2006, and support for informal modes of security (Sands, 2007). Brady (2012) and Goodman and Sutton (2015) have reported that the ANP are engaged in prevalent bribery, direct criminal activity, and most are illiterate, poorly educated and trained, and drug users, which fails to curtail Taliban resurgence. The cultural dynamics of corruption are also important, and this has been empirically highlighted in 2016 by the structured interviews, which were not emphasised in the 2012  survey. Definitions of corruption are engrained as the abuse of trusted power or office for private gain and/or divisional advantage, but the most prevalent perception of what corruption entails consists of not doing one’s job correctly. Almost half of the structured interview respondents stated that corruption meant not performing work duties, laziness at work and unprofessionalism. Better training for lowly educated and/or illiterate Afghan police could partially mitigate unprofessionalism. A

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progressive step to enhance training is to find a common ground from the cultural imperatives of international police trainers focusing on civilian policing, human rights and anti-corruption. More focus on anti-corruption training and the promotion of the reflexive model of democratic policing is needed instead of militarising the police to fight insurgency under the neoliberal police reconstruction model. Hope (2017: 7–8) has suggested that longer police anti-corruption training on ethics and integrity for new recruits and shorter annual refresher training for seniors is required. The armed forces should deal with external threats because the Afghan police are ill equipped to fight the insurgency, which results in four times the casualty rates than the ANA.71 It can thus be contended that corruption is socially constructed within each environment studied, which is why set rigid definitions and subsequent remedies are not entirely helpful. Moreover, according to the 2016 structured interviews, four out of the 50 respondents’ recognised definition of corruption were based on patronage. The perceptions on patronage have also increased significantly since 2012 as a factor that negatively affects the police appointments process, with many examples cited, namely police seniors hiring their relatives. Furthermore, police solidarity, violence, perjury and low detection of police accountability have also been brought to attention from the data on the structured interviews in 2016. It can be argued that police culture has been acknowledged from the respondents as some of the causes and practices of police corruption. Hence, the cultural drivers of corruption need to be examined when studying police corruption in any context. Violence is non-utilitarian crime because it is not based on monetary gain, perjury is for a noble cause, and financial deficits are part of low pay. An examination of the political, economic and cultural drivers of corruption within the Afghan police force have been presented. The drivers have underlined that corruption is prevalent within the police force. Perceptions of police corruption have increased from low in 2012 to very high in 2016, according to the survey and structured interview datasets. Although there is a relationship of pre-existing typologies of police corruption and integrity violations, namely Roebuck and Barker (1974: 428–34) and Huberts (1998: 28–30), they do not address the unique structural, political economy and cultural dynamics of police corruption in Afghanistan. In order to address the main causes, practices and consequences of Afghan police corruption, from an examination of the three drivers, strategies as a reaction to curtail corruption within the Afghan police force and MoIA are required.

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Notes 1

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Author interview with the Head of Access to Justice Programme for The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interview with the Director of AIAS, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interview with the Deputy Director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), Kabul, 31 May 2010. Author interview with a worker for MAIL: Accelerating Sustainable Agricultural Programme (ASAP), Kabul, 25 May 2010. Author interview with the Head of Access to Justice Programme for The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interview with the Director of AIAS, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interview with the Resident Director for Elections and Resident Security Director of NDI, Kabul, 3 June 2012. Author interview with the Resident Director for Elections and Resident Security Director of NDI. Author interviews with the Senior Rule of Law Advisor for USIP, Kabul, 30 May 2010; Deputy Chair of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), Kabul, 27 May 2012. Author interview with the Country Director of Global Rights: Partners for Justice, Kabul, 3 June 2010. Author interview with the Country Director of Global Rights: Partners for Justice, Kabul, 3 June 2010. Author interview with a worker for MAIL: ASAP, Kabul, 25 May 2010. Author interview with the Country Director of Global Rights, Kabul, 3 June 2010. Moqbel was replaced by Muhammad Hanif Atmar, ethnically Pashtun, to curb corruption in the police ranks and ministries (Walling, 2015: 176). Author interview with the JSSP Legal Consultant of the AGO, Kabul, 29 May 2012. Author interview with the Director of AIAS, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interview with the Research Officer: Transitional Justice for Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), Kabul, 26 May 2010. Author interview with the Resident Director for Elections of NDI, Kabul, 3 June 2012. Author interview with the Access to Justice Manager of The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Former Afghan translator for ISAF, Kabul University, Kabul, 6 June 2010. Author interview with the Project Coordinator of the Centre for Policy and Human Development, Kabul, 27 May 2010. Author interview with the Research Officer: Transitional Justice for AREU, Kabul, 26 May 2010. Author interviews with the Senior Rule of Law Advisor for USIP, Kabul, 30 May 2010; Deputy Chair of AIHRC, Kabul, 27 May 2012. Author interview with a worker for MAIL: ASAP, Kabul, 25 May 2010. Author interview with the Research Officer: Transitional Justice for AREU, Kabul, 26 May 2010. Author interview with the Policy and Governance Manager for Action Aid, Kabul, 26 May 2012.

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28

29

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31

32 33

34

35 36 37 38

39

40 41 42

43 44

45

46 47

48 49 50 51

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Author interview with the Head of Access to Justice Programme for The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interviews with the JSSP Legal Consultant of the AGO, Kabul, 29 May 2012; Advisor of the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2012. Author interview with the Resident Director for Elections of NDI, Kabul, 3 June 2012. Author interview with the Operations Officer of The World Bank’s Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), Kabul, 5 June 2010. Author interview with the Resident Director for Elections of NDI, Kabul, 3 June 2012. Author interview with the Deputy Chair of AIHRC, Kabul, 27 May 2012. Author interview with the Peacebuilding and Public Relations Manager of Afghan Civil Society Forum organisation (ACSFo), Kabul, 1 June 2012. Author interview with the Senior Rule of Law Advisor for USIP, Kabul, 30 May 2010. Author interview with the Deputy Chair of AIHRC, Kabul, 27 May 2012. Author interview with the Advisor of the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2012. Author interview with the Advisor of the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2012. Author interview with the Deputy Executive Director of Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD): Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Programme (AREDP), Kabul, 1 June 2012. Author interview with the Operations Officer for The World Bank: ARTF, Kabul, 5 June 2010. Author interview with the Deputy Director of ACBAR, Kabul, 31 May 2010. Author interview with the Advisor of the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2012. Author interview with the Country Director of Global Rights: Partners for Justice, Kabul, 3 June 2010. Author interview with the Advisor of the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2012. Author interviews with the Deputy Chair of AIHRC, Kabul, 27 May 2012; JSSP Legal Consultant of the AGO, Kabul, 29 May 2012; Advisor of the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2012. Author interview with the Research Officer: Transitional Justice for AREU, Kabul, 26 May 2010. Author interview with the Deputy Chair of AIHRC, Kabul, 27 May 2012. Author interview with the Head of Transitional Justice for UNAMA: Human Rights Unit, Kabul, 1 June 2010. Author interview with the Project Coordinator of CPHD, Kabul, 27 May 2010. Author interview with the Executive Director of IAM, Kabul, 31 May 2012. Author interview with a worker for MAIL: ASAP, Kabul, 25 May 2010. Low pay is an economic driver of corruption, but it also overlaps with the cultural drivers of corruption. Author interview with the Country Director of Flag International Afghanistan (FIA), Kabul, 26 May 2010. Some living costs and total living costs were provided as estimations, such as 20,000–25,000  AFN monthly. In these cases, for the purpose of calculating the average living costs, the median is taken (which in the example would be 22,500 AFN). Interviews with the Deputy Country Coordinator and Legal Researcher of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Kabul,

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27 May 2012; Chair of Afghanistan Human Rights Organisation, Kabul, 31 May 2012. Interviews with the Peacebuilding and Public Relations Manager of ACSFo, Kabul, 1 June 2012; Advisor of the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2012. Author interview with the JSSP Legal Consultant to the AGO, Kabul, 29 May 2012. Author interview with the former Minister of Interior, York, 23 November 2010. Author interview with the Attaché for Justice, Rule of Law and Human Rights of the EU Delegation, Kabul, 6 June 2012. Author interview with the Head of Transitional Justice for UNAMA: Human Rights Unit, Kabul, 1 June 2010. Author interview with the Finance Director and Interim Director of Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), Kabul, 31 May 2012. Author interview with the Senior Rule of Law Advisor for USIP, Kabul, 30 May 2010. Author interview with the Director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), Kabul, 3 June 2010. Author interview with the JSSP Legal Consultant to the AGO, Kabul, 29 May 2012. Author interview with the Project Coordinator of CPHD, Kabul, 27 May 2010. Author interview with the Chair of the Post-War Reconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU), York, 3 February 2012. Author interview with the Chair of the PRDU, York, 3 February 2012. Author interview with the Resident Director for Elections of NDI, Kabul, 3 June 2012. Author interview with the Head of Access to Justice Programme for The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interview with the Head of Access to Justice Programme for The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interviews with the Head of Transitional Justice for UNAMA: Human Rights Unit, Kabul, 1 June 2010; Peacebuilding and Public Relations Manager of ACSFo, Kabul, 1 June 2012. Author interview with the Country Director of FIA, Kabul, 26 May 2010.

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8

Prevention strategies in Afghanistan Introduction The preceding chapter covered the practices, insights and causes of corruption, which now allows for a debate on anti-corruption strategies. The main section of this chapter covers precise procedures to curb corruption in the Afghan police. These include the MoIA internal anti-corruption strategy and vital problems with pay reform, meritocratic recruitment and stationing. Furthermore, problems with the drug trade are addressed with responses designed for law enforcement to engage in a drug interdiction strategy and to provide local forms of policing in villages.

Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs anti-corruption strategy In order to curb corruption, in 2009, EUPOL’s Anti-Corruption Implementation Plan – centred in Kabul – concentrated on capacity building, deterrence (including training) and the application of enforcement. This three-fold approach is a measure of the MoIA’s National Police Strategy. First, building the capacity of the MoIA brings to the centre the formal institutional systems of merit-based appointments, procurement, accountability, the transparency of weapons and the exposure of personal assets. Moreover, a satisfactory police salary has been attempted to prevent corruption and entice high-quality applicants who will continue in their job roles. Second, prevention is to be heightened with the use of public awareness movements, specific specialised training and the execution of procedures to detect corrupt actions and curb corruption, narcotics and illicit AOG. Third, enforcement is directed by the MoIA through the Attorney General, Inspector General and MCTF to investigate accusations of corruption cases under the regulation of the AGO. The USA created the MCTF in November 2009, which has 200 agents to inspect the police regarding narcotics and terrorism problems.1 The MCTF is an entity that functions with the FBI, Scotland Yard and EU policing supervision to inspect and impeach prolific corruption

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cases, organised crime and kidnapping. Only some of the 50 structured interviewees in 2016 had knowledge of the MCTF as a measure for curbing corruption. Five of the respondents based at Kabul stated that the MoIA focused on supporting the MCTF as an anti-corruption measure. The lack of awareness of the MCTF to combat serious forms of corruption can be complemented with several other shortcomings. The MCTF still lacks independence and the skills to investigate senior-level crimes (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2018: 11). Cronyism also impacts cases being dropped. CSTC-A has reported that investigators for the MCTF are under-qualified, some personnel are hired on patronage relations, leaders are susceptible to corruption and accountability for MCTF senior staff remains weak (SIGAR, 2018b: 127; Bjelica, 2019: 10). According to the second pillar of the revised Anti-Corruption Strategy and SIGAR’s recent report, problems with ghost police officers, recording training and delays with payments are further problems encountered by the MoIA (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2018: 9; SIGAR, 2019: 64). In March 2016, the US DoD started paying US$22.2 to Netlinks, a Kabul technology company, to establish a new payroll structure to avert fraudulent fake identities and to track the funds to police officers. The Geneva Conference on Afghanistan (2018: para 5) adopted the biometric registering of police staff in the Afghan Personnel and Pay System (APPS) to record recruits and their training at the relevant tashkil to avert provincial police chiefs claiming salaries for absent workers. Police officers are required to have their APPS record in order to be salaried, and the biometric validation aims to curb police officials pocketing fraudulent wages by placing personnel on working rolls (SIGAR, 2019: 64, 80). As part of enhancing personnel management and transparency of the payroll within a solitary platform, advisors for the MoIA work on recruitment, training and professionalism to keep track of recruits and ensure that training is recorded (US DoD, 2018: 11–12). The initial target was to have at least 95 per cent of all police personnel within the APPS by June 2019 (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2018: 25). CSTC-A holds the MoIA financially accountable, with commitment letters as a measure to protect US funding for the APPS (US DoD, 2018: 108). The Command also funds the APPS system and has oversight until it is transferred to the MoIA and Ministry of Defence, but the US DoD does not guarantee that the APPS records are biometrically linked because there are problems with the computer systems (Gregg, 2019). As a result, the APPS is at fraudulent risk and US support is winding down until local ownership is reached in late 2020, which makes these stages pivotal for payroll reform.

