We usually think of corruption as a distortion, an aberration from the original order. In reality, it is the other way around. Corruption or lawlessness is the initial state of affairs. Everybody works for themselves and their kin, possibly for their clan or tribe. As Francis Fukuyama (2011, 16) explains in his great book “The Origins of Political Order”, in institutional development, first comes the state, then the rule of law, and finally accountable governments. None of them is natural.
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Anders Aslund: Will Ukraine be able to establish real property rights?
People hold a more than a kilometer-long Ukrainian flag at Independence Square in Kyiv on Jan. 22 to mark the 99th anniversary of the reunification of the Ukrainian People's Republic with the West Ukrainian People's Republic in 1919.
