There is a tendency to rely on conventional wisdom from more affluent parts of the world to fight against corruption. For instance, political and economic liberalisation are considered necessary to curb corruption. This region adopted the first anti-corruption convention in the world, and has complied with the neoliberal prescriptions form the international financial institutions. However, more than three decades since both phenomena occur simultaneously, and corruption is still perceived as a major problem in Latin America.
In my doctoral dissertation – on which this paper is based on – I put forward the relevance of perceived corruption in order to analyse how anti-corruption efforts work in younger democracies. Drawing upon the Peruvian experience – which manage to prosecute the 7th most corrupt president according to Transparency International, and currently investigating the last 5 former heads of state – present contradictory effects on the fight against corruption. This country ticks all the boxes of governance and economic stability standards, yet the exemplary judicialisation of grand corruption might not reduce perceptions of corruption but rather augment them if not applied thoroughly. This case serves as a textbook example on how anti-corruption crusades can fail.
This paper will focus on revisiting the literature and critically examining the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the anti-corruption discourse. Understanding how individuals perceive the fight against corruption and its effects on both perceived and incidental corruption shed light on the effects of the universal applicability of policy prescriptions which will result in more context-sensitive, politically engaged anti-corruption initiatives.