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Although the MoIA retains referral and investigatory powers to challenge police corruption, four interviewees contended that the ANP was profoundly tangled up in bribery and extortion and cases against corrupt police officers were frequently surrendered within the MoIA.2 In addition, these respondents argued that drug mules were unconstrained from either the police or the investigation divisions due to political interference. Moreover, anti-corruption and investigation units had little trust in the police to conduct impartial and proficient corruption investigations. Training on anti-corruption awareness was existent but senior officers preyed on illiterate forces to extort bribes and send a stipend of the bribes collected to superiors (Singh, 2016: 45; 2019: 203). The structured interview data in 2016 suggest that many of the respondents were illiterate, underwent inadequate initial training and were not aware of the ANP code of conduct. Thirteen out of the 50 respondents were illiterate but still completed an application form when joining the police force as part of the vetting process. Twentysix out of the 50 respondents were not aware of an anti-corruption strategy in the MoIA. Thirty out of the 31 soldiers stated that their training at the police academy lasted eight weeks. However, a Rule of Law Specialist argued that an eight-week FDD course for illiterate police, that includes a short anti-corruption module, was inadequate for the police to learn about anti-corruption and even to conduct their basic operations.3 Only four of the respondents were aware of the ANP code of conduct. Based on these training and literacy shortcomings, it is dubious whether the majority of the police respondents were aware of the rule of law, their basic policing mandate, human rights and legitimate forms of coercion.

Pay reform, recruitment and stationing We now observe the methods of fighting petty corruption such as bribery and extortion (as mentioned in the economic drivers of corruption) and patronage relations hindering meritocracy and state loyalty (covered in the political drivers of corruption). The broad perceptions on pay reform, employment and stationing will be covered. Perceptions on these anti-corruption initiatives are presented from Afghan police respondents that disclose the aggravating efforts to curtail corruption. In late 2005, MoIA institutional reform comprised of pay and rank reform to lessen corruption and patronage. The ranks were previously ‘top heavy’ because jobs were based on patronage that resulted in an

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excess of generals, colonels, majors, captains and a number of limited lieutenants. After several phases of pay reform, patrol officers increased in force size and salaries have been regularly raised, but many officers still struggle with rising living costs. The 2012 survey and 2016 structured interview data also reveal that pay was inadequate to cater for total living costs. The average monthly salary actually decreased from 12,874  AFN to 11,451.20  AFN, which means that pay was reduced by 1,422.80  AFN per month. However, the average monthly total living costs remained at a similar level, at 17,530 AFN per month, but increased from 15,237 AFN to 17,225.80 AFN per month when analysing the data for patrol officers and soldiers. This means that there was an increase of 1,988.80 AFN per month of total living costs for patrol officers and soldiers who had a mode salary of 10,300 AFN as of 2016. Considering this data, it can be argued that the deficit of wages to cater for living costs was 944.80 AFN per month based on the 2012 and 2016 data for all the respondents, and the deficit was greater at 2,221.80 AFN for patrol officers and soldiers. This deficit was even higher, at 3,757.12 AFN, if based on mode monthly wages. The insufficiency of wages to cater for living costs is problematic because most of the ANP consists of patrol officers (soldiers are the lowest tier below third patrol officer). Pay reform runs the risk of being unable to halt the sequence of survivalbased corruption in the bottom scales in the AUP. The data in 2016 reveals widespread negative perceptions on pay increments, opportunities for promotion and pay and rank reform. Thirty-five out of the 50 structured interview respondents stated that they had not received a pay rise or been promoted since joining the Afghan police force. Forty of the structured interview respondents suggested that pay reform had done little to raise salaries within their ranks, in particular to cater for rising living costs. Thirty-two of the structured interview respondents felt that their salary was not sufficient to cater for all living costs. This was also the case with mainly sole breadwinners in the 2012 survey. Fifteen out of the 18 survey respondents who were the only breadwinner claimed that their salaries were insufficient for their living costs and family expenses. To provide one of many examples, a Kabul-based second lieutenant stressed that his 18,000 AFN monthly earnings failed to cover his total 30,000 AFN monthly living costs. He also stated that increased wages for the police were required to reduce police corruption. These perceptions based on the 2012 and 2016 data reveal that pay rises, promotions, and pay reform have had little impact on the low ranks of the Afghan police force.

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Increasing pay could decrease corruption. However, this argument is undermined by the notion that highly paid officials also engage in corrupt activity. As Young (1986) argues, there is an aetiological crisis with determinants of crime (but in this case, corruption) in economic good and bad times. Therefore, one should not simplistically assume that individuals are driven by economic necessity because many impoverished people are crime- and corrupt-free. For example, during the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, plain-clothed secret police were well paid but looted homes and businesses that had been searched to gather Mujahidin intelligence (HRW, 1991). Furthermore, it is pivotal to acknowledge that the salaries of Afghan judges were increased 10  times during the regime of the Taliban to curtail corruption, yet this led to greater bribes (Demirbüken et al, 2009: 139). Hence, increasing pay may have reverse repercussions, and low salaries can be perceived as being only a contributor, rather than the sole, cause of corruption. In relation to recruitment and meritocracy in the Afghan police institution, rank reform stages are entangled with meritocracy as a procedure for anti-corruption. A Selection Committee was created to install testing and a vetting procedure to sack unqualified and incompetent police officers that has been implemented in 34 provincial police chief selections (Singh, 2014: 634). Despite the Committee recommending a list of appointees, it was neglected by former President Karzai through the June 2006 decree to bolster associations with influential actors. The Committee recommended an appointment list of generals, but Karzai named his own to strengthen associations with powerful actors despite that fact that 14 of these generals had failed the entrance examination (Clark, 2017: 6). In total, Karzai appointed 14 police chiefs and 86 generals who had not passed the admission examination (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013: 184). Four individuals were included who were affiliated with illegal AOGs and who were also prohibited from the 2005 parliamentary elections. Moreover, the other senior chiefs were notorious human rights abusers, warlords and drug traffickers, and numerous individuals were involved in grand corruption, bribery and intrusion in police inquiries (Singh, 2014: 634). These provincial police chiefs and generals were not probed for human rights abuses and corruption, and were instead recruited.4 Nepotism, patronage, corruption and human rights violations still continue to undermine public confidence and trust in the police, and investigations and sanctions remain weak (UNDP, 2018). The structured interview respondents held similar opinions on rank reform – 37 out of 50 structured interview respondents. The

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majority stated that ‘there is no rank reform in the police force’, which was acknowledged by soldiers and sergeants. Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi (2015: 35) and the UNDP (2018) similarly recognise that there is little scope for further training or professional development for police recruits, particularly if they have no political connections, family at the top level or did not buy their post. Applicants with low literacy levels continue to counterfeit qualifications and alter their ethnic backgrounds for staffing an ethnically stable and varied police force that is proportionate to the population. As a result, a large number of corrupt and unskilled individuals affiliated with prominent MoIA power groups in the cabinet and MoIA have come into the police force. This patronage system overrides meritocracy. A nationwide UNODC survey also suggested that 54 per cent of the Afghan police were provided with support in recruitment and 8 per cent of the ANP paid bribes (Demirbüken et al, 2009: 20). The structured interview data in 2016 also suggested that people were recruited into the lower police ranks even if they were illiterate, and some stated that payment for posts existed in the Afghan police force. In particular, two Nangarhar-based soldiers who are illiterate, one previously being unemployed, had completed an application form, interview and physical test for recruitment. Forty-six out of the 50 respondents stated that recruits paying for their positions in the Afghan police force was a main practice of police corruption. Similarly, two of the 100 survey respondents in 2012 admitted that they had paid to be located in a preferred area. A study also confirms internal payoff practices. Paying for posts followed by nepotism and then personal and political connections are the most influential factors within Afghan police recruitment (Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi, 2015: 24). The undermining of meritocracy is due to corrupt relationships with police seniors, senior government officials and warlords, where bribes and/or internal payoffs are expected in such practices. Afghan police officers obtain the job position where they wish to be allocated. Pricing is based on the location and lucrative potential (Clark, 2017: 3). Preference of posting is often in locations where there are prospects to engage in petty practices of corruption – for instance, extorting bribes from cart merchants vending produce or stall peddlers in key cities. Axe (2007), Dost (2008) and Cook (2012: 14) have revealed that the ANP demands protection money from vendors selling produce in urbanised areas, namely Kabul. As another example, pavement peddlers who sell video games and mobile phone accessories in Kabul are forced to pay the police 30 AFN per day, and many pay up to 100 AFN (Harooni, 2011). SIGAR (2017: 133)

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reports that the police in Herat pay very low prices to shopkeepers for whatever they please and if challenged, they are threatened. Five structured interview respondents contended that protection rackets were a main practice of police corruption. A corruption perception survey also confirmed this. Almost half of a nationwide UNDP survey (48 per cent) specified that shopkeepers were repeatedly forced to pay protection fees to police officers (UNDP, 2009: 5–6, 20). Protection rackets relate to direct criminal activities, which is compliant with Roebuck and Barker’s (1974: 433–4) typology of police corruption. One can argue that a police culture that promotes protection rackets has recently been acknowledged as a cause of police corruption in the eyes of the Afghan police force. The 2012 survey data reinforces this point on posting to locations that have the potential for officers to attain bribery monies from protection rackets. Forty-four out of the 100 respondents were posted in their location by their own request, and this was the case for 32 out of the 76 patrol officers. In relation to the respondents based in Kabul, 10 out of 16 respondents who were posted by their own request were posted in their home province, Kabul. The other six respondents were posted to Kabul from a distant province by their own request, but their wages, when compared with other provinces, were similar or even lower. Therefore, there are motivations or opportunities to earn additional money for low-ranked police officers if they are posted to Kabul. However, in the context of the 2016 structured interview data, only three of the respondents suggested that they were stationed by their own request. Two first lieutenants from Nangarhar were posted in their home province by their own request. One of these worked in Logar and Kabul but was later stationed to his home province, Nangarhar. A possible reason for this is that there was more familial support (in this case, two breadwinners) in a home province. The MoIA contends that it is highly politicised. Well-connected and illiterate provincial police chiefs or police with no experience are recruited, namely by presidential decree or with parliamentarian influence. Afghan citizens argue that the MoIA officials, provincial police chiefs and regular ANP are engaged in the narcotics industry. Senior MoIA administrators sell provincial and district senior appointments to the most affluent bidders who defend drug smugglers in exchange for large bribes.5 When posts are purchased, with an upfront fee, monthly payments follow that are required to be recovered from narcotics smuggling and racketeering (Clark, 2017: 3). As emphasised by the Director of a credible research consortium, an individual with ‘guns and money’ may reimburse a MoIA senior

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official to secure a chief of police position, and governors may participate in a ‘bidding war’.6 This fits the international postulation of the failed state paradigm due to institutions that recruit based on corrupt activities while evading meritocratic recruitment. Systemic corruption that is affiliated with tribal links and provincial or local loyalty has been globally documented. Petty corruption such as bribery and extortion within the Afghan police force is rife, which is partly due to low wages. In addition, systemic corruption such as job selling in the MoIA and faking qualifications in senior roles persists (Singh, 2014: 634–5). Anti-corruption tactics have centred on restricting tribal and ethnic discrimination within the Afghan police and armed forces. Alikuzai (2013) stresses that this is to make sure that particular ethnic groups or individuals from certain regions who desire access to powerful power brokers in senior level commands ‘are not selectively posted’ to tremendously hazardous locations for extensive periods ‘without being rotated out’. Ethnic favouritism favoured Tajiks at the expense of Pashtuns in senior police positions, and police officers were recruited on the grounds of ethnicity and loyalty rather than merit (Ottaway, 2011: 40). A rotation strategy is required to ensure that commands are not controlled by Tajiks or another dominating ethnic group (Alikuzai, 2013). Although ethnic representation has improved, the three-year rotation strategy is undermined with cyclical rotation between two nearby districts or continuing to purchase the post location (Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi, 2015: 6–7, 19, 25). It is important to note that the connections, rather than ethnicity, matters most in the police appointments processes, and loyalty is orientated toward the appointer. To address this problem, lottery assignments for new Afghan police recruits were implemented by the MoIA with the backing of CSTC-A to place police officers in random provinces. This strategy was endorsed to decrease patronage nets and ethnic, tribal, political and familial ties (Singh, 2014: 635–6). A central national recruitment agenda was installed to avert regional training centres’ graduates returning to their initially recruited province. In February 2020 the lottery allocation scheme was installed with National Military Academy of Afghanistan cadets at their graduation to inhibit graduates from purchasing posts from corrupted ANA officer corps (Brummet, 2010: 16). This scheme enhances the transparency of assignments and safeguards security forces being allocated to all Afghan regions on a random basis. The 2012 and 2016 empirical data tested the effectiveness of the lottery posting system within the ANP. The data of the 2012 survey suggests that the stationing strategy exacerbated further economic

