Parking Ticket Story for the U.N. Diplomats

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In the late 19 nineties into the early two thousands, diplomats at the united nations had diplomatic immunity from at least minor crimes. This meant that there were a hundred and 50 thousand parking tickets racked up by various u.N. Officials who had diplomatic cimmunity. And what they found was that in the pre enforcement period, all the sort of non corrupt countries,. diplomats parked pretty normally, legally, and all the corrupt countries, diplomats parked illegally a lot. So it's basically a pre and post accountability, natural experiment the wild west of enow lack of accountability, and then all of a sudden, the risk of real consequences.

All societies grant more power to some citizens, and there is always a temptation to use that power for the benefit of themselves rather than for the greater good. Power corrupts, we are told — but to what extent is that true? Would any of us, upon receiving great power, be tempted by corruption? Or are corruptible people drawn to accrue power? Brian Klaas has investigated these questions by looking at historical examples and by interviewing hundreds of people who have been in this position. He concludes that power can corrupt, but it doesn’t necessarily do so — we can construct safeguards to keep corruption to a minimum.

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Brian Klaas received his D.Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford. He is currently Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London and a columnist for The Washington Post. His new book is Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes Us. He is host of the Power Corrupts podcast.