So, it’s easy to be cynical here and point to examples of where high-income countries have had disasters, and from those data points conclude that everywhere is the same, but it really isn't the case that everywhere is the same. The fact we hear about failures, we see their political causes debated, and lawsuits filed, and root causes analyzed, and hands wrung in headlines… these are all symptoms of a system that is more or less working. These are the course-corrections and isolated incidents that serve to calibrate and revalidate that the accountability is there.
This is nothing like countries where corruption is endemic.
Witness Turkey’s recent arrests. What do we think is more likely: those contractors were the true root cause, and their arrests will prevent future building collapses during earthquakes? Or that they are merely the tip of a very large, very corrupt iceberg, and they will be made scapegoats to provide political cover that allows the rest of the system to quickly get back to business as usual?
This is nothing like countries where corruption is endemic.
Witness Turkey’s recent arrests. What do we think is more likely: those contractors were the true root cause, and their arrests will prevent future building collapses during earthquakes? Or that they are merely the tip of a very large, very corrupt iceberg, and they will be made scapegoats to provide political cover that allows the rest of the system to quickly get back to business as usual?