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hardship by posting low-paid patrol officers and lieutenants to distant provinces with fewer breadwinners to contribute for large families and high living costs. Only 22 out of the 100 survey respondents and four out of the 50 structured interview respondents were randomly assigned to distant provinces. According to the 2016 data, the number of family members was 12–13 on average, two breadwinners per household, and 34 out of the 50 structured interview respondents stated that they resided in rented accommodation. Economic conditions were also hard to meet for well-paid international non-governmental organisation (INGO) workers due to providing for a large family, which makes it hard to purchase a house. This viewpoint was expressed by an Afghan Director, based in Kabul, of a leading INGO: I am receiving a high salary in The Asia Foundation but I am still living in a rented apartment in Kabul. I am receiving a higher salary in this organisation as an Afghan but I still for 16 years, in my case, live in a rented house. Even until now, I could not manage to buy a house for ourselves because, first, I am not corrupt; and second, I know that even this money is not that high to be manageable. I am just surviving daily, for a month and sometimes it’s not enough because you know in Afghanistan we have big families which is of course traditionally and culturally active.7 Poorly paid police officers, and even well-paid INGO workers, can thus unintentionally intensify petty forms of corruption to supplement income for economic survival. Moreover, when examining the data set collected from the 2016 structured interviews low pay, high living costs and increased wage deficits since 2012 have arguably exacerbated petty corruption, namely bribery and roadside extortion. Regardless of the efforts of the stationing policy, elder selections can be centred on ethnic, personal and/or other partisan interests. These selections are a segment of a qawm structure to deliver loyalty to the recruiter that overrules meritocratic recruitment. Elder selection concerns local elders assuring police entrants are selected within their province. This appointment system has become entrenched in the lower police ranks. According to 33 out of the 50 structured interviews conducted in 2016, soldiers and sergeants were stationed by elder selection, in both Kabul and Nangarhar. Police officers who had good relations with high-level police officers, a police chief, local governor or tribal elder could be dispatched to the province of their preference. Stationing could thus be grounded on loyalty or involve a payment(s)

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to work in a preferred province with a bulge sum and/or monthly payouts to the recruiter through a stipend of bribes extorted.8 Therefore, corruption, patronage and loyalty and internal payoffs persist with appointments, meritocracy and posting within the ANP.

Local police efforts Due to prevalent insecurity in remote Afghan areas and a high presence of irregular militias, the USA influenced former President Karzai to institutionalise these militia groups (named the ALP) to fight insurgents. This local strategy was prioritised by General David Petraeus once he had taken command of ISAF in late June 2010. The ALP was officially established in August 2010 by Afghan presidential decree. It is funded by the USA and functions in 31 provinces to form a 30,000 community defence force, and is often termed as uniformed militias to defend their own communities from insurgency (Clark, 2017: 1–2). The rules and governance of the ALP are presented in the ALP Establishment, Organisation and Activities Procedures. Candidates are allegedly vetted from the MoIA and National Directorate of Security. Training consists of a month-long course that includes weapons usage, defending checkpoints, human rights, averting civilian casualties and the rights of detainees. After training, the ALP is deployed within a checkpoint that does not exceed a 1 km radius from the village, to cater for the labelled ‘security bubble’ (Clark, 2017: 2–3). There is mixed evidence to suggest whether the ALP is effective in promoting community-based security by averting insurgency or remains unprofessional, thus resulting in abusive behaviour and patronage relations. It has been argued that the ALP functions as an armed and unprofessional militia, which has resulted in many human rights abuses and excessive forms of violence that have destabilised villages, hampering central government (Mashal, 2017; Rasmussen, 2017b). The UK-based Home Office (2019: 39) has recently reported that the ALP and pro-government militias have killed civilians due to allegedly being linked to insurgent or anti-government groups. Derksen (2015: 28) has argued that ALP commanders have murdered and tortured people after they have been arrested. HRW (2011: 6) reports that the ALP operates as the absorption of interwoven militia, criminal gang and ‘insurgent’ elements, which is partially a consequence of poor vetting. Patronage involves maintenance of loyalty with strongmen and factions and political connections with centralised governmental figures to serve as bodyguards, which taints the ALP’s mandate (Clark, 2017: 3). Furthermore, Tanzeem (2017)

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reports that accountability for abuses against plentiful civilians and the execution of combatants is needed, but disbanding the ALP would recreate a security vacuum for the Taliban to fill. Thwarting the Taliban is part of the ALP mandate that has been supported by the US government. However, when the ANP and armed forces require further assistance to combat the Taliban, the government is not always supportive. To illustrate, in early 2016 Afghan security forces in the Sangin District of Helmand had minimal food and ammunition supplies while fighting the Taliban. Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar, Deputy Governor of Helmand, made these criticisms on Facebook to call for immediate support via a letter to the President, but he was sacked, which debatably violated his freedom of speech and tainted media law (Jolly and Sukhanyar, 2016). This call for extra support to fight insurgency demonstrates that the Afghan government is reluctant to face criticism within the state. Despite the lack of government support for the security forces and mixed perceptions regarding the ALP, the local police still exist as a mandate of locally armed militia to primarily protect villages from insurgency and distinguish civilians from insurgent combatants. This strategy complemented the US strategy on COIN, providing a solution to the security bubble that the pre-existing Afghan security forces were failing due to low numbers and high rates of desertion. Problems with the ALP – namely with abuse, lack of professionalism, weak accountability, loyalty to factions and protecting politicians – are similar with the ANP. All entities of the security forces require assistance and basic supplies when fighting insurgency to avoid further resurgence.

Drug interdiction and law enforcement strategy The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2018) recommends the Afghan government promotes a multifaceted approach that intertwines counter-narcotics, COIN, good governance and development. Despite these recommendations, corruption plays one of the most prevalent challenges to counter-narcotics in Afghanistan. Widespread corruption in the Afghan government and governors at the district level form a conductive environment for drug traffickers that weaken the rule of law (UNODC, 2019: 32). The highest financers of anti-corruption programmes are arguably The World Bank and IMF, but they focus on good governance strategies that dictate many programmes worldwide, which neglects other factors such as shadow economies. Despite the anti-corruption rhetoric, Afghanistan remains a narcotics and war economy where political elites, state and criminal actors are

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engaged in the drug trade for their own narrow purposes, namely profitable gain. Narcotics trafficking in Afghanistan plays a major role in corruption, particularly state capture, infiltration of main state institutions and many powerful drug lords are unpunished from the justice system, which, in turn, hinders security and the battle against insurgency. To provide one of many examples, a leading drug trafficker hunted by the USA, Haji Lal Jan Ishaqzai, paid US$14 million in bribes to Afghan criminal justice personnel who signed a release form to end his 20-year imprisonment sentence (Goldstein, 2014). Drug lords bribe or intimidate the police or link with higher officials to avoid prosecution. Therefore, Newburn (1999: 16–17) and Roebuck and Barker’s (1974: 428–34) causes of police corruption, and typology, consisting of low wages, corruption of authority and association with criminals to turn a blind eye is evident with the ANP. In addition, political interference hampers anti-drug and anti-corruption laws and institutions, law enforcement, the MCTF and criminal investigations of drug traffickers that are connected with Afghan political elites, and presidential cronies are protected from further investigation for blatant acts of corruption.9 The MCTF is still deemed as ineffective and their personnel are regularly bribed to drop cases (Bjelica, 2019: 10). Mafia-style corruption persists, and the Afghan police and judges are threatened and face fear and intimidation to release well-connected suspects.

Conclusion The Anti-Corruption Strategy has endeavoured to combat police corruption via the procedures of several investigative units, the APPS to mitigate fraud and the adoption of promise letters to provide conditions for funding. Yet political intrusion impacts on drug-related cases that are relocated to the MCTF and further units, such as the recently dissolved HOOAC, and countless cases are ceased due to cronyism.10 The ACJC has tried some generals, but it is unlikely that a high-profile case will commence during a post-election phase, and it is questionable if the ACC will truly act independently from political intrusion. These are notable pitfalls of state capture and political constraints. The slender interests of non-state criminal networks and influential elites allied with illegal and profitable opium trading – which influences law enforcement, the judiciary, anti-corruption and all investigative duties – have permeated the Afghan state. A political economy approach on corruption enables an understanding of the Afghan political bureaucracy and interrelationship with economic agents that favours

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certain groups based on patron–client relations and the generation of rents with limited access orders while preserving illicit opium trading for private gain. It is also significant that there are many practices of corruption and politicisation. These are not interconnected with poppy husbandry and opium smuggling. Examples include theft of land, evading customs, seizing and misappropriating state resources, foreign aid, appointments and economic benefits (Singh, 2014: 645). This empirical data for this study has revealed that pay reform does have the possibility to lessen corruption, especially in the lower AUP levels. Based on the survey with 100 Afghan police officers in 2012, predominantly patrol officers and some lieutenants, it is perceived that increasing wages could considerably decrease survival-based corruption in the AUP. The structured interviews conducted in 2016 with 50 NCOs and a few lower-ranked police officers also reiterates the importance of pay reform, with many respondents stating that ‘pay reform should be implemented fast’ and to all. On the one hand, it is feasible for pay reform to curb petty corruption in the low AUP ranks. On the other hand, systemic corruption, state capture and clientelism will persistently be unopposed with such a linear strategy. Therefore, raising the wages of Afghan police officers can lessen corruption, but not at a substantial level. If pay reform raises salaries as a sole anti-corruption strategy, patronage relations would persevere and problems with oversight, disciplinary and internal MoIA anti-corruption policy – as highlighted by the police survey and structured interview respondents as the main cause of police corruption – would endure. The survey and structured interviews can infer that random stationing has been implemented as an anti-corruption strategy to eradicate patronage-based corruption and loyalty towards local commanders and warlords. However, this may inadvertently have the reverse effect. Low-paid police officers posted to distant provinces – and living in rented accommodation – are unlikely to have economic support from a family member such as a father or brother. Consequently, the police officers in this poor economic condition may find it difficult to provide for rent and family expenses, particularly in large families. Therefore, pay reform and assignments to random provinces require added reform if they intend to significantly challenge corruption and clientelism. Perceptions of corruption within the Afghan police force have increased. According to the research participants, the 2016 structured interview respondents revealed that the police perceptions of corruption in the Afghan police force had increased to very high levels, which was initially low, according to the 2012 survey respondents.

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High-level corruption in the Afghan police and the government has tarnished state legitimacy in the eyes of Afghan civilians.11 However, when studying corruption from a functionalist and social construction perspective, corruption avoids delays and undermines red tape, and a gift is part of everyday relations rather than being deemed as a bribe in the West. This constellation of functionalism and social constructivism was reiterated in the structured interviews in 2016 insofar as the respondents claimed that corruption was accepted as a main practice of corruption. Despite such theories, I argue that a highly corrupt government has actually weakened the social contract between citizens and the police force due to prevalent and engrained corruption. Public discontent with the police force has resulted in Taliban resurgence, particularly in 2006, and support for informal modes of security. A comprehensive strategy to curtail corruption is needed to rebuild faith in both the Afghan police and the state. The current Afghan government is serious about challenging corruption and has incorporated the APPS and the system of promise letters to curb fraud and meet targets within the MoIA. This strategy may prevent fraud and problems with the misuse of aid within the Ministry of Interior, which could enhance the efficiency of the police force to deter further Taliban support with oversight of ALP presence. Anti-corruption, especially in this situation, obliges as a wider peacebuilding strategy to deter public discontent within the police force. Protracted police corruption will continually deteriorate the post-war recovery procedure and broader development. However, it appears that international funding will be drastically cut from late 2020 for local ownership purposes and an eventual exit strategy, which means that the final initiatives to curb corruption need to be taken seriously. The data in this and previous chapters have provided several unique contributions to the field. This input includes a rotation strategy to curb patronage that may exacerbate corruption as a means of economic survival due to working in random and distant provinces, with fewer breadwinners per household. Moreover, there is no strong sense of a mission (noble cause) to fight for. Corruption was defined by the police respondents as unprofessionalism (not performing their job correctly) and as patronage. These definitions differ from typical Western-based definitions of police corruption, police deviance and police misconduct. Notes 1

Author interview with the Senior Advisor to the Minister at the MoIA, Kabul, 6 June 2010.

