They also expose deep corruption in the department.
But many say deep corruption prevents the military from containing the insurgencies.
What could happen in Uganda has happened before in Angola, Gabon and Nigeria, all countries with deep corruption where oil intensified class disparities.
Acemoglu, an economist at M.I.T., has watched the country of his birth, Turkey, fall into deep corruption and tyranny.
"We can't stamp it out, not yet," Sirleaf said to me, clenching her fists in frustration over the country's bone-deep corruption.
It is hard to judge how deep corruption goes, or how much of an impact it may have on foreign investment.
He soft-pedals the remorseless cruelty of many of the South African government's acts forced removals, widespread torture, deep corruption and the routine assassination of political enemies.
"So when you see a display filled with chart junk, there's a deeper corruption: they don't know what they're talking about".
In Hungary in 1995, the finance minister, Lajos Bokros, and the central bank governor, György Suranyi, saw "deep corruption and cronyism in the banks", recalls Peter Mihalyi, who was then number two at the privatisation agency.
"I want institutions that are more transparent, more resistant to wrongdoing," Rousseff said in reference to perceptions of deep corruption in Brazilian politics, which is emerging as a focal point of the protests.
