There are two radically different versions of the postcommunist narrative. One tells the triumphal tale of the only world region in which the reforms recommended by the “Washington consensus” worked. The other and more realistic account speaks of a historic window of opportunity that lasted for only a quarter-century, during which efforts by the West […]
Publications
Anti-Corruption Revolutions: When Civil Society Steps In
This working paper explores the question of whether an empowered civil society with access to public information, can make a difference in the fight against corruption, using India and the recent rise of an anti-corruption party as a case study. Through a mixed methodology that combines quantitative and qualitative research tools, the authors find evidence […]
International Anti-corruption Normative Framework: the State of the Art
This paper looks into the main debates in International Relations on norm compliance. It looks at the three causal factors that help us explain the origins of norms in relation to anti-corruption introduced by McCoy and Heckel (2001): (1) post-Cold War era; (2) social process, i.e. interaction among actors and diffusion of information; and (3) internal process […]
Democratization and corruption: the state of the art
This paper critically discusses the main contributions of the literature on the relationship between democratization and corruption, focusing on the perspective of how the former is expected to affect the latter and highlighting the different hypotheses and empirical findings presented by the most relevant and recent scholarly work in this line of research. Additionally, the discussion […]
Background report on international and European law against corruption
This report sets the background and the methodology design for the WP10 of the ANTICORRP project. WP10 seeks to explore whether and the extent to which, EU states comply with international anti-corruption norms, as well as their domestic implementation and enforcement. It has four main research objectives: a) to measure state compliance and implementation of […]
The Anticorruption Report. Volume 2: The Anticorruption Frontline
From Turkey to Egypt, Bulgaria to Ukraine, and Brazil to India, we witness the rise of an angry urban middle class protesting against what they see as fundamental corruption of their politicalregimes, perceived as predatory and inefficient. Corruption is near the top of all global protesters’ list of grievances – from the Occupy movement to the Arab […]
Natural Resource Revenues, Corruption and Expropriation
This paper develops a formal model that looks at the mutually endogenous determination of foreign direct investments in natural resource-rich countries, the decision of host governments to expropriate these investments, and the level of corruption. Higher resource production makes expropriation more attractive from the perspective of national governments. A low expropriation risk is in turn an important determinant of international investments […]
The Struggle for Effective Change: An Assessment of the APRM’s Achievements
In July 2002 the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) was established. This collective action taken by African Heads of State and Governments demonstrated the willingness to strengthen governance and achieve sustainable economic and political development. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) was set up to monitor the commitment to the NEPAD and thereby […]
Anatomy of grand corruption: A composite corruption risk index based on objective data
Although both the academic and policy communities have attached great importance to measuring corruption, most of the currently available measures are biased and too broad totest theory or guide policy. This article proposes a new composite indicator of grand corruption based on a wide range of elementary indicators. These indicators are derivedfrom a rich qualitative […]
Corruption manual for beginners: “Corruption techniques” in public procurement with examples from Hungary
This paper develops 30 novel quantitative indicators of grand corruption that operationalize 20 distinct techniques of corruption in the context of public procurement. Each indicator rests on a thorough qualitative understanding of rent extraction from public contracts by corrupt networks as evidenced by academic literature, interviews and media content analysis. Feasibility and usefulness of the […]
Quantitative report on causes of performance and stagnation in the global fight against corruption
Why do some societies manage to establish control of corruption and others not? Control of corruption is defined in this report as the capacity of a society to constrain individual corrupt behavior (defined as particular distribution of public goods leading to undue private profit) in order to enforce the norm of individual integrity in public […]
A Comparative Assessment of Regional Trends and Aspects Related to Control of Corruption in the Middle East and North Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Former Soviet Union
This report analyses the status and dynamics of the control of corruption in five world regions: the Middle East and North Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Former Soviet Union. The diverse nature of corruption across the globe is shown by the huge variance within each single […]
Background paper on Poland
There are many grounds for believing that Poland is close to the threshold of good governance. Accession to the European Union required many changes to be made to the organization of the state and this provided an important drive for modernization. After EU accession, modernization processes clearly lost impetus, for political elites seemed to lack […]
Background paper on Rwanda
In recent years, Rwanda has been praised by a large number of donors and development experts for its recovery from the 1994 genocide, sustained economic growth and improvement of many socioeconomic indicators, partly achieved thanks to massive aid flows. A key feature of Rwanda’s progress is often considered to be governance and particularly anti-corruption: the […]
Background paper on South Korea
Korea is a developed OECD country and a young democracy with a relatively effective governance structure. It is often described as a very successful case of state-led economic development and praised for the successful transition from an authoritarian “developmental state” to a consolidated democracy since the 1980s. The Asian financial crisis that hit Korea in […]
Background paper on Taiwan
Corruption has been on the top of Taiwan’s political and social agenda since at least the early 1980s. In many opinion surveys over the years, people have named it the most pressing political issue. Taiwan’s democratization in 1992 did not improve the situation – some observers even argue that corruption has worsened because of the […]
Background paper on Uruguay
This report describes and analyzes the transformation of Uruguayan governance institutions with particular regard to corruption and particularism. Uruguay substantively improved its levels of universalism in the last fifteen years. This improvement is due to a prolonged process of transformation in Uruguayan politics from competitive particularism to an open access regime. We claim that the […]
Background paper on Latvia
Latvia’s political system has been functioning in a relatively inclusive and democratic way for about the last two decades. However, corruption has been a continuous concern. In the allocation of public resources such as public procurement contracts, public jobs and social services, fairness and impartiality are observed but not uniformly adhered to. Public agencies differ […]
Background paper on Costa Rica
In spite of the economic and social policy successes of Latin America’s longest surviving democracy, corruption has become a major problem shaking Costa Ricans’ confidence in appointed and elected public officials. In response to the apparent rise in corruption since the start of the new millennium, governments have introduced new laws and created new agencies […]
Background paper on Georgia
Georgia had a terrible reputation for corruption, both in Soviet times and under the presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze (1992-2003). After the ‘Rose Revolution’ that led to Shevardnadze’s early resignation, many proclaimed that the government of new President Mikheil Saakashvili was a success story because of its apparent rapid progress in fighting corruption and promoting neo-liberal […]
Background paper on Estonia
As in all transition countries, corruption has been and remains a concern for Estonia. Still the country is an obvious top-achiever in comparison with the rest of the post-communist area. On the other hand, the last decade has been stable with the level of corruption almost unchanged and representing a certain plateau in development. The […]
Background Paper on Chile
This report examines the successful performance of Chile to control corruption. It discusses the importance of structural and institutional factors that have shaped Chilean political development and its political economy and then it analyses the mechanisms implemented to achieve such a goal.
Background paper on Bulgaria
The Worldwide Governance Indicators show that Bulgaria has made significant progress in the area of “control of corruption” since 1996. This finding contrasts with the general opinion of the Bulgarian population who perceive Bulgarian institutions as corrupt, and contradicts the decision of the European Commission to continue monitoring Bulgaria’s progress in fighting corruption and organized […]
Background paper on Botswana
When compared to its African peers, Botswana is globally acknowledged for its relatively good democratic governance, prudent economic management and sustained multi-party system of government. Botswana’s postcolonial leaders have been given credit for their visionary leadership which has successfully blended modern and traditional institutions to create a participatory and economically viable democracy from an originally […]
Background paper on Qatar
Qatar is judged by international anti-corruption indices to be among the highest performing countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The Qatari government has streamlined its regulations regarding business practices and engaged in reforms from above that have liberalized the Qatari economy and increased its strength and viability. However, Qatar is a neo-patrimonial absolute […]