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3

4

5

6 7

8

9 10 11

Author interviews with the Deputy Chair of the AIHRC, Kabul, 27  May 2012; Deputy Executive Director of MRRD: AREDP, Kabul, 1  June 2012; Peacebuilding and Public Relations Manager of ACSFo, Kabul, 1 June 2012; Advisor of the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2012. Author interview with the Country Director of Global Rights: Partners for Justice, Kabul, 3 June 2010. More recently, however, Ghani (2017) has instilled better accountability by encouraging the open trial of six police generals in the ACJC. In January 2017, the Justice Centre convicted and sentenced a MoIA general to 14 years’ imprisonment, and he was forced to repay the embezzlement amount of US$150,000 (Shaheed, 2017). Author interview with the Peacebuilding and Public Relations Manager of ACSFo, Kabul, 1 June 2012. Author interview with the Director of AIAS, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interview with the Program Director for Law, Human Rights and Women’s Empowerment of The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interviews with the Senior Rule of Law Advisor for USIP, Kabul, 30 May 2010; Head of Access to Justice Programme for The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 26 May 2012. Author interview with the Advisor for the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2010. Author interview with the Advisor of the HOOAC, Kabul, 4 June 2012. Author interviews with the Head of Transitional Justice for UNAMA: Human Rights Unit, Kabul, 1 June 2010; Peacebuilding and Public Relations Manager of ACSFo, Kabul, 1 June 2012.

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Conclusions Introduction So far the book has identified typologies of police corruption, broadened to include integrity violations, strategies to curtail police corruption and a variety of post-conflict policing cases. Earlier chapters have highlighted the difficulties with concealment of malfeasance, short-term training on ethics and anti-corruption and poor resourcing resulting in low pay and weak vetting structures. Comparisons with other post-conflict societies have been made. The book then addressed the underlying conditions of the Afghan state that favoured antiTaliban warlords in former President Karzai’s cabinet, due to the Bonn Agreement, which has made it difficult to combat corruption, patronage and state capture within the government and ministries. As a result of these practices of corruption, the consequences of corruption point to embedded corruption in the Afghan police sector that has hindered law enforcement, security, the rule of law and state effectiveness. This chapter begins with a critique of statebuilding efforts, and more narrowly police reconstruction in Afghanistan (and a brief comparison with Iraq). The manipulation of the liberal peacebuilding paradigm, a weak anti-corruption strategy and government elites engaged in the drug industry that challenges anti-corruption and law enforcement is then addressed. The penultimate section provides an insight into the underlying conditions of the Afghan state, illustrating that it is now extremely difficult to challenge systemic and institutionalised corruption. This final chapter subsequently reflects on the three drivers of corruption that can contribute to an understanding of corruption in the Afghan police in particular. In relation to economic drivers, it is contended that pay reform has the latency to curb petty corruption as a means of supplementing low wages for survival, but the stationing strategy to reduce corrupt patronage webs requires revision. In relation to political drivers, patronage is engrained within recruitment processes, elders influence the selection process, internal payoffs influence senior posts and criminal groups have permeated law enforcement. The cultural drivers reveal that the Afghan police force do not fight for a noble cause, accountability measures are weak (which may be due to internal solidarity) and it is largely illiterate recruits who undertake

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short and ineffective training programmes. Many of these aspects have similarities with Iraqi police reconstruction outcomes.

Police reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq Statebuilding and neoliberal police reconstruction in Afghanistan is heavily focused on fighting insurgency, and reforms to build entire institutions, conforming to the liberal peace doctrine, have been rushed. Corruption had been overlooked by the international community but after the remobilisation of the Taliban and civil society corruption perception reports, an anti-corruption strategy was implemented. However, efforts to curtail police corruption continue to be hindered by the drug economy and engrained corruption. The structural conditions of the Afghan state and system of policing changed since the modernisation period of the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet occupation, the Mujahidin civil war, the Taliban regime and the internationally driven statebuilding strategy built on democratisation. The liberal peace has been hijacked without comprehensive concern over the fragility of the security and judicial institutions to hold such democratisation, but merely to protect US interests. The liberal peace was rushed at the planning phase after the Bonn Agreement leaned in favour of US foreign policy. Melanson (2005: 307) argues that the USA did not directly intend to establish a better regime for Afghan citizens, but to eradicate terrorist threats to the USA via the funding and support of anti-Taliban Afghan combatants, namely the Tajikled Northern Alliance, to fight the Taliban. These phases of regime changes and favouring of previous powerful groups, as assessed in Chapter 5, have resulted in political and warlord alliances, and many warlords and Tajik officers were brought back as senior politicians or senior police and military staff. As a consequence of inducement and coercion spoiler management, patronage from trail elites, the new patronage-based systems with the Karzai family and Northern Alliance warlords (due to favouritism from the Bonn Agreement) have led to prevalent patronage circles for political survival. Many of these warlords had previously engaged in drug-related corruption and human rights abuses, and their admission into the parliamentary cabinet enhanced factional competition. The conflict has intensified with violence. Clientelism has protected favoured groups and drug trafficking continues due to the political– criminal nexus of lucrative profit-making. It is the review of these changes that have highlighted the relationship of the structural conditions of the state and policing with corruption in Afghanistan.

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Although the training of a new ANA and ANP received support for institutional strengthening and capacity-building, this was not embedded in the security sector in Afghanistan. This failure at the institutional level has consequently left the MoIA and Ministry of Defence in frail conditions to hold democratic principles such as effective and efficient transparency, procurement and accountability. Corruption and clientelism has increased due to unmonitored aid, low salaries and bureaucratic strategies involved in a state hampered by decades of abuse of power, culture of elites engaging in opportunistic malfeasance and systemic corruption (IWA, 2010: 13; UNAMA, 2019: 6). The influx of foreign aid and bureaucratic strategies have been centralised, leaving tribal self-administrations, warlords and governors in the countryside to retain nepotistic ties in exchange for loyalty. These features aligned with statebuilding and the liberal peace were also pursued in Iraq. Chapter 4 provides comparative post-conflict policing contexts, largely reflecting on post-conflict reconstruction, and more narrowly, police reform in Iraq. The analysis of Iraq has significant similarities with Afghan police reform. Although Özerdem (2010) rightly distinguishes that the state conditions differed, namely on crime and sectarian levels of violence in Iraq and tribal forms of patronage in Afghanistan, he identifies similarities. In relation to both models of post-conflict reconstruction, neoliberal and reflexive, the aim was to formulate a democratic state by attaining legitimacy from national civilians and internationally, and to be effective with state services. Therefore, the police sector is paramount in post-conflict reconstruction, and more narrowly SSR, the pivotal and discernible institution to promote legitimacy based on its effectiveness and ability to provide security for citizens. However, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the police forces – the ANP and IFP – have failed to obtain legitimacy, and thus the state, from its citizens’ eyes, and have been ineffective in the services rendered. As a notable consequence, insurgency in both contexts – D’aesh in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan – have filled the security vacuum due to lack of faith in the police, and consequently the state. The neoliberal model of reconstruction was initially preferred with the AIA in Afghanistan and CPA in Iraq, which, as part of political liberalisation, attempted to secure both states in order to provide elections for transitions to democracies. However, once the insurgencies re-established a stronghold (the Taliban remobilised in 2006 and sectarian violence peaked once more in Iraq), the reflexive model of reconstruction was adapted with ‘Winning Hearts and Minds’ in Afghanistan and the ‘Surge’ in Iraq to gain the trust of local communities and elders.

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Militarisation of the police forces was also replicated within Iraq and Afghanistan. There were initial attempts to focus on community policing, human rights and the rule of law in police training, but these were later replaced by MNST-I and NTM-I in Iraq and CSTC-A and NTM-A in Afghanistan. This strategy, in both contexts, promoted the identical US military strategy to militarise the police forces to fight insurgency. The changes from EUPOL to CSTC-A in Afghanistan and the US  DoJ to the US  DoD in Iraq changed police training from community policing to militaristic policing for reshuffled COIN purposes (Perito, 2011: 3; Larivé, 2012: 189–90). This contrast impacted on police culture and the symbolism or pride within policing and thus, as Perito (2011: 13) argues, objectives should be rigid and clear from the outset. Consequently, confusion from overlapping mandates and drastic changes meant that the low-paid police forces were unable to conduct independent operations, and often deserted their posts when faced with insurgent attacks. The sense of mission and professional calling (Reiner, 1992: 111; Waddington, 2010: 314) was, and remains, low, which results in poor motivation and national pride to fulfil duties as police officers. Hence, there is little emotional investment or noble cause within their roles. The reflexive model can focus more on local knowledge, expertise and inclusion but, as Wozniak (2017) argues, the ‘material realities’ remain low and do little to promote police training, professionalism and higher salaries to reduce police corruption and support for the insurgency. The latter point can be linked to moonlighting and intimidation and discrimination against civilians insofar as police uniforms are abused for part-time work with insurgency in Afghanistan and for ransom for kidnappings and secret prisons in Iraq. Therefore, police reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq has been externally driven. The SSR programme has been compartmentalised by lead donors, namely the USA, with both military and police reform, to pursue their geopolitical interests. Neoliberal police reconstruction focused on COIN and efforts with community policing clashed. Yet, when the reform process was handed to the UN, in other contexts the outcomes differed. Despite cynicism of UN transitional administrations being externally driven and lack of local ownership and civilian oversight (Tondini, 2010) – as a consequence of a rapid democratisation strategy – better and longer training was the outcome. For instance, as illustrated in Chapter 3, despite forms of corruption, illiteracy and drug abuse in the aftermath in Haiti, CIVPOL in Haiti and UNMIK and EULEX in Kosovo resulted in better police reform and more intense training programmes.

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The anti-corruption strategy in Afghanistan It can be argued that PAR has huge constraints in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s public administration is weak, and the commitment of ownership and leadership is uneven and confusing. PAR has notably been superficial concerning the restructuring and downsizing of ministries that has focused ‘on higher pay rather than fundamental change’ (Lister, 2006: 2). Furthermore, the meritocratic appointments process and the eradication of patronage and kinship ties from recruitment remain to hinder the state, and particularly the MoIA, which continues to undermine security (Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi, 2015: 28–31). Yet it is hard to break the mentality to challenge the current cycle of clientelism because it is deemed as a moral economy: ‘Some ethics violations are not necessarily obvious: giving a government job to your brother for instance; some people may not view that necessarily as corruption; somebody’s got to fill the job, why can’t that be my brother?’1 This political economy structure identifies a dull future of merit-based appointments and vetting procedures for human rights violations to combat the impious corrupt governmental officials. Despite the ANDS (2008) and the more recently revised AntiCorruption Strategy that provides details of the main activities of corruption, donors funding an anti-corruption strategy do not monitor and evaluate money they spend effectively. They arguably contribute to grand corruption with high amounts of unmonitored money and help to draft strategies that consist of five-year planning with targets to be met to receive further aid, but it is a generational issue to combat systemic and institutionalised corruption. In addition, alternative livelihood programmes have failed to lure Afghan farmers from the lucrative poppy crop, prices per hectare have increased since international interdiction efforts due to the reduction in the number of poppy fields, and the Taliban continue to tax farmers for local revenue (Demirbüken et  al, 2009: 102; UNODC, 2019: 42, 46). Villagers do not trust centralised government to provide protection for them, and are thus more likely to cultivate a poppy crop (UNODC, 2019: 36). Poppy cultivation is the main source of livelihood for many village headmen, which is particularly evident with the majority of the south (and completely in Helmand) (UNODC, 2019: 3). Moreover, corruption at the informal level is also rife, and local power brokers continually engage in the narcotics protection industry with little or no interference. The protection of poppy cultivation and opium

