Entrepreneurs

This link tells the unlikely story of Petr Šourek, the founder of Corrupt Tour. Šourek's company offers tours of Prague and the Czech Republic's most (in)famous examples of kickbacks, bribes, no-bid contracts, and the like. You can also take a tour of the "nests" of Czech Republic, and see the villas where lobbyists and some of the shadier "byznysmeni" live, kinda like those trips through Hollywood where you can see the movie stars' homes.

According to the article, Šourek hopes to cover the costs, though he doesn't really expect to make a profit on his new venture. It's based more on the principle of bringing attention to the problems of corruption in Czech Republic, a country that Transparency International continues to give poor (and worsening) scores, especially compared to some of the other countries in our neighborhood.

One thing that is interesting about this concerns the way that Šourek is going about this whole "civil society" "raising awareness" "mobilization" thing. Much of the poli sci literature dealing with this sort of thing these days is dedicated to ideas about "policy entrepreneurs," mobilizing interest groups, and securing accountability though the ubiquitous "NGO." Discussions about civil society in this context sometimes exclude the idea that for-profit entities can actually contribute to a stronger civil society, and that volunteerism is the chief indicator of a robust civil society. We focus on non-profit NGOs, but our policy entrepreneurs obviously don't NEED to be in the non-profit sector. Indeed, it would be interesting to look at how company cultures in foreign firms affect Czech ideas about what role intermediate institutions -- either for-profit or not -- should play. Moreover, home-grown innovative initiative such as this are often the most sustainable, and it seems quite reasonable to believe that a for-profit institution might significantly impact government accountability and "raise awareness" of such problems. It will be another indicator of the relative growing strength of civil society if this becomes a viable commercial enterprise, and if Mr Šourek can do well by doing good, more power to him.