Since anti-corruption politics have emerged as a global prescription in the 1990s, the worldwide struggles against corruption have mainly been perceived as generic “failures”, with overall persistent corruption. However, some rare countries like Botswana or Singapore are constantly portrayed as exceptions with successful anti-corruption politics, which raises the question of why those countries are particularly perceived as “successful” cases when the process is otherwise said to be a global “failure”. Building on Jean Tirole’s theory of collective reputations as well as on qualitative case-studies of Botswana and Singapore, this article argues that such countries are not necessarily successful in eradicating the established forms of corruption within their societies, but rather benefit from a good reputation coming from their unexpected economic development. In so doing, the article explains why a socio-political process that is generally said to be a “failure” is paradoxically perceived as a “success” in given countries.