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trafficking has enticed the Afghan police force and ALP into drugrelated corruption (Felbab-Brown, 2017b; Home Office, 2019: 39), and cabinet and senior officials engaged in the trade retain immunity from prosecution (Bjelica, 2019: 9). Similarly, the drug trade has held negative impacts on police reform in Honduras due to rampant engagement with organised criminal gangs, prevalent corruption, police brutality and shootings (Ayuso, 2018; Williams, 2018: 16, 24). The Honduran police force was militarised by the USA to fight their geopolitical ‘War on Drugs’ (Brownfield, 2010: 323). The context of Venezuela holds comparable findings. The Venezuelan police force are engaged in prevalent corruption with armed groups, the cocaine trade and kidnappings despite pay reform (Pearson, 2009; Heard, 2015: 11; Casey, 2018). Long-term efforts with anti-corruption bodies and the promotion of ethics and integrity within a police force can only succeed if complemented with strong political will, which was evident in both Hong Kong and Singapore. Other strategies on raising police integrity include reference to religion and ethics. This approach to reduce corruption received success in Malaysia’s National Integrity Plan within their police force, which subsequently served citizens with professionalism, respect for human rights and integrity (Embong, 2007: 156). However, religion and ethics have not been included in am anti-corruption strategy despite Afghanistan being a conservative Islamic state. Previously, the Mujahidin radicalised the lower levels of the police, even though poorly paid, to fight with integrity for the country against the Soviets, and Mullah Omar radicalised the Taliban to fight the USA (Singh, 2016: 59). The 2010 ANP code of conduct could include more reference to religion and ethics in order to raise the integrity and honesty of the Afghan police. Furthermore, public scandal can engage commissions and the media to call for police reform and prevention strategies (Sherman, 1978a: 244–55) that occurred from the Knapp Commission to investigate corruption in the NYPD and the Wood Royal Commission for the New South Wales police. Another police prevention approach includes disbanding an entire department such as the Afghan highway police in 2006 due to engagement with drug traffickers, but the dismissal of 30,000 traffic police in Georgia also punished officers not involved in corruption. Other prevention strategies, as covered in Chapter 2, include pay reform to raise salaries, a rotation strategy every 3–5 years to mitigate police connections within vice locations, and enhanced training in ethics and integrity.

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Evaluating the drivers of corruption Before considering the three drivers of corruption, it is important to acknowledge that this book is also focused on the surveys, interviews conducted, the academic literature and the corruption perception reports conducted by civil society groups. A response to the economic, political and cultural drivers of corruption are now provided in turn. Economic drivers of corruption Afghanistan is a distinctive context where conflict and poverty are protracted issues, and AUP street police officers accept and extort bribes to subsidise their poor salaries, as a means of economic survival.2 Police corruption, namely petty corruption, is a consequence of low pay. Rose-Ackerman (1999: 71–3) argues that a police force may extort bribes as part of ‘survival corruption’. In addition, a nationwide survey revealed that the Afghan public believed the police force to be low paid, which is why they regularly paid bribes to them (UNDP, 2009: 5–6). In a recent IWA (2018: 35–6) nationwide survey, 15 per cent of the respondents claimed that salaries were too low to cater for living costs, which aggravates administrative corruption. If one supports the economic drivers (low wage hypothesis), it can be argued that police corruption in Afghanistan is not perceived as ‘dirtiness’ (fasad) but rather as a necessity for economic survival. Bribery and extortion are within the top three highest reported practices of corruption in the Afghan police force, according to the 2012 survey and 2016 structured interview datasets. Since 2012 the perception of bribery and roadside extortion as a main practice of Afghan police corruption has also increased. Pay reform means the wages of the lower-ranked AUP could be increased to curb preventable petty corruption for economic survival. It could therefore be argued that corruption is connected to low economic provision, and increasing wages offers a positive impact to reduce corruption. The structured interviews conducted in 2016 also reveal that ‘pay reform should be implemented rapidly’ across the ANP. Despite several phases of pay reform, however, wages in the lower levels of the AUP appear too low to cover the rising living costs for large families. According to the 2012 and 2016 data, the average monthly salary has actually decreased, from 12,874 AFN to 11,451.20 AFN, which means that pay has reduced by 1,422.80 AFN monthly. The average living costs have remained at 17,530 AFN per month, but increased from 15,237 AFN to 17,225.80 AFN monthly

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for patrol officers and soldiers. Therefore, wages have not increased in the lower police ranks to cover the rising costs of living. Forty out of the 50 structured interview respondents were also negative regarding pay reform. It may be contended that corruption can be challenged if the AUP has better salaries. This assumption is also based on 90 out of the 100 AUP survey participants in 2012, mainly patrol officers and lieutenants, who specified that low wages and households with only one breadwinner made it difficult to cover the living costs of an average of 11 family members, which exacerbates petty corruption for economic survival. These perceptions highlight the economic factors to be considered when police officers are stationed in distant provinces. Brummet (2010: 16) recognises that the lottery system endorsed by CSTC-A was to replicate the stationing strategy in the ANA that was working well to circumvent graduates purchasing posts from senior personnel. Therefore, lottery assignments and random stationing anticipate curbing corrupt patronage circles and loyalty to authoritative individuals with guns and money instead of the state. However, this needs severe revision due to it conceivably breeding petty corruption, especially if the police officers are solitary breadwinners for a large family in rented accommodation. To mitigate this problem, the Afghan government, Ministry of Interior and international donors could offer a housing scheme and grants for the lower ranks of the AUP who are paid low salaries and who are stationed in distant provinces as part of a lottery and rotation policy.3 This would reduce the likelihood of an anti-corruption strategy being counterproductive by leading to further economic hardship. It can be argued that an anti-corruption strategy may unintentionally exacerbate the economic drivers of corruption, namely bribery and extortion, when attempting to curb the political drivers. The low wage hypothesis assumes that increasing salaries will reduce corruption in relatively poor and highly corrupt states due to reducing incentives to extract illicit income. Therefore, increased pay in the lower ranks of the Afghan police could, to an extent, circumvent survival-based corruption. In criticism of increasing wages, van Rijckeghem and Weder (2001: 324) have verified, with an extensive cross-comparative study, that increasing the pay of public sector staff, principally civil servants, actually has a negative correlation to the low wage hypothesis. A study conducted by Foltz and Opoku-Agyemang (2015: 24–5) suggests that an increase in wages within the Ghanaian police force intensified further corruption because efforts and the amounts of bribes collected increased. In pay reform scenarios with futile anti-corruption laws

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and efforts, bribery dictates total revenue due to higher bribes pressed for by those who are recurrently corrupt (Dowell-Jones, 2004). In the context of Afghanistan, bribery is not entirely due to a lack of economic provision, because offenders who receive higher bribes and private disbursements are top-paid senior officials. Senior officials are free to abuse their positions. This issue can be solved by implementing better accountability measures or controls to punish corrupt officers (which is non-existent, according to the 2016 structured interview respondents). Political drivers of corruption In relation to responding to the political drivers of corruption are perceptions of patronage negatively impacting on corruption, structural forms of corruption, clientelism, nepotism, ethnic favouritism and state capture. These features of corruption persist due to numerous high-producing poppy zones across the Afghan state, weak institutions and fragile law enforcement. Clients are part of a traditional social contract. Police officers, clans and additional tribes offer loyalty to serve their patrons (Sajjad, 2013: 60). The patrons are comprised of warlords, tribal elders and governors (Mukhopadhyay, 2014: 106). The clients expect favoured redistribution of state resources and additional forms of financial benefits that can involve preferential treatment when expressing interests in an appointment, a promotion, a senior post or an increase in salary (Misdaq, 2006: 17; Isaqzadeh and Giustozzi, 2015: 28–9). This patron–client relationship has empowered tribal elders and provincial leaders. Provincial leaders have the authority to recruit favoured tribes or ethnic groups. These groups are expected to deliver loyalty based on the qawm arrangement, and government bureaucrats are in authority to employ those who can bring in financial inducements that circumvent the principles of meritocratic employment. This system has augmented patron–client relations within police chiefs who obtain bribes on a monthly basis from police officers in the lower ranks, customs officials and counter-narcotics, and border police (the clients), to obtain lucrative posts in high-producing and high-trading poppy areas (Hafvenstein, 2011: 125). Police chief, governorship, customs official and border police posts are purchased and sold in prospective highgrossing poppy regions. Internal payoffs provide the potential to earn more money with bribery and extortive practices, with anticipation of a large lump sum or a slice of bribes collected from drug-related corruption, paid to the superior or appointer on a monthly basis.4

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In the 2012 survey, half of the respondents stressed that the principal practices of corruption persisted due to weak oversight and poorly implemented disciplinary procedures, and few had basic knowledge of the internal MoIA anti-corruption strategy. The majority of the structured interview respondents (44) claimed that weak oversight and implementation of disciplinary procedures were the highest main causes of police corruption, and 26 respondents were not aware of MoIA anticorruption measures. Robust oversight was prioritised as a major factor to deter police corruption. The perceptions of patronage constituting corruption were evident in 2016, based on the structured interview respondents, and manifestations of patronage negatively impacting and/ or influencing police recruitment had increased significantly since the 2012 survey. These manifestations mean that the perception of the extent of patronage had increased since 2012,5 and, to provide one of many examples, it has resulted in the selection of an unskilled and less qualified workforce.6 Those who have such connections earn higher wages or gain promotions regardless of whether they have the basic knowledge of what anti-corruption strategy within the police institution involves, or have fewer qualifications and may not be physically fit.7 This disregard of meritocratic procedures was stressed in both the survey and structured interviews. Based on these perceptions, it can be contended that corruption and clientelism would remain even if Afghan police officers received higher salaries. Additional practices of ‘meat-eating’ corruption will persist due to the original political plan arranged by the Bonn Agreement backing COIN that has created a ‘rentier’ Afghan state from the informal shadow narcotics economy. The state will continue to be permeated and influenced by non-state illicit AOG and criminal networks associated with the drugs trade that resources insurgency, warlords, local commanders and political elites. This practice of state capture undermines law enforcement, anti-corruption and the rule of law. Increased salaries need to be supplemented with additional anticorruption strategies to curb systemic corruption, patronage and state capture. Combating these forms of corruption is hard to accomplish in predatory neopatrimonial and narco-states – such as Afghanistan – within a short time frame. In relation to the political imperatives of an anti-corruption strategy, the ANDS, amended Anti-Corruption Strategy and PAR comprise of short-term strategies. These are not main priorities of international donors’ strategies in contrast to the governance and militarisation of the ANA and ANP in force size to combat insurgency as part of neoliberal police reconstruction.

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Cultural drivers of corruption In relation to the cultural drivers of corruption, police solidarity was emphasised by over half of the structured interview respondents in 2016 as a practice of corruption that occurs when police officers protect their colleagues and/or superiors for wrongdoings. Violence, protection rackets and perjury were additional practices of corruption stressed by the respondents. These are also part of police culture because police officers may arrest criminals with excessive use of force and fabricate police reports and evidence for no noble cause. These aspects of police culture, related to the practices of police corruption, were not expressed in the survey conducted in 2012. Based on this omission, police culture was recognised as part of the explanation for both the causes and practices of police corruption, according to the Afghan police force, but not to a high extent. The research for this book has revealed an interesting finding on noble cause corruption. The Afghan police lack emotional investment and a clear mandate or objective to fight for. This motivation differed during the Mujahidin times when the low-ranked police or militias had low corruption levels because they were fighting Soviet intervention and communist governance to protect Afghanistan.8 Similarly, during the Taliban regime, beatings or detention from the religious police force were mandated under loyalty to the relevant ministry for preventing vice to enforce rules related to appearance, clothing, employment, behaviour and religious practice (Lipton, 2002: 9). This finding provides a significant contribution to the field of criminology and police corruption because in the current Afghan regime of democracy post-2001, there is no noble cause to aspire to. In relation to the literature, the case of the Afghan police force cannot be linked to Reiner’s (1992: 111) ‘sense of mission’ and the symbolism in the idea of the police, which Loader (1997) explains, because these factors are not existent in the ANP due to low motivation. Based on this finding, it can be contended that the noble cause explanation does not apply to a police force that lacks national pride and professionalism to seek further arrests and goals for any divisional advantage. In relation to police training, FDD training consists of eight-week courses for patrol officers which includes seven weeks of COIN and survival skills and one week of basic policing skills (Planty and Perito, 2013: 2). However, a short programme on basic policing operations, criminal investigation, anti-corruption and counter-terrorism is not sufficient for many illiterate police recruits.9 A number of the

