Global Transparency

So Eigen left the World Bank in protest and started Transparency International. He tells us that the lessons learned in starting the project have implications for other issues, like the work Auret Van Heerden is doing on global supply chains. As with the supply chain, there’s a real danger that as you stop permitting bribery, you’ll get out competed by countries that do permit it. You have to overcome this prisoner’s dilemma by cooperating with businesses. Eigen advocates “antagonistic cooperation” – using a term his wife, a prominent political scientist coined. In Germany, he explained that in the first meetings, no one was willing to admit that they paid bribes. In the second, everyone admitted they did, and in the third meeting, they all agreed to change. This was especially amazing because the government explicitly didn’t apply pressure, and believed that bribery was necessary to keep German business competitive.