Corruption, State-Building and Development in the Western Balkans: Beyond the Post-Washington Consensus?

Abstract

Since Wolfensohn’s presidency at the World Bank, anti-corruption has become one of the main planks of the development paradigm known as ‘post-Washington Consensus’. In this paradigm, corruption is seen as the product of institutional failures, and is invariably blamed for persistently unsatisfactory growth performances in developing countries. This panel considers the politics and practices of anti-corruption in the post-socialist, post-conflict countries of Southeast Europe. In these transition economies, donor agencies have deployed large-scale institution- and state-building efforts – establishing anti-corruption agencies, mandating civil service overhauls, re-writing regulatory regimes and promoting civil-society watchdogs – with the avowed objective to curb corruption, promote democracy and unleash the forces of market-based development. All contributions in this panel take a critical perspective on the underpinnings and developmental effectiveness of the donor community’s anti-corruption efforts in the Western Balkans. Jackson locates corruption in the larger context of the clientelistic style of governance dominant in Kosovo, arguing that clientelistic structures are ‘practices beyond state-builders’ that have developed imperviously in the teeth of sustained international efforts to establish liberal democracy. Parramore reinforces Jackson’s argument with a case-study of BiH, imputing the persistence of corruption to overly technicalised state-building strategies that, far from achieving their objectives, have actually come to be used by domestic elites to sustain corrupt practices. Kajsiu and Sampson offer a most scathing critique of how the politics (and rhetoric) of anti-corruption are surreptitiously used by both domestic and international actors to justify and advance neo-liberal reforms. Relying on discourse analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, they cast doubts not only on the effectiveness of anti-corruption, but also on its underlying logic. Overall, the panel contributes to the political economy of corruption and good governance through the comparative study of anti-corruption in three countries that rank amongst the top aid recipients in the world.

Title	Details
Practice Beyond the State-Builders: Clientelism and State-Society Relations in Kosovo	View Paper Details
Is Anticorruption a Neoliberal Plot? Assessing the Anticorruption Project in Southeast Europe	View Paper Details
The 'Sejdic-Finci' Deadlock and its Impact on the Politics of Corruption in Bosnia-Herzegovina	View Paper Details