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respondents were illiterate, which includes two previously unemployed third sergeants. Ethical policing is also lost. As Kleinig (1996: 2) argues, the link with ethical policing (a system made of moral values and professional standards) is complex, and the decision-making made by police officers is based on professionalism, discretion and judgements of ethical choices to nurture respect and trust. Ethical policing constitutes what is right and wrong police conduct. The majority of the structured interview respondents in 2016 stressed that corruption included the incorrect performance of duties. The lack of competence was related to ethical policing and professionalism. Almost half of the structured interview respondents stated that corruption meant not performing work duties correctly, laziness at work and unprofessionalism. These definitions of police corruption differ to the Western utilised definition based on activities of bribery in exchange for a favour or inaction, fabrication, violence or favouritism (Newburn, 1999: 4; Punch, 2009: 18–19). This cultural understanding undermines the Western-based Transparency International abuse of power for private gain definition. These social and cultural aspects of the theoretical framework help us to discuss how the noble cause can become relevant for the Afghan police. For example, treason or betrayal of the country and lack of professionalism were emphasised as definitions of corruption from the Afghan police respondents. Other structured interview respondents suggested that police corruption could be identified as patronage and corruption being recognised without the need for a definition. The work of De Lauri (2013: 534) argues that corruption is perceived as dirtiness (fasad), which is forbidden by Afghans. Therefore, this local cultural understanding of corruption identifies that corruption is not tolerated by Afghans due to its immorality, which may be linked to why many police respondents in this research stated that corruption was identifiable without the need for a definition. The findings suggest that police corruption is not considered as fasad due to the economic determinants of corruption, namely petty bribery and roadside extortion, in order to supplement low wages to cater for large families. Hence, the cultural drivers and motivations for corruption must be considered and examined when conducting studies on motivation, particularly when focusing on a police force. This area of corruption research is complex, which is based on the argument of local cultural understandings. It can be argued that the theoretical framework may provide an approach to the research of corruption within other contexts. The drivers of corruption can

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be reached with a social constructivist approach to analyse the meanings and definitions of corruption, social interactions and business relations. To provide examples, gift giving may be a practice to accelerate public services, as in the Afghan context (Azami, 2009), or to avoid a ‘loss of face’ to preserve business relations and ‘ascend the social hierarchy’ by skilfully applying guanxi, as in China (Yang, 1989: 36). Taking these social and cultural aspects into consideration, I argue that the constructed understanding of corruption is fluid due to the perceptions, causes and practices that can change within a conflict to an eventual post-conflict phase. For instance, the Taliban regime is generally detested in many parts of Afghanistan. However, an Afghan nationwide household survey revealed that the public believed that state corruption resulted in Taliban propaganda against the Karzai government and expansion (IWA, 2010: 89–91). More recently within the Ghani administration, Afghan civilians surveyed suggested that police corruption had resulted in the growth of the Taliban (IWA, 2018: 20–1). There is little evidence to suggest that the Ghani administration has reduced corruption because police perceptions of the levels of police corruption in the survey and structured interviews suggest that it increased from a low level in 2012 to a very high level in 2016. This increase may be due to the phases of conflict that alter the perceptions of corruption due to fewer controls and overlapping mandates driven by international police reformers, which hinders a clear sense of mission. The perceptions of corruption can thus change, and may be based on various changes to a regime due to the structural conditions of policing reflected with government changes and international intervention. In addition, police corruption occurs because the environment influences policing. Socialisation theory is based on the ‘habitus’ and the ‘field’. The environment influences the practices of policing and the behaviour of a police force (Chan, 2004). Therefore, I argue that culture and different forms of policing (the field) in different environments (habitus) impact on one another. The culture of policing may change suddenly, and the environment may be hostile due to fighting an insurgency. Changes to the field and habitus will result in changes to the habitus and may also result in new coping strategies (Chan, 2004: 340). This approach, which argues that the cultural drivers of corruption are impacted by conflict, can be extended to reveal the complexity of social and cultural factors in Afghanistan. This theoretical framework relates to the findings on Afghan police corruption.

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Utilising the drivers Understanding the drivers can help in forming a clear police mandate that adopts the reflexive model of reconstruction from its inception rather than initially just focusing on the neoliberal model to transfer an interim administration to democracy via political liberalisation. These lessons can be learned in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The consequences resulted in lack of coordination and confusion with mandates, alongside low pay, poor equipment and short training due to ignorance of material realities, which did little to promote strong leadership, a robust professional calling and emotional investment in policing. Two-month futile training programmes, namely the FDD in Afghanistan and training programme for Iraq, for new recruits that mostly entail basic combat operations and methods to fight an insurgency will continue to fail in war-torn and instable contexts. Therefore, as Hope (2017: 7–8) recommends, single modules for police anti-corruption training that are integrated with ethical behaviour, integrity and desistance of corrupt activities are needed for recruits, and police seniors require shorter refresher training to remain compliant with laws, the constitution and procedures. This training strategy infers that more focus must be placed on anti-corruption with a separate module, rather than squeezing little content on anticorruption into a 6–8 week course. The FDD in Afghanistan and training in Iraq only includes miniscule training on anti-corruption due to it being integrated with basic policing duties and the US-driven focus on COIN. However, the material realities, as Wozniak (2017) terms, would make it hard to provide separate training on anti-corruption and annual shorter training for senior officers. As mentioned in the context of Afghanistan, the short FDD course is the best the MoIA can offer due to resourcing constraints.10 Enhanced police anti-corruption training can assist with better staff retention, job satisfaction and insight into codified laws and a code of conduct to improve ethical behaviour (Hope, 2017: 5). However, if pay is too low and a police officer’s job conditions too volatile, such training initiatives would be undermined. Training would remain futile because police officers would hardly care about police anti-corruption training, ethics, honesty and integrity, loyalty to the state and compliance with their code of conduct, which is demonstrated with high desertion rates and informal allegiances in the contexts of Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, better planning by understanding the political, economic and cultural drivers of police corruption can avoid the shortcomings

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faced by the Afghan police, and also by the Iraq police, to avert patronage and corruption. Once corruption and clientelism become institutionalised, it is more difficult to combat within the Ministry of Interior and government. Although both conflicts differed in Afghanistan and Iraq, almost identical strategies on COIN, political liberalisation and police reform commenced, which started with the neoliberal model and later shifted to the reflexive model. However, this was too late to deter insurgencies that attained credibility due to prevalent corruption within the Afghan and Iraqi police forces. Therefore, these lessons learned, by investigating the proposed three drivers of corruption, can mitigate some of the systemic problems faced that form and prolong instability and fragility in conflict-stricken states. The value of pre-existing and famous definitions and typologies of police corruption are useful to Western settings. Some of these features based on direct typologies from Roebuck and Barker (1974) or Huberts (1998: 28–30) on integrity violations are also applicable to conflict-stricken and distant societies. For instance, some are evident in relation to the Afghan police. The applicable facets of such typologies include kickbacks or bribes collected and pushed up to superiors or appointers, opportunistic theft and shakedowns to overlook drug trafficking, and internal payoffs for preferred locations and highranked positions in rich poppy-cultivating provinces. In addition, integrity violations include gifts and dubious promises, moonlighting and abuse of uniform with part-time insurgent jobs while in uniform, discrimination and excessive force against citizens and drug abuse in private time. However, typologies of police corruption and integrity violations cannot be entirely mapped to war-torn contexts due to the social construction of what corruption entails for police officers and the public. Corruption is more complicated than a deterministic analysis or framework that attempts to identify practices of police corruption. The theoretical framework presented in this book – the political, economic and cultural drivers of corruption – can provide an alternative method for how corruption can be examined. These drivers can underpin historical institutional structures, external reformers’ strategies on police reform and the relationships between political elites and bureaucratic agents (with a political economy approach). In addition, the drivers can explain low pay coping mechanisms and the extent of emotional investment in the job rather than relying on a rigid Western-based typology. Further studies may still opt to concentrate on testing ethical conduct and integrity violations within a range of

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police departments, such as Khalid (2016) in Pakistan, in order to contribute to a typology of police corruption and integrity violations to develop recommendations on training and preventative strategies. Notes 1 2

3 4

5

6 7

8 9

10

Author interview with the Team Leader of ARoLP, Kabul, 3 June 2010. Author interviews with the Project Coordinator of CPHD, Kabul, 27 May 2010; Finance Director and Interim Director of IWPR, Kabul, 31 May 2012. Author interview with the former Interior Minister, York, 23 November 2010. Author interview with the Head of Access to Justice Program for The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 26 May 2012. To strengthen this notion, four structured interview respondents argued that patronage provides the definition of corruption. First Lieutenant Nangarhar (structured interview #1), 2016. A major based in Nangarhar (structured interview #2) provided this example on three occasions during the structured interview. Author interview with the Chair of the PRDU, York, 3 February 2012. Author interview with the Country Director of Global Rights: Partners for Justice, Kabul, 3 June 2010. Author interview with the Senior Advisor to the Minister at the MoIA, Kabul, 6 June 2010.

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Index A Abdullah, Abdullah 78, 80, 104, 114 Access to Information Law and Penal Code 109 Action Aid 137 Aepli, P. 57 Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) 139 Afghan Interim Administration (AIA) 52, 177 Afghan Local Police (ALP) 84, 106, 145, 168–9, 180 Afghan National Army (ANA) 82, 133–4, 143, 166, 177, 182 Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS) 108, 179, 184 Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) 106, 145 Afghan Personnel and Pay System (APPS) 160, 170, 172 Afghan Uniform Police (AUP) corruption in 82, 112, 135, 142–3, 149, 153, 171, 181–2 perceptions of corruption 149 training 65 Afghanistan National Strategy for Combating Corruption (AntiCorruption Strategy) 108–9, 111, 145, 159–61, 170, 179, 184 Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending Re-establishment of Permanent Government Institutions see Bonn Agreement Alemann, U.V. 14 Alikuzai, H.W. 166 Alim Hanif, Mohammad 140 allocation of jobs 164, 166, 171, 182 Alpert, G.P. 89 American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS) 127

Amiryar, M.E. 77 Amnesty Law 79, 91, 141, 152 Andrain, C.F. 85 Anti-Corruption and Justice Centre (ACJC) 109, 111, 115, 140, 170 Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) 8, 108, 109, 110, 111, 141, 170 Anti-Corruption Implementation Plan (EUPOL) 159 anti-corruption strategies see prevention of corruption in Afghanistan; prevention of police corruption Aristide, Jean-Bertrand 57–8 armed opposition groups (AOG) 78, 145, 159, 163, 184 arms, control of 48 Asia Foundation 97, 128, 167 Asset Declaration Law 109, 111 Australia 30, 31–2, 41, 44, 45 authority, corruption of 18 averting offences 18–19 Axe, D. 164 Azami, S. 118, 150

B bad apples theory 26–7, 30, 45 Bakri, H.H.M. 43 Baldor, L.C. 62 Barker, T. 18–19, 21, 128, 138, 145, 155, 165, 170, 189 ‘birds’ 31 Bizhan, N. 98 blat 119, 123 Bonn Agreement 8, 95, 96–7, 98–9, 106, 113, 123, 175, 176, 184 border officers corruption 57, 91, 114, 138, 146, 183 rotation strategy 39–40 Boucher, A.A. 103 Bourdieu, P. 86, 87, 118–19, 123

227

Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force Bowling, B. 25 Brady, B. 154 Brahimi Report (2000) 53 Brazil 24, 35 bribery 15, 17, 18–19, 21 and commissions of inquiry 30–2 and drugs trade 45, 66–7, 74, 78, 91–2, 145, 146, 152, 170 and illiteracy 90–1, 161 and job-buying/selling 74, 127, 164, 165 justice system 114, 120, 138–40, 170 and low pay 36–40, 81–2, 91–2, 142–4, 146–7, 152, 153, 181–3 as one of main corrupt practices 144–7 social construction of corruption 118, 120, 123, 147, 149, 150, 154, 172 value of bribes 103–4, 106 see also pay reform Bruce, D. 17, 21 Brummet, J. 182 Bush, George W. 61

C Caldero, M.A. 24, 84 Call, C.T. 34 Canadian International Development Agency 77 Carter, D.L. 18, 19 Carty, K. 41 Cédras, Joseph Raoul 58 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 85 Central Narcotics Tribunal Appeals Court 140 Centre for Policy and Human Development (CPHD) 147 Cerrah, I. 31 Chan, J.B.L. 83, 86–7, 123 Chávez, Hugo 67–8, 70 China corruption 30, 38, 39 gift-giving 118–19, 187 civil servants 81, 82, 109, 111, 116 Civil Service Commission 109

civil society 9, 30, 33, 34, 35, 46, 49, 108, 109, 110–11, 137, 138 Civilian Police (CIVPOL) 59, 178 Clark, K. 64, 112, 168 clientelism 14, 38, 40, 52, 96, 123, 135, 137, 176–7, 179, 183–4 code of silence 41, 46, 89 Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan (CSTC-A) 71, 90, 110, 124, 160, 166, 178, 182 commissions of inquiry 29–33, 45, 46, 180 Committee on the Office of the Ombudsman (New South Wales) 31 community policing 33–5, 43, 60, 67, 68, 69, 178 Cook, J.L. 164 Cordesman, A.H. 83 Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) (Singapore) 41, 45 corruption definition see definitions and typologies corruption (general) see definitions and typologies corruption in Afghanistan 95–116 anti-corruption strategies 107–13, 114–15, 159–61 consequences of 103–7 drivers of 114–16 and external intervention 95–100, 113–14, 115 institutional legacy 100–7, 114, 115 levels of 103–4, 106 structural changes in Afghan police 100–3 see also prevention of corruption in Afghanistan corruption in police see police corruption (general); police corruption in Afghanistan Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan 4, 146 counterinsurgency (COIN) 1, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 71, 95–100, 137, 169, 178, 184, 185, 188

228

Index Crank, J.P. 84 crime within private time 25–6 cronyism 15, 77, 80, 97, 111, 160, 170 cultural drivers of police corruption 83–92 in Afghanistan 147–52, 154–5, 185–7 Czech Republic 43

D D’aesh 63, 177 Dahla Dam project 77 Damasio, A.R. 25 Daoud, Mohammad 100–1 De Lauri, A. 186 definitions and typologies 13–27, 189–90 defining corruption 13–16, 21, 122, 123 defining police corruption 16–17, 21–2 typologies of police corruption 18–27 demobilisation 48 Democratic Republic of Congo 55 Department for International Development (UK) (DFID) 48 Derksen, D. 168 deviance 16, 18, 19–20, 122 direct criminal activities 19 disarmament 48 disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) 48–9, 51 disciplinary procedures 184 discretion 17, 84, 87, 141 discrimination 24, 70, 166 Dizard, W. 37 donor aid/initiatives 52–3, 69, 70, 97–9, 104, 179 Dost, N. 164 Dostum, General 78, 79, 80, 101, 111, 134, 135 drivers of police corruption 20, 73–93, 125–55 cultural drivers 83–91, 92, 147–52, 154–5, 185–7

economic drivers 81–3, 116, 142–7, 181–3 ethnic favouritism 79–81, 136 evaluation of 181–7 external intervention 93 interconnected 91–3, 152–3 noble cause corruption 84–6, 150–2 payoffs, patronage and nepotism 75–8, 127–38, 152 police culture 83–4, 148–50 political drivers 74–81, 115, 126–41, 183–4 political economy approach 75–7, 81, 82, 92, 131–5, 138, 139, 140, 151–2, 155 social contract 118, 119, 120, 123, 147, 154, 183 socialisation processes 86–9, 148–9 state capture 78–9, 128–9, 138–41 structural causes of corruption 74–5 training and literacy 89–91, 142–3, 154–5 utilising 188–90 see also prevention of police corruption drug trade and Afghan government 74, 78–9, 91, 128–30, 133, 138–41, 165 and Afghan police 45, 69, 74, 88, 90–2, 127, 130, 138, 145–6, 152, 154, 165, 179–80 and bribery 45, 66–7, 74, 78, 91–2, 145, 146, 152, 170 combating 159, 169–70 in Honduras 66–7, 70 impact on police reform 179–80 narcoterrorism 98–9 poppy farming 66, 74, 88, 92, 132, 145, 154, 179–80, 183 and prevention of corruption 30, 35 and protection money 19 and state capture 68, 69, 70, 78–9, 91, 128–30, 138–41 Durk, David 27 Duxbury, N. 39

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force

E Earnest, J. 54 East Timor 54 economic drivers of police corruption 81–3, 116 in Afghanistan 142–7, 181–3 elders 52, 65, 136, 137, 167, 183 elections 104, 128–9, 133–4, 152, 153 embezzlement 97–8 emotions 24–5 Engel, U. 52 Erdmann, G. 52 ethics of policing 21, 33, 40–2, 89, 180, 186 ethnic discrimination 166 ethnic favouritism 79–81, 166 ethnic tensions 68–9, 70 EU External Action 64 EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) 54 European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL) 64, 124, 159 evidence, ignoring/ planting/falsifying 17, 19–20 extortion 21, 35, 37, 39, 81–2, 91, 144–7, 181, 186

F Fahim, Marshall 97, 134 Fahy, P. 32 failed state paradigm 135, 166 fair wage-corruption hypothesis 146 Faqiryar, Fazed 112 fasad 119, 123, 149, 181, 186 favouritism 38, 79–81, 121, 130–1, 137, 166 Felbab-Brown, V. 145 Ferguson, N. 50 Finland 22 Fishstein, P. 77 fixing 19 flaking 20 Focused District Development (FDD) 64–5, 90, 161, 185, 188 Foltz, J.D. 37, 182 fraud 22, 160, 172

free market 51–2, 76 functionalist approach to corruption 118, 150, 154, 172

G Gardiner, J. 121 Geneva Conference on Afghanistan 160 Georgia 31, 43, 45, 180 Germany 40, 63–4, 99 Ghana 37, 182 Ghani, Ashraf anti-corruption strategies 78, 108–9, 110, 111, 114–15 corruption by 78, 79, 80, 100, 104, 105, 134, 135–7, 187 Ghobarah, H.A. 50 ‘ghost’ police officers 62, 65–6, 160 gift-giving 22–3 social construction of 118–19, 120, 121, 123, 127, 147, 150, 154, 172, 187 Giustozzi, A. 3, 88, 107, 124, 127, 131, 148, 164 Global Corruption Index 103, 122 Global Rights: Partners for Justice 130, 140–1 Goldstein, H. 33 good governance 49, 114, 169 Goodhand, J. 56, 106 Goodman, M.B. 154 Gottschalk, P. 27 Gounev, P. 39 governance good governance 49, 114, 169 strongman governance 95–7, 99–100, 113, 115 grand corruption 74, 112–13, 152, 163, 179 ‘grass-eating’ corruption 26, 31–2, 43–4, 45–6 gratuities 22–3, 86 Gupta, A. 121–2

H habitus and field 86–9, 123, 149, 187 Haiti 57–9, 71

230

Index Hakimi, A. 106 Hänggi, H. 49 Heidenheimer, A.J. 14 High Office of Oversight and AntiCorruption (HOOAC) 108, 110, 111, 140 Honduras 66, 70, 180 Hong Kong 39, 45 Hope, K.R. 37, 41, 42, 46, 146, 155, 188 housing 144, 167, 182 Huberts, L.W.J.C. 21, 22, 26, 35–6, 120, 135, 138, 149, 150, 155, 189 human resources management 35, 43, 160 human rights abuses 79, 85, 91, 96, 112–13, 129, 130, 133, 141, 152, 163, 168 Human Rights Watch (HRW) 30, 168 Huntington, S.P. 118, 150 Hussein, Saddam 59–60

I illiteracy 89–91, 161, 164, 185–6 Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission 111 Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) (Hong Kong) 39, 45, 70 India 121–2 information abuse 23–4 institutional reform 33–6 Integrity Institute of Malaysia 42–3 integrity violations 13 prevention of 40–1, 42–3 and social construction of corruption 120 typology of 21, 22, 24, 25–6, 135, 138–9, 149, 150, 189 see also gift-giving Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) 82, 106, 120, 135, 181 internal payoffs 19, 46, 74, 92, 127–8, 154, 164, 183 internal solidarity 46, 84, 148, 185

internally displaced people (IDP) 50 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 58, 169 international non-governmental organisations (INGO) 167 International Police Monitors (IPM) 58 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 63, 168 intimidation 24, 139, 152 Iraq 1–2, 59–63, 66, 71, 177–8, 188–9 Iraq Federal Police (IFP) 62, 177 Iraqi National Police (INP) 2, 61–2 Isaqzadeh, M.R. 3, 88, 107, 124, 127, 131, 148, 164 Italy 59, 61, 99 Ivković, S.K. 22, 33

J Jamaica 40 Japan 99 job selling/buying 74, 127–8, 131, 154, 164, 165–6, 183 Johnson, O.N. 89 Justice Sector Support Programme (JSSP) 144, 147 justice system Amnesty Law 79, 91, 141, 152 anti-corruption strategies 41, 49, 82, 108–9, 113, 115, 163 corruption in 1–2, 19, 78–9, 106, 111, 112–13, 114–15, 120, 129, 138–41, 170 weakness of 99

K Kabul Bank scandal 97, 114 Kajsiu, B. 57 Karzai, Ahmad Wali 77–8, 128, 133 Karzai, Hamid becomes President 52 and corruption 77, 80, 91, 95–6, 99–100, 106, 112–13, 115, 128–30, 133–6, 163, 176 and drug trade 128, 129, 130 and election law 128–9 support from USA 77, 133, 168 and warlords 70, 95–6, 115

231

Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force Kenya 36, 37, 43, 146 Khalid, S.U. 43, 126, 190 Khan, M.H. 14 Khan, Ismail 96, 102, 129–30, 140 kickbacks 18, 38, 92, 128, 189 Kleinig, J. 16–17, 20, 26, 31, 186 Klockars, C.B. 16, 25 Knapp Commission 27, 30, 31, 148, 180 Kosovo 54 Krongard, H.J. 60 Kühn, F.P. 54

L Lamboo, M.E.D. 25 Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA) 144 Le Billon, P. 55 liberal peace doctrine 54–5, 95, 96–100, 113, 117, 123, 176, 177 Liberia 55–6 limited access orders 76–7, 113–14, 117, 140, 171 Lister, S. 179 literacy 89–91, 161, 164, 185–6 Lithuania 40 Loader, I. 151, 185 local police 84, 106, 145, 168–9, 180 lottery posting system 11, 166–7, 182 low pay 36–8, 81, 112, 116, 142–3, 146, 153, 162, 181–2 Loya Jirga 52, 97, 133

Méon, P.-G. 118 meritocracy 34, 60, 67, 80, 100–1, 109, 111, 116, 163, 164, 167, 179, 183 militarising the police 12, 60, 64, 66, 124, 178 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 50, 51 Miller, J. 20, 122, 149 Miller, S. 25 Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice 102 Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) 128 Ministry of Interior Affairs (MoIA) anti-corruption strategies 64–5, 90, 110, 111, 159–61 corruption in 74, 88, 102, 104, 106, 127–8, 131, 136, 165–6 weakness of 84 misconduct, distinguished from corruption 17 Mollen Commission 19, 24, 30 moonlighting 23, 60, 135, 189 Moqbel, Zarar Ahmad 130 motivation of police 37, 151, 178, 185 Mujahidin 96, 101, 102–3, 124, 132, 134, 151, 180, 185 multi-ethnic police officers 68–9 Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq (MNSTC-I) 61, 62, 178 Multinational Force (Haiti) (MNF) 58–9 Multinational Force(Iraq) (MNF) 60

M Mac Ginty, R. 55 Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF) 112–13, 159–60, 170 Malaysia 39, 42–3, 180 Manning, P.K. 83 McCain, John 64 McLinden, G. 40 ‘meat-eating’ corruption 26, 31–2, 43–4, 45–6, 184 Melanson, R.A. 176 mentoring 58–9 65

N Narayanan, S.S. 81 narcotics see drug trade National Corruption Strategy 114 National Corruption Survey 106 National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) (USA) 128, 137 National High Council for Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption 108–9

232

Index National Integrity Plan (Malaysia) 42–3, 180 national pride 85–6, 150–1, 178, 185 NATO Resolute Support Mission 110, 137 NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan (NTM-A) 71, 90, 178 NATO Training Mission – Iraq (NTM-I) 61, 178 neoliberal model of post-conflict reconstruction 51–2, 63, 71, 92, 155, 177, 178, 189 neopatrimonialism 51–2, 75–7, 88, 96, 98, 115, 184 nepotism 75, 77–81, 99–100, 114, 128, 130–1, 133, 136–7, 164, 179 Netherlands 22, 35, 36 new recruits rotation strategy 39 socialisation process 87–9, 149 training of 41–2, 59, 89–91, 155, 188 New York Police Department (NYPD) 19, 27, 30, 180 Newburn, T. 20, 21, 23, 26, 33, 170 Nicholson, John 110 Nigeria 35, 36, 57 Nixon, J. 41 noble cause corruption 17, 20, 24–5, 32, 84–6 in Afghanistan 124, 149, 150–2, 185 Noor, Atta Mohammad 80, 96 North, D.C. 76 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) 52, 54, 61, 71, 90, 178 Northern Alliance 95, 96, 101, 113, 115, 132, 134, 176 Nye, J.S. 14, 21

O Officers Inherent Law 109 Olivier de Sardan, J.P. 135 Omar, Mullah Mohammed 105–6, 151, 180

on-the-job training 41 Operation Enduring Freedom 63 Operation Uphold Democracy 58 operational code 24 opium trade 92, 104, 132, 135, 138, 145, 146 Opoku-Agyemang, K.A. 37, 182 opportunistic theft 18 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 15 Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) 42, 43 Özerdem, A. 48, 177

P Pakistan 39, 43, 98, 126 Papua New Guinea 119–20 paramilitary policing 62, 64, 66, 100, 101, 102 patronage combating 38–40, 46, 55–6, 112, 114, 161,166, 171, 172, 175, 179, 182 as driver of corruption 75–80, 92–3, 98–103, 127–38, 152, 155, 176, 183–4 and electoral law 133–4 impact of 104–5, 136 in Iraqi police 60–1, 62 and local police 168 and over-focus on COIN 71 traditional-based 132–3 tribal structure of 135 in Venezuela 70 and warlords 70, 75, 99–100, 103, 134, 135, 176 pay and grading (P&G) 111 pay reform 36–8 in Afghanistan 82–3, 111–12, 143–4, 146–7, 162–3, 171, 181–3 in Venezuela 67–8 payoffs 14, 18–19, 46, 74, 92, 119, 120, 127–8, 154, 164, 183 payroll reform 160

233

Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force peacebuilding 1, 48, 49, 53–5, 70 Perito, R.M. 3, 60, 74, 178 perjury 148–9 Perryman, D. 23 Peru 39–40 Petraeus, David 168 Philippines 36 Philp, M. 16 Pinková, A. 14 planting evidence 19–20 Planty, D.J. 3 police corruption (general) definitions 16–17, 21–2 in post-conflict states 66–71 typologies 18–26, 189–90 see also drivers of police corruption; prevention of police corruption police corruption in Afghanistan impact of 105–7 and international bureaucratic reforms 107–15 and structural changes in police 100–3 see also drivers of police corruption ; prevention of police corruption see also individual corrupt practices police culture 83–4, 86–8, 92, 148–51, 185, 187 Police Integrity Commission (New South Wales) 31, 32, 44 police mandate 83–4, 85–6, 124, 150–1, 168–9, 185 Police Mentoring Team (PMT) 65 political drivers of police corruption 74–81 in Afghanistan 115, 126–41, 152, 183–4 political economy approach 75–7, 81–2, 92, 113, 117, 131–2, 135, 139–40, 151–2, 170–1 poppy farming 66, 74, 88, 92, 132, 145, 154, 179–80, 183 Porter, L.E. 20 post-conflict police reconstruction 56–66, 176–8 in Afghanistan 63–6, 71, 176–7 in Haiti 57–8, 71

in Iraq 59–63, 71, 176–7 main challenges of 56–7, 70–1 post-conflict reconstruction 1, 50–6, 70–1, 176–8 posting of jobs 164–8, 171, 182 poverty 103–4 Prenzler, T. 21, 34, 39, 148 prevention of corruption in Afghanistan 8–9, 107–15, 159–61 Afghan MoIA strategy 159–61 Afghanistan National Strategy for Combating Corruption 108–9, 111, 145, 159–61, 170, 179, 184 Anti-Corruption and Justice Centre (ACJC) 109, 111, 115, 140, 170 Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) 8, 108, 109, 110, 111, 141, 170 Anti-Corruption Implementation Plan (EUPOL) 159 High Office of Oversight and AntiCorruption (HOOAC) 108, 110, 111, 140 international bureaucratic reforms 107–15 National Corruption Strategy 114 see also prevention of police corruption prevention of police corruption 29–46, 159–72, 179–80 Afghan MoIA strategy 159–61 commissions of inquiry 29–33, 45, 46 drug interdiction 169–70 external monitoring 45 formal bureaucratic reform efforts 107–15 internal monitoring 44 local police efforts 168–9 pay reform 36–8, 67–8, 82–3, 111–12, 143–4, 146–7, 162–3, 171, 181–3 police reform 33–6 in post-conflict states 66–71 recruitment and stationing 34–5, 163–8, 171 rotation strategy 38–40, 166

234

Index training 40–3, 46, 64, 89–91, 161, 188 see also drivers of police corruption; police corruption in Afghanistan pride 71, 85–6, 124, 150–1, 178 priority reform and restructuring (PRR) 111 private time misbehaviour 25–6 problem-based learning 42, 46 process corruption 21 professionalism 41, 43, 48, 49, 71, 85–6, 106, 151, 154–5, 186 promise letters 110, 115, 172 protection money 19, 75, 92, 106, 146, 154, 164–5, 179–80 Public Administration Reform (PAR) 8, 111, 179, 184 Punch, M.E. 16, 17, 18, 20, 32–3 Pyman, M. 41

Reiner, R. 124, 151, 185 reintegration 48 rent seeking 75, 76, 77, 115 research methodology 3–4, 125–6 Reynolds, K.M. 22 rishwat 9, 120, 123, 149 Roebuck, J.B. 18–19, 21, 128, 138, 145, 155, 165, 170, 189 role modelling 35–6 Romania 35 Rose-Ackerman, S. 18, 77, 139, 181 Rosoff, S.M. 30 rotation strategy 38–40, 166 rotten orchard theory 26–7, 30 Roy, O. 124 Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) 42–3 Rubin, B.R. 92 rule bending 24–5, 85 Russia 36–7, 119

Q

S

Qanuni, Yunus 136–7 qawm 80–1, 167, 183 Quah, J.S.T. 36, 81, 104

Saakashvili, Mikheil 31, 43, 45 Said, E.W. 121 Sajjad, T. 69 Saleh, A.F. 80 Salehi, Muhammad Zia 112–13 Saur Revolution 100, 101, 102 Sayed, T. 17, 21 scandals 29–30, 32, 35, 45, 97, 180 Schmitz, J.E. 60 secondary employment 23 secret police 101 sectarian violence 60–2 security sector reform (SSR) 1–2, 47–9, 99, 178 and post-conflict police reconstruction 56–66 and post-conflict reconstruction 50–6 Sekkat, K. 118 Semunkhina, O.B. 22 sense of mission 25, 71, 86, 101, 124, 150–1, 178, 185 Serbia 68–9, 70 Serpico, Frank 24, 27, 30, 148 shakedowns 18–19, 128, 145, 189 Sharifi, Sharif 136–7

R random assignments 38–40, 46, 166–7, 171, 182 rank reform 111, 112, 161–2, 163–4 Rasoolyar, Mohammad Jan 169 recruitment and anti-corruption strategies 34, 35, 115, 160, 163–8 elder selection 167 ethnic favouritism 80, 166 in Iraqi police 60–1, 62–3 job selling/buying 74, 127–8, 131, 154, 164, 165–6, 183 patronage 112, 130–1, 136, 137, 154, 155, 164, 165–6, 179, 183–4 qawm 167, 183 of women 110 see also new recruits; training reflexive model of post-conflict reconstruction 52, 177, 178, 188, 189

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Investigating Corruption in the Afghan Police Force Shelley, L.I. 107 Sherman, L.W. 20, 21, 26, 30, 31, 35, 68, 86, 87, 88, 148 Shevardnadze, Eduard 31 Shirzai, Gul Agha 96, 129 Short, Clare 1 Singapore 39, 41, 44, 45, 69, 180 slippery slope theory 26, 31–2, 86, 87, 88 Smith, J.T. 85 social capital 51, 118–19 social construction of corruption 117–24 in Afghanistan 117–20, 122–4, 147, 149–50, 154–5, 172, 186–7 and definition of corruption 22, 123 different cultures 17–22, 123, 186–7 fluid nature of 123–4 Western conceptions of 118, 121–2, 123, 150 social contract 118, 119, 120, 123, 147, 154, 183 socialisation processes 86–9, 148, 149, 187 Solagh, Bayan Jabr 60 solidarity 46, 84, 148, 185 South Africa 33–4 Soviet Union 38, 101, 132 Special Court of the Supreme Court 113 Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) 108, 145, 160, 164–5 spoiler management 96, 100, 113, 176 state capture 57, 68, 69, 70, 78–9 in Afghanistan 128–9, 138–41, 152, 184 state legitimacy 129, 154, 172 statebuilding 53–4, 92–3 in Afghanistan 95–100, 113, 176–7 stationing of posts 164–8, 171, 182 Stedman, S.J. 96, 113

Stockholm Programme 68–9 strongman governance 95–7, 99–100, 113, 115 Supreme Audit Office 136–7 Sutton, T. 154 systemic corruption 74, 79, 91–2, 103, 113, 127, 140, 152, 166, 171, 177 systemic failure 26–7, 30–1

T Taliban and Afghan Local Police (ALP) 169 combating 64, 71, 95–6, 98 and elections 104 impact of corruption on 105–7, 114, 154, 187 remobilisation of 103–7, 114, 154, 187 seizing power (1996) 102–3 Taliban police 102, 103 Tanzeem, A. 168–9 target setting 84 Thailand 36 theft 15, 16, 18, 22 Tondini, M. 54 torture 85 traffic police 19, 31, 35, 43, 45, 144–5 training anti-corruption 40–3, 46, 64, 89–91, 161, 188 and cultural drivers of police corruption 89–91, 154–5 and literacy 89–91, 161, 164, 185–6 local police 168 militaristic 60, 64, 178 new recruits 89–91 and post-conflict police reconstruction 58–66, 185–6, 188 Transparency International 14, 33, 103, 122, 123, 186 tribal leaders 80–1 trust 25, 43, 45, 51, 56–7, 62, 67, 107, 145, 163, 186

236

Index United States Institute of Peace (USIP) 146

Turkey 31 turning a blind eye 18–19, 21, 128, 145

V U United Kingdom 22–3, 99 United Nations statebuilding 53–4 UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) 108, 145 UN Civilian Policing (CIVPOL) 59, 178 UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) 108 UN Development Programme (UNDP) 90, 106, 124, 127, 139, 164, 165 UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) 54, 178 UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 50, 51 UN Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) 58–9 UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 106, 118, 145, 164 UN Police 58 UN Security Council (UNSC) 52, 53–4, 58, 63 United States and Afghanistan 63–5, 71, 77, 99, 110, 133, 146, 160, 168, 176, 178 definition of corruption 14 foreign aid 104 and Haiti 57–9 and Iraq 1–2, 59–63, 71 police corruption 19, 23, 24, 27, 30, 180 waterboarding 85 United States Agency for International Development (USAID) 14 United States Department of Defence (DoD) 60, 110, 160, 178 United States Department of Justice (DoJ) 58, 59, 60

van Rijckeghem, C. 147, 182 van Veldhuizen, R. 146 Vargas-Hernández, J.G. 15, 18 Varisco, A.E. 1 Venezuela 36, 67, 69, 70, 180 violence (of police) 24, 148–9 Vos, R. 51

W Wacquant, L.J.D. 87 Waddington, P.A.J. 41, 124 wages 36–8, 67–8, 81, 111–12, 116, 142–3, 146, 153, 162, 181–2 Wahidi, Abdul Razaq 113 Walker, S. 24 Walton, G. 119–20 War on Terror 52, 71 warlords 8, 56, 70, 75, 77, 95–9, 103, 113, 130, 133–6 Warrender, C. 20 Warsaw Summit (2016) 99 Washington Post, The 133 waterboarding 85 Weder, B. 147, 182 Wesa, Tooryalai 80, 136 Whistle Blower Protection Law 109 Wilder, A. 3 Winning Hearts and Minds 52, 177 women in the police 110 Wood Royal Commission 30, 32, 41, 45 Wooden, K. 41 World Bank 14, 50, 107, 169 Wozniak, J.S.G. 52, 62, 178, 188

Y Yang, M.M.-S. 9, 119, 187 Yashar, D.J. 67 Young, J. 163 Young, M. 154

Z Zahab, M.A. 124 Zambia 36

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